The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #261 - Greg Proops, Joey Diaz, and Lee Syatt

Episode Date: March 3, 2015

Greg Proops, Comedian and Host of The Smartest Man In The World Podcast, Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt live in studio This podcast is brought to you by:  Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount at checkout. Iron Dragon TV. A New Roku channel with all the best martial arts films. Use Code word joey for two free rentals. HITecigs.com For a better tasting, longer lasting e cig go to HITecigs.com. Use Promo code joeyschurch for a 20% discount Naileditlife.com - Get 20% off a vapor pen by using code word joeydiaz. Music:  Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel I Wanna Be Around - Tony Bennet Todo Tiene Su Final - Hector Lavoe Recorded on 03/02/2015

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The day the devil was buried at sea. Lee Syatt. Greg Proops. It's going down. Kick it, Lee. Kick that fucking horse. You got a new sound system. I'm over here deaf. You can't hear it?

I hear it, but I. You know, like, I'm on an airplane. That's all you got for Uncle John. I want them to be able to hear you. I don't want nobody to hear me. I want them to hear fucking be the gay, but he's savage. Dude.

What's up, buddy? How much? Just, I don't know why you gave me edibles. Don't worry about it. It's just a bump in the fucking road. That's why it's Monday. It's a beautiful day. You should have one this morning for breakfast,

but you eluded me all day. I didn't allude you. Lee Syatt, great proofs in the house. What's up? sexy motherfucker. Hello, Joey. Everything's groovy, man. Always a pleasure to see you.

Excuse me. It's lovely to be here. You're a beautiful man. Lisa, how was the weekend in Florida? Talk to me. It was good. It's just, as I'm getting older, it's interacting to see your parents. Like, when you're young, you see them as, like, I don't know one of these words superheroes,

but they seem like adults and they know it. And now that I'm getting older, he's just a guy. And it was fun. We went to got a steak. We went to Italian food. We went to see a movie. It was a good time. You didn't smoke a number with him.

See? No. That's what that father's sun bombing is all about. Smoking a number going fishing. I just found out that I actually brought a joint. One of the pre-rolled joints you gave me was in the bottom of my backpack. I kept wondering why it was stinking like weed. And I looked, but it was like in a hidden little corner.

And I flew twice with it. So thanks for that. There you go. And did they arrest you? It should have burned it when you were there. That's right. Did they arrest you? No, they didn't arrest you.

See what you're saying? See what you learn sometimes? When you forget something's in a bag? That happened to me one time, too. So what are you going to do? He's just... Have happened to you, Greg Proops? Well, you know what they say?

Only users lose drugs. And yes, I've lost them before. On my person, in my car, anywhere you can imagine. Somebody says they got robbed. Like, they robbed shit out of luggage. Probably do every once in a while. I don't think there's much supervision over the baggage. Kennedy Airport, I know they had scams a couple of years ago, airports like that.

That's it. So Florida was good. You go swimming or anything? No. You put your bikini on? and jump in the fucking ocean, nothing? No. You didn't put no number two on and go out there and get some sun tans.

A pool is always empty. It's hysterical. It's a retirement village of old Jews that don't go to the pool. And how far from the pool? 20-minute walk. How far from the beach? I don't know. Did you even see the ocean?

No. Fuck no. Why would you even go to look at the ocean? You're allergic to the fucking water, aren't you? All the places your girlfriend wants to go on adventure. You don't go down to the beach ever? No, not really. Really?

You don't like the beach at all. You used to go to the beach, right? You used to go to Malibu, a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but then Mercy gets car sick. My daughter gets car sick. She's two, so I can't do dick till the car sickness. Right. You have children?

Yes, you do. I don't, no, none that I know of. As you know, women are sneaky. That's right, you never know. You know, I sold one to some Koreans and 50 bucks. What's up, Greg Proops, you fucking savage? Nothing, man, everything. The shit's burning.

I got a book coming out. I got the video that we were talking about. I'm on the road. Who's line shooting? again and so yeah ABC still. Life is rich. No it's on us the CW now so you have to be a I don't know 13 14

to know what the network exists there you go yeah at least you're working brother yeah man a lot of fucking people out of work a lot of people crying I got a call every three days hey you've been going on auditions lately now that's why I do a podcast I don't have to worry about fucking auditions no more than going out and worrying

and some guy called me a day you want to come in for a movie on Sunday not really not really I mean, I didn't even think about it, but not really. And it was good because you're, like, got delayed. Oh, I got delayed like a motherfucker. Oh, so you couldn't have gotten in there anyway.

I wouldn't have gone anyway, but I got to the airport at 10 to 6 in the morning, and the plane didn't take off until 305. Yeah. Luckily, I had three stars of debt, these empty fucking debts. I popped two of them on the way into the airport, and I popped one going through security. By 12 o'clock, I was on fire, sizzling. Because I ate them on an empty stomach, basically.

I ate them like 20 minutes before ate anything even existed in my stomach. My stomach gobbled those fucking things up tremendously. Fucked up, Lee. You understand me? I was thinking about you. You're sitting there all celibut on the couch looking at the fucking ceiling, cock's-sucker.

I don't think floor is that cool with weed. It doesn't matter. You're the Captain Kirkland Enterprise. You're not going to smoke wheat because Floreney ain't cool with it, but they sell oxycotts and heroin and fucking scams and, you know, what are you worrying about? My dad lives in a retirement village where they don't let people park on the side of the street. That's perfect.

That's even better. That's even better. You go out to the balcony, you take three or four hours. No one would even notice. You really believe, I mean, what is wrong? What are we going to do here? It's a retired community. They're 80 years old, 70 years old.

If they sniff weed, you might save their fucking lives for an extra two years. Did you ever think about that? You might save their lives. Save their lives. You never know, Lee. It's fucking excitement for people. Yeah, it is. They got them, do you want to end up in a retirement community?

No. Do you, Lee? No. Okay, then. Then think about smelling weed. Like sitting there outside, looking at the trees, thinking, when the fuck am I going to die? And all of a sudden, you just get a blast the reef right there. You got to dial 911.

You're going to go, holy shit. Remember when I used to smoke weed? I went to see, go on the waterfront, and I went to see you on the waterfront. And I went to see you the Hendrix. Maybe I should go get some fucking reefer. That's right. And they're going to go to the bank account and pull $20 on and call their grandchildren. Right.

Some fucking weed center. You could have saved somebody old. And I told you that before you left like to go weed. I go, Lee, are you bringing an edible for your dad? Oh, no. I got to travel. Bring them something. You could have both ate an edible and giggled.

I bet your boat sat there and looked at each other for five days like two moose. You didn't go to the beach or nothing. You didn't go swimming? No. You looked at those bagels. You caught them in half. I tell you to bring a little reefer from him. He's a good guy, Dickie's siding.

Yeah, he loves reefer. Sure. What did you do? Do he have any? No. What the fuck? Did you ask him? No, I mean, I don't know. He's like 60-something years old. Aren't we all? He had an edible when he was here like nothingly. Well, that's because you give it.

Two or three of them. He always feels bad. He always says to me, I always feel bad when I see Joey because I don't get to say anything because you're always get him so fucked up that he can't even speak. Oh, please. He loves it. He smoked. Remember the one time, one time we lit a joint up, and it was like he hadn't smoked a joint in 30 years. He just started taking puffs. it, but he forgets that. It's something, 1960 no more. Right. And the weed's crippling.

The weed is crippling. You go down and see your dad. You didn't bring him a t-shirt, a hat, nothing. He has a couple of my, he has my t-shirts. All right, I'm just checking. You said I got to deal with Greg Williams. He goes down to Florida and doesn't smoke a number with his dad. And so it's cool that you tour with Who's Line? My brother and I used to watch that all the time.

You can still watch it. It's still on. Thank you for watching it when you did. Now what was first? Stand-up or improv? I was a stand-up comic in high school, whatnot, and then just terrible shit. In Phoenix? No, no, I'm from San Carlos, California. I was born in Phoenix, but I always lived in California.

And then I joined an improv group in college, and that's where I learned, like 1979. And so that's when I learned to do improv. And then after that, I did stand-up again, and then I was in an improv group, and then it's sort of been both. Now improv, what's the big, famous one on Chicago? Second City.

And that's the Long Form. Well, they do sketches and Long Form. I think their main stage shows, sketches, some that are classics and some that are written, and then they write sketches, and then they do Improv in between and stuff like that. And what's the Long Form? People have always spoken to me about that. Long Form is like, there's a bunch of different formats for Long Form, and it's not something I do a lot. I have done it.

You can do musicals. You can do Shakespeare's, you can do novels. There's one group that does improvise mysteries, you know, one of the, group does Jane Austen books. And Second City probably does their own one. UCB does one called Ask Cat, where you tell a story, and then they come out and do these long improvs about it, which is that one's really fun. Because you tell the story, you don't have to get up and improvise.

And then they get up and improvise what happened. And the Hoosline Group, we just do, you know, short improvs like we do on TV. And we bring the audience up and all that. We have music. It's like a rock show. We hit the stage running. Now, the theater You went to

In Northern California, who was? I'm sorry Oh, in San Francisco, we were up in God, where were we? We were in Chico, and then we played the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa or something. We played Marin. But was that any of the type of, like, improv they do here? No groundings. What's the lady out of Chicago?

She's a famous, all those people. She invented the long form. Oh, Viola Spolling. Vyola Spoll. Yeah, yeah, Billet. And then Keith Johnstone. Those are the two big improv gurus. And then Dell, I guess, in Chicago and stuff.

No, I never went to a clock. I learned from the other kids. I never went to Groundlings. I never went to war babies or whatever. They said, fuck it, old school. Don't fucking ITT tech here. I got taught by the other kids, so I didn't feel like I had to go to class after that.

Also, I remember, this is how it happened. I went to see, there was a canteen at my dormitory, and they didn't have booze. They had, like, cookies and whatnot. And they had an improv group there. So I went down, and they called someone out of the audience. And so I went, I'm fucking going next week, because I can fucking do this as good as them.

So I sat in the front row, and they went, can we get someone out of the audience? We're going to do an audience spot, and I jumped up, and I did a sketch with the guy. And the next day I was playing pinball, so could be an idea of how long ago it was, in the student union. And his name was Reed Rawman, and he came up to me, and he said, you want to be in my group. And so I joined the improv group there. And then they taught me out to play all the games, and that was that. You never did any improv, Joey?

I thought about it. I went to the place on Hollywood for a few months, but there was nothing, nothing ever really opened up. I took like sketch writing. Right. I was always interested in the outlay of sketch. When they first opened Improv Olympic, I took that. I think I took two semesters of it, and then... A lot of the schools are waiting.

You know, they get money out of people, and then they move you up to this stage and that stage. There's the second, you know, there's hierarchy within it. And I avoided all of that. And then I got lucky because His Line, the producers came to San Francisco, and I got right on that. And then I hadn't probably done improv in about three or four years when I got on His Line.

that stuff has always been very interesting to me you're the one a young a young guy or a woman will move out here after college and go to ground wings or improv olympic and give them thousands of dollars and take go through the levels of their comedy courses and the breathing and the whole fucking shamack

and I don't know where the end is like I don't know there's a graduation now what happens after the graduation the sketch. I don't know. That's the thing. You're sent into the vast pool of actors here in L.A. to fucking make your way and do whatever, write a sketch. I mean, not that there isn't a lot of successful improv people. Obviously, right now, the Saturday Night Live and all the sitcoms are dominated with like Amy Poehler and all of them, they're all from improv background. Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, whatnot, and all the younger guys too, I think all went through improv. So it's a good way to learn to do sketch and all that jazz. I just feel like, I don't like hierarchy,

I don't like rules, and I don't like fucking authority at all. And so for me, that's what the appeal of stand-up was at the beginning when I was a teenager. I got treated like a grown-up. I got to smoke and drink in the bars with people, and no one asked your fucking age as long as you could do it. So I thought there was a certain egalitarian democracy to comedy. You didn't have to have a degree. You didn't have to be from fucking Harvard. You didn't have to have connections.

As long as you carried on being funny, you were going to get a job. And the improv kind of happened for me that way. And like I said, I got very lucky and got on. What are the chances of getting on the only improv show in the world at that? point and I did it for 14 years and then we they brought it back like two years ago which is out of control the same

fucking show after 14 years you know it was on ABC for 14 years it was on British TV for 10 years ABC for four years and we stopped in like I don't know 2003 through 2004 and then they brought it back like two years ago in the W CW so you have you also live in 25 years I've been doing the show

oh my God but I only do you know we only shoot one or two days I never put a whole year in. I didn't have to go every week. There was none of that. It was better than doing a TV series because you didn't have to... Have I been off the mic too far the whole time? No, they can hear you. Okay. You don't have to show up every day. You're very fortunate. There's a lot of guys...

Very fortunate. In L.A. that... Of course, I'm immortally talented, so that's part of it. Well, that's part of it. And it's also... It's scandalous how poor I am, considering how marvelous I am. Well, absolutely, because, you know, maybe you don't beat the drum that they want you to beat the... No. You never know. I mean, you never know what it could be,

but I've always looked at you at one of those guys that you're... First off, I never believed in a stand-up that just did stand-up. When a guy tries to be revolutionary and say, I'm a stand-up, that shit has always shut me off. Because I had that attitude for like two weeks. Then I moved here. And then you realize that that stand-up shit goes out the window. People want to talk to you about this and this and that.

So I always respected that somebody who could write and do something different. When I saw you at the improv many years ago, you know, whatever, you made me laugh. I liked how you always dressed on stage. It was impeccable. I'm a fat fuck, so suits. One of the first guys, you know, we all see Lenny Bruce. Yeah.

I'm 52. We all see Richard Pryor. We all see, you know. I lowered myself down. That's fine. We all see Eddie Murphy. Yeah. And we see a Rodney Dangerfield special.

I see a guy named Lenny Clark who comes out with a gorgeous suit Taylor made maybe for that night He borrowed the 800 from his cousins But you could see how the suit fits It just has a weird look to how it fits You know and when you wear a suit It looks like a fucking suit

My dad had that my head My biological father had that look With a suit my mom said he could wear a fucking $10 suit It's just a And then I saw you on this TV show And I watched a few times You know? I mean, it's not

Who the fuck is home at that time? Yeah. You know, show me a comedian that, you know, you're out. When I first moved here, you're out every night of the week. Yeah, you're working at all the time. You know, seven nights,

you're home Sunday, maybe, maybe in those days, if they didn't give you a spot, but you went to the store at least and tried to get up a fake the funk. Yeah. You know, so I never, I never knew.

When I moved to L.A., I had him watched TV. Maybe. Seven years before that? No, of course, you're busy. I did not know who was on top of sports anymore. I moved to L.A. 97. I had watched the 94 or 95 NBA playoffs

because of the Houston rocket turned up. But besides that, that's when I got absorbed with comedy, like that's 60 year in comedy. And I lost touch with everything. Health. You know, I had a toothache. Fuckin, it went for a year. Yeah.

You know, all your focus is coming to L.A. And just trying to get in that niche. But the bottom line is I saw you on this TV show. And I was like, that's amazing that this guy is able to do this, stand-up. And then I saw you at different places. It had to be Houston. And I've always believed in that. I always think that your life is more exciting.

Like, I got to take this show now for three weeks. And then you stay home for a week and a half. I got to do stand-down now for two weeks. Then you might shoot a TV show for three weeks. then you have two weeks off, but it's not that same fucking grind every week of having to deal with club owners and selling tickets

and the shitty weather and whether or not there's a state fair. Yeah, no shit. That's the only part that's a grind. I mean, I don't mind, you know, I would do anything not to work in an office or have to have a real job. But sometimes the late night show, you're like, oh,

or when everybody's drunk or, you know, you're like, sometimes it's work. When it's going good, it doesn't feel like work at all. But as someone said, it's not the hour you're on stage. It's the other 23 hours of the day. You're traveling, you're going on the radio, whatever you're doing. You're being paid to just kind of cart your ass around and generally be funny. By fucking Saturday, what do you feel like by Saturday at 3 in the afternoon?

Sometimes I want to just burn one and not do anything or I'll go, I'd give anything not to go on a night. And then other times I'm like, I've got to get on because I got all this new stuff. and, you know, you're inspired. And then if it goes well, you're, like, way too inspired for the second show. And then everybody's drunk and doesn't care anymore. And then you got to do all your old shit because it works. That's a matter at that point.

Yeah, and then you just go, look. I'm just going to get through this. I feel now. But I'm generally inspired because I have a podcast every week. Every club I go to, the podcast is either the first night or the, you know, it's in there somewhere. So that makes me, you know, then I'm constantly on it because you got to, get your shit together for the podcast.

How did you find the clubs were when you said you wanted to bring a podcast? Because we've done a bunch of podcasts live, but mostly in the L.A. area. And we've encountered a lot of clubs. They don't know. They think it's stand-up or they don't want to do it. And if you're doing it every week or every week that you're out, has it been a battle trying to get them to do it? A little bit.

It was more a couple years ago. It's a little less now. The first time I went to Good Nights and Raleigh, they had no idea what it was. The first time I did it in Zanis in Chicago, that he literally didn't know what it was. Cleveland, the same thing. A couple years ago, I did one there. The woman on the phone goes,

what's a podcast? I go, you've heard of John Rogan, you've heard of Mark Marin. She goes, yeah, I'm like, well, they're really popular. Because of podcasts. And then you bring in your, you know, I bring my Zoom if they can't record it.

I have a little Zoom recorder and we plug it into the thing and do it. So it's a one-man band, you know. But yeah, they do. They're resistant because they think stand-ups the only way to have comedy. But these are the same people who think that putting an ad in a newspaper

is going to get people down the club. You know, like they're caught in a kind of belt. A little bit of an antique model. If, you know, I think you, television doesn't, if you do morning television, I don't know that it gets in anyone into the club. You know what I mean? You do it anyway, because you got to do it, but I think the podcasts do more to get people in the club than anything else. And also, the people that come to the podcast are there for you. There's maybe 10 people that don't know why they're there. Whereas at a stand-up show, if it's Saturday night and there's a lot of bachelor parties or bachelor parties

there might be 50, 60, 100 people that have no idea why they're there, they're just one out to drink and you're helping to be on. So do they like you, do they not like you? If you're lucky, everybody knows you. You know what I mean? I'm not at the superstar level where I walk in and I mean with Who's Live, it's different because those are theaters

and everybody goes mad because they're all there to see Ryan Stiles and, you know, all about jazz. And so those shows are just, it's up to you to fuck that up, you know what I mean? Then you just go on and just try to hit it as hard. you can and be funny. When you go on the road with these guys,

do you have like an audition at five or no? No, no, no. No, you motherfuckers go raw at 8 o'clock. No warm up, nothing. We drink. We drink. Beautiful. Yeah.

That's what I was looking at, we drink vodka, yeah. They used to drink whiskey a lot more, but now it's almost everyone's on vodka. Joel Murray drinks whiskey. I drink vodka and Jeff and Ryan drink vodka. When I first saw... You get loose and then you go off.

Fuck yeah. No, I'm with you. I see that when I first saw improv was a, troop out of Denver with Jeff Harms and this is back when I started comedy in 91 and I always thought it was very neat I just didn't know what else to do to pursue it I had my hands full with a divorce and blah blah blah

and then when I moved to LA when I went on a date with a girlfriend and we went over to someplace on La Brea maybe yeah actually her girlfriend wasn't one of the things and my Watson I always felt so when Improv Olympic Open. I watched it on

Saturday Night Live, but the sketch is maybe in another word, maybe a funny scene, you know, but then there's what, what your show does, and that's just a different...

Well, we go a million miles an hour. Yeah, that's completely. When people join the cast and they've put a few new people in the last couple years, they're all very good improvisers, so they jump right in, but there's been people

they've stuffed in that, you know, like, you're like, wow, this is a shark tank. We're not mean, we're all supportive. But when someone new is in there, man, you know, the joke comes in the first two seconds, you know. If they go, you know, Joey, you're angry at your ex-wife. You're the weather man and you're angry at your ex-wife. And in comes a cat and you, you know, like they write the whole scenario. So you have to play it out.

So there's no going like, yeah, let me set the scene here. Because it's television. and so we just go miles an hour and Ryan and Colin and Wayne are just fucking tremendous we throw the ball as I said we pass the ball like the Showtime Lakers no one looks over their shoulder

everybody just shoots the ball back because you know the other person's got it and it's going to go and probably has more energy and more direction than you that's the scary part they're all really focused so that part makes it fun

and also I've known these guys for 100 years how often do you get the question is it fake or is it not so much anymore used to get it more. People go, how can you do it? And it's like,

how can a surgeon perform surgery? I can't do that. Because he went to school for eight years. You know, like, I've done it a lot. That's how we can do it. How can you get up and do stand-up? I think what people are most freaked out by

is the idea of being on stage and not having a script or being on stage and not having anything to say there. They think go blank. But if it's something you want to do and you're a complete ham and you're lazy and you don't want to learn lines,

then it's the ultimate comedy because you don't have to learn lines. But there's no safety in that. And that's what you're. attracted to. That's why I like it. That's why I like it. That's why I like it. That's what I do in my podcast too. I improvise a lot of the podcast as much as I possibly can. And when I'm getting stale is when I know when I'm repeating the same stories over and over. And when it's good, I go off on a flight, you know, in some kind of crazy imaginative, you know, try to be fucking colorful and funny and

poetic and weird and not planned expectations. I find if I make a mistake, I follow the mistake. You know, like I fuck up a word or something. I'll repeat the word like a thousand times and try to make it into something else and I don't know. This is a very pretentious quote, but it's true. Leonard Cohen said cracks are where the light shines through, right? So you think you have withstand it, but you want to get up there and you want to do it the way you want it to be written and you want it to present it with the podcast. If something happens or someone tells me something or I think of something or someone gives me

something and it keys me into it, I'll follow that in the whole fucking way. And not, and there goes the script. No, no, no, no. You know what? And so that's how I like to play. And like the, you've done the set list, Prevenza's things. Yes, yes. See, I love that because they're throwing things at you.

And so it's up to you to, you know, whatever you're going to do with it. They caught me in shock the first time. Yeah, I bet, man. Shock, shock. Were you able to get through it? Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, here's the deal. When I first started comedy, for some reason, I just improvised. It was Tuesday nights in Boulder.

I started in Denver, but I developed in Boulder. and it was a steak comedy night. So for 1495, you got a steak and a comedian, okay? Or you? No, no, two comics. Real good comics. Triple-booked them. And in those days, it was funny.

Years later, I'd seen these guys still working on the road or out here. And that's, so after the third week, you couldn't do the same material. It was the same 60 fucking months who came in to eat the steak. And my goal in those days was just to get them to look. up from the state. After the third week, I bombed, and I kept bombing, so I go, I got to do something different. So sometimes I would open up, dance into music.

And in those days, I would go, you know what, forget about laughter. If I could get them to book their fucking fort. Right. If I could just strike a nerve. And that's all I would do, but I would improvise. When I wanted to move forward and stand-up, especially in Denver, and the clubs, they didn't go for that.

When I was in New York City developing, that's New York style what's going on what he'd do for a living blah blah blah we attack it once I moved to LA it wasn't shunned upon but it was secretly told

not to be no no don't work the crowd right don't work the crowd it wasn't shunned upon do your material tight tight tight tight right don't even fuck around so I stopped doing it I stopped doing it

right so here and don't get me wrong there's times I go on stage and the comic in front of me says something and you take the fucking ride this nine other ten times I'm going on stage with a list not even a list of a root I'm going up on stage with a root

and I realized I haven't even touched that route that I went off on something else and Lee will go with me a lot of times and he'll go you never talked about that bit and I go no we just did that shit tonight that was all fresh oh my God yeah because it was just I like that style

me too it's my favorite stuff I can't that shit of the same thing when I first got into comedy I saw what's his name from Boston. I had never watched stand-up comedy before. I always heard it in the albums. And I went to see some guy from Boston. Stephen Wright.

Stephen Wright. And then the next year I went again. I paid for the ticket this time. I did the same material. All the same chunks. And I left there. I'll never forget going, if I ever, stand-up was never even... I was a criminal back. Right.

And I remember going, if I was ever a stand-up, I would fucking write new material, at least. Because I know stand-up was based off something happening in your life. something happening in front of you, you know? So I always made that mental note. And that's why now you've never seen me do the same set twice. Well, that's nice.

I repeat stuff and I bring back golden oldies and something's going in and out of rotation. You have to. Right, no, no, no, no. That, yes. But I'm not going to go up there and start A to Z explicitly every night. No. That's too boring. And when they come to see you the third year in a row, they look at themselves and go.

He's always doing the corn flakes routine. What's what the cornflow? He hasn't even added a line to it. That's a complete stand-up comic. You got to add lines. You've got to change the routines around. That's the one that fucking has always killed me. I might as woke up on stage and improvised if I know you're going to see me now.

In a 45-minute set, there's usually four or five bits. If I bring two of them up that you've seen before and I improvised the rest, I understand that. But to come up with the same material, the same style, the same way I had done it the year before. That's never going to happen. That's never happened in my fucking world. Well, it's interesting with you, Joe. Like, you'll, for example, you had a bit about your cat dying. That you did under the CD, but then you use a little piece of it to get into new stuff a lot recently.

Like, you just do it, but it's not the whole bit. Do you think people realize that, or do you think they go, oh, he's just doing old stuff? Do you think they see the difference? Some people say he's doing old stuff, but some people say, listen, when you go see the fucking, fucking Beatles. I'm not saying the Beatles, okay, I'm sorry to use that. Stones? No, any band. They can do the same songs.

You know, you want to hear three of their, what you think are their favorite songs. It's whatever the consumer thinks, you know. When you go see Black Sabbath, you want to hear fucking sweet leaf and whatever, the cocaine song, I don't know. That's the thing. Sometimes people come up and go. Yeah, you didn't do that. You didn't do that.

You didn't do that. Where's my bit, man? I love the one you did about the thing, and you're like, I haven't done that for seven years, you know. I haven't done that in six years. I don't even know that. Right, I don't remember it. And then when you try to remember stuff? Oh my God, on stage with the light on you.

And you don't remember. And you don't remember the end to it? That did happen to me a couple weeks ago. He was there. Lee, you need a little piece of star. No, I don't. I can tell. You're not high on that mushroom.

Oh, my God. I'm having a little bit of panic attack. I've never had to switch the cameras before. And I want to make sure I'm getting like who's on, who's actually on talking. You're fucking beautiful. No, I'm on. But like. Take a little piece of the star.

Relaxed little. That's what you need. You need to, what I'm saying? The slop the mushroom. You're fine. My insurance company's going to use this video against me. Like, oh, what fucking insurance? He did it to himself.

What insurance? You look beautiful tonight. Oh, my God. All right. Let's do it. Why are you? Oh, my God. Because that little bit, like, it was literally this big.

That was given to me by a patron in Chicago, Indiana, Indianapolis. How nice. Who came? We started talking about us. Very sharp guy. Him and his buddy were there. talking some shit. We went inside.

We spoke some more of us Thursday night. We exchanged candies. I gave him some T-8C candy. He gave me some other stuff. He gave me some other stuff. He goes, man, I got these mushrooms in the car. You got to fucking try out.

I said, all right, fine. When I got off stage, we spoke some more. Everybody went outside and hung out for a while. And he went and had him. He goes, give Lee one and you eat two, but I only gave Lee House from all of a piece that I give you. I can tell you. I don't know it was tiny. I look into a little bugger.

I don't want to suddenly leave the hospital. That's how I know it's strong, It was tiny. True. Because you love giving me stuff. So if it's small, it's gonna, it's like a little grenade. You're gonna fucking Captain Kirk of the Enterprise.

I'm gonna throw you to the wolves. You love throwing me to the wolves. No, I don't. Talk to him, were you? I wouldn't trust him if I were you. You're doing exactly the right thing, Lee. Follow your instincts. Battle stations, Lee.

I'm gonna work. Battle stations. Thank God this is being recorded. So what? It's gonna happen. You got the will ready, right? No. I thought you said the wife made the will for you.

Here you go. She made a will for you. for herself for class. Oh my God. It's a little piece that's five milligrams. You're going to live. So what else, baby? Talk to him to one else.

You know. The book. What's a book? That's April. May. It comes out on May 5th. You can pre-order it now at Gregpreefs.com. It's a, it took me fucking forever to write because I'm lazy and I drink too much.

And so, but eventually I got it done. And it's called the smartest book in the world. And it's all the junk I talk about on the podcast. A Negro League Baseball. Um, you know, I got all-time baseball teams of all these different historical eras. This came out of the podcast. Like people would, I take questions and people would go, uh, who's your all-time Roman emperor baseball team?

And I go like, well, Caligula's catching because he can handle balls and, you know, Augustus is at first and, you know, this or this and that. So there's like, I think there's a greatest women of history won in Kings and Queens of England. There's a bit on how to steal art. Uh, it's, it's pretty fun. So how much did, uh, whose line help? Because it sounds like it's basically an improv. Um, well, uh, whose line helps in so much as, you know,

know, you're free to, like, imagine stuff and I'm not afraid to fail, but writing is a much different discipline, you know, you can't, you can't put it down on paper the way you can say it because otherwise it's like reading a transcript. And I think that that's a little more arduous for a reader to read something that's like, that has us and likes and pauses and, you know, all that. So I tried to write it like a, you know, I want it to be funny. I've read it too many times. You know what I mean? Now I had to submit it the other day, and I've read it too many times. So I don't find it amusing at all. I can only say this to your, your dear listeners. But I guarantee you that it's funny. If you haven't read it 18 times already and you didn't write it,

then it's new to you. I shouldn't have even said it's not funny anymore, but that's how I feel, you know, like, I think it's funny. You've looked at it so many times. You know what I mean? It's too familiar to me. And then you start questioning it. Right. Then I'm like, I should have written this part different. What the fuck was I thinking? Well, I, you know, I wanted to rewrite the whole book like a month before it had to be submitted. And, you know, my editor's like, no, you know, don't really you don't it took you two years to fucking put the book together don't do it so uh but it's funny i think and my wife did the illustrations and uh uh i'm gonna do a book tour all over the united states and europe and shit so it should be really i'm really looking forward to it

it gives me something to sell that i'm proud of you know what i mean like not that i'm not proud of my CDs and stuff but i would never bring a CD with me to sell i'd rather you download it or whatever i used to give CDs away at the podcast you know because i couldn't be bothered to stand behind a table and shit But with the book, I'll be selling the books at podcasts and stuff. So it's a whole other bag. It's very much one-on-one. And I talked to everybody in the audience before I do a podcast.

I go around the audience and shake hands and meet everyone there. And afterward, talk to everybody as well. And it's really worked out as far as like, you know, the connection between, that's what I mean about the difference between stand-up. There's no distance anymore with podcasting. Used to be a little, I thought stand-up was the closest you could get, but I think podcasting is more intimate. it because when people are listening to it,

they've got earphones on or buds, or they're in their kitchen, or they're in their garden, and whatever they're doing, laying in the street, you know, chasing a unicorn, whatever people do all their days. And so when I go to do the podcast,

I try to make it aimed at you. You know what I mean? Not a big general thing, but like I think that one person's listening. Especially when it's live. Yeah. I like it to be maybe 200 seats and less. I don't like.

I tried to call Call and they put us in big places And we learned our lesson twice We learned that it's just It's got to be intimate It's got to be very intimate And it feels good When you're doing a podcast

And it's fucking You're going back and forth with people In the audience It just feels good Even if it's not a lot of seats Like the one place we did It just was a huge building And I've heard comics talk a lot on the podcast

About how it needs to be a small room With Low Ceilings Yep But it makes a humongous difference, even being on stage or in the podcast, in the one place at the Ice House where we do it, and it's right above the stage. If you stand up, you're going to hit your head. And then at the other place, we did it, and it was basically like a warehouse. No, I don't like the bigger room for the podcast.

I got to be honest with you, I don't like the bigger room even for stand-up anymore. I mean either. It's not, I don't think it's the way stand-up was intended. I agree. When I see a theater or I see an arena, I know sometimes when I go to a theater and I watch a comic, I'm in town, I go in and see Lewis Black or I'm a fan or whatever. I got to tell you, I can't hear. I'm fucking old. Yeah, I'm Jeff.

Me too. I am fucking deaf as a, oh, my God. And sometimes people talk to me and I just, yes, me too. Because it doesn't matter. I don't want to say I can't hear you because I'm embarrassed. I go, they say it, and I can't hear him again. It happened at the airport. yesterday. The lady was trying to talk to me. I couldn't fucking figure out with you. I hear

something different. I hear like wah, wah, wah, wow. And with the noise, the more noise in the fucking room, the bigger the room, I'm not going to fucking hear you. That's why you won't see me at a bar or a discotheque or whatever the fuck they call them, clubs sitting there. That's how long time you've been there? I can't fucking hear you. I can't fucking hear you. So if this is a big room and there's something going on, I can't fucking hear you. Now, also I think like, I agree with you. And I think stand-up,

I love the punchline in San Francisco because the back walls maybe 20 yards from the stage, you know? I mean, it's, you know, everybody's up on you. Everybody's up on you. I like that. And that way you can raise your eyebrow or take it down

or say something softly or throw something away. When you're in a giant theater, you've got to jump around. It changes the temper, the tombrough, whatever. It changes the tone of what you're doing. When I tour it in,

for like four years in the 90s and I played decent-sized theaters every once in a while a huge one but mostly 250,300 but you have to pump it up you got to pump it up you can't come on and be you know how's it going I got it in a New Year's show years ago in San Francisco to Palisify Nights and I have to say I was pretty high when I did it but it was Maria Bamford and Todd Barry and and they did fine but it was a 1500 seat room

and you know, so Talit gets up and it goes like this, you know. And so everybody's kind of like, what? And I get up there and I'm just, you know, boom, you know, then then this and then this and running up and down the stage. I think if they're going to give me a giant stage

and a million people, then I got to jump around. When you put it in a small space, like Bar Lubich, I don't know if you ever go to Lubich. I do the podcast there a lot. It's fucking the smallest place in the world. Small. Fantastic. You can just throw one little.

little thing away and it fucking lands. You can't do that in a thousand seat room. You can't casually toss something off or get a laugh with, you know. It's interesting that you said the punchline in Sanfran because a couple years ago you did whatever the, what's a bigger club? Cobbs. And the ceiling's really high.

Right. And he did Cobbs and then you went back and did the punchline and just as someone from the outside you're like, oh, you can make more money at Cobbs. Probably because there's more people. But you You just, you like the small place. It doesn't even matter about the money anymore. Listen, I'm doing what I love.

And I got to sit there in a place that I like Cobbs. Yeah. But it's too big for a guy like me. It's just too big. It's just too big. I don't know what it is. I can't get my thing across. I can't make the facial stuff.

There's a lot of things that's lost. When I'm in a smaller place, I sell it a lot more. I feel more confident. it's not about the money it's about giving them the best show I could give them whether they paid a dollar or they paid 1850 or they paid 2722 with the fucking service charge which we don't see so it really doesn't matter I just want to give them the best show I could give them so I like 200 and under 225 is perfect if they're seated correctly 225 is beautiful 250 is beautiful but I think anything after 275

you mentioned the helium clubs the helium clubs the healing Liam clubs are doing it correctly. That guy is not a fucking govone. He does not eat with fucking three eyes. And he knows his fucking market. Okay, he knows, he's in Philly. He's in a huge fucking market in Philly.

But what's his seat there? 275,300, right? That's all you need in a fucking showroom. He could be a fucking savage and put $5.50 in there. And, uh... Then what do you do on the weekends, you know? What do you do?

It's savagery, guys. It's really savagery. You know, when I see those old, you know, Richard Pry and old George Collin, I like the intimacy of the small room. I saw Lenny Bruce, the one I like, that's a theater, though.

Oh, that is? When he's reading up from the... No, that's The Hungry Eye, isn't it? Is it really? Yeah, it's like the little club up on Broadway in San Francisco. Come on. The one that the movie,

the black and white movie, where he's reading transcripts, yeah, I think that's a hungry eye. Oh, my gosh, see? See? Toward the end. I like that. Small, short ceiling is imperative.

And, I mean, I don't want them all over me, but I do want to be up close to the man. So do I. I want to be able to see them. And also, like, you know, we're comics. I want them to smell my fart if I fart. Right. That's what I'm always thinking.

I swear to God, not in a rude way. But I'm thinking, if I fart and six people around them, one of them is going to look at the other guy and go, who the fucking farted in him? Not knowing it was to me. I like that. like that. Not that I'm going to fart. I'm just saying. You might fart. I might. How are you feeling, brother?

Not good. Well, I mean, good. You don't feel it. They ain't doing nothing. They ain't doing nothing. You stop. You don't feel it. Someone sent me a picture that you tweeted about it. So yeah, I'm feeling it. Are there rainbows and waterfalls coursing through your mind? There's not, there's not rainbows and waterfalls, but every time the camera switches, it like goes off and little little bits of the video, but it's interesting. Are you switching it or is it switching itself? No, I'm doing it. Well, you're doing a damn fine job. I'm trying. No, these mushrooms are doing the trick, this little piss.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, they got me too for a couple minutes. They got me too. They don't have me fucking giggling, stirring me in the neck like I got Lee over there. How long did it take you guys to figure out what you liked and what you didn't like? Like, to take 10 years? Because I would imagine now when you walk into a comedy club,

you know if it's going to be a good place to do a show. Well, I mean, you know, before you go when they offer you a place, I always go online and look at who's playing there. and if I see that it's people that I like then I'm in the ballpark if people I don't like or I don't know them or I think they're hacks or they're hillbillies or whatever

You do that, Joey? All the time. It's the first thing you do if you haven't played a room. That's the first thing I do Because you've got to see who's there If I see Jen Kirkman and, you know, Baron Vaughn, you know, if I see people

that are funny and great I go, yes, I'll go. And hip, you want to see a press and say. I want to see Chris Hardwick and Doug Benson's names there. I don't want to see, you know, Hackie McSnacky and and the stretch the mountain man and fucking juggling twins

and magic and this and that. I have like two comedians. If I see them in a room, one is Dustin Diamond. As soon as I see Dustin Diamond's name on the schedule, you know what's going on. I get off the schedule. If I see Jimmy Walker,

I get off the schedule. There's two or three others that I just go off the schedule because if they're on that schedule, I do not belong there. I've made the mistake a few times and played a few clubs where it just, you know, and you went, wow.

And it's like greed can cost you life, as they say, you know. Like, you just don't, you're unhappy the whole weekend. Then I end up just being drunk on stage and raging. So, like, let's say a club, you go to that club that isn't for you. What's the bad stuff? Is it the owner or is it the people who are going there? What does it do? I think it's everything, right?

Sometimes it's the owner. Sometimes they're nice, and the people who go aren't nice. Sometimes people are okay, and the owner's not nice. You know, sometimes it's just, it's a depressed place. You know, you'll go to a place where no one's had a job. in a hundred years and and they're methed out and you know, unhappy and you think

I'm not for you. You want someone else. But then other times it surprises you, you know? People always go to me, do you have material go over in the South? I'm like, yeah, guess what? People in the South have read a book. They're smart. They talk to each other. Everyone doesn't drive a truck around and it's not the Dukes of Hazard every second. You know, so I like going different

places for that. But yeah, you know, if they've got a lineup of really loud guys that I don't think are funny then I get a little nervous that they're not going to get the smart crowd in for me not that they require a smart crowd

I can play to anybody I like blue collar crowds because they're not as fucking judgmental as bourgeois crowds that think they know what's offensive you know they're like oh they'll go ooh and you're like that wasn't even edgy you know do you watch the news

do you live in the world wait until I say something hideous before you go ooh that I say but I said I was talking about Rick Overson once and he said hip used to mean you were really open-minded and could accept anything but it doesn't always mean that even hipsters have little parameters that they fall into I think sometimes having said that of course I'd rather play to a hipster crowd like helium I think it's kind of a groovy

yes I was just thinking helium when I tell you that at the regular stand-up show regular people come Then I have I do the podcast, like in Portland or wherever. There's a million more hats. There's a million more tattoos. There's a million more girls with beehive heritage. All of a sudden, it gets a little groovier. And then it goes good.

I think that's happening at all the clubs we're playing, though. I think so, too. And I think it's been the best thing that's happened in comedy in a million years is the podcast thing has really pushed forward that comedy's fun and hip again. Like it was when I first started doing it in the early 80s when no one knew what it was. and everybody just came. And then it got kind of hacky in the later 80s,

you know, because the clubs were just filled no matter who was on. And that didn't keep the quality up. A lot of great guys came from that era, obviously. But there was a big winnowing when everything kind of slid for a while. And that was healthy, I think. And then the internet has made everything beautiful again.

Because people can listen to you on your phone. You can make a video and put it on your website. You don't require a television station to be your... your mouth to the world, you have people. As long as they have a phone or a computer or know a friend who does, you're fucking in. You don't have to be a famous TV or movie star to get people who come see you. You know, it's fantastic.

And I think it's made it more democratic. We're able to do this in this room, put it out, thousands of people listen. You weren't able to do that years ago. This would have been so much technology. There'd be big, fucking tape recorderers in here and giant-ass mics and that fucking Bakelight headphones Releys But it is interesting when

Because you've been doing the podcast for five years We figured out Close to you That when we see A lot of people Are overproducing them Are like we just got all this new equipment in But it's still just me

And it's just to make the The little The experience better But there's not people Not sound people Not people fake laughing Sitting watching it happen So it's

It's almost sad when you see people Are they're jumping on the podcast bandwagon But they just hired people from the TV production companies Or the radio production companies And they're not doing podcasts In the end it's a conversation And that's what people are listening for And they're listening very closely

As if they were on the telephone That's how intimate it is That's it. They want to spend time when they're in their car They tap into a conversation That's all you're doing is Oh my God What are these fucking people talking about?

And people write me and go like my commute's two hours, I wish your podcast was longer, or I'm listening to all of them back to back, and you're like, how can you do that? You know what I mean? But if you have a long commute or you have a long ride on the subway or you take a bus somewhere or whatever the fuck it is, it fills people's time with something they can think about

and that they can participate in, as opposed to just being rattled off jokes to or a sitcom, which isn't very engaging. sitcoms you turn your mind off and you hope that it's funny, unless they're superb. Or radio even anymore. Well, radio is just black. and ads and then program music.

I mean, you know, gee Willickers, you go on these fucking stations and they play, either it's top 40 like Katie Perry junk or it's, and not that she's junk, but you know what I mean? Like, it's all auto-tune crap that I hate. Or it's classic rock, and it's music from when we were in high school. And you're like, people still want to hear Leonard Skinner

and fucking Aerosmith? You know, it's a thousand years later, man. I was listening to this when I was 17, you know, like... That's what classic rock is. Well, I know, but that's what's holding down radio. There's not, you don't go to a radio station and it's the newest, latest fucking bands that are underground. You know what I mean? It's not that vibe anymore.

There's no money in it. Well, there's no money in it, right? But there is on the internet, new bands can put their shit on on the internet. Absolutely. And we can put our new stuff on the internet and stay as current as you fucking like as current as this minute. And that's what makes it so vital. Radio for all it is isn't very current. I used to say if it was on TV, it happened six months ago.

You know. and if it's in the newspaper it'd have it a year ago, you know? Plus, TV's forced to lie and newspapers and radio are forced to lie because they're owned by giant corporations. And the giant corporations pay the money and they're not going to let them get out of the comfort zone

of the corporate lies they have to fucking tell, and the rich people that have to be satisfied by the numbers that come in and all that jazz. Whereas we are unencumbered by maybe a couple of ads, this and that, but it's, no one's telling us what to say.

and no one's to know we're not having meetings and that's the beautiful part you can smell a meeting when you watch a movie sometimes you go to a big watch a big comedy or a big fuck off blockbuster and you're like okay they met over this costume they met over how shorter skirt was going to be they met over this fucking scene

you know what I mean like it just you can smell the corporate decisions and with podcasting there's everyone's got their shtick you know but honesty is the order of the fucking day for the most part in podcasting And I think that's the biggest goddamn difference between comedy you'd see on TV in any era and comedy now. I'm not saying clubs or records that comics did weren't honest.

They always were. But podcasting is open. But now it has to be very honest. Yeah, it's open up a giant new thing. No, you have people watching you. People watching you. They're judging you by your words. And they think you're bullshit?

Yeah. They know it. They smell fucking bullshit. They smell it. They've been bullshit already. Yeah. They've been bullshit at every minute because what do you use? Something like, what is it?

I don't know, 5,000, 10,000 ads a day. Everyone has to sit through on your phone and the cheap, whatever you're, there's always ads coming at you. And this is the one time for an hour where you don't have to fucking, no emails from Africa. No emails from Africa, cocksucker. I sent you one the other day, by the way. I had all my money stolen and my credit cards too,

and I was hoping you could send me a couple hundred bucks. I'm in Tanzania. That's fucking crazy. And it's amazing how they steal your friends. I'm hotmail And your friend will send you a note And I'm stuck And you're like, what the fuck

Then you call them and go, hey dog Are you really in Africa? No, I'm in Hollywood Right Why, what's going on? Somebody stole your fucking email. Right, I got an email from you That you're in Africa

And someone's store your credit cards I get those once a week now Do you really? I used to get Russian Like, you know, like the potency ads Every once in a while And you're like, who the fucking? They're just out there.

Somebody died Somebody died left you six million And your will Oh yeah that shit Contact me Somebody in Russia Left you six million You know that type of shit

Not my dad But I met some of his friends I met some friends Of my aunt who's 92 And she kept telling me How Obama was Muslim And so with all that stuff I worry about

Like 90 year olds Who get computer set up for them Well a computer should expand their mind But I think people who believe one thing Tend to run to the things that they believe No but like what if what if your grandma gets an email from you saying I'm in Africa, send me some money?

Right, there's a total threat to old people being scammed all the time. No, I agree with you on that. But as far as politics go, if you're 92 and you believe that, wow. You would have thought you'd have been around the block long enough that you wouldn't believe that kind of. Yeah, I just smiled and said, okay.

A Muslim. It wasn't even worth, it wasn't even worth the argument. Probably our greatest Muslim president. Let's be honest. The other Muslim presidents weren't for shit. It's hysterical when somebody old is losing that mind. You know, the sales pitch from that end is so oriented around fear and making you feel cosseted. And I think that's why they buy that shit.

You know, it's really a matter of making you feel comfortable with crappy belief systems. You know, I mean, I don't think I have the answer. On my show, I'm always saying, question everything you fucking hear, including me. I go, I have an agenda. I have an agenda too. So don't just swallow blindly. But I go, when you hear something on the news and they go, controversial thing happened to the...

They said it was controversial. Maybe it was the real thing. Or, oh, the protesters are out in the streets disrupting things. Really? How about when the police shot them? That disrupted things, too. It's always, you know, there's agenda to everything. And some people just swallow shit blindly.

Whole fucking, you know... That's half of America. They said on the news that the thing that they do hurt them bring up. That's three quarters of America. Right. And it's like... They fucking...

Now we have... 82 news channels coming at them and radio stations. So they don't even know what the fuck to believe. And the cycle changes. What was important three weeks ago isn't important now. ISIS was important. Now they're not important. Then they're important again.

The terrorist acts in France are the biggest thing in the world for four days. And then they're not important anymore. But the situation carries on. And like that's the stupid part of news. That it's just a recapitulation of the... You see the same video sometimes of an event. Like 10 times, 15, 20 times. the same fucking clip and you're like that's not news news is something you don't know not the same

thing over and over again that and they don't want to tell the truth you know but having said that jellie i and lee i think that uh something i've noticed in the last few years is that that's broken down a little i can go on a radio show like a mainstream radio show and say the rich are onto the poor that's what's wrong with this country the rich control everything and they control the media and that's why everybody perceives things the way they do and Whereas years ago, people would have gone, no, no, no, that's not how it is. Now people kind of go, yeah, you're fucking right. And, I mean, I think the last election, for what it's worth, you know, when Romney lost,

that was a real serious demonstration of like, here's a super rich billionaire guy coming on with a billionaire's agenda. I'm going to cut medical care. I'm going to fucking make the poor fucking suffer. When they caught him say that casual thing where people think they deserve food or whatever, it was like, if you didn't understand it, wouldn't he say they said they're, What was it they think they're entitled to fucking food and air and whatnot? And then, you know, Cheney came on at Christmas and he went, I torture again in a minute at Christmas time.

And it's like, if you want to know what the rich are doing, they're telling you what they're doing. And it's controlling. And I think people are more aware of that now. A lot of people reacted to like occupying shit. Like, oh, they're just smelly students and shit like that. And it was a much bigger, more profound thing. Not like when I was little during the Vietnam War.

But that was for real. The country was a, It was a total civil war over young and old, rich and poor, people who wanted to fight in that fucking thing, and people who didn't. And that's disappeared a little bit. And part of it is a function of the government, obviously, and part of it as a function of the giant corporations,

not letting there be real news. In Vietnam, you turned on the TV when I was little, and there'd be a reporter in a fucking battlefield. Guns fucking going off all around them. Not embedded, not embedded. I'm here, and I'm in danger too. Now more reporters are killed because they don't protect them at all. hundreds and way more reporters get killed.

But unless you watch BBC or Al Jazeera or CBC or some outlet that is not controlled by the American media, you're never going to see any dead bodies of the people. Like the thing that they keep selling war all the time, we've got to send troops, we've got to bomb people, we've got to do this. If they started showing all the dead people, then people would not be as for war as they are. And that's, you know, they really want to sell you it like it's this like you can win a war. and there's no winning war. Wars are there so that they can keep everybody poor.

Well, I want to see what they've done half the time. You're absolutely right. Now, that's a great point. I want to see what's done. Why are we doing this? Let me see what they did. Let me see what they did. Let me see the damage.

Well, didn't Cat Williams have that joke? Like, they used insurgent, and he said the thing he made funny, but he was like, I don't know, not one insurgent. And it's true. It's true. I don't remember what special that was on, but he was talking about it. about it and it's a

I'm not anti-fox a lot of people are anti-fox I'm anti-foccafucking news Lee yeah I don't I just you watch the news and after six minutes you get depressed you ask yourself why am I doing this I have some It's your grandmother a time bomb

yeah I have something I can be doing what which news outlet do you watch you say you don't watch Fox no I mean I'm not anti-fox a lot of people hate everything the Fox doesn't yeah the news probably is definitely skewed but then there's MSNBC, which is skewed the other way.

I honestly don't... It's not skewed as the other way as it could be. Right. There's no real, real lefty news on. Maybe Amy Goodman. Right. It's not as skewed. But what I was thinking is there was that guy yesterday who got shot in downtown L.A. And the big thing was the people took the video.

Yeah. It was just a video. I didn't watch it because I don't want to see somebody get shot. But I don't watch any... When we first started the podcast, we did it at 6 a.m. Because you said news was two to... depressing. I don't watch any local news. I don't even turn CNN on unless there's a big

something big, but most of it, I watch on my phone or on my computer. I don't, there's nothing I do. I was just laughing because you're finger in your mouth, but no, it's just interesting that it's all, I don't have any news. Well, no, it's just, there's no news outlet that I go to. When I was in college, I got most of my news from the Daily show, which is,

skewed a little bit, but he's a little bit more... I think a lot of people like you. They get it from their phone on the computer in the Daily Show. But I read a lot of different stuff all the time because I talk about it all on my podcast. And I think the foreign outlets, you get a different perspective,

you get sometimes more news, actual facts and stuff like that. Well, Vice has blown up in the past few years. Vice is a good place to go because they have lots of stuff. Then, you know, there's the lighter, slockier stuff like BuzzFeed and, you know, that kind of shit. but I think the British papers and the Canadian papers, also you get opinion. They do things like break down what's going on,

you know, to tell you what's happening within the story, as opposed to American news where it's a big headline, some blood, and then whatever, whatever. You know, there's always a hook to sell you the news, and it's kind of like, well, news should be interesting on its own without, I don't have to see someone get blown up

to fucking be captivated or whatever. And they let rich people off the hook a lot in the news, But here's something I'll complain about that, you know, like you were saying. The real news is what's happening around you all the time, right? I mean, and so if the real news is the news of what's going on, then people don't have jobs. That's important. Women are being hassled all the fucking time and abused. That's news.

But you don't see those stories on the news because that's not a story they want to sell or that has any money to it or any traction. Well, yeah, the news on television is governed by ratings like every other TV show. entertainment. Yeah. So they can't tell you what the truth. What I feel is that there's a lot of news

we don't need to know. Do you know that? There's a lot of shit we just really don't need to know. And that's the downfall to me of the internet. That now I know everything fucking immediately.

Yeah. Like when we were growing up if something happened, McDonald's was getting shoot up, they go after an hour. Mm-hmm. After there was a standoff or something like that.

Now, when the shootings were occurring, three, four years ago, Sandy Hook, I'm not sure what the date was, and I'm very sorry for this. It seemed for a period after that, if you pulled the BB gun out, it was on Google within two minutes, that's what they were pushing.

They're not pushing it no more. Now it's on third page, or Google or Yahoo, whatever the fuck it is. It's whatever they're pushing at that time. Who determines what they're pushing, though? Is it who? Who wakes up in the morning and go, So today we're going to, if somebody gets shot in the fucking eyeball,

that's who we're putting on the pay. I mean, who determines this? Well, different editors at different places. And I'm sure they have orders from above. Like we're not getting enough hits. Put something on that'll. Right. We got a nice shooting.

Let's go to that. I just watched at the gym. Tomorrow never dies. It's an old 007 movie where Pierce Broson was still 007. But it was the bad person, the bad guy. was a news magnate. And he had a private army that was going around and creating news.

I don't know if they're doing that now. You'd like to think they're not, but they could be. I mean, what's to stop them from doing? And I'm sure there's some people, a lot of news channels have gotten in trouble for not showing the whole thing or selective editing or what's the Brian Williams

who just came out that he just lied. And Bill O'Reilly, yeah, and he lied too. What did Bill O'Reilly about? I saw that the idea. He said he was in, what was it, Beirut? I didn't read that. Yeah, he's lied about a whole bunch of different things. And, you know, he said he was there, basically,

where that he participated in things that he wasn't participating. And I think it was the first Iraq war or two. And, you know, they stretch the truth like everybody else, but they're entertainers like everybody else. What makes me, what gets me is there's people who peddle opinion only, but they're considered news people, you know. And then you're like, well, no, they're just making stuff up because they want to push buttons.

You know as well as I do. on a stand-up stage, it's easy to push buttons. If you wanted to get up there and just make people fucking scream and howl, you know, at different topics, you could just fucking do that by just introducing whatever. And I think you were manipulated like that all the time. But, you know, the beauty of being around now is that you have choices.

You don't have to watch TV and you don't have to listen to it. You can seek out other. I just would suggest to people that they stop being on Facebook and on Twitter every second and maybe follow a couple of other things where there's some more information. If I'm on Twitter,

a lot of my Twitter following is news outlets, which are pretty interesting. I follow a lot of news outlets on Twitter. Today, for some reason, I was doing something at 5 o'clock. The baby was just waking up and I switched to Channel 7 eyewitness news. And the top report,

it was, forget what the fuck it was, but the second one was about the weather and how there was hail. And right away, I switched it because that's not the second best story you have to fucking tell me. Something happened that's affecting us right now. I'm not

talking about a fucking Glendora supermarket that's getting held up at gunpoint. There's got to be something that's affecting us. And that's not the fucking hellstorm in Burbank. I don't give a fuck about it. So I switch it off. Because they're not telling me what I thought I wanted to hear.

I don't know who's at their house. Who gives a fuck about a leopard sighting in Kostiak? We have a leopard siding. Who gives a fuck? Something's going on that's affecting me. You know what? Open up with the 405. Let's talk about the fucking 405

so people know where their husbands are. That's what gets me about any news outlet. And when something happens, they make it worse. They scare the fuck out of you. They scare the fuck out of you. And they scare the fuck out of you. And they scare the fuck out of you. of America. Now you got these reports with

Gupta and the other guy. Everybody's got their own little fucking report and everybody's got their own opinion. But that person in Pittsburgh doesn't know that. He thinks that this is, that they did scientific fucking facts on this. People are afraid that ISIS is going to cut their

heads off and there's pretty much no danger of that happening. You would have to be there. You know, they sell you a lot. I mean, like we have to take our shoes off at the airport because one guy tried to blow up with the shoes, and that's been an effect for how long now?

Last week, I walked through this last time, I walked through my belt on guys. I do that all the time. Nothing fucking happened. They got pissed off, I mean. You don't take your belt off, you were a soldier. When I was bigger, I used to, I didn't want to take my belt off. No, I do, but when I was 80 pounds heavier, I never took my belt off.

What happened to Tony Bennett? You forget about it. You always always were fucked up, looking at the camera, like somebody's going to rob you out. You're looking like one of those guys at the security place. Looking at the camera. One of those guys are coming. A little Tony Bell. the feed just to suit things out. The candles...

Hey, you're cats are crazy. Oh shit. I want to be around to pick up the pieces. What's up, Lili? Nothing. The beautiful night to be alive. Yeah, these are fucking strong.

What? These mushrooms. How do you know it's not the little corner of the triangle in the red? Because I have that... I have that... corner. I have that.

I usually have an entire star. I'll leave him on. Yeah, sure, come a month. I have that two nights a week, and I know what that feels like. This is, it's different than we, though. It's like, I feel a little bit more energetic.

And then there's a little bit of the hallucinations, but nothing crazy. Like, I've always heard about. No, I don't want another one. That's it. The media scares you in mushrooms. You're going to see the devil. This is going to happen. That's going to happen. fucking happens.

No. That's one of the main things that media tries to scare people off of. I got an email from a kid till the 26. He didn't know what to do with his line. I'm like, for starters, you got to live. You got to take the safety then away

and live, but they got these kids so fucking scared. Scared to pieces that they're going to fail or something bad's going to happen. Nothing's going to happen. You're going to live your life. And also, failure is the most important part because that's where you learn.

You know, people, but to bring it back to standard, but I talked to these two kids a couple years ago in Atlanta. And they were kids. I can say they're kids. I'm old enough. And I said, one guy says, we want to talk about our career. And I go, how long have you been doing stand-up?

And one guy goes, eight months. And the other guy goes, like 14 months. I go, you have no career. You have no career. I said, you must fail a million times. And every time you fail, you'll be better. Never mind the sets you do well. Those are good sets.

It's when you go up there and eat shit, then you've got to fix everything. And that's when you, you know, Face yourself. Like you said, your process of going up and you're improvising, you come to a discipline. It doesn't work.

You got to fucking fix it. And it's the same in life. If you don't try to do something, I agree with you, man. I say to my show all the time, Carpe fucking Diem, what are you waiting for? And this is the other thing I'm always on.

Don't listen to your parents if they're putting you down. Or your friends say, oh, you shouldn't do this, or your teacher or whatever. And I had a teacher in college said, oh, you know, you should be a character actor. You'll never, you know what I mean?

Like they want to put you in a box and you should do this. You shouldn't try that. I mean, fuck you. It's hard sometimes on the other side of it not to take compliments or positive reinforcement too seriously. Because a lot of people, I've been with, I've worked with Joey for like four years and it's funny seeing comedians. I'm sorry about that. I know. It's been a rough life.

But it's funny seeing comedians who have everybody saying. good things to them and how much their act changes, how much they change, and it's, uh, it's hard. It's hard sometimes when, like, if, I'm sure you get a lot of nice things, people saying to you about your podcast and about stand up. And if you only listen to that, if you didn't read any of the bad comments, I'm sure your act would suffer. Well, it's not so much the bad comments, because bad comments are, in my case, are usually people who disagree with me. And I don't get that many of them. But I have a wife who keeps me on the fucking straight and narrow with the comedy. If it's getting hacky or it's shitty, you know.

And also, I think we're our own biggest critic. Well, biggest critic. You listen to your shit back. And when you're bored with it or you repeat yourself or you're just being hacky, that's when I'm like, oh, no, got to fix that. But I agree with you. You can't be in a bubble of people telling you how great you are because you're not that great. You're only as great as you are right now.

You know what I mean? You actually see comics going into that zone. Yeah. Once you start, you see them. going into that people love me so and from you and you look at them now and you go I'm just going to give that motherfucker rope

he's going to learn the hard way I have a friend who calls me once every ten days to talk to me about this film career and nothing's going on he was on a show 15 years ago almost 18 years ago but there's nothing going on

nobody wants to see me I've done more than most of these people have fucking done you know and it's like it was fucking yesterday guy who who you know who gives a fuck

you have to you have to do different fucking things but to put yourself in this uh you know what are you gigging about Liam

look at him as high your headphones like on your eye no it's over here because well you know he wants to hear

through every orifice I'm gonna sit on mine for a while if you don't mind what the fuck are you I'm over here looking at him I'm going to go

why is he giggling unless he sees someone you're very amusing when you wear your headphones over your eyes oh he's gone.

He's fucking... How you're going to get home, cocksucker? I have no idea. We'll find out. Yeah, you'll be fine. They'll be a tax. Go have a burrito.

You'll be all right. Yeah, a little burrito, two burritos. When you guys do the... Whose line is it? You said you drink. How would it be if you smoked a ton of dope before? Oh, I get high sometimes, too. Oh, Jesus Christ.

That would be moving too fast from it. But I don't... You know, I do it sober, too. I do it every which way. Right. You do it every which way. Right. You do it every week.

I don't necessarily get completely loaded every night. Usually we have a couple of belts, and maybe I'll have a couple of hits or something. But, you know, we've done this a long time. And I don't think it makes me funny or anything like that. It makes it different for me. What I worry about is the timing. Because if you're too high or too drunk, your timing's fucked. For saying things.

And also improv is 90% listening. Oh, it's a lot. You got to listen all the time. I know how you do it. And reacting. Reacting is funnier than, you know, like you got to react to something someone did. You got to react all the time. So if you're like, oh, man, that was, you know, you can't slow it down to the, you've got to be faster than the audience when you're doing improv.

So, like I say, we've done it a long time. So we're really comfortable with each other. And the other thing that we do in the group that I like is that we make each other laugh. We did a show a couple weeks ago in fucking Vancouver. We did two in Vancouver and one in Richmond, BC. and I was crying, laughing the whole fucking show. That's important. I mean, I was like Ryan had me on the floor.

Everybody, Joel Murray, they did this Mennonite dating scene and he fucking went, the most intelligent of our people moved to North and South Dakota. It was like context of nothing of Mennonites, like they were Mennonites from Canada. And when he said that, I just fell out the fucking door. And we did an ice skating scene. And it won't be funny at all to listeners.

But if you're watching an improv scene, and it got set in it, like, where did you meet? Oh, wasn't I skating. It was roller skating. We met in a roller skating rink. So we skated through the whole scene. Everyone was backwards, of course, because it's funnier.

The whole scene, everyone was going around in circles backwards and meeting each other and talking. And I was never so fucking happy. And I've done this for a thousand years. I was just like, it's still fun as shit. You know, you get paid to be a child, but you have to be an intelligent child, a sensitive child, but it's picking up everything that's going on and barfing it back up. You can't just laugh at it.

But I'm wildly amused by the other guys. I think that's the other thing, Joey. You know, you meet so many assholes and show business and people who don't like comedy that are in the comedy business. They're producers or their managers or whatever. They really don't like comedy very much. They could be doing anything.

They could be in a bank. But this is their job. And so that, you know, performers don't go. But I am... You feel the difference. Oh, very much, though. You feel the difference. I love, I, not I don't watch it every night in my life because I'm doing it every night, but

I love other comics. I laugh at their shit. I'm not, I try to keep the petty jealousy of my fucking life to a lower boil so that I can enjoy other people's, all we do is talk about other, tell jokes on the road and talk about other comics and do bits to each other and do other comics bits and you know what I mean? Like you, you have to be in love with it to get any joy out of it. Otherwise, fucking punch out. You see people get burned out, and I understand that.

A guy said to me years ago, he passed away his name was Warren Spotswood. He was very funny. And he said, this is the Holy City Zoo in like 1983. He goes, if you get burned out, stop. Maybe for a couple months. Maybe a year if you have to. But never tell everyone you're quitting. Because you're not going to quit.

You're a comic and you're going to fucking. And then you see like Jerry Seinfeld, whatever. In the end, he comes back to being a comic. You know, yeah, he had a TV show for nine years. The first thing you did was go back on the fucking road and write a new act. And, like, I totally respect that. I have tons of respect for that.

You know what I mean? Because that's what you are at the end of the day? That's what you are at the end of the day? That's what you're at the end of the day? And he goes, Bob Newhart once, and he goes, this was years ago. You remember 97, 98. And he goes, I called Billy Crystal the other day, and I went, why? And he went, I told him to get back on the fucking road.

He goes, like, you got a gift. Get out there and write something. and at that point he was probably 70-something I said how many dates he'd do and he's like 50-60 a year you know he golfed the rest of the time but he was still doing dates and Phyllis Diller was doing dates till she quit The only reason Bob Hope quit doing dates was because

he couldn't physically get up and do it anymore But he was working till the bitter goddamn end I don't think we stop you know what I mean I didn't join I didn't become a comic so I could retire I intend to do it till the mic is prized from my fucking cold rigor mortis you know laden fingers, man.

I mean, as long as it's fun. And then, like you say, you got to do new stuff all the time. You got to branch out and I love laughing on stage. Me too. I love... When the audience makes you laugh

or when something happens? Oh my God. I love eight minutes saying when you just burst into laughter and they feel it now. Yeah. And you're laughing at maybe something stupid you said. Yeah. Or something stupid. Like today, I didn't know how to give

Lee the mushroom. So I was sitting there tonight at about 7.15. And I went and I was going to get the start and cut a piece of the mushroom and put it into the star. Oh, you're going to sneak it in?

And I made myself giggle. And right there, I said, why am I doing this? And he called. Yeah. And I said, Oh, that's what I called? I was just thinking about you, how I was going to sabotage. You're fucking starting it.

I love the fact that I make myself laugh from time to time. I'm fucking 10 too I fart in the middle of the night and I giggle okay I tell everybody my favorite I say I sleep at me

if I could fart and smell it through the hole I'd giggle my did I tell you guys I put the fucking sleep at me your mask on on the plane the other day no you didn't yes I did I put it on a Delta flight

yes I did on the way there it was broken but on the way back I was at that airport for fucking six hours I put that sleep at me a mask on I slept with two good fucking arms.

There was a little Japanese guy next to me. I must have farted that whole that airport oatmeal that airport oatmeal with the dead raisins and the crampas

I must have cut there you're oh I must have cut six of those bombs at them I got a fucking hit dealt up those cock suckers that was a horrible

experience and you know what listen I've gotten I'm older now that I won't freak out at those things it happens

there's nothing could do with a tire or breaks or whatever. But I'll tell you when I start to get pissed off, when I see taxpaying, God-loving Americans get pissed off. Once I see people with suits getting pissed off, that's when I get pissed off. Because after six hours, just let me know what the fuck the problem is. Give me a hotel room.

Whatever, yeah. Let's do it tomorrow. But they keep saying 130, 215, 245. 420. I'm sorry, they came from Cincinnati. They brought the wrong tire. Are you fucking kidding me? Go get the fucking tire and whatever DuPont.

Or let's do this. Get the tire on your own time. Go get a plane from the back. Get the fucking Puerto Rico. It was amazing that I could buy two 30 days finally. But they were very nice. They brought bagels. Did they?

They opened up with muffles. Wow, I got stuck for five hours the other day and no one gave us bagels. The first fucking delay, they brought muffins. The second delay, they brought bagels with different cream cheeses. The third delay, they brought pizza. Where were you coming out of? Indianapolis. Oh, okay.

Nice, nice people. Yeah, I was going to say, that's the heartland. Yeah, Christians. Yeah, Christians. Fuck, I forgot to put the bagels down on my calories yesterday. I knew something was fucking missing from that airport. I just thought I ate the pizza. But I ate a little bagel, a little light cream cheese.

Couldn't have been much. But when I got on the fucking plane, they said there's no meal on the plane. What? Because, and I'm in first class, I upgrade. I've been flying for 35. five years, they said because the food went bad. We'll go get more food. No, they said we have to eat peanuts and chips and shit.

For five hours. So I'm going to have to call Delta people tomorrow and get like 500 miles or something on the fucking cuff because that's what you do. You can't let people walk all over you. No, you can't. Just for a fucking few bagels, Lee, I can't have it. You know what I'm saying? What's up, Lee? How are you feeling?

Everything all right, my friend. How's it going, buddy? I'm good. I'm good. This is different than last time. The last time I did mushrooms. It was at night, so I couldn't tell if we were at the comedy store, I couldn't tell if it was just the lights at night.

Or if I was... Visuals? Having visuals. I think we should another piece of this. And I'll meet you on the dark side of the moon. Just another little piece? It's not bad. I told you it's not bad.

And I'll let you know, and all that you feel. Let's do it. Do you want to eat another piece? Watch the Wizard of Oz men? I don't want to do that at all. All right, come on that. We'll eat a whole... Watch Guardians of the Galaxy Backward.

Yeah, Lee. What was the last day? You got the blue shirt on? I do. You might as well go for fucking... You do have a blue shirt on. I'd like to rent a video. We're almost fucking matching tonight, Lee, Zayette.

What's up, buddy? We're almost matching tonight, see? I did it on her. You're in Violet Blockbuster. He's a regular Blockbuster. He's a bad motherfucker. I miss Blockbuster. What do you do the most of?

You do improv still the most, or you break them right down the middle? Podcast it, yeah. Stand up probably the most of all, and then podcasting most and then improv. Because we only go out, we go out every couple months for like a week or two. here, there, weekends in there. When Ryan wants to do it, it's Ryan's group, basically, and I've been lucky enough to be in it for like 15 years. Is it really?

It's his group? Yeah, well, Drew started it. Like, when we were doing Housline, Drew took us all to Vegas in, like, 99. And then we ended up doing a bunch of Montreals with Drew and this and that. And then we would go out with all of us, like there was a little, I used to call it the Preakness. There was like eight or ten of us, which is way too big for an improv group. Improv group should have four to six, in my opinion.

That way you don't wait. You're not sitting. if you're in a group of 10 people you're going to sit through three scenes and you get cold you start looking at the floor you start thinking I'm gonna I need a I should get a taco

I wish I had a you know your mind starts to wander with four people boom you rock through the whole you're in every scene so it's more like the Beatles and you're right there all the time but we don't go out every minute

and then people go oh don't you miss Who's Line and I'm like no because I see them all all the time and when I go to England I play with the English guys from Who's Line and they have an improv group there in London called the Comedy Store Players and they're hilarious

they're really witty and I sit in with them and so it's good fun you know and I like I last year or year before I went to Ireland with some buddies who are all English comics and Irish comics and we did improv

and fucking giant Tandon Dublin and shit and little dinky pub and Galway that you're fucking sweating your ass off and there's fucking five million Irish people in there and the place is heaving and you know it's just fucking it's fantastic fun you know and what could go

wrong really you know you're drinking you're doing drugs it's just it's just beautiful yeah I mean to me that's the whole I didn't get into it to be like what was that line of the Sopranos I remember someone says something to junior in one scene and he goes what are we in the fucking Navy and I don't

like I didn't get into this to be in a big company I got into this to do stuff with friends that I like and again go places I wanted to go and so I've got to go all over and I you know we were in Vancouver a couple weeks ago Vancouver's fine

it's groovy man you know and like and when I do the podcast people you know how it is they give you stuff and they look at these mushrooms

yeah you interact with people but there's a shared commonality I love that I have fallen in love with that whole thing I have fallen in love with the Twitter

Facebook going to the show seeing the people I only tweet in the mornings I only Facebook in the mornings I don't fuck around I got a life but it's funny that the people

that I have become acquainted with. You meet one or two at a fucking different city. And it really, it really shocks. Let me give some shout out. I'm having a podcast listener on my podcast tomorrow. Toking Lairn's podcast is being released tomorrow. It's really cool.

Because we meet a lot of nice people, but it's interesting when you get to have like a personal relationship with a couple of them. You must have been, how long have you been touring? You mean as a comic? Like 125 years. But you must be people.

I used to tour in a wagon. There must be people when you go to cities that you've seen six, seven, eight times. Of course. And the podcast people, I know them by name. By they? They come because they've emailed me and I have an email called MailforGregatgatgum. If you want to email me. I read them all.

I don't answer every single one anymore because there's too many to answer all the time, but I do answer a lot of them. And, yeah, in Philadelphia, I just saw Guy New. I've met him in New York. I've met him in Philly. We've talked. three or four people in Philly, I knew on a first name basis. I went over to a cat's house who I met at the podcast and did his podcast because he's a musicologist.

I go into his crib in Philly, nothing but fucking record CDs and books, right? He's an academic of fucking music. And so we talked about comedy and music and performing. His wife's a teacher. I was like, and I don't know this guy. You could have killed you. Well, he, he. He's a statue of death.

Fucking Greg. I brought him some books and, you know. You had a relationship before you went. Absolutely. I got those. Today I went to the mailbox. I found those Roach clips that they sent this. I got a review.

And I found two birthday cards. My man in San Francisco. These are guys that are just a... And my man in Chicago, tremendous people that you come and become. And I never thought that was possible. Right. I used to laugh at that whole situation. It's a personal connection.

It's a personal fucking connection. This week Pat showed up at the fucking... You know, he was in... Where the fuck he was? Indianapolis? Now he showed. up in Indy. Where are you playing in Indy?

Crackers. Oh, Ruthanne. Ruthanne's very cool. Yeah, she is really nice. I like that. Do you ever go over to what's the McCallet, the one in Bloomington? What's the fucking name of that place?

Not years. Not years. That's a really neat. It's a nice room. It's like upstairs. I was very... I was very... Indiana was very nice.

Yeah. They're lovely people. The people were lovely. Indianapolis, the people were lovely. Let me give some shout out to you. I got a card from a guy that his kids made the card. And they said their future church. members, but he didn't leave his name on the card.

I want to give you a shout out. Your kids are talented as fuck. I got the card in my pocket. I took it out. I hung it on my bulletin board. David Whitey. I love you, cocksucker. New York Rob.

I got you. Kenny Sharrocks, Michael Jordan. Patty Shea. That's who showed up again. John Correa, Greg 9937, John Black. I love you. Thank you.

And John Lewis. That's who fucking showed up. How's that for you? That's awesome. So you become friends with these guys. Sometimes they'll hit me up. You know, we're trying to meet. It's very, Dave Wilder shows up all the time.

You know, Oogie Spooky. You get to meet these people from the podcast. You have a relationship with them. Cleo, asked me to be on a podcast, we don't have Skype. It's fucking just so many things that you now are possible over a fucking wire. This is unbelievable in the mornings when I'm fucking around on Twitter telling people to watch their pussy and fucking,

I'm putting music on. and people hit me back. It's like I can feel their energy. As dumb as that sounds, I can feel their energy. Well, they're enthusiastic. They really are. They're wired into it. It's not a casual thing.

It's important to them, you know? And they're important to me. Yeah, very much so. I have to do this on time. I have to fucking stick to my diet. There's so many little things I do because I feel like they're watching me now. We watch each other. We're like a little family.

I'll tell you what really baffles me about you. baffles me with all the schmucks and we're going to get a laugh on this you're with a regular mid-sized agency and then we share the same agent for booking

but I mean you're theatrical I thought you at CAA I thought you had Jack Nicholson's manager who drove you to fucking breakfast every day I thought that people let your cigarettes I'm not in that game as much as I used to be it's amazing I can't

I figured you for a CIA guy. I had big agencies in the past. Some of them have let me go and I've let other them go and I never seemed to see eye to eye with them. I remember being with one agency once and I booked two sitcoms in one week. I had to turn one down to do the other

and I went into me, talk to my agent at the time and she went, what are we going to do with you? And I went, I'm sorry, what do you mean? And she goes well, we got to think out of the box for you. I went, I just booked two fucking sitcoms this week. And she's like yeah, but you, you're crazy, you're

odd. I mean like they're like you don't, you're talking to the wrong person here. If I hadn't booked two things, then you could say this to me. Like you're hard to cast. When you book two things in a week, you're not hard to cast. And I think that they, they get a little kooky. They want to put the people in. And also they're under a lot of pressure to, you know, provide the people that they think, you know, that the people want and da-da-da-da-da. It's hard for them to be imaginative. You know what I mean?

It's not in there. It's 2015. It hurts my fucking soul when people don't think outside the box, whether it's fucking comedy or even open up their eyes. When I talk to a club about podcasting and they look at me with three eyes,

what is it? Guess what? I don't even want to deal with them in the stand-in-vent venue because you're fucking gone. You're on another planet. Right, you don't know what's happening. And you know what?

These are the guys you do, and this is why you do what you do. And I get it. I'll never contact you again. I'll tell my agent never to bother you again. But that's how I feel about it. We've had this, we were doing the podcast. And when I went to the management and goes, hey, can you lower the lights?

They looked at me. I had three heads. What do you talk? And then she turned around and she kept telling the story. And I'm like, oh, my God, this is just so real. I've gotten into so many comedy clubs where you go and the comedy club owner might be a scumbag. But at the end of the day, he's a fan. and he watches two of your sets

and he laughs and he brings one of his friends to watch you and it's a better feeling than dealing with somebody who gives you a big paycheck but treat you like a corporate drone

yeah he's just a fucking jerk off what do you mean you want the lights low this is how we always have them because I want it different from my show right well no no no

no no and it's amazing that they look at you with that look of fucking stupidity right now you're demanding you wanted a table

and we just see it different we know what we want we know what we want we know what we're works for us. Look, I need a table when I go in and a chair and two microphones. I make it very clear. I email them. If there's a tech person, I email the tech person. And then sometimes you come in and nothing's there when you walk in. And you're like, and they go, what did you, what did you need a table? And I've stopped doing that. Like, I won't do that anymore. I don't

throw a fit of anything. Last week, it didn't, they weren't ready technically for me. And I just calmly sat and then it all got sorted out by shuttime and it was okay. You can't lose your shit. But I really, at one point I sent out a giant email to everyone that I was, was going to work for and went, I get this many listeners a week, this is my job. I know to you it's just another fucking comedy night or whatever. But when I come in,

please have the table ready when I come in for the sound check. Have the mics set up. Don't just fucking, like, oh, yeah, we got to get another mic for you. No, you knew that for fucking a month, two months before I got there. Really, this sound familiar. Right.

I mean, this is a constant struggle podcast. When you get there, right? Well, you get there. And then they go, we don't have a jack that goes in the thing. And you're like, fuck you. I asked for a table mic, I asked for this. I don't ask for a lot. I didn't ask for a buffet.

I didn't ask for special treatment. I wanted someone to be there an hour and a half before the show so I could fucking go test. It's amazing how many comedy clubs supposedly don't have mics or cords. I have everything now. And sometimes it's a pain in the ass. If it's in Los Angeles, it's in my car.

But a couple of times I've had to bring it to on a plane. And it's a pain in the ass to get through security. Yeah. But at a certain point, You don't want to have to deal with it. You don't want to have to... But why don't they have mics and courts? And why don't they have a computer in their sound bay

that they can record the show on? No, they should. They don't. Most of them don't. Even now, don't... And how many people are doing podcasts on the road? All of us. Right.

And one time I forget where it was, I almost had to take a cab to a Best Buy to get a cable. Right. And luckily, they got to figure it out, but it was just... It's amazing that I just do it now, and they might have it now.

They might have it. but it makes it less stressful for me just to bring it. How about, we can't play an iPod or we can't play CDs or we can't play CDs,

we can only play this or we can't play an iPad or CDs. How are you playing fucking music back there? Well, we got a computer. Well, then how can't record the show on the computer because no one knows how to do it?

No, you're not paying it. What fuck how many year is this? 1958? I mean, like, I can't fucking get over. I can't deal with it. I can't deal with it. It is the weirdest part of it because it happened to me last week.

We don't have this cable or the cable was going the whole time and I'm like, you guys, you guys, I'm not doing Broadway musical where there's 25 miced people on stage you know what I mean? And a full orchestra. This is one person talking into a mic and all it has to do is go through one feed. I feel terrible. How many times have you gone somewhere and at the end of the night you find out or when you go back to

your room and you plug it in oh the sound's messed up? Yep. And it happens all the time and I feel bad and people ask for the podcast but even though yes even though it's supposed to be just a conversation and you might be able to hear something that you is a perfect sound quality I don't want to put out something and the for the I guess what it really is is the bottom line the club thinks okay this mic is good enough for a stand-up or this this cord no one said anything right it's been shorted for 14 years and why it's running through the wrong outlet We haven't potted up too much. Why spend the money?

It doesn't make sense for them to spend the money. I did an opera venue or a classical, you know, symphony hall in Omaha. Beautiful gig. My guy got it for me. They paid me a lot of money. They were doing like Stravinsky's ride of spring next week. So I was upstairs in a little concert hall

that had the beautiful wooden walls and the baffling. Like you'd put a string quartet or a small orchestra in this room. And the guy came up to me and he goes, I'll record it. I'll record it. And I go, look, I can set up my Zoom right here next to the thing. And I'll fucking push me. No, no, no, I'll do it from the board.

He came out. My producers, Matt and Ryan, they got it. And they were like, look, this is just. So they salvaged part of it. It sounded like a 40s radio show. So I came on in the beginning and went like, this one is a fort. You know, now we're broadcasting from the top of the ballroom here. No, you always do your own shit.

We've learned our lesson. And this guy was a technician in a classical. Like I thought, well, I'll let the guy do it. it because, you know, maybe they record, you know, like burlios or whatever in here and opera singers and it has to, because the sound in the room was fucking, you know, genius, right?

And they had a bar set up in this upstairs concert hall, so people were juicing, you know, it's the fucking Midwest. And I had a fun show. I got drunk and I had a great time, but God, it sounded like shit. And I thought, if you can't play a goddamn symphony hall

and have them... Do it right. Right? You know? I like, chuckle hut. Yeah, I get it. There's a guy. He's not really the sound guy. He pushed him into service. He doesn't actually want to fucking push the button.

Most of the merchant store guys. Yep. And they have, oh, on Wednesdays, I do sound. Right. And they know that this fader lets them talk to the audience. They've never changed the mic out. Which is fine. Not everyone has to be a sound technician.

And I'm not even a sound technician. The craziest thing about, for me, the last couple weeks, I've been redoing the tech in the studio. There's no, there's no guidebook, and it's just a lot of, like, I'm not, I don't have a sound degree, and I haven't spent years doing sound, and yeah, sometimes the sound isn't great, but I'm not just, you didn't just go off the street and someone, someone felt an application. And I don't, the one thing I learned when I was working, because I've only been doing this full time for about a year, I was doing this part time with a, I had a working TV. And when I was going to do anything, interviews for a job, I would never say I could do something that I couldn't. Yeah. It's the worst. And that's, if the sound guy at the opera house had just told you, oh, yeah, yeah, plug in your thing. I'll do it.

I'll try to do it through the board. I'll try to do it myself. But it, you know, it's almost like it's lying. And they feel lied to. Right. And it's terrible in that house. And I wished I'd just done it myself and then I would have had it. And anyways, how long does this go, Joe?

I don't mean to be a spoils. No, I just want to ask you one last question. Okay. What made you do? Since 2010, I've been bored with it. I thought that the traditional microphone brick wall was going into a weird direction. I saw that some clubs were building higher. And everybody was trying something different.

But nobody went crazy. Then the specials, Lee, what have we been talking about? Doing a special somewhere different. I don't want to do a special on a fucking theater because I don't like fucking theaters. Right? If you're trying to promote me with that icky, stupid one, it's 2015. And also one day, maybe a year and a half ago,

I hear on a Sunday night you're taping a special at Muso and Franks. A historical restaurant in the heart of fucking Hollywood. What made you pick Musso and Frans? Well, I wish I could say it was my idea. We were looking around for theater. We went to all these places. You go to a place and they go,

we want to shoot the British and I, you know, we want to shoot a stand-up show. $10,000 run. Seriously. Theater is here in L.A. $5,000. I was like, we don't have that budget. My manager went to Musos for like a Munchkin's birthday party.

I'm not kidding. And he came to me the next day and he goes, I got it, Musos. And so we had lunch with the owner and we made a deal. And we put a jazz band in and we pulled the place with smoke. And we got a brilliant director, Marcus Rabeau, and a brilliant producer named Neil Marshall. And my manager's over at Burlstein. And it was his idea. And I immediately, the minute it got out of his mouth, I was like, exactly right for me.

With martini glasses and fucking suit and tie. the waiter's got the gold coats on you can see them walking around during the show we served booze and food during the show you know we we had it you know you could if you came we did a small audience in the back room there so it was maybe 70 80 people

and I stood on the floor had a table next to me with my booze on it and it was just and my notes and shit it was like the perfect atmosphere and we only got one pass I didn't do two shows and I improvised a bunch of it and I'm not telling you which parts I did and other parts I'd worked

on. But I let that happen, you know what I mean? And there's a few things that I wish I had back, but I think it was better to be spontaneous and do it in that beautiful room. And everyone felt so great. It was like a Sunday afternoon. Everyone came and fucking clothes and

you know, hats and the band was quite. I know Justin said he went. Yeah. Oh yeah, Justin went, yeah. Justice said he was gone. I go, fuck, I wish you would have told me earlier. Yeah, well, I'd love to see this whole thing. I thought it was brilliant. Yeah, I wish I could claim credit that I picked the

place. It was one of my favorite restaurants. So when my manager said, I was at Musos the other night, I was like, can we, so we went in and like, you know, with everybody, what can we clear out, you know, so we just move some tables, that's all. And no stage. First, we're going to build a stage, and then I'm like, don't build a stage.

Musos doesn't have a stage. I'll stand on the floor with the waiters. We had a waiter introduced me, Ruben, Sergio. And it was fantastic. I love all that stuff. Everyone had martinis, you know, everyone got juice it's Sunday afternoon and

started early, you know, so you could live your life. No, I love that shit. I'm going to read the sponsors, then we'll get the fuck out of it. All right. Greg Bruce, where are you at this week? Thank you for asking. Tomorrow night I'm at the Nerd Milk doing my fabulous

podcast and then this weekend I'm off, baby. Next gig is in Santa Barbara at the something brewery company. You can go online, look it up. I'm doing the set list in Santa Barbara. I'm the 21st. I just saw him, yeah, he's a great kid.

The kid that books are with me. Troy. Troy. Troy is a pretty fucking guy. Lee, what are you doing? Cocksuck. Everything all right. The mushrooms rolled off. I told you. I'm releasing my podcast tomorrow. Okay. And that's it. What's the name of the podcast? Flying Dew Radio. Look at you. Flying Jew. The name he gave for me. But no, yeah, people like it. I had a great time. Where are you, buddy? This weekend coming up, I'm in another frozen terrain, Cleveland, Ohio. You'll love that. You'll love that. No, I love all that stuff. I've been there before and I love it. It's been too long. Last time I went to the improv and the name. with James. I used to go there

when it was Sarah 9. Saranai left. Then the other guy with the sleep batting and it took it over and it became a fucking urban club. So that who fuck knows

what's going on. LeBron Dale is going to come down? They put you across the street. There's lots of nice restaurants on that block. There's a Mexican. There's like a little groovy hipster place across the street

that does artisanal burgers and shit. It's fucking really nice. It was really nice having you. Thanks, Joey. I wanted to have you on for a while. I've always been a fan of improv but not really what comes with it.

And you're not that. but dude, a lot of those improv guys you go and they look down on you, the I-O and the other places. I've seen how you acted to the improv. You've always been a gentleman of people. Well, thanks. I was very excited when I could get you on. Trust what I'm telling you. I didn't give a fuck what came out of your mouth.

It was just something that it was like a personal thing for me. Well, humor certainly didn't, but there we are. Lees are all right. Lees will be fine. Lees going to eat some marshmubes with his uncle Joey. We'll be fucking fine. Yeah, I've been hilarious this weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. The next week I'm in Sacramento, then I'm home for a fucking month.

Why fuck around it. See you in the March, stay at home, relax. It's Easter, the wife's going away for three or four days. I'm home solo. Are you going away for Easton this yearly? No. We ain't doing for Easter. You're going to go to eat hunt with the wife?

What are you going to look for? I don't know. I don't think they're... East is fucking sacrilegious for Mexicans, dog. I don't think they... You can't be slinging dick over there during Easter. Why not? those legs shut down on Thursday

No, they're not religious After the last supper They got religious pictures all over the house They do but they like She's like prayer groups that she goes to But she doesn't go to church They never go to church Doesn't mean though

They're still religious, Cox They're gonna have They don't give up that ass during the fucking Holy season, trust me You'll be over there holding Fucking little Bing Gita's fucking room Little shout out to my fucking lovely Sponsons on it

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I need the fucking all the oxygen I can get. I'm a fat fuck. I'm not like you got cardio for two hours on that epileptical. That's how he lost the 90 pounds. He's a fucking savage. Also, shout out to, listen, I'm sick and tired of people sitting at home going, Joey. What I do on a Friday night? Go to Iron Dragon TV, a Roku channel, classic martial arts from day one.

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What are they pressing the box, Lee? Joey. Boom! Joey! You get two free fucking movies on the arm. No questions asked. You understand me? You sit there, you see the wires, you see Godzilla. Whatever classic martial arts you got want, they got. They don't fuck around. Also, a shout out to my main motherfuckers and hit E-Sig cigarettes. I don't have none here, Lee.

You got your slipping. Yeah, you do. I asked you, said you didn't have a thing? No, I didn't. You want a cigar one? Sure. What the fuck? You're slipping. You're sitting there for two hours with a new haircut, you got gel in your head, dude. Hitty sings, the best. If you didn't quit smoking yet, you're fucking slipping. You got 24, 16, 8,

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motherfucker out. Like a fucking doctor, you understand? electronic cancer goes right into your fucking laws. There you have it. I fucking love it. Because Joey's church and get 20% off. That's right. You get 20% off right now.

Electronic cancer. What the fuck? I love it. I don't give a fuck anymore. Who gives a fuck? And you know what the cool thing is? I got one foot in grave with the banana peel. What do I give a fuck?

I saw a commercial for one of the popular ones. And they were the big thing they were saying is, oh, 550 puffs. Fuck them. We give you 1,200 pumps. For $18. Yeah, more than double. You can puff your fucking way right into whatever you want to do. You'll be puffing, eat the ass, drinking, whatever the fuck you want.

Eat an ass? Sure, you got enough oxygen. Go to Hitties Sigs right now and get 20% off and they ship wherever you need to ship. What's the story? What's the code? Joey's Church. Beautiful, Joey's Church. And don't forget NaildonLive.com.

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com, you get 10% off, you press Joey. Who gave you these mushrooms? Don't worry about who you. You have to thank them. What's with the questions? Oh, they're tremendous. I love them. You should want to take what the dog?

I'm fine. Thank you. I'll let you have. want to go. Well, maybe I'll take one in a doggy bag. No, fuck that shit. I'll give it to leave.

I love you guys. We'll be back Wednesday. Stay black. I want to thank Greg Proof some more time and Lisa I have to take in the shrooms and everything is beautiful. Have a good night. Go to on it.com.

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