The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #246 - Maz Jobrani, Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt

Episode Date: January 8, 2015

Maz Jobrani, Comedian and Actor in movies like "Friday After Next," joins in to Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt. This podcast is brought to you by: Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a discount at checkout. Nature Box. Visit Naturebox.com and use promo code Joey for a free trial box Meundies.com Go to meundies.com/joey for 20% off. Iron Dragon TV. A New Roku channel with all the best martial arts films. Use Code word joey for two free rentals. Wed. January 7th at 2pm. Visit NanoTech's booth at CES to meet UFC Star Tim Kennedy. Their booth number is 15423 Recorded live on 01/06/2015.Music:LA Woman - The DoorsMe So Horny - 2 Live Crew

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brand new Roku channel. It's all of your favorite martial arts movies. They have a great series with On It now. They're showing a lot of Onit videos on there. So it's Code Word Joey to get two free rentals and go to Nanotext Booth 15423 at CES tomorrow at 2 p.m. sorry. It's the first fucking Tuesday of the year. Here you are sitting there like a fucking mutt. Oh shit. Spark that motherfucking bong. Uncle Joey's coming for lunch, bitches.

Ch, ch, ch, what? Oh, shit. The church of what's happening now. Coming at you. The flying Jew in the house. What? Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

If you ever got a chance. I see the doors live from the Hollywood Bowl. Watch this motherfucker. Tear this up! A little more mellow than you're into. Listen to that. Oh, boom, boom, boom. Look at that fucking bass.

He's working it. With a little girl in a Hollywood bungalow. Are you fucking kidding me? Oh, that's another lost angel city? What? Are you fucking kidding me? Turn that shit off. Fucking tremendous.

Ah. Church of what? Happen now special edition on Tuesday afternoon. Mazja Bronnie's in the motherfucking house. The flying Jews in the motherfucking house. And my fucking main man, Damon Zwick is in the fucking house here. What's up, buddy? How you doing, baby?

All fired up. To me, honest to God, I'm a big Leonard Skinner guy and I'm a big Led Zeppelin guy. One of the best written songs is that song. Yeah. It's got everything. Listen to the beginning. The first two minutes takes you through a fucking. Then he soos you down.

Then he fingers. fucks you and then he just blows up in your face he's been a, then he got arrested for jerking off to that Mr. Mojo rising, he'd have his dick out and he'd be fucking banging on. How long is that song? That song is tremendous. That's what they're crazy. That's

what's crazy is they used to do long songs. They didn't give a fuck. Yeah, they don't do that. If you could cover the spread, you can do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah. That is a covered spread. I see your hair is burning. Hills are filled with fire. If they said I never loved you, you know I was a liar. Are you? Are you

And he wrote that here On a hill, get his dick sucked, eating acid. There's none better. There's none fucking better, man. You know, what are you going to do, Lysa? This is the kind of shit you eat edible, and you go home. And you go, what the fuck was I thinking? I thought I was funny.

No, but they used to, that's the thing, is that the world we're living now. They don't do, you can't really, you can't do it long song. Like, the dude, does anybody do that? I guess the techno DJs. They have a hard time fucking walking these fucking morons. Yeah, yeah. Never mind a long fucking song. These guys are musicians, man.

Do me a favor. Every Monday, go on VH1 and see on Friday night, the Friday night concert. And if they ever have the doors live from fucking just tape it and just watch what he was doing at that point. What he was doing

was fucking phenomenal. Femnon. Joey Diaz, how you doing? How you doing, baby? What's happening, bro? Nothing, man. Good to see you, baby. Good to see you. I'm so happy. He came on. You're one of the guys. We check in from time to time. We stay in touch.

Always, always, always been like that. You're one of my all-time fucking favorites. Right back at you, man. You were never fucking judged. You were just a soldier and shit. That's right. Science. What's going on to your life and shit?

What's this movie Monday night? Movie Monday night. That's the one you wanted me to do that Friday, and I was leaving town. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you for thinking of me. No, of course, man. No, I did a movie. It's called Jimmy Vestwood American Hero, which is basically like a Persian pink panther.

Like, it's like this Persian dude. It's this Iranian dude who's obsessed with being an American. hero because he was a big fan of Steve McQueen's back in Iran. And he finally wins the green card lottery to come to America. And he wants to come to America and be a cop like McQueen was in Bullet. He wants to just be a cool dude. And he shows up, but the best job he can get living in Westwood is working as a security guard at a grocery store.

And then somehow he stumbles his way into this plot to start World War III. There's like a Dick Cheney type who's looking to start World War III so he can sell drones because he's got he's an arms manufacturer so he tries to set this guy up as a terror suspect so that he can prove to America that Iran is out to get America and then he can start a war with Iran but now Jimmy Vestfoot has to save the day somehow and he stumbles his way through it and he saves the day and it's a comedy it's like a Pink Panther type comedy and after seeing it and thinking about it I've realized that it's a movie that's for like 13 to 15 year old boys and stoner I think they're going to love this movie.

So if you fart and giggle, this is the movie for you. Fart and Giggle, there's farting in the movie. There's a fun movie. It's silly. It's not one of, you know, it's a movie where you got to go and you can't, you can't, like, go there with, like, a critical, like, mind to go, like, what, you know, oh, he, you know, whatever, like, oh, what's the statement. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you can't overthink it. That's what I'm trying to say. You got to just go there, say, I'm going to have fun with this movie.

And I enjoy it. I think we did a good job. I co-wrote it, I star in it, I produced it, I co-produced it, and I tried to get all my friends in it, and it's tough. Making a movie is tough, man. We raise the money. I have such a respect now for filmmakers. See, as comedians, we get on stage.

We do 15 to 20 minutes. It go well, it go poorly. If it goes poorly, you move on, you go to the next club, you do another set that night. Life goes on. You tweak it right there on stage. If you're having a bad set, middle of the show, you go, what's wrong with you people?

And you start going at them, you have a good time, you move on. movie is very different. You spend years writing it. You spend years raising the money, convincing some dude that he should put his money into your project, getting the money together, getting it done. We did a three-week, 18-day shoot, six days a week. I mean, it was intense.

Then you go into the editing and you go, oh, wow, this movie's different than what I thought it was going to be. Like I heard somebody said that Ron Howard said, you make a movie three times, one time on the page, one time on set, one time on set, one time in editing. So we're done with editing, and like the movie was at like an hour and 25. And we did a screening at an hour and 25.

And like what we thought was funny, all these funny little scenes put together for an hour and 25 started to drag. And I was like, oh, no, we're done. But then we went back and we edited some more and we brought it down to like an hour and 17. We lost eight minutes and now it moves. Then we put music and it moves even more. And I was like, oh, we got something.

Now you got this thing and it's like having a baby. You go, I got this baby, and it's a cute baby. But now you got to get a distributor that'll come on board with you to go, yeah, let's get this out there. Because what distributors go, they go, well, is Tom Cruise in this? You go, no. Is Will Ferrell? No. Is so-and-so?

No. How am I supposed to market this? Well, I'll tell you what you've got to do is you got to think outside the box. This is me talking to the distributor. You got to think outside the box and realize I got a fan base. And we can do something like they did with Borat and get this out and just leak it to little like younger kids and get some billboards out in the specific cities where I have a fan base and we could target these people and get this into limited release and let it build.

But now I've got to convince distributors that that's the strategy that they should take. Otherwise, I got a distributor myself. Yeah, I was going to say, have you thought about doing it interview style? What do you mean? Oh, yeah, yeah. Doing it online? Well, that's the idea. The idea is that that could be the next way to go.

The problem is someone's got a call. The problem is that, you know, again, even to do it interview, style. I can put it out there and go, here it is, guys, five bucks a pop, do it. But I can probably get like, I don't know, 10, 20, maybe 30,000 people might do it. But if I can get someone to have some money in advertising, I read about some of these movies that they make, some of these romantic comedies that you know is just going to be stupid. And they'll make it for like 12 million, and they'll spend 20 million on advertising. So you go, oh shit, 20 million on advertising. So I need someone to put a little bit of money into it. So it just goes beyond just my

Twitter, Facebook, and whatever, Instagram. You know what I'm saying? But the cool thing is, is like you could put it out online and then maybe our distributor will like it. And then those people who already paid for it online, if they love it and they love you, they'll go and see it again. Yeah, absolutely. I think the main thing is, my hope is that some distributor will come on board.

But listen, we'll sink some money into some billboards and just some things, just whatever, just some advertising. And we'll do it, L.A., New York, San Francisco release. Let's see what happens. You know what I'm saying? If I could get that, I'd be, I think we'd be in good shape. But regardless of what it is, the good news is we made it for a little amount of money compared to what they make movies for. And I think it's got potential, man. And you know, it's the hustle.

I keep telling people in this business and life, no one's going to hand you anything. You've got to create your own opportunities. You know, and that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to do that. And it was great. I was able to call up friends and say, come on the set and be a part of this movie. and that's half the battle. It's just getting your friends into film

so you can have fun and have the history when you make the film. So that's that, man. That's what I got going. Let me ask you something. I've never known this. How does an investor make money on a movie? You come to me and you go,

I want to make this movie Joey for $7 million. Can you give me two? And I go, I like the script that much. You got a couple people in there. You tell me about your little Iranian fan base and some white people. You got in New York. I know a ton of white people.

I go watch you. Yeah. And it's not all about the fucking Iranians. Leave them alone. They're working hard those people. Working hard. And I give you the seven mil. Where's my money coming from?

I think it's a, first of all, it's a gamble, right? So if you're someone who's got $7 million to give towards a movie, you're probably someone who's made a lot of money. Right, I got $50 million. So you got money. You got money elsewhere, and you could probably make that money elsewhere better than you could do it in a movie. In a movie.

I mean, the movie is like it's a long shot in many ways. Unless if I say to you, listen, I got, I do. I have Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise. I got all these. I got Angelina, Julie. We all lined up ready to go. And then you go, okay, great. No matter what happens, even if it's shit, someone's going to buy this and watch it and there'll be some money coming in. But ultimately, you know, like what we did was we did an Indiegogo campaign, like a Kickstarter. And we raised some of the money there. That was basically the base money. And that's just people giving you money to go for it. They're like, I support you, let's do this. After that, I had a few people come on board who were like, listen, I got money elsewhere. I want to support you.

I want to try this. I want to get into this world and check it out. Now, it's a long shot. The chances are, so if I make that money for that movie, let's say it is just to make it round numbers, this is a million-dollar movie. If I make that movie for a million, a producer one time told me once you start making two and a half times the investment, that's when you start getting profit. Well, they're hoping for like a paranormal activity sort of thing where it costs a million

and you make a hundred million. Exactly. Or even, listen, if you make it for a million and make 10 million, you've made money. Everyone's made money. Because I don't know what the exact math is, but I guess like a couple million in, now you're starting to make some money off of that. Because what happens is when you invest, the first money that comes in goes back to you. The money goes back to you plus a percentage.

So usually what you'll say is, so, oh, you're going to give me a million? I got to give you, on the money that we make, I've got to give you a million back plus 15%. Once that's been given back, then we go back and we go back. we start paying the people, and I learned all this as I went through it, then we've got to pay people who got deferred payments on the film. So, for example, you got a movie star to be in there, and they said, I'm going to take a little money now, and I'll take the rest of it once money starts coming in.

Well, I've got to pay that guy. I've got to pay the deferred payments. Once those have been paid, now we start splitting the money. Half the pool goes to the investor. The other half goes to the creative team from there on, all the profits. So ultimately, you're taking a gamble on it, Right? But you got to sit there and look at it and go, all right, you know, I think this has potential. Let's do it. And a lot of people, a lot of investors, you know, a lot of big money guys put money in and they get burned once or twice.

They go, I don't want to do this shit anymore. I'd rather just go and make my money off my real estate where I know what I'm doing. Like the people who get Spider-Man 2 and, you know, those type of movies, they've been doing it for 30 fucking years. They're in. Well, that's a studio. So that's that's, that's what we just talked about comes in. those guys go, they spent $100 million on the film, another $200 million on advertising, so you can't avoid it. You go to McDonald's, it's on a cup. You're driving down the street, it's on four billboards on every corner of La Sienega and Venice. So after the movie, then you have, I know that there's, like, there's a movie on HBO right now, a showtime.

It's, uh, Ray Leota. The Iceman. No. Is it on? The Iceman was on HBO, Ray Leota. Yeah, I saw that. I saw that. But what was the one that he's?

on with Justin Timberlake's wife where she plays a stripper and he plays her father. We've discussed this movie True Blue, Powder Blue. Amando Casillo's the hot dog man. Powder Blue has the black man. Who's in the movie? Listen to this line up.

Oh yeah, there's a lot of people in. Hold on. This is a $100. Wittaker. Jessica Beal. Forrest Whitaker, Ray Liotto, Lisa Kudrow, Patrick Swayze, Chris Christofferson. That's pretty much word in. This is a $100 day movie that they shot on Gardner and Sun Tunders.

set. It's, it's, it's, it's, it, they switch, they went from the toy store to the Thai place. And then they crossed the street. It's amazing. They shot it all in that area. Oh, wow. At night, the whole thing. And I talked to Armando Casillo. I saw him in him. Amanda, how did you get that movie? Because it was a 100,000 a day movie. I go, how didn't that movie hit? Patrick's Poetzeeysie plays the strip club owner with a wig. He's getting his dick sucked by Japanese chicks and shit. And Beal plays, the stripper, tremendous. And Ray Leota plays her father who comes out of jail. He doesn't tell her he's the father. He's getting lap dances.

All fucking creepy. And the other guy plays a fucked up black dude that wants somebody to shoot him. Okay. That's what the... I mean, it's fucking crazy movie. So you ask yourself how come this movie didn't get released. So I asked Armando, what happened with this movie? He goes,

they ran out of advertising money. Yeah. They had no advertising money. Yeah. And you sit there and go, how do I know about this movie? That's what happened. Yeah. That was it. On a holiday movie. Got the showtime.

They probably made a little money. Yeah. Whatever the licensee. I don't know how it works. They released it in Kazakhstan and Russia in the theaters and then everywhere else was DVDs. I'm telling you, man, listen, that's the thing, is you need the advertising money. And that's the battle. It's trying to convince somebody who doesn't know who you are that doesn't know that there's a potential for this.

And how many times have you seen the billboards all over town? You go see the movie as shit. Most of the time. Yeah, most of the time. But you went and saw it because they really did. They swung at the fences that first weekend. Grudge match. How much advertising they put into that movie?

Nobody went to see it. Well, that happens too. But then you got to look at who were you up opening against. What kind of reviews were coming in? You know, reviews could bury you. A lot of times they don't even let, like my philosophy on this whole interview, I haven't seen the interview. I want to see it.

But from what I've heard, it was not that good of a movie. It wasn't. So my thought is, When Sony saw the out, they were like, well, shit, this is a good way to get out and stop spending any more money. They've already spent a lot of money on it. And let's do it this way. This is a smart way. They created a buzz, and they made a few million.

I wasn't going to see it. But then when you thought North Korea was behind it, but then it just basically turned out to be a huge marketing scam. Yeah. But there's a lot of stuff that could be released online, and it's kind of cool because it shows studios that for some stuff they could. I don't know how big your budget was. And it's a little bit shorter. most theatrical release a little bit, not that much. Yeah.

But for five bucks online, who wouldn't spend that money? But here's the thing. So something like that got so much press. Like you just said, they did a limited release in a couple of cities. They said they had all the shows were sold out. People were watching it online. It was over the holidays. People were at home anyway.

Five bucks, I'll watch it. Why not, right? So they created this buzz that then made people go and say, I'm curious. And somebody, I had this discussion when, when I was trying to sell my last special and I brought up the Louis C.K. model. I said, listen, he shot his special, put it on his website. I said, five bucks a pop.

And within a week, he sold like 200,000 or some crazy units, right? Yeah, he sold a million bucks. Yeah, but the distributors I was in the meeting with, they said, well, you know, that worked for Louis, but a lot of guys came on board and tried to do the same thing. And I don't know what kind of numbers the other guys got, but they were saying, like, some of these guys got like 20,000 sold or 15,000. And that's a decent number for comedian.

That's fantastic. But you're not necessarily making your money back. So that becomes the issue with putting it online is you have to be able to still spend some money on advertising or somehow come up with something, a smart – ultimately it's a smart advertising campaign where people, beyond your loyal fan base of whatever that is, 10,000 people that are really loyal that will buy whatever you do, you got to get it so that other people go, what the hell is this? Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Because you can point it to things. interview and go, wow, they made a few million in a few days. Well, that's because they were all over the news. You know, North Korea was talking about them, right? So, of course you're going to see it. So I got to find a way to get North Korea. I mean, I was joking at that when that was going on, because the movie talks, you know, has political stuff in there.

I was joking. I was like, we should have killed, you know, a leader of Iran in the movie just to get the press, you know? But we didn't, you know, it's not that. So that's the difficulty. It's like having this baby. You go, this kid is cute. And people going like, well, he's not the kind of cute we're looking for.

Well, every comedian is different. Louis C.K. didn't need the Internet. What I'm saying, he didn't need the Internet support with his popularity. Yeah. But there's other comedians that maybe you don't know about that are just Internet savvy. Yeah. You know, myself, HBO isn't kicking my daughter down to shoot a special.

Neither is Comedy Central. So in my mind to shoot a special, I'm going to do it out of pocket and do it on my own. I'm going to look at my Twitter. I'm going to say I've got 150,000 people following me on Twitter. Let's pretend if 20,000 of those people are real. So that's 30,000 people. At $5,000, what did that come out to? $150.

$150. My special shouldn't cost over $40,000. Right. It shouldn't. Unless those scumbags are going to shoot it from Burbank until you cost $200,000. And then they're also charged. So everybody's different.

I know 10 comics right now that are mediocre in numbers, but they have a great internet presence. Absolutely. And these guys, there's money there. If it cost you 50, you're fucking $100,000. And you could still sell your special on Netflix and get another 60 on top of that. That's money, guys. That's real, right?

Listen, I ran into this with the funding for the movie. So what we did was we got Indiegogo to come on board or whatever. We went to Indiegogo to do. the thing, and I posted it, and we said, okay, let's go, we said, let's set our goal at 250,000 just to see if we can get that. Because what happens is they take a certain percentage, and once you reach your goal, they take a higher percentage. So I said, well, let's just make our goal really high. So no matter what, they only get 5% along the way. Because Indiegogo is different than Kickstarter. Kickstarter, you've got to hit your number or you don't get any of the money.

So if you say my goal is 50, you better hit 50. If you hit 49,000, you don't get any of it. But Indigo go has something called flex funding, which is, you're going to, you're you go on and you go, my goal is a million. And you make five bucks, you keep the five bucks because it's flex funding. All right. So that's what we did. We said, let's do flex funding at $250,000. Now, at the time I had on Facebook, like 130,000 followers or something.

So exactly like you said, I said, listen, if even like half those people put in a dollar were at $65,000 out the gate, right? We put it up. We go, let's do this. And, like, within a week or two, we'd made like $7,000. dollars, just crickets. Nobody's responding. I keep posting, I keep posting nothing. Now, contrary to when I post something and I go, hey, here's a free video, I might get like a thousand likes or just people, just a lot of people on board. I would post this thing,

give me five bucks for this thing, and I get like 10 likes or something. And I was like, what's going on? Well, I went into the numbers and I looked at it. First of all, I realized that I had like 40,000 followers in Egypt or something. And those, you know, those, you know, are probably not even real. I don't even know. But jokingly, I was like, well, I can't make a movie, but I could probably start a revolution. Like if I said, meet me at Tahrir Square. It's going down. But secondly,

we realize that a lot of people now are used to getting free entertainment. All of us. You get this clip. You watch it, right? Some people still get the concept that we are artists creating stuff and they go, I want to support you. I'll give the $1.00. I think that's what Louis did

that was smart was his website. He put it out there. He said, listen guys this is a movie I just made my special I made for whatever with 200 grand it's going to cost you five dollars I know you could probably pirate this and get away with it but I would hope that you would support me and the people that made it and blah blah blah and people came on board they were they were like you know what he made a good argument for this and then and then once he made that million he came out and put another email out and said guys this is what I'm going to do with the money I'm going to give a

hundred grand bonus to the people that worked on it I'm going to put a hundred grand towards my kids college funds. I'm going to give $100 grand to charity and I'm going to put the rest. But he actually kept, so people were involved and they were on board. So you got to have a fan base that's also supportive and understands that.

So there's that as well. So for me, I know that there's a lot of people in my fan base that do support, but I also know there's a lot of people in my fan base. Hey, it's just the natural thought process from my culture. Middle Eastern people. They're like, what's wrong? What's wrong?

with a bootleg. It's all right. I'm supporting you. I'll come see you live. But you know what? I've seen you live several times. I bought a bunch of tickets. So I'm going to take this one for free. That mentality is there. So that's another thing you've got to fight. You understand? So I understand what you're saying. When you look at your Twitter followers and you go, hey, if I put it out there, they probably will give the five bucks. And hopefully they're supportive and understanding of your art enough to do that. But I have a fear that some people are not going to be, some people just want your free jokes. They want the free jokes. They want the free podcasts. They want all the free stuff, especially younger people that, you know, unless if you, again, like you make a good argument, go, listen, let's do this together. Let's get out there and do it.

There's a lot of people who will pirate it. There's a lot of people who will do that. But I think there's also a lot of people who might pay $10 for it or might buy it two or three times. So I think it, I don't know if it evens out, but it gets close to it, I think. Well, listen, man, there's been guys. I've sold merchandise at my shows before, and there's always the guy who comes up and goes, give me 10 of these. I want 10. I'm going to give it out to my friends. And I go, this guy gets it. This guy's a baller.

He knows what's up. He's supporting me and he's helping me, you know. But there's also the guys who will come up and be like, hey, man, come on, man. You threw out some free t-shirts. You didn't give me one. I got one of those the other day. I was like, someone was like, can you hook me up with a shirt? I was like, no.

I used his line. I said, not really. Yeah. Hook you up with the shirt. So it's, but that's why I think you got to go beyond. And it is kind of like what you were saying, like being Internet savvy, if you're able to get people to help you get the word out. Because you got to think.

So if I have a guy who's a real hardcore fan, if he understands that he should take that clip or that movie and share it with five of his friends and go, yo, hey, guys, get on board. It's kind of like having foot soldiers, you know what I'm saying? It's like in any town, when you go to a town to do a show, if you can find the social butterfly in every little group and go, listen, I'm coming out, bring 10 of your friends, have them buy tickets. I'll give you two free tickets.

have your friends buy some tickets. Come on out, have a good time. You need those foot soldiers to go out and hustle for you to get this. Because we don't have the money that some of these studios have to go, because that's what happens. The studios put it all over the place

and then kids are in the car with their parents to go, we've got to go see Spider-Man. And the parents go, okay, we'll go see Spider-Man. We've got nothing else to do. So we don't have the money to do that. So we've got to go grassroots. You know what I'm saying? So that's kind of the battle I'm in.

One part of it is, creating your own product. The next part comes in selling your own product. You know what I'm saying? Like I wrote a book to this coming out in February, and I got to get the word out about that. And I got people going like, well, I don't read. I'm like, well, buy the thing and give it out as a gift.

Use it as a coaster. I'm trying to come up with funny commercials, funny posts to put on Facebook where I'm, like, lip-syncing the different songs because I'm selling tickets to shows, and if you buy tickets to the show, you get the book. Right? So it's like having the...

Now I got the merchandise. Now it's getting people to buy it. The amazing education that we've learned as comics is I never really knew Roseanne coming up or anything, but there was a conversation she had that made me feel like a fucking savage. She had a conversation with who's the guy on TV late night that not let him in one of those guys, the other guy. Rose.

Charlie Rose. Charlie Rose. She was talking to Charlie Rose, and she said they asked. asked her about ABC. You saw that? I've talked to you about it. Brilliant. Brilliant.

They said to her, you know, when you did your ABC party, what did you, why did you throw the executives out of the Christmas party? Like she went fucking, and why did you fire everybody

and why did you put your own writers, you know, at the comedy store, she took certain writers with certain things. And she said, listen, we motherfuckers don't get us, there's all these people involved, but as comedians, we do everything. direct, we write, we produce, we do everything.

You know, now with social media, they've added marketing, which either you suck or you don't. I always sucked at it because I was always embarrassed. But eventually you have to go on social media, and that's added. That's a different talent, you know. Anybody could Twitter, but they say, no, they don't want to tweet the 140 characters. We have friends that are horrible Twitters, and we have friends that can't fuck them right,

that can't spell. Twitter to me is a gift because I work on my stand-up. I work on one line. Something crazy happens. I'll type it out and then there's words. Oh, it's 180 words now. Within 10 minutes, you'll have it down to fucking 140.

I was talking to Dane Cook, who's very good with social media. And he made a good point to me. He goes, listen, man, he says something like, I don't know whether his percentage was, but he was saying, like, he's like 75% of the stuff I post. I try to make it entertaining. then another like, you know, 5% is just serious, you know, whatever, you know, stick to your dreams, blah, blah, and then the other 20% or whatever, whatever I'd say 75, 20, we know what I'm saying.

The last percentage of it, he said, is announcements of I'm going to be here, I'm going to be there. Because if all you do is I'm going to be here, I'm going to be there, eventually they're lost. That's just, that's just direct marketing. Get free five tickets for my shows. You ain't going to do that. Yeah. You got to talk with them. I love the relationship.

I have with people on Twitter and Facebook. There's people I have conversations for a year, and then they come to a show, and we meet them with friends. I love it. I love what it's become. Two years ago, I fucking hated it. I thought it was retarded, people following you. What am I, my, Swami?

I'm going to have people fucking follow. I don't know if I'm. And then you start thinking about what it's really about. It's this friendship that you have with this fucking computer, this energy. And I see it in the mornings. I have people come up to me in the show and goes, oh, man, the other day,

you put Achilles' last stand that knocked me. me off my fucking chair. Really? A fucking song? Yeah. That you could access yourself on, you know, little fucking thing. So I've learned. It's been marvelous.

It's been tremendous. It's been, you know, I never expected to even be good on a fucking computer. Yeah. And I love it. I have no, you have to mark it as a comic. And we met comedians for years that used to pack rooms. And they were horrifically bad. And you go, how does that guy pack rooms?

He's a marketing specialist. Yeah. There's people who get banners and go out to malls and shit. I can't go to a mall and give you a fucking flyer. Yeah. No, it's part of, listen, man, I always say that we have to be very entrepreneurial. Like, I got my, like, at any given time, I've got, like, I'm pitching a TV show. I'm working on a movie.

I'm writing a book. I'm trying to get an app going. I'm tweeting. You've got to be, we have to be entrepreneurial. because ultimately we are our own product. And everything that comes up, you look at Woody Allen. When Woody Allen started making movies, he took all of his jokes and started putting him into his movies.

When I made my movie, I took some of the jokes and I put them in my movie. When I pitched my TV show two years ago, I pitched a TV show to CBS, and I was like, I don't know what I'm going to pitch. And I was like, wait a minute, I've been working on this the whole time. On stage, I go, I'm going to, what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell the story about the Russian basketball coach with my son in the room. that'll get them laughing. I'll talk about my Guatemalan nanny. And I'll talk about my two kids won't let me sleep.

And I just went in a piss. And they were like, we love it. But I hadn't even thought about it. I didn't have to sit there from the start and go, what is it? I go, I know what it is. It's this material. Right? So we're constantly writing.

We're constantly being. And that's a beautiful thing. I tell a lot of people from a lot of different aspects. You know, people think, how do I make it? How do I go, don't worry about that. Just create your own opportunities. Just keep finding ways to create your own. And we ultimately were in the trenches doing that.

And it's a great thing. That's why Roseanne brought those people. That's why now when I go out to pitch a show, I'm trying to convince the producers that I'm pitching with to go, listen, I don't want some dude that I don't know who is a showrunner who used to write on taxi 30 years ago. But because he did that, he continues to run shows. We have a totally different sensibility. You can put me in a room with him and say,

give him your ideas, he's going to turn this into a show. I don't need to do that. I got 10 guys at the comedy store who I know are good writers, who are my buddies, we got the rhythms down. Let me bring them in. Let's come up with some funny-ass shit, and then let's go to this network, this cable network,

because cable network will probably be more likely to do this. Absolutely. Here you go. This is what it is. This is what it is. Let us do our own thing. Like the guys did with workaholics. They did their own thing,

and now they're doing it. You know, you need to kind of, you do need to control it. You do need to stop, you know, having people push stuff on you. And you need to prove yourself over and over and over again. We proved ourselves with the Axis Evil Comedy Tour. Before the Axis Evil Comedy Tour, nobody thought there was a market for comedians of a Middle Eastern background. They're like, what is that got, what is that at all, right?

They didn't get it. There's black comedy. There's Latino comedy. There's regular comedy. There's alternative comedy. Who's going to come to see a bunch of Middle East. guys. And we had to go out and start booking our own. We got our own, we eventually got our own theater in D.C. and sold out 1,400 seats. And then we went to San Francisco and sold out a thousand

seats. And then that's when our managers and agents were like, who was the promoter? We go, we were the promoter. They go, how'd that happen? We go, people want to hear this. This is during the Bush administration, there's a lot of lying and bullshit going on. And we're calling them on it. And people, not just Middle East centers, but white people are liberal, people were coming, liberals were coming out going like, oh, we love this shit. So we go, wow, there's an audience for this. So that finished, and it's continued now. For me, I've continued to tour.

There's an audience. There's an audience. But, like you were saying, try to convince some of these networks that there's an audience for this. Let's try and push one of these. You know, they still are probably, they're just, they were nervous to get, you know, Cristella back on, you know. They were nervous to get a Latina on. They're nervous when they get blackish.

Oh, it's a hit. They're like, how's this a hit? Did she not have a Chinese show? Yeah. No. They went all out. They said, fuck it. We got to get the Japanese market.

And you know they got a fucking Indian show cooking. And you know they got a couple of Iranians. Someone arguing in the back room. But that's the problem. No, but that's the problem is that I think that they feel like there's not going to be an audience. But there is. If you do it right, if you get the grassroots going, and you've got to keep proving yourself.

Because that's where I am with this movie right now. It's trying to prove myself again and go, look, there's an audience for this. Let's get this out there. Because ultimately, it's amazing to me because you think everybody knows you. until you go somewhere and you do a show and someone comes up and goes, who are you? Why have a night? You know, you get somebody like some big wig from Sony or something

walking up. Where have you been? Where have I been? I've been at the comedy store for 15 years. What the fuck have you been? Where have you been? But here's the problem, though. You also can't blame them because they're in their world, right? We're ultimately a product. We're Coca-Cola. And they haven't seen... We're Coca-Cola's knockoff. We're the soda that they haven't seen. They're used to seeing...

Because every time there's a movie being pitched, they're going, okay, so what we're going to do is we get Will Farrell, and we're going to get Ben Stiller, and we're going to get, and these guys are great guys, by the way. I'm not dissing them. I'm just saying that's what happens. We're going to get this guy, this guy, this guy, this guy, and there's a new kid who's friends with Will, Farrell,

so we're going to get him into, and that's it. That's all they see. But you said the key word. I got to piss real quick. Take the conversation. You said the key fucking word, and the key word in this conversation was outside the box. They refused to think outside the box.

and they get their same results over and over. I understand Sony's a corporation, and they're going to put out 22 projects a year, and 18 of them are going to be successful, and four of them are going to be horrible, and they expect that. But to take those four projects and keep rewriting them with the same fucking people

is what baffles me. There's a movie coming out, Dirty Grandpa, with De Niro and Josh Ephron, the good-looking kid, Zach Efron. Funny, what I read was funny. They have a run.

roll in there, if you see it on paper, it's me. It's me. My agent says, spot smoke, an older guy, goes to a fucking resort town and stays, you know, opens up a bodega, whatever the fuck he does. He's into gambling and drugs. You know, not a bad guy, he's not a criminal. He's just one of those guys. It's the fucking loser. That's me.

No, no. We gotta go with Zach Robinson, Craig Robinson, or the guy from Portlandia, not for nothing. Yeah. You know. It's been done. Let's think somebody, they don't. They refuse.

Then they get the same fucking results. And they can't figure out what the fuck is happening. My pet peeve right now is comedy clubs that don't know about a podcast. That you get there and they look at you like, so how many people are performing? It's a podcast. So is it singing and dancing? It's a podcast.

So is there an opera? It's a fucking podcast. Are you a fucking moron? Do you know what's going on? You fucking moron? It's 2015 and you're putting a list of people. Well, how much time are they doing? It's a podcast.

Well, how many people are going to be going up during the podcast? And how much time are you? You've been there. You've sat there and they've heard it. You don't want to do business with those people. Because this has been going on now for five fucking years. And you're a manager of comedy or whatever the fuck you are. You know, there's a story when Marion went to his management.

And so I'm starting a podcast. They looked for them and said, What? And he said bye And look what happened today Look what happened today How can you as a manager Anything not listen to your client

Let me go see what he's doing Let me go see what this point You're onto something I'm not going to baffle you on the phone As a client You're going to go really 15 years You can tell me my idea sucks

Bye Some other manager picked him up He's on IFC my friend It's not ABC It's not HBO He's doing this thing Politically correct started on Comedy Central did it not and then they went to

fucking ABC. Nobody remembers that shit did it. Yeah. I got to go pee. Go take a piss. Go see old days, the thyroid. That's all right. That's all right. Lee, keep him on ice like Tony Monta. Have you ever done an edible with Joey or no? I don't know if I've done an edible with Joey. Listen man, I'll tell

you, I have a I need to be in like a controlled environment because I could get paranoid with when I get high. I definitely can't drive high. He's crazy. Because we do live podcasts at the Ice House, and he drives me back because it's way too long. He'll do like 90 blasting music and just beeping at cops.

Oh, wow. It's terrifying. It is terrifying, right? I mean, I've been, listen, I, you know, like I said, I'll probably get high, like, I don't know, two, three times a year if a friend of mine has something. You know, because I've never, I just never, you know, I'll drink, but I've never been, I just don't function that well. And I've got friends that function very well. I have friends that I've been in the car with as that friend is drunk. driving, they've like taken a hit and they keep driving.

And they just get high every day and it's no big deal of them. And they can function. I'm not good like that. Like I, like if I get good, like if my friend brings some good friendly pot, then I can hang out and laugh. But a lot of times I'll start getting paranoid. Like, especially if it's got that little paranoid thing. Like I've been, there's been times where like I was at a movie and I thought the chair

was moving. Oh, yeah. I was like, what the hell's going on? Yeah, Joey Diaz doesn't have friendly weed. So you don't really, you don't really. You don't really do anything to enhance your creativity. It's just you being you. It's just me, man.

I think what I do is I just try to go on stage. First of all, one thing I learned early on was don't get drunk on stage because if you do well, drunk, you're going to think that's what I need. That's going to be my crutch. You get superstitious? You start going, oh, wow, I'm looser when I'm drunk and this is how I'm going to work. Right. So now every time I go on stage, I got to get drunk. Right.

Right? So two things. First of all, the one time I went on stage, a little, I was drunk, was I'd been at a, I'd been at dinner and, like, had some wine. It was like a Wednesday night or a Tuesday night at the comedy store. So it was kind of like going in to do my 15-minute spot. And I went up there and I was just kind of loose and saying stuff. But it was funny because the audience wasn't laughing, but my friends were laughing in the back because they're like, look, he's fucked up, you know. So that's when I realized, well, first of all, my mind wasn't working as fast as I wanted it to be.

and I wasn't doing what I necessarily wanted to. I was having fun, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't necessarily, I wasn't being where I needed to be with my head. I'm talking about how I learned early on not to get drunk on stage, because even if you have, like, let's say you have two beers and you go up and you're like, oh, wow, I'm loose, this is great, and you kill it. Well, now I think to myself, the next time I go on stage,

I've got to have two beers to keep this going. As opposed to, I prefer going on, you know, look, I'll have a glass of wine on stage or a glass of tequila or something. I'll have a bottle of water with me up there. Nine times out of ten, it's like I'm having some water. It's like I'm having some water and stuff as I go. And I just need to remind myself that I'm funny and creative without the whatever. With the water, I'm just good.

Because part of it is letting go. Part of it on stage is let and go. And I think the comedy store helped me with that a lot. The original room at the comedy store, you were talking about Freddie Soda earlier. I remember early on at the comedy store. So I'd come from a series of bringer rooms. where it was just 10 horrible comics, me being one of them. But I was always one of the funnier of the bad comics starting out in the bringer rooms, right?

And I'd always have like five or six friends. And I would just do my set. And I would get more laughs than everyone else that was horrible, horrible. And so I left, like once I became a regular at the comedy store, I didn't realize that you're not doing a monologue. You've got to be present in the room. So I'd go up at the comic store when I first started out, and I would do my monologue.

And now I have a room that's not a bring a room, it's customers, and they don't know who you are, and they're just staring at you. And then I remember I saw Vinnie Favorito come up, and he used to do, it was material that he would talk to the audience,

and it seemed like he was making it up as he was going, but it was material. But it seemed like he was making it up, and the audience felt like they were part of the show. And I was like, oh, wow, that's interesting. Like, this guy's not doing a monologue. He's kind of doing material, but he's talking to them.

them. And I remember one of the first times I let it go was it was a late night and there was like two employees and Freddie Soto sitting in the way back and I never really met Freddie. I maybe said hi to him once. And I was the 145 spot. So I'm the last spot of the night. And there was these two nerdy dudes with this really hot chick at the comedy store sitting on the booth to the right. And I went on stage. I started doing my set and just doing my, just doing my, whatever, my jokes. And about two minutes in, I realized they're not into it. I'm not into it. I was like, I turn to those guys, I go, guys, forget my set. I'm just curious, how did you two end up with her? And it became a conversation. And I started making fun of them, like, what's going on here?

And then we started having fun, and then I started riffing on stuff. And it was 15 minutes to just letting it all go. And then I came, as I was leaving, Freddie was sitting in the back, and I sat next to him. And he's like, hey, that was good stuff. You just, you know, you went for it. I go, thanks. He goes, you're funny. I go, thanks.

He goes, you know what? He goes, it's not about bits. He goes, you're either funny or you're not. If it's about a bit, and that's what makes you funny, then forget it. But you're either funny or you're not. And that's when I realized it's about being loose. And look, to this day, we all have situations where you tighten up. You know, if I'm doing like a corporate event, I'm looking out and it's like a bunch of like 70-year-olds,

I'm like, this is death. I've got to do an hour with these people. Like, I know that, right? And all I'm thinking that whole time is maybe I do think, hey, you know what? I'm going to have some tequila at a row. relax, you know. But, but, but most of the time it's about being loose. And, and I think that's why, like for me, like I said, like I don't, like I don't necessarily need, I don't, I don't take anything else to loosen up creatively. I just go on stage on a Tuesday at the comedy store

and I go, look, I had a crazy day today, got in an argument with my wife. Let me talk about a little bit on stage. Let me do some jokes that I know are jokes that are going to work and then let me get into this bit about my wife. What, what just scarier? Because I think I know the answer because I heard Joey talk about it. If you could do a 145 on a Tuesday at the comedy store in front of two people or a room full of 70-year-olds when you're doing a corporate event. Oh, I do the 145 is much better than the 70-year-olds. 145 is awesome.

145 on a Tuesday night at the comedy store is great because you can, because they know what's up, you know what's up. Whereas the corporate in front of the 70-year-olds is somebody's paying you good money, to make them laugh the way, you know, what happened? The sound? No, no, no. He was asking me about Freddy's solo. Oh.

The, well, we can get it in Freddy as well. But the one, but the corporate problem is, what happens a lot of times with corporate events is the guy sees you somewhere and loves you. And he's like, I'm bringing him. But he doesn't think about his demographic. You know, this guy himself might be 35 or he might be 70 and have a great sense of humor, but he doesn't think that this is like a whole other thing and they're all in round tables

and they're first of all they'll put a dance floor between you and them so there's already 30 40 feet they may as well be on the other end of the fucking jupilipa yeah they're they're not paying attention I didn't think you would have done it anymore yeah what were they the one I did was so bad

because that's what happened I was at the New York Comedy Club you know how is it honestly I was three years in I had eight minutes of material and they saw me on one of those days

and they asked me what I wanted and I said 1,500 without even knowing I had never been paid before guys I didn't even paid before and I went and did it and I'd get there on the side of night

and it's on a pool with no microphone no nothing and they're a half a mile away they're in fucking Jupiter man And I go up there when I'm starting nothing, nothing. It just got worse and more. There was no connection.

I wasn't really prepared for it. And the guy that brought me was like, he was trying to clap. Yeah. It just wasn't that. It was that magic night. You know, when you first started comedy, you know, you have magic nights. You have one every month, then two every month, then three. Well, this was the magic night.

And I died, so I just walked off. and I met him in the laundry room and I said, I need my money and the guy wouldn't even look at me. He's like, huh? And he just started giving me money and he goes, oh my guy, it was like $800 in the check and I go, done.

And I just took the money and went to the city. I remember all I cared about was if I could still get Coke. I was going into the city to buy one of those death packages because I had bombs so bad. But he does real corporates. See, he does real corporates. And he does colleges where people tell you it's great,

money, you're going to have a great time. But after a while, you see those guys and they're like, I can't do another fucking college. Listen, here's the thing. Here's the thing. It's all about the setup. I try to get involved with the setup. Okay, I did a corporate in Dubai one time for this company that was like,

they did some tech stuff. The company itself was out of Saudi Arabia. Their offices were in Dubai and their employees were from everywhere. India, you know, British dudes, Australian dudes. A CEO. was an Australian, all these different things, right?

Now, I've traveled to all these places, and I got a couple of jokes about every place. And I told these guys, they set it up outside, nice, hot day in Dubai at night with big screen, and they had Brazilian dancers and shit. But I told them, I said, listen, whatever you do, you got to have couches up, because they go, we're going to have couches and shit.

I go, we have them close. Everybody close. Get them tight. And what I did was, this worked out really well because I have jokes about every country. So I'm like, hey, this group right here, where are you guys from? We're Indian.

I'm married to an Indian. Bop, blah, blah, blah, bum. Right? Making fun of them, right? What's your name? Patel, Bada, Bada, Bada. Oh, Patel, da, da, da. And they're loving it because I'm making fun of their guy.

Where's your CEO? Where's your CEO? Where's he from? First of all, you got to go after the guy. Yeah. Go after the guy. Where's your CEO? Where's it?

Ozy, Ozzie, Tofka. And I'm not like an insult comic. I just kind of have fun with it. You know what I'm saying? So what happens is you do a couple of those. Then you go into some of your material about you. and they set it up perfectly. Fantastic.

After the show, they want to hang out with you. They're like, this is touchdown, right? This was great. Everyone wants a picture. Then they got the times when they'll be like, this dude, like, I never do, I don't want to do bar mitzvahs, I don't want to do weddings, but this dude was like, listen, man, my kid's bar mitzvah,

and, you know, we spent a lot of money. We're doing it to the Waldorf Astoria. They're big fans of yours. Now the kid is 13. They've seen me do a video on YouTube. We're talking about this earlier. They've seen a video on YouTube that was funny with different voices and stuff.

They haven't seen my stand-up, right? I tell him, I go, listen, man. I go, I don't know if it's a good idea. Listen, we've got this ballroom. It's going to be great. I go, well, what about this dance floor? He's like, I'm going to get the kids to come up and they're going to sit.

They're going to fill up the dance floor for you. That'll be your audience, and then the rest of the people. Like, all right, he wants me to do an hour. I go on stage and I realize, first of all, when he said kids, he meant kids. There's like three-year-olds sitting in front of me. All right, so now try and do your jokes about anything, about your wife, about your kids, about your, whatever, anything, about far, in front of three-year-olds,

they're not paying attention. So I got to babysit the three-year-olds. I'm looking out of the audience. Grandma's there. There's 90-year-olds, all right? There's one table in the far back that's my demographic that's laughing. The rest of them, like, know me from videos and shit, right? So I was, actually, I was supposed to do like a half an hour.

I ended up doing an hour because I was looking for the, I was looking for the laugh to get off of. Kept going, going, going. finally I was just like the whole time I'm thinking of myself I got to finish this and go get a double tequila I need my that's what's crazy is I was done as soon as I was done to them I'm still a celebrity so after the show after I was done music starts and they're all pulling at me to go dance with them and I thought I should have just done an appearance fee I should have just said I'll come to your place I'll dance with you and we'll move on with our lives you know because that that's the other thing is if they have the expectation I did this I talk about this in the book I talk about

going to Dubai to do it was an art fest and they had a night where they were selling like really pricey art and I go the kiss of death is when people show up at like a $250 ticket function and they come up to you before and they go

I love your stuff I've seen you you've seen your YouTube I bought tickets specifically to see you tonight so I go now they expect you to kill right I go the best is when they don't know who you are and afterwards they go that was great I had a great time.

So that's one of those. I showed up at this art thing. And man, these guys, again, no expense spared. Like, they had, like, these guys were bidding for, like, 100 grand, $200,000 art pieces. So at the very beginning of the show, I'm sitting down. I'm supposed to be the headliner. They start their entertainment at seven. First of all, anyone who does stand-up knows audiences can sit for an hour and a half.

That's it. That's it. That's it. Or you give them an intermission. I always tell them, I go, listen, Broadway has the best dancers. singers, choreographers, writers in the world. If they go to two hours, they take an intermission at an hour.

Or they get out at an hour and a half. So you want to do a five-hour show? I go, yeah, how are you fucking mind? You're fucking out of your mind. Right? So I show up and these guys started at seven. Cocktails are seven. Let's go into the hall at 7.30. 7.30, they bring out this dance group doing some crazy

Michael Jackson shit. You've never seen. The dude had it. They put these lamp posts in the middle of this ballroom. The guy was levitating. He was going horizontally. That's how fit this dude was. I was sitting there going like, holy shit, I got to follow this. They do like half an hour of that. Then they go, all right, let's take a break.

The charity people are going to talk about what the charity is about. They talk about the charity. Then they go, okay, now we're going to bring out people that have benefited from this charity. Lady comes out. My son would be dead if it weren't for you people. Now everyone's down. I'm like, fuck, I can't follow this. Then they do an auction.

The auctioneer ends up being a funny dude. And I'm watching them. I'm like, they didn't need me. They got this guy. He's killing it. He's raising these guys like a million. People are bidding, you know, getting tense between like the two really rich dudes who are like, everyone else has spent $25,000.

These guys are $250 grand for an art piece. But this dude up there, the auctioneer's making it funny. He's looking at one guy. He's like, oh, this British dude, he's like, he just outbid you. Don't let him do that in front of your wife. You got bowls or you got bowls? and the guy's like, fuck it, $270. They'll go, I'm like, shit, I'm entertained,

but I'm also shit in my pants right now. Then they go, all right, now let's eat dinner. Now we're like three and a half hours, four hours in. People have spent like, I don't know how much, half a million, right? They've seen amazing entertainment. Now I'm like, when am I going up? And then they go, now for dessert, the chef of like the biggest hotel in Dubai comes out

with a team of Filipinos and each, Filipino sets up a station at your table and the chef is German and he starts calling out orders to prepare the dessert in front of everybody. All right, now takes the sugar, put the sugar down. Everyone puts the sugar. These Filipinos put sugar. Bring out the chocolate. I'm like, this is fucking crazy.

The dessert is entertaining. This is like going on and on and on. And then the fucking DJ goes, all right. Now Maz Jobrani. That's it. I'm like, motherfucker, you're supposed to, not supposed to do that? You're supposed to fucking get their attention,

focus them back on the stage. If I were a musician, I could go up and, like, just play the drums or something. You don't need to pay attention. But you need, I need your focus. This guy didn't give me a good intro. This is midnight now, five hours in.

People are there thinking I'm a superstar. And I go up and I'm like this. I got to, now I got to bring them back. I got to start working. I got to work the crowd back to, I got to be my own warm-up guy. So I start doing some crowd work And at one point I go

I go I heard there's Kuwaiti Kuwaiti royalty here tonight Where's the Where is he? Sir, where are you? And I got jokes about Kuwait

How they wouldn't let me into Kuwait Because my passport says Born in Iran Even though I'm American It says born in Iran And Kuwait and Iran have problems So every time I go through Kuwait They'll hold me like an extra half an hour

To ask me who my dad was and my grandfather I don't know what they did But anyway, so I was going to do some jokes of the Kuwaiti royalty. I was going to go after him. Well, it turns out the Kuwaiti royalty was a lady that I'd met earlier that night. Someone introduced me to her. But they didn't say this is Princess So-and-so. They just were like, hey, Maas, you know her.

And I don't know who she was, but I was like, of course. Of course I knew. So now I'm on stage looking like, because when I go, where's the Kuwaiti royalty, the lady who had introduced me looked at me like, motherfucker, you said you know. And then the Kuwaiti royalty lady thought that I knew who she was. So she's looking at me like, what the hell? Like, you said you know who I?

So then I was like, oh, your highness, good to see you. I don't have a joke. And I'm not going to make fun of her. So good to see you, ma'am. Then I go, then I go, okay, let me keep moving. I keep moving. There's an Indian dude that the auctioneer had been talking to the Indian dude. And the Indian dude sit in the back with like a Nauru jacket.

You know the Nauru that like the buttons up at the top very gentlemanly looking? He had gray kind of dark hair, but gray streaks. and the auctioneer kept calling him the silver fox because he had the silver fox you want to get involved go ahead give us a bid and so he now the auctioneer had done his homework whoever had organized this thing had told him who is who so he knew who everybody was so now I'm going all right you know what the royalty shit didn't work let me go to the Indian guy so go to the Indian guy because I got an Indian wife

I go maybe I'd do some of those jokes I tried I go what's your name he yells it from the back I can't hear it what's your name again you can't hear it have some fun with it move on do my thing very mediocre set I have this expensive suit it's drenched and sweat now because it's been a half an hour struggling

and the whole time again I'm thinking just get off and get a tequila and I get off I'm like fuck and then I'm talking to the auctioneer afterwards and he's like yeah man the silver fox is one of India's most famous actors so it's it first of all I didn't know who the

I didn't know who the royalty was I didn't know who the Morgan Freeman of India was he'd been in the room you know what I'm saying And it was one of those things where it was death. And it was one of those things where you go, man, I don't know. Like, I'm sure those people had come to that thing going like, oh, this guy is that guy. And then you let them down because the setup is just a horrible setup. You know what I'm saying?

It's very important to have the right setup. But they did the worst thing with you. They did a six-hour show. Six-hour show. Listen, as soon as they call you and they're breaking it down, you got to go, ah. The magician, get rid of him. Well, kids love magicians. Well, the thing starts at 8, and the magician is going up at 11.

It's not going to work. Well, really? My friend, listen, they're sitting for fucking not, but they don't know this. Yeah. The other thing I didn't, I don't mind doing a corporate where I go up, do 20 minutes. I'll do the homework on the company. They'll point me in the direction to one guy, maybe. When they come to me and go,

that guy just, he fucked the faggot on our last trip. I don't give a fuck. And you always get those morons. He has six toes, you know. He has a webbed foot. You know, go away. Go the fuck away. You know, those idiots.

But I did one that was the worst. You talking about that just reminded me, and I almost got into Fistakos. They saw me at the store. Yeah. Cuban family. Christmas party, the whole thing, they were offering like some absurd about the money,

and I go, and I remember I was like, Coke then. I for it was $100 but I knew. I had done enough of these motherfucking things that you can't let him slide. So the number he offered me, I go, it's not going to work. This is the number. Well, we want you to

come and do this. You have to do that. They sent me, in those days they'd faxed. They sent me a three-page fax. Every grandpa that was going to be there. You know, he has a web foot. He, you know, and I'm still, listen, guys, I don't. First off, I'm getting off a plane.

I'm going from LAX to see you fucking guys. in Pomona. My mind's going to be somewhere else if you want a Sunday show. And they shrunk it down to two sheets. Then they shrunk it to a sheet and a half because I couldn't take it. And there was a combination birthday corporate party. Guys, it was fucking nuts. And I get there at two and it's supposed to start at three

and it doesn't start until 4.30. But they wanted the entertainment there early in a samba band and a mama. And it's nine o'clock and I haven't gone up. And I go up to the gun, I go, listen, five fucking minutes I go up, I'm getting hell out of here. And this guy looked at me like, you can't talk to me like that. Dog, I've been here since two.

I've been fucking going on a plane since eight. I told you told me two o'clock, you know, then I get here, it's four fucking 30. No, I'm going up there now. And I go up and the sheet and the whole fucking thing, and I get off. And he goes, well, you didn't mention my one uncle Tico that's missing the foot. And I go, listen, give my fucking check.

And he gave me the check and it was $500 light. And I go, we're going to take a ride to the ATM. Oh, I got to go gangster on the guy. We're taking a ride to the ATM machine. And he started with his shit. I'm going to tell everybody how you treated me. You know, why? Because I want my fucking money.

And I said, that's it. And I get a call for them. I get family ones on Facebook and Twitter. And I, no. I got offered a wedding. October 24th. No. No.

No. Listen, this is what I tell them. A lot of times they'll call me for weddings. I'll talk them out of it. Yeah. I'll talk, I go, listen, I go, save your money, because I go, I'm going to be expensive. I go, because I don't normally do these. I'm going to be expensive.

Save your money, go have a great trip, and I'm going to be in your city in October. You guys come get the VIP tickets. We'll say, hi, we'll hug it out. You'll be in my, it's like a home court advantage, right? And you should be able to do stand-up anywhere, but you have to always set it up right. It's very different than other, again, music, no disrespect to musicians, but musicians can play. and if they're not listening, like if you're playing like rock or something

and people are talking, that's what they do. Right? But stand up and half the time I get involved with the organization of it exactly what you just said. I go, okay, I'll tell you what, you want to do a five-hour event? Cool. Before you bring the food, I'll do my 20

at like, you know, the first hour of the night and then you guys could do whatever you want. You know, it's crazy. It's, it's, it's, I had one time in Malaysia, one of the kings of Malaysia, Malaysia was at the show, and the prime minister was supposed to come. And the setup was horrible.

People all over the place. Nobody paying attention. They had, like, one of their top singers go up. Nobody was paying attention. And I'm thinking to myself, because you also bring the, you know, Joe one time, Joey D. one time told me, and I agree with them. It's like the comedy store, I think, makes you want to be tough as a comedian. Because a lot of other clubs, you were talking about one time.

You heard one comic be like, oh, I got to follow that guy. I don't want to follow that guy. And at the comedy you have to follow everybody. As a matter of fact, one of the times that I died the hardest was following you because I learned a lesson

which was I followed him, he killed, and I didn't acknowledge his killing right there. Like I had to go up, I should have gone up for the first two minutes and talked about his set in a fun way because we were all in that room and transitioned into my set.

And I learned that lesson right off the bat. Or if somebody says something really, like crazy outlanded, like Joey says like, you know, her bussy, her ass or a pussy looked like a bat with a hangover? Right, right, right. So you got to acknowledge that when you go on stage. You know what I'm saying? You got to acknowledge that. He just said that and have fun with it.

Even say it like 10 times, right? But I didn't. And I learned that lesson. So you want to be tough. So here I was at this thing in Malaysia thinking, you know what? They didn't listen to their top singer, but they're going to listen to me. I'm going to get them. I'm going to go table by table, and I'm going to find out who's where. And I got 20 minutes. I'm going to get them. And I was supposed to go after the prime minister had arrived and spoken or something. Well, they come to me, they go, listen, Prime Minister is running late. You got to go up.

I go, all right, I'll go up. And it was funny because I started making fun of their traffic a little bit, because we think traffic's bad here. Some of these countries, I don't know how anyone gets anywhere. It's like they have a thing that say, Malaysia Bule, which means Malaysia can. Malaysia can. And I kept saying, I was making fun of them. I was like, well, with this traffic, Malaysia, no Bule, you guys can't.

Like, you guys are all stuck. And some of them, like, a little, taking offense at it and stuff. And here's what's funny is I was in the middle of my set. I've never had this happen. Middle of my set, trying to get them going, making fun of their traffic. And suddenly, in the middle of my set, I hear a voice. And it goes, Maz, Maas, and I'm like, where's that coming from? I look over at the podium, the host.

Maas, the prime minister has arrived. Ladies and gentlemen, if you could please rise for the prime minister, everyone stopped in the middle of my set. And so everyone stands up. And here comes the prime minister, halfway through my 20 minutes. And it was funny because I thought I got the biggest laugh When he came all the way up and he was like shaking hands I just had to stand there just standing on stage looking left and right

He came to the front table and I go hello Mr. Prime Minister sir how are you I go were you stuck in traffic and His table laughed he didn't know what I said The rest of them just went right back to what they were doing But I got I got interrupted by the prime minute Imagine like in the middle of your set and you got to keep going And it was another one of those where I was like you know what I was just gonna get off and just get my

drink and relax. Because I don't care who you are. I don't care who. You're not going to win that battle. You're not going to win that because they're there to talk. The women, look, man, we have our own sense of humor. There's a 70-year-old woman who could care less about you. She's there to show off her jewelry, right?

There's some dude who thinks he is the man. And so if you go to him and make fun of him, he's going to take offense at that, you know. Well, it's so crazy how much an audience matters. For movies, too, but even for stand-up. We went to the store two or three times last week, and the first time it wasn't that great, and then the last three times I saw you, and you're saying the same jokes,

and for some people, sometimes it's some of the same stuff, and when I've heard something, when I've heard you do something 10 times, and there's one time it's not working, like, it's crazy how much an audience impacts a show, because it's really probably just as much as it. For me, it's the audience and,

comic. And the comic every time I go on stage and I don't do well, I never blame it on the audience. I always say, wow, my game wasn't my game wasn't on. I didn't know. I thought that was me shaking. I didn't say

that joke the right way. I didn't say that. I didn't say fuck. So I always look at it that way. But it's, this is an education that's constant. You know, I always laugh when I see pictures of George Kloon and Brad Pitt, and they're giggling,

and these fucking momos in the Midwest, like, oh, they must talk on the phone every day. They're such a good friend. Tell them to fuck about each other. When people's around, they're all smiling and tapping each other on the back and ha-ha-ha. One thing about you and I, Maas, I know you from the store.

I mean, when did you get to the store? I think it was probably, I started to stand up, I think, in summer of 98, so I must have been at the store by early 2000 or late 99. Wow. And she made your regular. And that was the beginning of everything.

I grew exponentially at that club. At that club. Because I learned so much watching guys like you or watching. Paul Mooney. Paul Mooney. Even guys like Eddie Griffin, who we would give shit to because he would go long. He would do two hours. But those first 45 minutes were very funny.

And it was interesting. What I learned from him was kind of whether it's, whatever it is, kind of his stream of consciousness style, which was he would go from bit to bit, but he would mix them up. And I love doing that sometimes when I go, you know what? I don't know what bit I'm going to start with, where I'm going. You know, you told me one time. I love Joe.

Joe, I was, Joey Diaz has the most quotable stuff. One time I said, I go, Joey, I go, you ever get a, you ever put a set list together? And he's like, yeah, bro, I put it together on the way over. But you know how it was. You get on stage, you got to start calling audibles. Yeah, you got to call audibles. I got it. And it is true.

And I love that. I love calling. Like, that's become the last special I did. I went to Sweden and shot it. And I got a production. company to shoot it. And I said, I want you to have a camera on the audience. I go, whenever I go to the audience, go to the audience. And it's what's great about when I saw it, what I was happy about was when I would go to the audience, sometimes it would say certain things that I wasn't expecting

and you genuinely see my surprise on my face when I'm hearing somebody say something for the first time. And that's a great feeling when you're a comedian on stage, because now I'm curious about you. And it's not about my next joke. But it's about, you know, how did you end up with her or, like, what, like, what, what, what, where, if you're here and you have a two-week-old baby, where's your wife? And I don't have a joke yet, but he's going to tell me where she is. And if he says she's at home, I'll say, oh, you know, old school, whatever, I'll make fun of him for, like, being, whatever, like, you know, who's the man now? Or if he says, like, I don't know what the answer is going to be, right? But maybe he says she's here, and I go, well, then, who's this, who's got the baby?

baby. You know, we got a nanny. Oh, you're rich. You know what I say? You can riff off of that and have fun. Now throughout the show, you can keep going back to that guy. Oh, rich guy, no, hey, rich guy, you know, after the show, he's buying a drink. Now you got an extra five minutes added to your special because some guy had a two-week-old baby that they left with a nanny, you know, and he's loving it. There's a dude on my special name Eugene, some Swedish dude named Eugene. When he said his name Eugene, I go, I was like, you see me genuinely. I go, is that a common Swedish name? And then he's kind of laughing and having fun.

We just go on. I have co-stars in my special. I just thought of that. It's true. But that's because you are being open to talking to the audience. But regardless, what you were saying, too, is true. Sometimes you're right, Joe, you blame yourself.

But there's sometimes where you go, like, we've seen it. Comics will come back and be like, oh, this audience sucks. And again... It burns me up. I don't say nothing, but it burns. One thing I always respected about you, especially at the store, was to me, everybody wants the 8 o'clock spot. Everybody wants to go up in front of 80 hot people.

Mitzie didn't like it that way. When you signed up at the store, you thought you were going to get 10 o'clock spots. But Mityy gave you the dungeon spots. And I call them that anything could happen spots because that's exactly what they were. A fist fight could happen in a controlled area, in a comedy store. And late nights, you know, when Mazz would go up,

we would just chant in the back. Maj Jabrani, Jobani, Maas, in the middle of his set. And I know there was nights, Maas would go, thank God these guys were in the room because that's six minutes. We would fucking go crazy. And the accordion would sit there and go,

what the fuck is going on? That's the comedy story. Lee and I had a great time last week when I went to the comedy store, and the piano player kept playing BT Express for everybody. And I went up and he was playing something different. I go, don't play that, play the Beatty Express.

And I danced and thank God because it killed and it took eight minutes. Now, when I walked off and people were like, that was great, I was like, maybe for you. But I wrote a joke for the last two fucking days that I wanted to try specifically. So here I killed in reality, whatever the fuck I did, but as I'm driving up all over the local canyon, I'm like, I'm a fucking loser for not trying that joke that I have been working on for two fucking days. But that goes back to what Freddie Soto had said. It's not about the bits, because you can try that bit another time. You took that moment and you figured out.

And ran with it. And you ran with it. I had two of my favorite sets last year, I've recorded them, were sets where I did absolutely no material. Because I went on stage at the comedy store and I started to get into it. And as I was getting into it, someone came to sit. So then I was like, what the hell were you? Where were you? What's going on?

And then they started talking. And then someone else started talking. And then the next thing I know, this happened, it was kind of funny. There was these couple of guys came in late and they sat to the left of the stage. and the dude sat down and he saw somebody in the front of the stage and he started waving and the other guy started waving

and then I go, you guys know each other? He goes, yeah, I go, you guys, why don't you sit with each other? Like you knew you were coming and he goes, no, I didn't know he's coming. I go, well, how do you know each other? It goes, we used to play in a cover band together. So now I'm like, what cover band?

And it was like creed or some cover band. I go, well, what happened to the cover band? And they go, well, we split up. And I go, ladies and gentlemen, we heard it here tonight. Whatever it is, cover band is split. I go, this is a very sad moment. I just need a moment of silent. I just rift for a 15, man, and I love that set.

And I didn't care about the material I was trying to work out. And that's a set that, you know, if you're a comedy fan, I realized this later, somebody was talking about it. The reason I got into this was because I was a comedy nerd. You know, you have to be. I used to watch all those guys. I used to stay up late night, watch all the reruns of Saturday Night Live and the new ones. I used to watch all the guys that were on the evening of the improv, all that stuff.

So if you're a comedy nerd and you hear a set like that, I think that you have to ultimately sit down and go, I appreciate this. I might not get it all because I'm not in that room, but I appreciate this. When you see Prior do that set that he put up, I forget what it's called, where he's like in the back of a club

and people are walking out, and he's like, I hope you get hit by a train or whatever, and it's the worst set you've ever seen Prior to, but he put it out as a special. You got to sit there and go, I appreciate this, you know? Stan, that's a weird fucking animal. Before when I was going to the bathroom,

I was walking back, I was thinking about, you did a play one time and one of the times what's his name was there Sean Penn he came up to you he gave you a number

he took your number and he called you a year later or some shit and put you in a movie no no he didn't do like that that was no he I did a movie with him I did a I don't think he saw me from a play I thought he saw you at a play

no no no no the movie was the interpreter The interpreter and that one the way I got that that one was funny again I talk about this on the book get the book people it's called I'm not a terrorist but I played one on TV.

But it's funny because all these stories come back when you start talking about this stuff. The book, what was funny was, you've done this before. I'm sorry, the movie, the interpreter. So Sidney Pollock's directing, Sean Penn, Nicole Kidman, it's in New York. And I'm pretty early in my career.

It's 2004. And they go, they want you to put yourself on tape. Now, you've done this before. When you put yourself on tape, that means you go into a room, you put a camera, you get a friend to read from the other side, you do it yourself, you submit the tape.

And I'm going, there's no way they're going to cast me off a tape because if you go in a room, the director's there he likes you, but off a tape, you go, no way. I fucking hate it. I hate it. I got the longest yard that way. Yeah, exactly. And then the other thing was the scenes they gave me to do, so I was playing, I was

auditioning for an Arab American Secret Service agent. His name is Muhammad, but they don't even reference it at all. Go figure. But they don't reference it all. They just call Mo throughout, and at one point he goes, I'm from Brooklyn, he goes, he's in New York, right? And so he's a very American.

I think the reason the writers might have put him in was because right around that time, this was around the Bush administration, there had been a Secret Service agent who was an Arab dude who was flying from, I don't know, L.A. to Phoenix to go beyond the Bush's detail. He was going to go protect the president. And Secret Service agents carried guns, and they have a license for it. So he was getting on the plane, and the pilot was like, I'm not going to let you get on my plane. And he goes, but I'm a secret. I'm like, I'm legit. It's all like, it's all like, it's all. It's all, like, it's all. It's all. It's all. It's. It's. It's all. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's. It's It's all been approved. It's like, I'm not letting you on my... It was like a Delta or something, and he ended up suing Delta and made... I think he won or something. But point is, I think the writers had read about that and were like, let's put some dude in here as that role.

So I went to read the audition, and the audition was very, like, procedural. It was like two quick scenes. The first scene was, let's say, me and Joey sitting next to each other, and we're in a car, we're secret service agents, and we're following some guy who we think is about to commit a crime. And so he turns to me, he's like, is that the guy?

And I go, that's the guy. And he's like, well, what do you think we should do? I go, well, let's follow him. Cut. That's it. Scene two. Do you hear about the guy? Yeah, I heard he's downtown now.

Let's go get him. Let's go. Cut. And I'm like, I didn't do anything. So I submit it. And I go, there's no way in hell I'm going to get this. And then the word comes back. You've had this before, too, where your agents go,

you're their number one choice. And that, to me, usually that's the kiss of death. That means they're waiting. for somebody else to say yes they're waiting for Louis Louis Guzman to take the part or they're waiting for you know what I'm saying they're waiting for somebody else

Ben Kingsley someone's going to come up so they go you're the first choice I'm like I'm not going to say anything I don't want to jinx this goes on and on and on finally they go you got it I go what yeah you got it you're going to spend four months in New York they're going to pay for you

they're going to put you up in a hotel they're going to pay you all I'm like this is crazy so the whole time I'm thinking first of all I'm excited to be working with Sean Penn who cares about Nicole Kidman Sean Penn that's the man I want to work with this guy and Sidney Pollock

and I get there, I swear to God, so this was a movie, it takes place to the United Nations, and the whole thing is, it's called the interpreter, and I'm like, all right, let me go down, they get me out there, and they go, listen, they're filming at the UN today, you're not in the scene, but you can go watch if you want, so I go, let me go watch. So I go to watch, I'm watching, nobody knows who I am. You know, I'm player number 12 or 15 out of whatever, you know, on the call sheet. I'm not one, two, or three. and I'm watching, watching, and then finally I go, I got to go pee.

So I go to the bathroom. They're on a break. Sidney Pollack walks into the bathroom. So now I go, should I say hi? Does he know me? Is he going to say, what's up? Your agent Mo? He kind of looks at me, looks away, goes into the stall.

I'm like, all right, I'm not, now there's no way in hell. I'm going to be like, Mr. Pollock, by the way, nice to meet you. I go, leave it alone. Leave it alone. I left it alone. then the next day I'm shooting my scene and the whole scene is just supposed to be me in a car doing surveillance

with binoculars and I'm looking into a house I'm watching this guy who's again possible suspect and what it is is every day he has the same thing for breakfast and they're trying to get across the point that I've been sitting here watching this dude for a week

so I'm supposed to look in the binoculars talking to myself and go like you know up orange juice cereal milk great put it down that's like the line That's a whole thing. So action.

I do it. I'm in a car. There's a little walkie-talkie that gives you direction. Sidney Pollock's voice comes on to walkie-talkie. Do it again. Do it again. Just throw it away a little bit. Throw it away.

You're putting too much emphasis. Got it. Action. Cereo, orange juice, milk. Whatever. You got to be in the moment. You got to be there. You got to be there.

Oh, okay, great. Action. Cereal orange juice, milk. Seven takes. I'm starting to sweat bullets. I'm like, shit, they cast the wrong guy. I knew it.

I thought they'd messed up. I thought they'd, like, messed up the tapes. They were trying to get whatever, John Leguizamo, and they ended up getting me, and now he's coming at me, and I was shitting bricks. I was waiting for them to be like,

okay, done, can we talk to you for a second? Listen, here's your plane ticket. Go back. I really was like, shit. in my pen. And to my surprise, they moved on. And at one point, like, the hair and makeup lady was like, I saw you had your Sydney moment. I'm like, what are you talking about? She goes, yeah, he's been riding a lot of the actors. I go, what do you mean? Yeah, he's just, you know, really stressed out because his previous movie didn't make a lot of money, and he's producing on this,

and the budget's going up, and they started shooting without an ending, all kinds of stuff. You start finding out, and supposedly one other guy that was in a scene with Champagne was like he got the Sydney treatment so much that he was like having a breakdown and Penn had to be like Sydney, Sidney, let me talk to him for a second. And he got the actor back in. He's like, listen, buddy, let's just do it me and you. And he got him through it. And what was amazing was as it went on, like I gained his respect a little bit just by like kind of, you know, talking back to him a little bit like Sidney, you're going to ride me again or whatever it was. Like, you know, just a little bit like that. Because you got to realize what happens when you go on a set and you

know this, they set up this hierarchy. And they go, this guy's the guy. Don't look at him in the eye. Don't talk to them. Don't blah, blah, blah, blah. But listen, man, end of the day, I'm a guy. You're a fucking... I got a mortgage. I got kids. I've lived 42 years in this world, right?

So you're gonna talk shit to me just because you're fucking whatever. John Locke Lussard or whatever your fucking name is. You know what I'm saying? I'll punch you in the face, you know? I get pissed too. Yeah, you guys, you could see it. I had a Sydney moment. Who was that?

Who was that? What was that in? Bronx County. What happened? I was terrible. Yeah. I didn't fucking know. I knew nothing.

Yeah. It's 97. I get sent to fucking Santa Monica. We go read for a pilot. A Puerto Rican dude in the bar, recurring row. Maybe Siri's regular. I go in there,

read and I leave. I get the fucking pilot. CBS, this was CBS's answer to NYPD Blue. And Sydney Pollock's director. Sydney Pollack's directing. They paid them $3 million. Wow. Show's going.

Show's going. I'm not being every single. episode. At the end, the cops come into the bar and ask me questions. You're not going to shoot, you're going to shoot, you're not going to shoot the pilot, you're not going to shoot the pilot, you're not going to shoot the pilot, you're not going to shoot the pilot, you're not going to shoot. This went on for two weeks.

It was a three-week pilot shoot. It was a drama. You got a call one night. Fucking one in the morning. You're shooting tomorrow. I better whatever, be there at 8 a.m., 6 a.m. I don't know. Do I have lines? Don't give them to you in the morning. It's just two lines. They're writing them right now as we speak,

or we could call them to you tonight. I'm coaked up. I'm coked up at fucking Gardner, living on Gavin's floor. And, you know, I got to go in there next day. I don't know nothing about nothing. And it was two horrible lines. Nothing.

I could do it today with my eyes closed. And he had to come over and ask me, like, what the fuck is going on? Wow. And you fucking, right, when that happens, you just melt. Listen, I had just bombed on basketball. I had just done basketball

No, I hadn't. That was the first time I really bombed on a set. Then I bombed on basketball like a year later, six months later. And it was, I didn't know what to do. And then I finally got done an acting class. And I got a pilot for NBC, like the fifth and sixth episode. And by that time, I had it down a little bit. But I didn't have it.

Not to work with Sidney Lumet. Oh, Lumet? You had Lumette. No, no. Sydney Pollock. Well, Muz, you did Friday after next, or next Friday, whichever one it was when you were still working. Because I used to, I I listened to Minivan men. Mini Man, Van Man. Yeah, there you go.

Podcast, and you talked about it. And that's, I mean, how crazy was that doing that movie when I'm still doing a job? Well, see, now that was different. Listen, man, this is 90- You had a job? Yeah, I had a day job. That's right. Yeah, I had a day job at an advertising agency.

That's right. I used to come to the comedy store, do my sets and like one in the morning, and two in the morning, and then go to work the next day at nine. But no, but this is what it is, I think 99% of all of this, whether stand-up, acting, anything in life is the confidence that you have. And the more you do it, the more confident you get. And the more control you have, the more confident you are.

And the lower the stakes, that's why that original room is such a great room. Because she sets it up and says, no one's going to be in this audience tonight. I'm going to blind the hell out of you with the lights. It's going to be so dark. You won't know who's there anyway. So just go up there and do your thing. So you go up there and just do your thing.

And so the same thing with the, Friday after next, the director was this guy named Marcus Rayboy, young guy. He'd been doing music videos. I went in and I auditioned for the role of Moli, the donut shop owner. And I just went in and did a character. I just went and did my character.

And then they were into it. And they were like, yeah. And then I had ideas. I was like, what about if he wears this? What if he does that? And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So with that, they wanted me. And suddenly I was like, oh, cool.

You know, I felt like they gave me the confidence. Whereas a movie like the interpreter that's like 80 million, 90 million drama in New York, Nicole Kidman, Champin, Catherine Keener, all this. Sidney Pollack is stressed out because he's producing it. He's getting into arguments. Nobody's laughing. Nobody's laughing.

Everybody's silent with the director. You know, oh my God, when he comes in the room, don't say a word. And you're sitting there going, this motherfucker puts his pants on just like me. Absolutely. And at the end of the week, when you look at half these fucking directors, what the fuck are they really doing? with that fucking camera. Okay, what the fuck are they really doing for them to walk around?

You know, you could always tell a director on a set. That's the sound I don't want to be on. If I could tell who the director is on the set, if he's got the feather in his hat and the rolled-up sleeves and the tattoos, I don't want to work with that guy. I just worked with that jerk off at CBS. Who's that? I worked with a guy.

I watched the CBS award they gave him. CBS did a show, like, and they didn't air it. Like, but they was on YouTube. of this director. I forget what his name is. When I read that he was the director, I remember reading for the role and going, wow, I'm going to get to work with this guy.

This guy was the biggest piece of shit I had ever met in my life. You know, he blasted Bruce Springsteen. Well, why is this on? And, you know, not just blast, blast guys. And I asked the AD's like, why is this on? Oh, he's personal friends with Bruce. Oh, so I should fucking fall off my fucking chair.

You know, they're just jerked off. Then you work with a guy like Adam's family that knows calm, and you go up to him in front of four fucking Gentiles to the sitting there out of college, and you're like, hey, listen, I want to shoot that scene with a thong on. And the people from Paramount, I'm like, no, no.

What did you say, Joey? I want to shoot that scene with a jock, like that dude in Major League, the Cuban dude. Go get this guy a jock. No, the network. Go get him a fucking jock. That's a comedy director. He gave me.

confidence. Confidence. He gave me confidence. Give him the fucking red light. There's nothing when you read for people and they come up to your nag you. The word is the. Get the fuck over there where the word is the. The fuck over it. I made it sound better without the fucking the. But that's...

I don't like that. I don't like pressure on a set. I like when everybody's loose when you can do your own thing. But that day with that comment for CBS, I'm like, this isn't... No wonder the show got canceled. Listen, listen, in fairness to Pollack, the guy is great. And he actually ended up being nice like but but I think

yeah he was a nice guy yeah he was a nice guy he was very nice but I think that he was great in the sopranos yeah he was he was great and he's a great actor in eyes wide shut he was oh shit that's my movie

and shit yeah he brought it on that I fucking love that movie look that guy's a legend he's great but what happens is you get in your head and also there is a hierarchy in every set and I think it's up to and I think listen these guys after a while they gotta get shit done

they can't come hug everybody you know what I'm saying but ultimately I think if you're able to lighten the mood somehow. That's what I learned on my movie, the Jimmy Vessel movie. I was a co-writer.

And I had a guy directing him, Jonathan Kesselman. He directed something called the Hebrew Hammer. It's a good movie. Yeah, it's a good movie, right? So what would happen is, we do a couple takes, and then we get together and be like,

hey, let's try that again. Let's mess around with the lines. I had friends on the set. I'd be like, listen, man, do what you want to do, but here's a couple of suggestions. You know, say this, this, this and this, but something in that world.

Go. You know, and it was fun because I was making, I was like, I wanted to be fun, you know, and I was confident. It was my, I didn't have a studio. I didn't have to go to, I learned the difference. What was crazy was, we'd raised all the money. We did the thing. If I wanted to change anything, I would do it right there, right?

A week later, I got a guest star on a sitcom for CBS, like a four camera. And we would do our scene. And as you know, what you do is when you're doing your scene, you do like, your, you do like you rehearse, rehearse, and then one of the days you get the writers and the producers and the network and all the studio. Now you got 40 people watching you do this scene. And then you finish, and then when you leave, they all sit down with the writers and they give them notes.

And that's when it hit me. I said, that's why a lot of these sitcoms aren't that funny. Because it is comedy by committee. It's art by committee. When was the last time there was a painter standing in front of a canvas with 40 people behind him going, what do you think? Should we go green or blue? Blue, right? You're no longer an artist. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I think a lot of those things aren't, a lot of these shows that we see that aren't that funny is because they just water the hell down. Yeah. I mean,

say Louis C.K., most people think are considering him great, but I'm sure there's people who don't like him as a stand-up comedian, but say what you want about that. His show, Louis, he's on FX, which wasn't the biggest station. It was a. cable station, but he does everything. He writes, edits, directs. It's amazing. He acts in it. Yeah.

And it's cool when they have that much control. I heard you brought up Christella. Her manager came in, I think, and was saying how, and Joey was saying how they gave her money to, like, do it, but they weren't going to pick it up. Yeah. And instead of taking the money, she shot the first show, and now it was on ABC for a full season. Yeah, listen, that's what we're talking about that, think outside the box. What's great about her story is that, is that they were going to be.

going to pass on it and then they said let's go shoot it and they got the set i believe of uh the the tim allen show and they shot it and really man it's ultimately it's a battle all the time um but but you but you have a voice you have a you have a point of view and not everyone's gonna like it i mean i get people hitting me up from time to time going you suck you're not funny and i want to hit them back and go what the fuck do you do and who are you but i let it go because i go you know what? That's actually a point of you've arrived, I think. I actually used to get a little offended by

stuff online until I was watching Letterman one night, and he did this joke. He's like, he's like, yeah, they just put in free Wi-Fi at Central Park, which is great, because at lunch time I get to take my laptop down there and read all my hate mail.

And it hit me, I go, wow, this guy must get so much crap for what he says. Every night, every night you do a joke that's going to offend somebody. So I go, hey, man, I'm, you know, I'll take it. I don't care if somebody doesn't like, that's a sign that you've got a point of view if people don't like your shit. You know what I'm saying?

I hope they don't fucking like me. They can all suck my dick. Yeah. I really do. I love when I get like an email. Hey, man, who gives a Frenchman's fuck? You know, you were making a good point before. One of the best advice I ever saw, nobody gave to me.

I saw Pacino tell James. me Fox in that fucking, he goes, you know, remember there were... Longest yard? No, not like you said. Any given Sunday. He goes, you know, this is easy, brother. This is just like when your mama used to call you.

When you play football, remember when you played two-hand touch on the street? You told the guy, run down to the corner to the car and make the left, I'm right there. Once you simplify it, everything, I was on stage the other night and I was born. And I got myself together. It was like getting punched in the fucking face.

You have to regroup and breathe. And I became that character. And I took him to fucking, you have to stop some time. And the same thing is with acting. My acting now, after 15 years, I go on the set, I'm as good as the next guy that studied and fucking Erika College, whatever the fuck. Because I've been doing it now. I go on the set now, and I'm not effective, but I'm a, I save you money.

Yeah. I'm fucking good on this. You don't have to worry about me at all. Just leave me to fuck alone. I don't need an AD outside of my trailer telling me makeup. I don't know how to read the scene. I know when you don't want me in my fucking wardrobe but 8 in the morning if I'm in the shit for

I'm a fat book. You're going to get gravy on this shirt or a reef is going to burn the fucking button on the shirt or you know. But it's when I saw you at the store a couple weeks so I watch on stage, Mars, and it's fucking great

that we're still doing what we do. Absolutely, man. And it's been a fucking journey from those little spots. I used to drive me to the ATM so I could borrow a Coke money from you and shit. Mars was my brother. And then, you know, now we're here.

And all those lessons were learned from that little fucking room on sunset. Yeah. And they weren't learned on a Friday and a Saturday night. Nope. And we were there on Wednesday nights at 1245 talking shit. And you, I'm happy I got the opportunity to do that. Yeah. Absolutely.

I'm happy that I walked into that. It made me a different comedian. Yeah. It made me who I am today as a podcaster or a writer. It all started for me at that store. Like, it lifted me up. My wife was saying today that she would be really nice if DiAgostino got made at the store. Yeah.

Because you become a different comic. You see it from a different, you see the ball field, you see people. You know, 15 years ago, we were at the store doing the same thing. And there was me, you, Sebastian, Brett Ernst. Same people. Same people. Same people I've been doing the podcast, the last fucking three, Bobby Lee. Tripoli.

It's so cool how, like, you guys aren't similar in your type. of comedy. No. But you all come out of that one place. It's kind of, like, you wouldn't think like some places

have certain type of musicians or this is a jazz club, but that's, you're going to see every different type of comedy that there is. We're both Marines. He might aim for the heart

and I might aim for the fucking eyeball. You know, we're both fucking Marines. And I think that that marine mentality of the comedy store kept us here. I'm bulletproof, bitch.

Absolutely. Listen, I tell young, I tell young comics all the time. I got guys that I'm telling all, I go, you got to get, you got to find a way to get into the comedy store or replicate that for yourself. I go, don't try, don't get in front of the hot crowds and hot crowds and hot, get in a place where you have to let go of your material, find who you are. You know, taking us a long time. They always say, you know, it's a cliche,

they go, you've got to enjoy the journey. Well, I've enjoyed the journey and I continue to enjoy the journey because that's why you've got to do it for, you got to do it because you love doing it, right and you got to put yourself in uncomfortable situations that's that you have to otherwise you're gonna you're gonna get comfortable and you're just gonna you're not gonna grow and if you're ever doing it then I hear some actors of me oh that one day when I win that academy award just leave forget it why are you doing it you're gonna win the academy word feel empty you don't do it for that you do it because it's a project that you love it's a it's a story that's being told that you think is great it's something that you wrote it's

something that a friend of yours world is a part that you're going to be excited about. It's another thing that you go, I can bring something to this. I remember I was listening to Benicio del Toro tell a story about being on some set of some movie early on in his career. And it was like, that was a romantic comedy or what it was. But he said he was on the set and he was just doing the part. And he was kind of like bored because he was just like the supporting guy, like the guy's friend. And he said he was talking to a friend of his who knew him from before.

And he was telling his friend how he didn't like what he was doing. doing and the friends like well didn't you get into this because you wanted to enjoy it like you wanted to be creative and he goes yeah he goes well then go for it so he said like the next day on set he started like giving his character like like like a lisp or something and the director's like what he's like what are you doing he's like I'm bringing something and the guy's like get out of here but flash forward to usual suspects which I thought they like yeah well yeah you know because he was I think he told himself I'm going to start bringing something to these parts as opposed to just sitting at, you know, just, I don't want to be

just, you know, just sitting there, you know, waiting for that line. But that's for him. And for me, stand-up. I love doing stand-up. I love writing. I love creating. And it's like, if I can come up with ideas and ways to go to the next level, get on stage. I just did the comedy store and the laugh factory this past weekend for the first time of a long

time. I had so much fun being on stage, man. And I'll have fun hanging out and talking to my, to the guys I started out with, Joey Diaz. Are you in town this weekend? I got Tempe Improv this weekend. Good for you. Let me give some shoutouts.

I'm going to get the fuck out of it. Joey D. What time is it here? Holy shit. We're on. Jeremy San Giancomo. I love you, cocksucker. Thank you for always giving me love.

J.R. Gomez, Benny Perez, Corey Pentland, Joe knows his gun, cocksucker. There you have it. Who gives a fuck if you went to that place?

Captain Redbeard, Anthony Sacko, right? And my main man, Danny Rodriguez, always fucking representing. You know what's up with Lee? How high are you? I'm super high.

Those were crazy. Are they strong now? Yeah, they're strong. We give me two of them in 11.30 in the morning. I hate two of them. I know you did, but you've been doing it for longer than I've been alive. They're very mild. You look good, Papa.

Thank you, buddy. What else do you got the rest of the day? I got the gym and I got another podcast at 5, but I'm probably just going to take a nap right now. You're not taking no fucking nap. Oh, my God. We're going to do some MET. Keep it going.

Keep it going. You had some Mets for this fucking Riefer High. You'll be beautiful. You'll be. We smoked hash. You like that, huh? Like is a strong word. What you should do?

You should eat a piece of this hash. Have you ever eaten hash? Yes. I love a electric ass. Fucking eat no hash, cuck, sucker. Maz, what else you got going on? Talk to me. Joey D.

I'm going to go, I'm going to go get my kids. And then I'll do a little spot at the factory tonight with the Damarera show where you do 10 minutes and then you analyze it. And then that's it. I'm trying to promote this book. And I got a book tour around it. I'm doing the Wiltern in February. I'm doing a theater in San Francisco I'm doing a theater in D.C.

I'm just, I'm running. What's your website that these people could go? People can find me on Twitter at Maz Jobrani, M-A-Z-J-O-B-R-A-N-I. Also, Instagram is at Masjobrani. Or just go to Mazjobrani.com. When is the book getting released? Book is February 17th.

February 17th book is called I'm not a terrorist, but I've played one on TV. I remember us having conversations. how people offered you terrorist jobs and you didn't want to take them no matter of wanting to be no fucking terrorist. I can always be a fucking terrorist. I'm saying?

For real, so I'm going to play a fucking terrorist. That's where I did it because I did a Chuck Norris movie where I played a terrorist. And then after that I said no more. No more fucking terrorism, huh? No more fucking terrorism, man. Fuck these fucking people.

What's that? The movie website. Oh, the movie website is jimmyvestwood.com. That's the word Westwood with V's. J-I-M-M-Y, V-E-S-T-V-O-D. You can see the trailer on that, too. What's funny is I always describe it as the Persian Pink Panther, and Wikipedia picked that up.

So now, whenever I go to interviews, people go, so you're known as the Persian Pink Panther. Why is that? I'm like, no, that's just the way I described that movie. And I've been trying to get that description off of Wikipedia for like a year now. They won't take it off. Everywhere I go, they call me the Persian Pink Panther.

Fuck it. Any other Persian-P-P-E-E-E-E-O. How crazy is that? Get yourself a little Cato to beat you up and you walk in the fucking ass. I know you, man. You're my Cato. I love that shit. He'd tell him always attack me

and then he'd come home and you look around the house and no Cato. He's out. He'd open up the refrigerator and there's Cato and the fucking refrigerator to choke him. Then he would fight to the debt. And he'd be like, nothing now, Cato. Not now. And they'd fight. They'd fight. They'd fight.

Also, the phone would ring. Yeah. The phone would bring. Classic. And he'd go, hold on. Inspector Cluso's residents. it's for you. And before, Kuzzo would take the phone, he'd punch him in the fucking head one last time. Bam, they'd take the phone with him.

That shit was great, man. Fucking classic, man. I just watched Being there again. Yeah. About a week ago again, I fucking couldn't stop crying. Yeah. He is, you know, people forget that motherfucker. I've never forgotten him as a kid.

Yeah. All those movies are. The party. The fucking part. Oh, my God. That's right. The party. Forget it.

Birdy num-num. Oh, my God. now I'm not to get that shit my wife got me hooked on all that real cool Netflix YouTube oh my God oh my God I'm in heaven now yeah it's awesome I know how to work all that

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There's no sons of anarchy. Mama's on the rag. She's not going to suck your dick. You might as well get two fucking kung fu movies and smoke some dope and do some bonhits for Jesus. You're sitting there with those rotten fucking underwear. It's January 6th and your ball stink like fucking dick. Your fucking asshole smells like a billy goat. And your underwears are all fucked up. And you're sitting there going, I'm going to sling dick this weekend. You ain't slinging nothing but dirty fucking nuts act.

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Anyway, on it, Iron Dragon TV, Meundees.com and Naturebox. Who's fucking better than you, all right? You know how we do it later. Oh, I thought that was the black lady from the last office knocked me on the door. Fuck her. She's somewhere fucking jumping up and down. Obama's losing. I'll fucking give her fucking know about these fucking people.

Marz Gibranic. Nobody loves you more than me at the end of the day. Joey Diaz, I love you. We talk from time to time, and it's great to hear your voice, baby. I always leave a message for you. My brother, too, and I love you, Jimmy. I got to call you and shit like that. We'll be back someday next to this this week.

This is a Tuesday special day. We'll be back. We'll do another podcast one day this week. All right, Cogstock is. Have a great week. It's the first week of the year. You don't want to suck dick this week. You want to wait at least three years.

Have a happy. Cuban Christmas tomorrow, even if you're Iranian. Celebrate the Cuban Christmas. What do you do at Cuban Christmas? Tomorrow isn't the three fucking wise men show up. Tomorrow you don't give gifts. You've got to give everybody a fucking 50 or a 20 or something. So I should see you tomorrow?

Absolutely. Because you're going to give me money. You're a Cuban. Yeah, but Jews give the Cubans gifts. You're not back of this now in this fucking thing. I love you guys. Have a great day. Stay black. All right.

Joe Dee. Ma's. Tempe, Arizona this weekend. And where you have the weekend afterward? Back in L.A. baby. All right, baby. And you are at the improv. I'm at the improv.

Fucking Saturday night. January 10th, 8 o'clock and 10 o'clock. The one on Melrose. The one on Melrose. I got my man Mick Bettencourt with me. January 22nd. I'm in Buffalo, New York. You better fucking dress warm.

And the following week's football week, I'm at the Columbus Funny Bowl. I love you guys. Stay black, wash your pussy. You don't want no fucking antifungal medication in that. You know the weed's good when you forget where you're going to be. Let's see. Okay.

Okay. Now that the show is over, don't forget to go to naturebox.com and sound... What are you doing? Huh? Okay, I'm going to turn you off. I'll be on. Yeah, I'll do it. That's okay.

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