The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #565 - Dan Cummins
Episode Date: March 8, 2018Dan Cummins, a stand up comedian seen on "The Tonight Show" and Comedy Central and the host of the "Timesuck Podcast," joins Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt LIVE in studio. This podcast is brought to you by:... Blue Apron: Go to blueapron.com/JOEY to get $30 off you first order. MeUndies.com Go to meundies.com/JOEY for 20% off of your order of first order with free shipping in the US and Canada. Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a 10% discount at checkout. Recorded live on 03/08/2018.
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This is direct from the fucking rush, and he even came out from the back.
I got this at 7.15 this morning, like normal people shop for Rifa.
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All right.
Kick that fucking Mulee.
It's the church of what's happened now.
March 8th, motherfuckers.
Here we go.
One, two, three, hit it.
Pop goes the pop.
Gold, the wine and other weasel, I see the empty pocket needs a refill.
Who the fuck you think you're dealing with here?
Church of what's happened now, bitches?
So we can make it known that we won't get swayed.
It's 91, son, so something's got to change.
Getting paid pedal sneakers and soda pop, pop, not take your top 10 pop head.
Fix the music and makes sense.
This rhymes fit.
I guess it's the fact that you can't be autistic, intricate rapes.
Are you fucking kidding me or what?
So some stay a letter written feeble legally licked you go the ways of the weasel.
Oh shit.
The flying Jew.
Dan Cummings.
Are you fucking kidding me?
You might as well break out the syringe, bitch.
We're going deep.
We go to wheezo, the wheezo.
Are you fucking kidding me, people?
Are you fucking kidding me, people?
Pull over, just pull over.
It's over.
You're just sitting there drooling going, what the fuck, Uncle Joey?
Why must you abuse me like this?
Oh shit.
I score more points in one period appearing in complex structure like a pyramid.
The paper for the media presence.
Are you fucking kidding me or what?
That's when it was starting out.
That's a couple white dots.
dudes goofing on vanilla ice.
Are you fucking kidding me or what?
I don't think I've seen somebody have that much fun with third base since 1991.
Yeah, no, no, no.
That is.
You just fucking got into that.
That jam, when I fucking found that the other night at like 12 o'clock, I just take it.
I take it, I take, like, you know, the goma goma and the fucking melatonin mixed together.
Oh, yeah, I do the melatonin.
I do the whole thing.
What else goma goma goma.
I don't know.
I don't know what my wife gives it to me and I take it.
All right.
And I pop them and I'm waiting an hour for the shit.
shit to sink in.
And I'm popping through videos, and I
found that. And I've got to tell you something,
for a minute, like my body just froze.
I forgot about that song. Like, it took me
right back to, I was in the halfway house.
We used to watch that in the community room.
Wow. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And white
guys would be dancing. A couple black guys
would be dancing. Did they not let you watch, like,
intense, like, explicit music?
Did they let you listen to that? No, because in those days,
MTV was in a whole three, three-flood halfway house.
And they had a community
room with a TV that you could get your food and go down there and chit-chat with all the other
convicts or they had a TV in your own room and you were either in a three-man room or a seven-man
room. Okay, gotcha.
Do you follow me?
I feel like that was a, I think Pop-Pop goes, Pop-O-Po-P-Wizel was like a year or two before.
It was a weird era of hip-hop with like the white dudes, like, a OMC, how bizarre.
I think he was just, remember that?
Yeah, yeah.
How bizarre.
Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum.
So many funny songs looking back.
But yeah, third base, I think they took themselves pretty seriously.
That was my favorite part of like when I just watched that video was them.
I love it.
Like, there's no way that that song is less corny than Ice Ice Baby,
but they're just shitting on Vinot.
I was living in Boulder when Ice Ice Baby came out.
And I hung out with this dude that was solid.
I loved him.
He was my brother for years.
And he had a nephew, a brother-in-law.
Okay.
That was probably 15th,
little ice came out.
Yeah.
And he was a vanilla ice freak.
Oh, yeah.
And our job was to torment him.
Like, we would just, fucking, we would just.
Who gave you this job?
We would tell him, like, listen, fucking, you know,
what's a black dude with the baggy pants?
Oh, MC Hammer.
Yeah, we'd go listen, Hammer.
Yeah.
We would fuck up vanilla ice and he would lose his mind.
Like, he would pull his hairs out.
He'd fucking cut his own skin.
I was junior high
When Ice Ice Baby came out
And I thought
I literally thought it was the best song
I'd ever heard of my life
I knew how I could do the dance
That was like
Because that was like
Run DMC
tougher than lever
I got to that
And then fat boys
I was one of the rare people
That had a fat boys
Cassette
Remember the song
Jelly Roll?
It's like one of the worst
I eat
I need it
Jelly Roll
Well it's good
For the heart
The body and soul
I eat it
I need it
Jelly Roll
Just like this corny
That shit was terrible
It really was
Terrible
But I thought it was the coolest.
I remember playing fat boys.
If you're 12 and 13 at that time.
Oh, it's the best shit I never heard.
And, you know, you're like, this is the coolest thing.
And then you listen to it when you're 16 and you fucking throw the album away.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Give it to mom.
Give this to blind kids or some shit that don't know.
And what a weird era where it's like, you know, NWA's debut album wasn't far behind.
It was right around there.
And iced tea with like body count and stuff.
So there was like hard hitting real shit at the same time as I eat it.
I need it.
This one was right around the corner.
Oh, yeah.
That was the first,
that's one of the first CDs I ever bought.
Yeah.
It's crazy when you look at it and you saw the whole thing.
And I really saw it in New York.
I was a kid.
Oh, yeah.
I'm an old fucking man.
So I saw the disco go from disco to fucking.
Like Sugar Hill Gang and all that kind of stuff.
I still remember doing an eight ball one night.
When I was 16.
Yeah.
And we listen to that, a hip, a hop, a bit.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
We listen to that over and over from 11 o'clock till six in the fucking,
it's the only album we had in the house.
That's all we listened to.
Early cool, Jay, like when he was like 16, he didn't come out too far after,
or like 85 or something, 84.
By that time, I was gone.
Okay.
I was mugging people.
Not to change the subject, Joey, but how many people have you sent to, like,
mental institutions?
I can't believe he said this guy was cutting himself.
Oh, my God.
What are you talking about?
Let me tell you something.
Let me explain something to you.
I was thinking as I was telling Dan Cummings.
I had the weirdest thing happened to me.
For years, people trusted me with their kids.
I don't know what the fucking thing was.
And I'm great to kids.
I'm great with kids.
Josh Wolfe's kid will testify to a Josh Wolf will tell you.
This is a weird subject you go into after sending people to mental institutions lead in.
But this was the deal.
I kind of babysat him and his.
his mom would work at Albertsons
and they knew I was struggling and they were struggling
so we would help each other out so the struggle was
they would let me their car at night to go do a gig
if I would watch the kids to know this is before Josh Wolfe
okay okay this is really open my days
in Denver and I would watch their kids
and they had a five-year-old kid
and I loved them like he was my fucking son
And I would get Chinese food and we'd watch Bruce Lee movies.
And he would ask his mother, please let Uncle Joey watch.
So he started getting older.
He liked football.
So we would play football in the fuck.
I would clean out the living room and we would play fucking football.
I watched that kid for years.
And he hated, he would always carry the ball out.
So right before he'd score, I'd just take the ball out of his hand and I'd go fumble and he'd go, you cheated.
You cheated.
You cheated.
And this is constantly.
So he would fucking go to the room and go, fuck.
you yeah I don't ever want to play with you again but the next day we'd be out
there tackling each other right and one day we were playing football I knocked this
tooth down just preparing for the game he had to be about ten
I knocked this fucking two-tenth how old were you I had to be in my fucking 28 or
something he still calls me Uncle Joey I just talked to him when I was in Denver
he just as a fake tooth no I don't know what I was it a baby tooth or grown-up
tooth I think it was a little younger but he was he loved me and I loved him
and then I moved to Seattle
and then I moved to Los Angeles
and Josh Wolf just had a kid
and she had a work
and Josh had a fucking work
and I slept on Josh's couch
and he would say listen you don't watch the fucking kids
you know that's part of the fucking deal
and I still remember
me being at the comedy store one night
and getting a call from one of my friends
saying hey man
I have a problem over here
I'm watching Josh's kids
kid
and he won't stop fucking crying.
Josh, I called Josh,
but he's too far away with his wife.
Can you come over?
And I had to drive over to there.
And like they were watching TV
and playing like baby music.
He didn't like that.
He liked how I put him to bed.
I put on fucking sublime.
Yeah, yeah.
And dance with him to sublime.
Yeah.
And dog within two minutes.
Josh, you interview Josh Wolf.
He'll still tell you from today.
Because Malia, his wife,
was a bigger wife.
woman and she had big
fucking jugs of debt
and she was warm blooded
Thai and Swedish. Okay.
So she was bigger and I think
at that time I was a bigger guy
and I don't know what it was. He loved me.
Jacob till this day, I'm his
Uncle Joe and yeah, yeah, yeah. And the
girl too. Yeah. Because the girl
at that time had to be three.
So she had a brother that was
five that would torment her. And every
time I'd catch him fucking tormenting him
I would fucking tell Josh when I'd squeeze his ear.
Yeah, yeah.
I'd poke him in the side or I'd do something to them.
But I had them all, like when I would, I had them all, like, after they fart, they'd go by you.
So if you fart about Josh's kids, they would go by you know what I'm saying?
Like the little one, the girl still calls me Uncle Joe.
And I still remember being in the car with her and Josh one day.
And she was in the car seat.
And she was the cutest little thing.
And we're driving on this.
between sunset and what's this street that you could drive on when you're drunk?
Fountain.
Yeah.
It's, Kettison said that you could drive on Fountain when you're drunk when you're drunk.
But the years ago, and so we're driving down that street and there's a homeless guy.
And he's walking across at a cart, but he's taking his time.
And he looks at Josh Wolf and Josh Wolf has to actually break the car.
And the guy looks at Josh and all of him.
And Josh goes, under his breath, he goes, fuck you.
And all of a sudden there's silence in the car.
And the little girl goes, I can't wait until I can grow up and say fuck.
Because fucking, you know, she was always around me.
Sure, sure.
We tried the control.
But I was always, for some people, for some reason, the weirdest people trusted me with their kids.
The reason why I'm thinking about it got good energy.
You got good energy.
I feel like this was going to be a dark story.
It's going to end with like she's a mental institution now.
Oh, no, no.
This is, yeah.
But I would fuck with them.
Yeah.
I'd fuck with them.
You got to torment my kids.
I fuck with my kids.
You got to torment them or not they'll torment you.
Yeah.
You got a torment them from time to time.
What do you mean?
Like torture them.
Like, you know, play fucking.
I scared the shit out of my son.
My son, he's jumpy.
He's twitchy.
Oh, it's just the best reaction.
It's so rewarding.
Where it's just like you sneak up on him when he's like nervous in like a dark area.
And I'll just get right behind him.
Just really like, like, you just really like into Harry Potter.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, well.
So she just, she's five.
Yeah.
She just got into it and she's wearing the wizard hat and shit.
You scared the hell out of her?
So no, so I'm thinking of getting like a costume like that dude with the beard and waking her up at night in the middle.
No, that's a good guy.
If you want to scare her, you should get, I shouldn't tell you this, but you should get dementers.
Like in one of the books, like the scary, like flying guards, the gate, they guard the prison.
Yes.
They like Dumbled door.
I think she's only watching the first one now.
But no.
Yeah.
The reason why I was thinking of Josh Wolf and these memories, because we were talking before the podcast started about Seattle.
Yeah, about starting.
Yeah.
You started in Spokane.
I started in Spokane, but Spokane didn't have much of a scene.
It was the best place to start looking at me.
I didn't know anything about stand-up.
When I got into it.
There was one room in Spokane that was owned by a karate guy.
Chris Warren, the brick wall comedy.
Holy shit, man.
Holy shit.
You slept in the karate school.
I missed yet.
I heard about that.
If you did this comedy show, you slept at the karate school.
I did it one time.
On the mask?
Yeah.
And I'm like, come on guy.
That's hilarious, man.
That guy's had a crazy.
Come on guy.
Oh, my God.
Well, when I started, Chris had his room in the valley in Spokane and
And then like, but you had to, oh, be like out of town or something like that to work with him for the most part.
He would host.
He will book out of town feature.
He would book out of town headliner.
But there was another room.
Keith Stubbs out of Utah had a little room at the Red Lion called laughs.
That he stole from Tribble.
Yeah, I'm sure he did.
Sure he did.
And when they started, but he wasn't booking out of town features.
So there was about 10 dudes doing comedy in Spokane, but they only booked headliners.
And they were trying to do four shows when I started.
And so they just needed bodies.
And so if you would just go up and just fucking talk.
and kill time and not make the crowd hate you,
you could get stage time immediately in front of a paid audience.
So like my second week of comedy,
I was doing like 10 minute sets in front of a paid audience.
And I didn't know that was not normal
because I didn't study stand up.
I just kind of like was trying it on a whim.
And so looking back,
it was that so I started getting state time every single weekend
because I would just at least try stuff.
And then triple,
they recommended me to Tribble.
And that's before I got to Seattle.
Seattle was like a year in for me
when I went and did the underground.
I hosted,
couches hosted and it was like I felt like a real comic for the first time.
Before that,
I would do triple runs these,
these shitty fucking bars and stuff from Montana and Idaho and northern Nevada and
Oregon and Washington because I had a Honda-I-Lontra that ran well.
And that was all I needed.
That's all you needed.
Headliners would fly into Spokane.
I would pick them up and as long as I would just drive everybody to these gigs and
this shit was like you'd have to,
the joke with a triple run was you'd have to cut your set early to start
driving to make it to the next show on time.
Like, there was so spread out.
You'd be in like...
Eight hours, nine of...
Yeah.
For real, like you'd be in...
Ten hours.
And some days, it was six hours.
Some days it was two.
Yep.
Like one day you'd have like a two hour driving.
You're like, woo.
Thank God for two...
Yeah.
It would be Missoula, Montana one night.
And you might have to go to Idaho Falls, Idaho, the next.
Which, yeah, it would be like eight hours away.
And sometimes I remember this little tiny hont eye, bald tires, going over those passes.
Not being afraid of those.
of dying, which I should have been, just, you know, but just like, oh, shit, I hope I'll make it
to this gig.
I can't.
What made you?
What would possess?
You know what?
A young man to get on a highway.
No, no, no.
No, no.
I'm questioning myself.
You know, I had logic at that time.
I wasn't the smartest guy in the world.
Right.
But I remember doing triple runs, you know, right now.
Like, right now what's going on the East Coast.
Yeah.
They're telling you to stay home.
They canceled a thousand fucking a thousand flights and all this shit.
You still make it to the triple show.
Yep.
But Joey.
My mother called, and she said,
Lutley, we got snow tires,
we got gas, we got weed,
we got a radio, and we got an extra
tire in the back, and I got AAA.
We're going.
Yep.
You guys ever miss a gig?
You got there an hour late.
There was one gig that I was questionable.
They canceled.
It was that bad.
It was outside of Portland, Oregon.
Oh, okay.
It gets really slippery.
Vancouver probably.
Yeah, it gets really slippery.
Yeah.
It was like a Saturday night gig or something.
Yeah.
that it got slippery.
But Tribal runs...
I mean, think about it.
What made you...
You know, any comics hit fucking deer
on those triple runs?
Right, right.
I hate hitting deer.
Do you know how many fucking comics hit triple fucking...
I like how he said, I hate hitting deer.
As there's some people like,
I don't mind.
I don't mind fucking hit the deer for that.
They would have warnings.
Like, in those days, you got the triple sheet, right?
Oh, yeah, the rundown.
They would fax you to run down.
And they would say Tuesday, March 6th.
Tuesday would be like that little...
Ogden, Utah was my first run.
And then my second night was
something Wyoming, where the mafia
had taken, the federal government had to take over the town.
Sheridan? Or Shaidan or Shaft?
I forget. I've said...
Or Raphael?
Something.
Oh, wait. Yes. Yes. They did it on 60 minutes.
Think about it.
That the mafia would take the prostitutes from Vegas.
Yes, yes, yes.
And run them through there, rehab them.
They had strip clubs that...
Like, you were like, you can't be fucking serious.
Like, it was like $5 lap dance that came with a hand job,
a finger up your ass.
Like it was, and it was everywhere.
So the federal government had to get it.
Rock City.
I got to look it up now.
Rock Springs, Wyoming.
Rock Springs.
I did it one time.
That was, they had two comedy rooms in there,
like a disco that turned into a ladies night and whatever.
and then you guys you have no idea like if I sit here with you like I you know I fuck around with
Lee and I torment them this is to do these triple runs and to think you're going on like I would
book these in January like the first triple run I booked yeah was uh was a federal gun
rock springs yeah rock springs yeah the first triple run I booked was January 30th and he called me
Lee he called me like on a Sunday night at 1130 I remember him
page of me and me seeing two, like the zip code and going, oh my God.
Out of Vancouver, Washington.
Oh, my God.
And running to the pay phone and going, yes, Mr. Tripp.
Joey, I've heard good things and we're ready to go to work.
And you're on the other side of the phone.
He's like, okay, I got three weeks of work for you.
Grab a pen and you're like, do you have a pen and you're like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to pay phone.
And he's like, do you have a fax number?
And you're like, not really, but I'll get back to you.
You feel like so on the bed.
It's a badge of honor when you start off that way.
This is crazy.
This was like you're a big chance to go on a fucking triple run to live your dream.
You're a professional.
You're getting $75 a night.
You get $50 that night and the rest they mail to you in a fucking check, okay?
So that's how it is.
And he'd tell you the first week you're going to go to Ogden, Utah, then Rock Springs.
And then you're going to end up in fucking the Air Force Base in Idaho.
Mountain Home.
Mountain Home Air Force Base.
Into you, it's like saying you're going to do the Wilber Theater or something.
It was like doing...
Between you and I, at that level, at that point in my life,
it was like doing Mazda Square Garden and being from New York City.
Wow.
Like, I still remember packing that car, like, going, I cannot believe this.
You get a free hotel room?
I got a free hotel room.
Sometimes you get a free meal?
You know what the best thing about it is?
Nobody knows what the fuck I am.
Nobody get a hold of me.
I don't want nobody to get a hold of me.
I don't want nobody to get a hold of me.
I don't want nobody to know what the fuck I am.
It's over.
Yeah.
I'm becoming a comedian.
That's my equivalent of becoming Clint Eastwood, like an unknown guy.
Yeah, man.
You just, listen, disappear into the night.
Man with no name.
You don't know where you're going.
You don't know how you're going to get there.
You got four tires.
They're brand new.
You just got your car tuned up.
You got $310 in the bank.
You got an apartment.
that sucks dick, you know,
and one day you go, you know what,
I'm giving up this fucking apartment.
Did you, do you remember this gig in Lewiston, Idaho
where there was a car that was in this bar,
like a sports bar,
and the stage was just a little prop stage
and coming out of the car.
It was like a Thunderdome.
Everybody's above you.
It was like a Wednesday night.
Louiston, Idaho.
I remember going to Lewiston.
I got arrested in.
I had a warrant in Idaho for fucking a long time.
What's the,
They had two Idaho City.
Yeah, that one, the Little Tree Inn and Idaho Falls.
And then it was across the street.
Idaho Falls.
So fucking nightmare.
So it was a Thursday and Wednesday.
Right.
And there was, Pocatello was another one.
Pocatello with the other guy that brand the business.
He was his partner.
Yeah.
And he booked Northern California.
Those nights leave were very special.
Oh, man.
Because they were 75 with no hotel.
Those were very special, Lee.
Those gig could be so rough.
Oh, boy.
I saw, this is the only time I've ever seen it in all the years since, too.
I saw somebody, I watched their comedy career end.
Like, I saw the moment when they stopped.
Yeah.
Like, like, where they left.
Like, this crowd was so rough.
This is it.
When Nachie Washington, I watched this guy, it was some prop guy.
He would do, he would do a half hour, and then you would do an hour if you were closed in the room.
So he's doing a half hour.
I'm doing an hour at this time.
And he literally gets no laughs for a full half hour.
But it was a rough room.
It's not like it was easy to get laughs.
But it really shook him.
Like, it really shook him.
And then the next night, when this night, I'll,
never forget this. He's doing his
set. It's a full room, but
it's like people would come to some of these rooms
to watch you fail.
Oh my. As opposed to enjoy the show, right?
They're looking. So this guy, I've never
seen this since. He does about
seven minutes and he had this little suitcase
for the props. Oh, no. He just
stops talking mid-sentence. And he
just looks around, like just defeated in his eyes.
And he just carefully puts
all his props back in his suitcase.
And he closes it. And he walks off
stage and he walks out of the hotel, never to be
fucking seen again. He was going to call for his check. Nope. Nope. He was like,
Triple calls me. I call Triple and he's like, can you do the rest of the show? And I was like,
can I get his check? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, fucking done. And I went and did an 80
minute set. I only saw one guy fracture on stage and never come back. Fracture. You never forget
it. When you see the break. When you see the break, you fucking die. It was, it took this kid
18 months. I saw him every night for 18 months.
You saw the moment it ended.
I saw two kids crack.
I saw one guy disappear into the abyss.
Keecheechie, he would come on every Monday and go,
this is my impersonation of a door.
This is my impersonation of a flower.
This is my, and this is constantly, every fucking month.
I want him to quit.
This is my impersonation of a bong.
But he had his moments.
He had his moments.
Like Andy Kaufman-esque kind of surreal.
And he was a nice sweetheart of a guy.
He had a clean soul.
He didn't do drugs.
It wasn't like a mental health issue.
This was the style of comedy that he went.
And he pulled me aside one day after nine months of me knowing him.
And he goes, I got to ask you a question.
What do you think I should do?
And I go, stop doing impressions.
No, I would.
He had something to him.
Okay, okay.
He just, he was at a point where he was so ahead of himself, stage prepared.
You ever write a joke that me and you only think it's funny?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But then you give up on it, and then three years later, you bring it back,
and now the jokes are fucking killed.
Oh, yeah, it becomes a closer because you're ready for it.
You're ready for it.
Yeah.
He did not know how to do this.
He wasn't ready for his material.
I'm telling you, I would look you guys in the face and tell you he sucked.
He didn't suck.
and he was handsome, which made it better.
He was a thin guy.
Well, at least that makes his story less sad.
He had a lot of things going for him.
Yeah, yeah.
But he just didn't know how to sell, this is my impersonation of the frame.
You know what I'm saying?
And he kept doing it and doing it.
And everywhere he would go, he would bomb.
And he would fuck and they would throw shit out of.
Oh.
They throw stuff out of like News Brothers.
He went to like Bellingham one night.
He went to like a, no, he didn't go to the elephant castle.
No, he didn't go to the elephant castle.
He went to the Navy yard.
The fuck.
Bremerton.
He went to Bremerton and they threw like the Navy.
Just like, no, we live in submarines.
We came up for oxygen.
We got to put up with impersonations of an impersonation of a submarine.
They threw something at them.
That's why I saw them.
Oh, they really did throw something out.
That's why I saw the broad that we were talking about, the woman that she walked the room.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The girl.
I don't want to, do you want me say your name?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Kathy.
Walked the room.
She'll tell you.
Oh, she's fucking right.
She walked that fucking room in Bremerton.
The Navy.
They were very different than that.
She was an underground comic.
That was not her crowd.
No, no, no.
She went up and did like an abortion joke.
End of the story.
Bam.
They ran out of that place.
So he bombed.
He ate a bag of dicks there.
And then Pat Wilson put him at the Army base on a Friday as an opener.
And he died there.
And then he came back to the open mic.
Oh, my God.
And he was fucking just,
he was a,
day away from hanging himself, right?
Like, I can see that his day job was getting rough on him and his girlfriend were having
prom because he was out every night, you know.
And one night, he's up on stage on a Monday.
And he's like, good evening.
This is my impersonation of a book, you know, and this is my impersonation of an eyeball.
This is my impersonation of a flower.
And all of a sudden you hear somebody go, do an impersonation of a comic, right?
and you can hear the
like you can hear it
from the back of the room physically
emotionally like that was it
you can see his soul leave his body
he didn't even get the light
he just said good night he walked out of there
no high five never seen again
I never saw him again on
then there was a kid who came
with a he used to come on with a
fucking with a open mic
scenes for anybody who doesn't know
this and is considering comedy
and think that we're crazy.
Your first year, you're going to be doing comedy with 20 people in a room
and 10 of them are borderline mental health issues.
Oh, my God.
And Lee is starting to see it now that 50% of us are a little wakadoosh.
So at first you ask yourself, like, why am I doing this?
But then somebody sees you, like, Dan, you're pretty funny.
Come up to Seattle and then you see how it is and you go, okay, now I put it into perspective.
You're not being judgmental.
And then by going to the open mics, you learn to the time.
people that want to be Hollywood stars and you learn to the people that are hobbyist.
There's nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing wrong with getting on stage twice a week.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Being a working man and just having a great time.
Yep. On your week off, you take a week with Dan Cummings and open for them, make a little
money.
Yeah, some of those are going to be part of the scene.
You know, they're doing the same set 10 years later, but that's all they want to do.
They just want to be part of the scene.
That's fine.
Yeah.
You meet so many different people.
Oh, yeah.
It's such a journey.
Like what I'm telling you about is 20 years ago.
Like I still remember going to the eight ball in the first time I went there.
Great Falls, Montana.
God damn it that room was a fucking nightmare for me.
It's tough going in there with a white dude.
I decided to go in there to call out of line with Rico.
The black dude with the spider in his face.
We go into a white diner.
There isn't a black man within a thousand fucking million yards.
What do you think this motherfucker does in the restaurant?
He's Muslim.
So he gets on his hands and knees and starts
playing. This is way before
9-11. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so people weren't...
This is when no, no, no, no, you didn't know nothing.
This is 1990-fucking-5, okay?
When my heart was praying
at whatever my Idaho,
you know, I never heard nothing going to...
Right, Idaho with minorities.
So I'm sitting there at that time.
It's better. It's better. I'm sitting there going,
I can't believe I'm in a fucking diner fill with white people
and I'm with a 6'4-320-pound black man
who's on the floor playing an hour.
right now. Did he do that after like you guys were already sitting together? Like yeah, like I didn't
know when the bullet was going to come to my fucking head. Then I went back to that bar. Yeah.
And the dog girl looked like Keeji, but she was the owner's dog. So she's very sweet. She's
very nice. I'm very polite. I'm working with a female will co-headlining. And she goes,
if there's anything you need, let me know. And I go, well, to be honest for you, I'm on a triple
run and there's going to be a long week.
If I get some marijuana,
it would be tremendous. She goes,
is that all you need?
And I go, what else do you have?
And she goes, name it. We have a Mexican
cook on the back, and he's got 20 cups.
He's part of an organization up here.
So you need roller skates.
You need bubble gum. You need cocaine-laced
fucking bazookas. I mean, she stocked this up for the week.
Wow.
But here's where it got crazy.
She was a sweet girl, beautiful girl,
you know, the whole thing.
Yeah.
she goes out, deliver it to your hotel room.
Right.
She got there.
She's like, I'll take a blast.
Like, I tried to give me like 20 bucks and like a little bitch.
She goes, no, no, no, that's okay.
I'll take it.
Do you mind if I do a taste to you?
And I said, yeah, do whatever you want.
Yeah.
This bitch pulled out of rigs.
And that's when I was like, when does it end?
Like, you're shooting cocaine in fucking God's country.
What?
Was it a rig man?
She took the rig out.
I thought you was smoking something.
I can't see needles, so I'm going to go outside.
She rigged her coke, shot it, and fucking left.
And then came back and left me a note in the door like an hour later.
Like, I'd like to come back and shoot them more later.
I found it in the morning.
Like, I did two bumps that night and went to sleep because I had to drive eight fucking hours.
Oh, man, small towns and stuff like that, like the mess and things like that.
People reach a level of despair.
People, like, I'm from a really small town in Idaho.
And I feel like similarities in some ways to when I hear stories of people from like a ghetto,
where it's like a lot of.
land of no hope when you feel like there's no hope it's like a lot of people in those little towns
their third fourth generation little town you know like that and they just feel like they're
stuck there forever they want to get out when the high school's over and then when they don't the people
who stay it's like a deep level of despair sinks in and you just see like the light go out in their
eyes and then it's like the meth and then heroin is you know like uh fairly big heroin's actually
big in cordalane while i live now like there's a real opiate problem it's like a beautiful
ski town. Fucking beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful.
If you got money, if you got money.
They used to have a gig there in 95.
Once a month,
I worked it and the owner came up to me and he goes,
I got it, I like you. He goes, I'm from Connecticut.
But I can't have as many fucks.
So I can't bring you back. He gave me an extra $100 bill.
And he was a gentleman. Yeah, yeah.
They gave me a ski pass for Saturday.
Oh, yeah. They don't have that anymore. It was Friday and Saturday.
It was like a special, a comics uncle booked it.
And it was once a month, and I got it.
Like in December, and I went up there.
I didn't ski.
Right.
But the guy came out on Saturday.
He's like, you know what?
I just had a lot of complaints today.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm like the fucks.
But I was telling Lee, Moscow, Idaho.
Oh, yeah.
The vandals.
So now after I become a tribal guy, my next dream, you want to continue with bookers.
So I moved to Seattle, and the big booker up there is John Fox.
This guy had a newspaper that I read every week called JustFoll.
labs. I would sit there
at night, coked out, crying, circling
the clubs, I was going to perform at
someday the punchline in San Francisco.
Ooh, Walnut Creek, I'm
going to be there someday. Yep.
The fucking comedy castle and fucking
whatever, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here
I am in John Fox territory. I got
up to Seattle on a Saturday.
I showcased at
the, I did the open mic Monday.
Right, right.
Tuesday. Josh Wolf had a show
on Wednesday. Yeah. And Thursday
had a call from John Fox.
You're going to Moscow, I know, baby.
I hit the big time.
If you think Tribal was big time,
Tribal small potatoes compared to John Fox.
I'm hitting the big time.
This is the level in your mind.
Oh, yeah.
Now you, you like call David,
like you don't call him Mr. Tribble no more.
You're like, Dave, what the fuck you got from me?
You fucking punk-ass bitch.
I was going to ask.
I'm at the underground now.
You one-eared bitch?
Because he's a- I know.
I've met.
He's a sweetheart.
He's a sweetheart.
I've been to his house.
He's a sweetheart.
He is a nice guy.
He is a nice guy.
He knows what his gigs are.
That's what I always loved about David.
There's no bullshitting.
He knows that he gets a shit.
I love to death.
I shouldn't have said that.
No,
but no,
but it does throw you the first time.
Oh, the first time.
Oh, shit.
He comes up to that comedy club.
He goes, how you doing?
He puts his hair.
I'm David Tripp when you're like,
you're like,
what the fuck?
He's a nice,
sweet guy.
But you know what?
There's a lot of comments.
He toured.
He toured for years in a little band.
Yeah.
He did all the same kind of bars and stuff for years.
And that's how he learned how to book those comedy.
I give them a lot of credit.
Hey, listen, it's how I learned to cut my teeth.
It's how you figure it out.
You know, I got to tell you something.
The other night, back to school was on it.
I wasn't feeling about it.
You ever see that movie?
Matthew Broderick.
No, no, the other, the junkie, the Iron Man.
Robert Downey Jr.
Jesus Christ, Robert Downey Jr. is decayed with the blue hair.
So, and Bert Young is the fucking bodyguard.
He's Dangerfield son in that?
No, no, no, no.
He plays the best friend, Dangerfield son.
Okay, okay.
Dangerful son is like the producer's nephew.
He would only give an 80 grand of his kid.
He never saw him again.
Right, right, right.
I never saw that guy again.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You could tell it was like the kid from karate.
Kid was in it.
He was the really good-looking kid in that.
And I'm watching this movie.
My wife is in the room, my daughter, they leave.
What the fuck?
I'm sitting there watching a stupid movie.
I'm waiting for the business scene, the business school scene,
where he tells the teacher, where'd you,
where do we put our fantasy?
Where do we put our fictional business?
And he goes, how about Fantasyland?
And then I still watch the Kennison scene.
Yeah.
And Kenneson right off the bat.
He's like, during the Vietnam, I mean, television was completely different, man.
Movies were completely.
He goes, during the Vietnam, does anybody want to explain the Vietnam conflict to me?
And he's like, the girl's like, you know, she's a sweet girl from the valley.
She's like, the Vietnamese conflict was a north side of the valley.
And he goes, that's a great answer.
But no, you're wrong.
It was, we should have pushed a bunch of fucking rice eating patties.
He just fucking goes off.
And then Rodney goes, whoa, whoa.
She's a kid.
She doesn't even know.
I mean, I'm fucking howling right now.
Yeah.
And he goes, okay, Mr. Helper, you want to talk to me about the Korean conflict?
And he fucking goes off again.
And I started crying because I still remember being in the movie theater.
watching that being a 24 year old kid
a loser frustrated
watching him going
I have to be in a movie with him
like I don't know how
but I have to do this
I wasn't thinking about stand-up
stand-up wasn't even in mind
was I even thinking about it
when that movie come out
the 86 or 90s 80 yet
stand-up wasn't I didn't even gone to prison yet
I haven't even gone to prison yet
I ended up wasn't even in my horizon, but I kept looking at him in that movie.
86.
I went by myself.
I went to the first movie.
Wow.
It came out on a Friday at 1115.
I was there, 1115 stone, Chinese food in my stomach, ready to go.
Like, that was my ritual.
You know what I'm saying?
I didn't give a fuck.
I had a ritual.
I went by myself.
So I don't have to hear nobody's bullshit.
Then you got there late.
The bus never came.
No, I'm prepared.
I got a plan.
I'm serious about it.
I'm serious.
I know where I'm sitting.
Like, I know.
the whole fucking deal.
And I still remember sitting in that movie theater,
like, frustrated.
Like, it took me back there for a second
that the frustration I was feeling came out.
Like, tears ran down my face.
Like, how frustrated I was at that time of my life.
But I just wanted to be in a fucking movie
if I could just figure out
how to get there.
Right.
Like, from that seat,
how I could jump into that screen.
Yeah.
It fucking killed me.
And in 2003,
I beat myself around the bush.
I'm auditioning for a bunch of shit.
And I get a call from a cast and director.
And they go, can you come in at 2.30?
You're reading for the new Rodney movie.
And I'm like, what?
Wow.
And I get down to sunset.
It's across the street from the strip club,
right up to block from the Comedy Store.
Okay.
That strip club there?
On Los Yenegu?
No, the other way.
Okay.
Up to the Comedy Store.
Right on Sun.
Sunset across from right in there there's a building where they used to cast high level fucking movies
Wow she cast me in something before I went there for something big before and I saw like big guys that was like oh my God
Yeah what the fuck like I had been to auditions before but this is where they offered you water
They validated in your parking there were white people these were white people they had parking in the back
Right when you went there you were there by yourself like for a pre-read
So I went in there and I signed my name
And no shit I hear Rodney's voice in that fucking audition
Wow
And I'm like, oh no
But when they opened the door
It was a comic from the store
He runs the comic, he runs the laugh factory now
In Vegas
I love him like a brother
I can't think of his fucking name right now
I never worked a Vegas one
He was direct Basil
Harry Basil was directing the
movie and Harry had
seen me at the store. Right.
So when I walked in, I saw Harry, Rodney,
the casting director,
and somebody else called Alan Stevens.
Another old school comic
that had gotten me on Arliss
with fucking James
Coburn. Right?
So I see them now. So now I'm home.
I'm like,
so everybody's like, how are you doing Joey Diaz?
How are you doing Mr. Dangerfield? I don't say nothing
about I love him. I want to suck you my dick.
I don't even get to that point. I'm not one.
those fucking suck asses.
I didn't bring it.
I love your movie.
I want to suck your dick.
I want it in like a tough guy.
I even like,
I bowled him like,
look at you.
Yo, fuck.
And meanwhile,
I'm coming all over myself.
Like,
I'm in the room with my idol.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh my God.
And I read for the role.
I had fucking,
I knew it inside it out.
Backwards, I knew.
I got coached the whole thing.
And at the end of the audition,
they go,
bro, that was a great fucking job.
Thank you.
We'll let you know.
And Rodney goes, no.
We cast that roller
already but you know what they're gonna call you i'm gonna find something for you i swear to god and a week
later they called me i went down there and i go what am i doing they go we don't know rodney just said to
call you that he wanted you here so they kept calling me cocoa yeah rodney like that he goes i'm gonna call
you jojo so he gave me the name of jojo and he put me in this movie with christie alley
fucking the dude from vacation i mean it was filled with names i mean the movie is a disaster
You're out on your prime.
She's beautiful.
The movie was a disaster.
But just being there, he kept me there for fucking eight days.
It was the biggest paycheck I had ever seen in my life.
Like, I had never been on the screen.
Yeah.
I've been on movies for one day, a day and a half tops, eight days eating with everybody.
And it was him.
And they would, you know, at the end of when you shoot, they give you a call sheet.
And they give you a call sheet that tells you what time you come in the next day and what scenes you're doing.
They would give me a call sheet, and I'd go, I'm not on the call sheet.
And I go, go ask Rodney.
And I would have to walk to Rodney's trailer and knock on the door.
And Rodney would open his door with his fucked, the robe on with his balls hanging out.
They go, what?
And I go, am I working tomorrow?
He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, kid, come back tomorrow.
He did a great job today.
Close the door.
So I figured that out that it was, it's so weird, the journey in comedy.
Yeah.
Like, it took me from 1986 in my mind, like in my mind from that,
thinking it right like it made me cry and it made me emotional and I wanted to let people know that
sometimes it's just making that mental note yeah like I wasn't invited to his funeral I wasn't one of
his close friends I wasn't in one of his specials you know I'm not gonna tell you that but he
fucking pushed me into doing comedy in the way yeah and Andrew yeah it is amazing like what like when
you have those little emotional I just started having those like uh recently where it's like when I
started, I didn't have like a guy I wanted to meet. I just had an idea of what I wanted to do.
And it's like, I always loved kind of independent musicians. I was more into music than comedy.
But guys like, oh, like a, like a Ben Folds, like Elliot Smith, like these kind of quirky singer
songwriters. Elliot Smith was big as he was from the Northwest. And he moved down to L.A. at the
end. But it's like, he would just do little rock clubs. But he had diehard fans who came to see him.
And I'm like, right at the very beginning, I've never changed to my goal. I'm like, all I wanted was
that. If I could fill up a little room, rock club, whatever.
people who just came to see me who like you know my sensitive human whatever they wanted to be on my
ride and uh and for the first time only a couple times but just just last weekend i was just doing this little
club in minneapolis but it was like it wasn't big act me yeah no it's just a little cissipus brewing
it's little like alt room that they have there just two nights it's only like a little 90 cedar
but it was sold out you know and it was like and i and i have this podcast now where people come
they wear their t-shirts and i did a live podcast during the day and it was like it caught me
off guard but it was like a afternoon but it was like people wearing the hats and the t-shirts and and and
And I did a little Q&A afterwards.
And I, and there were just some, some lady said,
thank you for doing this, whatever like that.
And I almost cried.
Like, and I'm not an emotional person used outside,
but it just like hit me where I'm like,
fuck, this is, this is where the guy I liked.
Elliot Smith, that's what, that's what he was doing, you know,
like that.
That's what I wanted to do when I started.
And here it is.
And it just feels, you know, you grind for so long.
You had somebody, at least I have so many self-doubt moments where I'm like,
that's never going to fucking happen, but whatever, I'm going to keep trying.
And then what actually happens.
And for me, just on that little level, it was like,
Holy shit, man, if I died right now,
this, no one can take this from me.
How long have you doing comedy now as a whole?
It'll be 18 years this summer.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah, yeah.
I started in 2000.
Yeah, grinding triple runs.
And I had a weird arc where I had heat early on,
like four years in, I got Montreal.
And then I got Comedy Central.
Then I got a half hour.
And I got an hour.
Like boom, boom, boom, early.
But I wasn't ready.
I mean, I don't regret this.
I mean, people liked it.
But then I got a taste of the business
where back in 2010, I had a hour
special air but it didn't get the ratings they wanted and I kind of got thrown back to the wood
pile and it about broke me I was just like my whole plan I just my plan was like to get the
hour and then I thought that business would just you know unfold in front of me and then I remember
doing Grand Rapids uh which is actually one of my favorite clubs now but I was in Grand Rapids
Michigan uh Dr. Grins. Great club love that club club club's one of my favorite rooms now it's like
I have a good group but it's like I had this expectation once the special came out it'd be full
And I remember doing it that like two weeks after that thing debuted,
and it was a half empty room still.
And I was like, fuck, man, I don't know what to fucking do now.
And it's like, and then I just kind of like had to kind of reinvent.
I just kept putting out, you know, albums or whatever.
And then randomly, for me, this new kind of media, for me,
was just this podcast.
I started doing a year ago that like all the things I've tried,
all the stand-up things, all the albums I did were fans like them.
But the thing that got the people to actually come to the shows was this little time-suck podcast.
And it changed.
But it took, you know, 18, 18 years.
The completion of the circle.
Jesus Christ, yeah.
It really is the completion of a circle.
You know, when we tell these stories, like, I just saw Lee's face, and you said 18 years.
I know you probably like, I hate to hear that.
You're like, fuck that.
I get it, yeah.
That puts Lee at 48.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, 47.
Oh, yeah.
Nobody wants to hear that.
Sorry, nobody wants to hear it.
No, it's one of the things that it's a real reality.
You know, but I'm 55.
Right.
So you really have to have a real, like, I.
I asked you what possessed you.
Yeah.
Who the fuck is Dan Cummings?
Like your father, like Mr.
Right.
Is Mr. Cummings still alive?
My dad, yeah, he's still alive.
Yeah, I didn't want him with this.
Oh, no, no, no, no, yeah, yeah.
You know, wouldn't Mr. Cummings go, can I ask you a question, son?
Right.
I love you.
I raised you.
Yeah.
Your brother's a doctor.
Right.
And you're a retard.
Right.
You just borrowed snow tires from me to go to wear for $75.
Yeah.
Are you an idiot?
What's your mother's name?
Charlene.
Charlene, can you get in here, please?
help me talk with his fucking morons before he smack him.
Now he wants to do comedy.
If the brother just won an award because he's a doctor, the sister's the lawyer of the year,
and he wants to be funny, man.
No, no, no, no.
A blizzard is coming.
You do know.
It's an evacuation.
Yeah.
Like, and that's what we love it.
Yep.
That much.
That's it.
Like, it's going to be a blackout.
That's fine.
Yeah.
Instead of eight hours is going to take me 16.
I'm going to leave in 20 hours.
We really believed in our head.
Like people will come in the room and go, Lee, do you want me to smack the fuck out of you?
Like, you're going where for where?
Right.
But you got that passion, man.
You got that drive, you know?
It's really like you think back on it.
And you go, what the fuck made me think?
What?
Man was, Dan Cummings.
Can you?
Charlene get in here.
What's my mom?
This fucking moron.
Can you put, Charlene?
This is your side of the family.
That fucking brother, the place of the ukulele is at the nightclubs.
I told you.
My mom was so worried because I was the first person in my extended family on either side from any generation going back to ever go to college.
Like I come from a long line of just like laborers essentially.
And so it's like there was all this kind of pressure because I did well in school, but I didn't really care about it.
But it's like it was doctor, lawyer, because no one in my family has ever been something like that.
No, no, no.
It's fucking ridiculous.
And it was that or, and then so when I just after, you know, I got a psych degree and then I just stopped, it was just my mom was just like, what?
the fuck.
Like, you know, like all of her hopes and dreams.
She's just watching them being, like, thrown away.
And then you have moments, too, where it's like, I did well in school.
And then kids who didn't do as well, but buddies of mine, whatever, they're getting like corporate jobs now.
And I'm on a Greyhound bus to do 150 bucks to host an Albert Kirkie at laughs for Russ Revis for the weekend.
And, you know, and sleeping on a fucking couch.
And there's moments, too.
You're like, what the fuck am I doing?
Where is Russ Revis?
Hopefully dead.
Russ Revis was the biggest asshole I ever worked.
God, that guy.
That guy was a legendary asshole.
Russ Revis, there was a guy, hippie man John Novice had at a Colorado.
You may remember him out of the Denver.
Beautiful person, very nice, kind of hippie vibe.
And nice guy, nice guy.
I saw Russ do the meanest thing.
Russ would belittle the comics that were working for him.
I remember he picked me up.
I took like over 24 hours to get there on a Greyhound,
and he bitched at me about half and fucking, he would talk to this weird East Coast,
but California dude
dude what kind of fucking
MC thinks he's a fucking feature
needs me to pick him up
the fucking Greyhound station
you use fucking comics
he was fucking he shit on you all the time
all the time
yes he'd pay you with the gun
and Hocopone on his wall
listen to me and John Nova said
had a lazy eye
a wandering eye
and this is the kind of person Russ was
Russ all the sudden is talking to him
and he goes dude what the fuck's wrong
with your eye it's all fucked up
like a fucking lizard or some shit
and John
John goes, he looked like he was going to cry.
He goes, Jesus, Russ.
He goes, this is my fucking hi, man.
Okay, so let me take you back to July of 1991.
Okay.
No, I'm going to take you back to March of 1991.
I am a doorman and a comedy club.
And I am the DJ.
Okay.
Doorman slash DJ.
Slash DJ.
I got promoted because the DJ.
This is Denver.
This is Denver.
Whitsend.
Oh, yeah.
The worst club and the history of comedy
in the worst neighborhood at that time in the world.
I mean, it was just a dead bark fucking neighborhood
filled with dead white people.
Dead white people, like dead.
Like, they weren't good enough for Denver
and bolder didn't want them.
Nobody wanted them, so they lived in Westminster.
This is dirty years ago.
There's only a mall there.
The mall was great because I was an halfway house.
And I used to work on 104th in Thornton.
And the mall had a fucking mass.
The magic store that had those cigarette loads that you put into people's cigarettes.
So I would crack people with those.
If I hated you, I would fill your cigarette.
That was the only thing West wisdom was good for.
Was that one magic store at the mall?
That's it.
The magic store at the mall.
So I'm the house fucking DJ.
You come to me, you tell me what time you want, what music you want.
And then I got promoted to the bar back.
But while in that time, I'm in a young comic named Rush Beavis,
who was a Subaru salesman in Colorado,
Springs, Colorado, who was married to a beautiful blonde woman.
He was still married to her.
No.
I think right now.
No.
Oh, a different blonde woman.
He was different.
Okay.
And she was very cute.
He was very handsome.
Man?
Spanish kid.
A little bit of potential.
You know, I didn't know much.
He had some stage presents?
Yeah, he had some stage presents.
He drove a Justi, which was a three-cylinder Subaru.
And we became friends.
And I quit Whitsend, in fact, he got me a couple gigs opening for him.
Okay.
You know, this went on for about a year.
I would take gigs from Todd Jordan.
I would take gigs from him, Rick Currence.
I had like five headlines.
Yeah.
I was hustling.
So I was breaking even every month.
So, you know, I moved to Seattle.
I moved to L.A.
I'm in L.A. now.
I'm at the store.
I'm a regular at the store.
And I'm featuring in El Paso.
Okay.
And somebody says to me, are you friends with Russ Revis?
And I go, fuck yeah.
How are you kidding me?
I and me and Russ used to do gigs together.
and he goes, call him up next time and do that week first and then come here.
And I go, that's genius.
Yeah.
And he goes, as a matter of fact, here's his number.
He knows you're here this week.
So I call Russ up and I go, Russ, Joe Dears.
He goes, great to hear from me.
I go, Russ, I'm not looking for nothing for me.
I'm working over and out.
El Paso.
He says, next time I can tie it in.
Can you give me a feature spot?
He goes, you got to send me a tape.
I go, are you fucking kidding me?
Send you a tape.
I've been friends with you for fucking.
At that time, it was 91.
Now it's 98.
I go, don't worry about it, brother.
Thank you.
And I hung up.
And then I just heard horror story.
It was the worst.
Horror story.
Upon horror story.
And it was ego based on, I'm a headliner in Vegas.
Like that shit.
Exactly.
Exactly.
That was his big claim.
You don't understand who the fuck I am.
I'm a headliner at the Mirage, the second Thursday of the month, okay?
You'll never get that.
Was your guy named David Testro?
That was out of that time?
Fat guy.
Yep.
Let me tell you.
Harmonica player.
Greg man.
Nice dude.
Nice dude.
I saw Russ dress him fucking down.
It was one of this next to the eye comment.
One of the other saddest things I saw Russ do.
It was the first time anyone had sold out or the club had been sold out.
He used to rock Dave Testro.
Listen, you hear from Uncle Joey.
Dave Testro would break out that harmonica and would have that room.
Oh, he fucking kill it.
He was a jolly fat guy that one night.
He was there.
He was the headline of the night at the old.
and Mike when they flipped a beer cap at me and I told the kid you flip another fucking
beer cap at me we're gonna have a problem and he flipped a beer cap at me and I said
fuck your mother the kid ran up to the stage and I hit him in the head with the microphone
those microphones and batteries in it there was blood everywhere he was the headliner he had a
following so now two years later I had done a thousand gigs with testro yeah now five years
later work with him in Portland yeah and he's like he comes up to me he's like hey you're not
going to hit nobody in that fucking microphone
all the nice this guy nice is guy very funny you know professional he happened he was there when
like the russ had opens up some new location in albuquerque and it sold out that night and david all
david did was just say that he was oh this is cool man i'm happy to be here when it sold out
somehow in russ's fucking asshole mind he takes that as david is trying to tell him that he's the
reason he sold out and he would do this thing he would gather it wasn't enough for him to belittle
somebody he would gather the waitstaff to witness the belittling and he starts going he's like dude
you what you fucking thing
you had something to do with this you fucking hack you fucking think get over hey come here come here
he's like calling to the way stuff this fucking piece of shit thinks he's so this is before the show
he was i was like jesus he was he was a sociopath yeah no that's god and i heard his career
was fucking tanked and i'm like he's one of those oh no he had no he owned the club right and then
he went away and i'm like god and then you know he booked in him favors because he owned the
yep it's all gone now when you own a club a club on him go hey book my boy yeah i'll give you a
Christmas weekend here.
There's a lot of guys who've made a career.
I'm doing some kinky shit in the business.
I don't want to say no names,
but they've done kinky shit,
and that's how they made a business fee,
and that's their business.
But I hope Russ is opening up for David Testro somewhere right now.
I hope he's out of David's crushing somewhere.
The whole ass chain.
Listen.
Oh, Scotty Gough and Tucson, too.
Tucson, the club that was the best one,
was either Santa Fe laughs or it was no it was Albuquerque the owner of Albuquerque before
Russ died in a motorcycle accident on New Year's Day New Year's Eve a drunk driver hit him yeah
that guy was supposed to be what was keeping laughs alive because he was booking the last
club yeah and he was a great guy huh huh and then they sold that one to him and then there
was there was there was Albuquerque Tucson yeah and then there was another one
And then it became the one in Colorado Springs.
I never worked that one.
Me neither.
No, I worked it when it was Jeff Valdez and Judy Brown was the book.
Judy Brown, that's right.
She came out of Colorado before she was Marmel.
And she would try to fucking make you take a stand-up course for you to be, to get on stage and do the open mic, 35 bucks.
Don't fucking tell me my business.
Do you ever work to Tri-Cities?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, my God.
I got the, you're going to love this story.
What's the name of the place?
Well, now it's a bowling alley called Atomic.
It used to be a red
It used to be a red lion
Or no, a double tree
Or it was both
It was a red lion
And the name of the room
Was the volcano room
Is that what the bar was
It was the bar in the hotel?
Let me tell you something
I got that story
You're gonna love for that
When you looked at clubs
In Washington State
It said the underground giggles
And the volcano rule
And I'll never forget
The first time somebody said
Call this lady
If you want to work the volcano room
I expected this fucking
Grand Jure and shit
and it was just a hotel with God awful fucking food
It was like that room that they book
Not in Nyack
There's a room they book in one of those other New York City towns
That you go up there that's just a gas station
The whole weekend
You're in the basement, it's cold
Even with the heat on you're freezing in the winter
They only do the club in the wintertime
Yeah
Because everybody goes to it
And you're next to a hotel
Friday and Sunday
and Saturday.
Yeah, just a two night, yeah.
And you got to take a bus up there
to the cab, a $30 cab ride to this gig.
And they would pay you $500 for the weekend.
And they would only book me in January.
I would have to fly back from here.
Wow.
Go to New York and then take a bus up there
and then, and the whole,
what the fuck was the club?
Bananas.
Bananas was, I remember there was a business in Jersey.
Which is now, they say they got new owners.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Now the guy from helium took it over.
helium took it over, so that'd be interesting.
But that Tri-Cities one, that was the first rogue gig I ever did outside of Spokane.
It was the first paid gig.
Who booked it then?
When I did it, it was a guy named Nick Tyson and Key Stubbs.
Nick Tyson out of Spokane, Key Stubbs out of, you know, as part of that little short-lived
laughs chain they had up there.
But, you know, it switched.
It was like triple before that.
I think what to triple afterwards, Chris Warren, I think had, it would, like, juggle around.
Chris Warren.
But where is Chris Moore?
He's, I don't know.
His mom went to prison for someone.
He had some.
crazy family business. His mom was like British.
She'd have a British accent. And then she went to
embezzaline or something we heard.
And Chris owed a bunch of people money. He got real ugly with Chris
before he left Spokane. It was all his nightmare.
He had a, he had a, his headshot was him with machine
guns with two bitches and shit. He was crazy.
He was little nuts. He was crazy.
Hit his karate trophies. But he,
but Brian Kellan was another, he's the guy who's
in Denver now, but he was doing, he was the
headliner. I was the, I'll never forget
this city. I was the beach. I'd do 30 minutes
cold. I went up.
And I did 30 minutes to absolute silence.
I didn't get a laugh.
Not one laugh in 30 minutes.
And I was just like sweat going down in your back where you just feel it in your ass crack and just did that flop sweat.
And I just like, but I left stage thinking like, oh, well, whatever.
It's a small crowd.
Yeah, you know, there's the shit.
You know, they suck.
It's the crowd.
Brian Kellyn goes up and murders for an hour.
Like he brought a life out of these people that I didn't think was even remotely possible.
And I was too dumb at that time to know that when you have a horrible.
set, just fucking get out of there. Go hide.
Like, leave. But I thought
etiquette was you stood by the door
and you thank people for watching
the show. So I'm standing next to
Brian after this train wreck. And I'll
never forget this one dude comes up.
I'm not making this story. He goes
to Brian, he goes, oh man, he's like this rednecky
guy. He's like, oh man, he goes, you were
funny. He's like, man, I'd love to get you
a beer. Holy shit, you were funny, man. And then he sees me
standing next to him. And he goes, and you,
oh, you should do what he
does. That's literally what
he said to me. You should do what
he does. He doesn't even think he's being... Oh, those rooms
are... Oh, I just died inside.
When he told me that.
Those little runs up there, you realize
that fucking potato run, when you do
the Air Force Base, and they show
you... Mountain Home. Your room
is a fucking barrack.
I never actually did Mountain Home. I know Mountain Home, but I never did
that room. It's a room the size of
that door right there.
That's what you have. That couch.
You're hanging your clothes up to have a little tiny TV and your showers down the fucking hallway.
You're like, Jesus Christ, where the fuck is my life going?
I'm in an Air Force base.
I mean, it was just, they give you food coupons and shit.
I mean, they just put you through so many different scenarios.
Yeah.
But if you look back at it, it prepares you for this today.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
There's nothing they can phase you.
There's so many scenarios that you get fucked with.
Yep.
that it prepares you for this shit later on.
Like, this bounces off your shoulders.
Oh, yeah.
It's weird.
I bumped into Slash once in 1998 in Vegas.
I was opening up for Rogan at the Riviera.
The G&R guitarist slash, like, these, like, wow, man.
He was there for a comic book.
I don't know who other Slash would be, I guess, but, yeah.
Yeah, he was, like, there for, like, a comic book festival or something.
Wow.
Like, he, you know, they paid him to show.
Oh, I see.
I did some.
G&R was in touring.
It was 98.
Yeah.
And I did.
In those days, I used to see him a lot around town at different comedy shows.
He would come to the one that we did next to the room Jay Davis had way before.
You know, the other night, we met that kid, John Adams.
I'm known John Adams's 1998.
I met him in that room I'm talking about.
John Adams was my manager.
My manager took him with him when he was at his original agency.
And John Adams was a TV guy.
You just don't recognize him.
He was on TV for 12 years.
he was on like two syndicated shows because jeff getlin was one of the best managers in the business
jeff gatlin hated the road jeff getland knew that if he had you it's for tv and film to get you on a
tv show for six years that was his fucking goal he when you talk to jeff about the road he go i don't
want to hear about yeah i didn't want to hear about you can do spots at the store i need you
in town huh and that's what he did he made that kid one of his examples but i met that kid at the union
It was called the Union.
And I saw Slash there, like, a couple times.
Yeah.
That's when you'd see Vince Vaughan out at night.
Wow.
I'd open mics when I met Ahmed.
Yeah.
You know, that's when Swingers was hot, and you're like, what the fuck?
And I saw him in Vegas.
I never forget this.
I couldn't sleep, you know, in Las Vegas.
I didn't really have weed.
Rogan didn't smoke weed.
So I got up and went for a walk.
I didn't have money to gamble.
I barely had money of,
be there. I would eat in the employee
cafeteria. Lee likes all that. Isn't it the
leftover from the buffet or something? Oh yeah.
With bite marks and the turkey legs and shit. You like
buffet. Remember we used to go to Vegas?
You're going to love buffets when you work Vegas
as an opener boy when they give you that card to the employee
fucking dining room. And you see cake.
You see cake with missing icing because somebody has
scrubbed their finger through that. You know what I'm saying? That's
always a real treat, ain't it? That's
It's always a boost for your comedy career.
They give you the old red meat, that mafia meat.
But you're so fucking hungry.
And it's free.
You don't give a fuck what you're putting it to your body.
And that stuff keeps you hungry so much later because you don't want to go back there, too.
I think it motivates you.
Now it would be fun.
If I could find two guys.
If you didn't need it.
It would be fun if you didn't need it.
Right.
If you do a triple run.
Two weeks in the car.
Yeah.
Good weather.
Stanhope would do that sometimes.
Yeah.
You have to do that.
Yeah.
It's like we go to the fourth wall a lot.
I go to an open mic up to the morning and no booze, five minutes, five dollars.
Yeah.
But it takes you back.
Just reminds you.
Yeah.
You see that you have what these guys want.
Right.
And how lucky you are.
I know.
That you stuck with it.
And these guys have no idea what they're about to walk into.
Every time I go to an open mic there, I count the room.
And in my mind, I do the math.
automatically.
Out of the eight people,
four of them are going to quit.
Right.
Two of them are going to go to Montreal
and two of them are really going to be
big time stars.
Who is it going to be?
Out of the eight people.
Yeah.
Who is it going to be?
That's why I love,
we were talking about the show,
and I love people like Kishi.
I love, listen,
yeah, it feels good when somebody comes up
to you after a show.
And they say,
hey, man, you had a great show.
That feels fucking great.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it feels great when somebody comes up to you and talks to you about the podcast.
Yeah.
That's a great feeling.
But you know what feels even better?
There's two things.
When somebody comes up to you and says, hey, man, I saw you in Seattle, June and 98.
And I knew that you were going to be.
Yeah.
I get those once a year.
Yeah, yeah.
At the comedy store, I'll get that at a club or somebody else who will be aside and go,
you remember that club with the parrot in the background in fucking Washington that you guys used to do on Wednesday night?
Yeah.
I was the manager there and you used to make me laugh back then.
Yeah.
You know, that's one thing I liked when people say.
But the second thing I like when people say is this year I went to see Jim Gaffigan, Rogan.
Right, right, right.
I went to see Dan Cummings.
I went to see Burke Kreischer.
Right.
I went to see fucking Kay Quigley.
I went to see fucking Sarah Silverman.
I love when people say that.
Yeah.
I really get off when people say that because I know you're a student in the game.
Yep, yep.
When Lee got on stage for the first couple times,
I'm not telling you, Lee's going to be Richard Pryor,
but he was a lot better than I was when I got on stage the first couple times.
Why?
Because for the last 10 years.
Right, he's been a student.
He's 30.
So for the last 15 years, he's been watching comedy.
Right.
And listening to comedy, an average of Lee, five hours a week,
since you've been 15.
Probably, yeah, I always have watched specials, listen to CDs.
That's how it starts.
That's how it starts.
So I never did that.
I never did that.
You know, I was a fan of fucking prior, like,
Bicentennial Nigger.
Yeah, yeah, I know that out now.
You know, I was there when, like, yeah.
Like, I remember still going to the store and getting Bicentennial Nigger.
Right, right.
That's the one with him.
It's like the American flag kind of in the background, right with his shirt off and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like going, what the fuck is this?
and then, you know, seeing David Brenner on TV.
There was no internet.
You had an encyclopedia.
You know what I'm saying?
And then, like, somebody when I was about maybe 20 turned me on to Lenny Bruce.
Oh, wow.
And I was like, this is crazy.
And then when I was 15, somebody turned me out to Letterman.
And our thing was he always knew what night comics were going to be on.
Yeah.
So no matter what I did on those nights, I think it was like Wednesdays or Thursdays or Tuesdays,
no matter what I did.
those nights. I didn't get high.
Right. I would always have a cocktail or two
and slip by his house at 11.30
and he would bring down leftovers.
His mom would make. And we would watch
Letterman. And we would... That was when Letterman
was fucking 82, 81.
Letteman was a fucking bad motherfucker back
then. And that spiked my interest
in comedy.
Lenny Bruce, Carlin a little bit.
Yeah, he's my favorite. But not
as much as prior. Because
I like that crazy.
The raw emotion and everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All that shit.
Mine was,
mine was Saturday Night Live.
We didn't have many,
it sounds like so hokey,
but like in Riggins where I grew up
this little tiny Idaho town,
we didn't have cable and things for a while.
Like we didn't have very many channels
so you get like network channels like the big three NBC,
CBS, ABC,
but for a lot of places of house,
like you weren't able to get like they literally didn't have cable.
They didn't run it to that town.
And so NBC Saturday Live,
that was my comedy exposure for the week,
was watching Saturday. And I would watch it with my grandma.
Because for most of my childhood,
it was my mom, my dad was up in Alaska,
and my mom was working.
Well, my parents divorced when I was young. He went up in construction
and stuff up there and different things.
But like, I would just go to my grandma Bettys
and we'd watch Saturday night live every Saturday.
But then, you know, as I got older,
you grew up in a little town like that. You don't know anybody.
I didn't know anybody who had a white collar job,
let alone an entertainment job.
Oh, no, no.
So it seems so beyond fantasy,
that I just went to college and like tried to get like a quote unquote tradition just some kind of degree just getting a degree was the goal and then I did sketch comedy but I just never thought of it again never entertained any of that as a job possibility like who the fuck am I it's like he just do and then I did stand up was what was available when I was just trying stuff I didn't like my social uh social work kind of career that was I was trying to get into and I just went and tried different things but I'm lucky I feel like I was lucky I didn't study comedy because I think I would have been intimidated like because I
I'd watched sketch, and so I, you know,
had some idea of like what you could do,
I guess, comedically in some way on a stage, you know, in some form.
But I didn't,
I hadn't really watched much stand-up.
And so,
I think it was easier in a way where I think about,
I would have been worried, I don't know if you ever worry about this Lee,
but if you, like, when you watch all the greats,
is there an expectation of you're going to try and be great immediately?
Because I didn't have that.
I just like, okay, let's just go, go fuck around on stage.
I wasn't thinking, like, about, you know,
prior and Carlin and then the mom.
modern, you know, greats and stuff like that because I didn't know their stuff.
Well, I mean, I think it helped me back a little bit because I've had people asking me.
I've been working with Joy for six years, seven years.
People have always asked and I had a couple people say I should try it out.
And I always say, oh, I'm not that kind of funny.
Like I would see all these amazing.
I watch every special.
So I see all these great.
Because you're seeing them with their prime.
You're not seeing them start.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But you now you get, though, that all those guys fucking sucked when they first started.
Like everyone goes to a shitty period.
Yeah, I still think it really hasn't hit me how much, how much time it's going to take, to be honest.
Like, even still in my head, I'm like, maybe five years.
But it's just...
You might, though, everybody's path is different.
You might accelerate faster.
But it's...
I don't know if I want to necessarily.
Like, I'm really enjoying, like, I've been going to one, I've been going to the fourth wall,
and I'm just now starting to do shows in other places.
The good thing about comedy and Lee is that I know one thing about...
that this might comedy always opens up your horizons once you do comedy and you jump off that
clip now you're a different person you really are a different person so if you're looking at me
asking me do i think lee's going to be up there richard prior or not yeah i don't think so i think
lee is going to shine yeah is going to take stand up and after a year or two he's going to take it
in a different direction he's going to see something that
That's what I see.
I think he's got Woody Allen type.
Right.
Comedy without the fucking daughter.
Let me give some shoutouts real quick here.
To my man, Kevin Hartwick, superfan, Alex Ramirez is okay.
Louis the kid always.
Maddie Codas, Damien Hernandez, Keegan Hopper, Hiro,
Miskin Ryback, Mike Ryback.
You know, I love you.
I can't see what my mom.
right out with my regular, but, and the church leader, Mr. Scott Cunningham, always running shit over
there online, letting bitches know what time it is.
But no, that was, I, I, it's, it's, it, people have to see, if you're in a rush with
anything.
All right.
It's not just stand up.
I love, I love, I love, I love, I love watching, uh, fly by night people in my 27, you
years ago.
I've seen so many fly-by-night people.
Right.
And what people don't understand today is I've seen so many,
I've been exposed to so many fly-by-night people
that you know the symptoms.
Right.
You know the opening lines.
You know the symptoms.
You know, we get approached three times a week for something.
I get approached 20 times a week for something.
And I know the wording.
I know the
you know it already
You smell
You've been here
And you
It's weird that sometimes
I fuck with them
And I let them play their game
I let them think
Yeah no worries
Bub blah blah
We'll do that
They don't even know how to handle it
Because they didn't prepare for that
They were prepared for getting shut down
I threw their game completely to fuck off
You know what I'm saying
Yeah yeah yeah
We've seen I've seen so many shysters
Like Lee told me that
He was thinking about
Going to
Work for a service
that they offered the, they bought content from the stand-up,
and they put on the site, and people click.
You know, I've heard, in 20 years in L.A.,
we've heard every scam.
Right, right.
You young comics that think your wording, I smell.
If you don't have the dedication that I just talked about
with Mr. Cummings here, I could smell it on you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I smell it on people.
Yep.
I bet you.
I bait you.
I let you think that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know who's doing their homework.
Right.
Because you did the homework.
Yeah.
So you know when the homework has been done.
Right.
18 years is fucking, you know.
It's in your blood at that point.
I've been doing comedy 27 years.
Yeah.
So 18 years for me was 91.
So it was 2001.
And then plus eight is what?
2009.
that's when I started coming into my own.
Yeah.
18 years was where I started taking a gamble on storytelling.
I had done it before, but I wasn't sure about it.
Then Ari Sheffi opened up the door a little bit.
Yeah.
And I listened to a Showtime special that Whitney Cummings had done,
not Whitney Cummings had produced, where she introduced a bunch of comics.
Okay.
And one night I went into my bathroom.
I was taking a shit, but I left the volume up.
Yeah.
And I heard this comic without watching him.
I heard his material.
Right.
And by hearing his material, I realized how bad I was because he was just doing one-liners.
And they're funny, and they take you to a certain distance in comedy.
Right.
But after a certain point, those one-liners, you'll end up in triple runs the rest of your life.
Yeah, there's very few, like the Hedberg type and stuff like that.
You know, Shafir changed me too, man.
one of those first storytelling shows
long before it was a TV show
at the lab with Eddie Peppa
telling us and the people it was a revenge theme
and that one show
changed my comedy trajectory
because my first two albums are more joke-based
and then I did this story about
fucking with these dishwashers
in college like just doing this ridiculous
prank that I would do these crazy prank
but this went on for like four months
this crazy prank it was a fucking horrible
how far I pushed these people
but I did the revenge story was I'm like
my theme was
was, or basis of the story was I'm like,
this guy should fucking get me.
Like, I'm the one who deserves to have revenge.
Like, I fucked with a stranger horrifically for like,
almost happy.
But then I started telling that on the road afterwards,
and I liked it so much more than the rest of my material
because it was just this real shit.
It was interesting naturally.
It changes you. It changed all the future albums.
It changed my whole career.
Completely.
Because the first time my story told on stage was at the belly room.
I caught Mitzie on a night of weakness.
And I go, Mitzie.
Can I do stories from a Cuban street?
Wow.
I had a show called Stories from a Cuban Street.
It had to be 1998.
I was into comedy seven years.
Yeah.
And I was basically doing one-liners like Rodney
and trying to be cute up on stage with dirty jokes.
And I took that upstairs,
and it changed my fucking life forever.
Yeah.
Because I stayed on stage for two hours,
just telling stories about my childhood.
Right.
It was the first time.
I saw people's jaw drops.
It's riveting.
I saw people laugh.
I saw people cry.
Yeah.
It was fucking amazing.
I went out and got really high that night because I had taken myself to a complete
different level.
I had forced my hand.
Yeah.
Like this was way out of who the fuck I was.
Like if I was only supposed to fight.
Yeah.
I was only prepared for three rounds of fighting.
Right.
I fought seven rounds of fighting.
Yeah.
And unprepared.
Right.
which really takes ghanas,
which mentally takes you somewhere else.
Yeah.
Which,
uh,
and I still wouldn't story talk.
I still was fucking petrified.
Right.
Because it is scary.
It's a fucking scary feeling.
At first,
when you talk about it,
like I just did,
I did some little,
oh,
to get people to kind of join this little part of the podcast I have.
I did like an album that you got when you signed up for this like bonus content,
kind of premium thing.
But it was like,
I did two albums.
I recorded one weekend.
Like one album Friday night,
one album Saturday night.
I just recorded two different sets.
And I didn't even realize how long it was.
But I can't imagine this beginning.
This one bit I have, it's 15 minutes long.
And it's just one story.
Which for me, like, in the beginning, there's no fucking way.
Because what I liked about short jokes early on was it's a confidence thing.
It got you there to the point.
And you got a laugh.
And you got out of the woods quickly.
Yep.
And if it doesn't work, you're on the next joke in 30 seconds.
When you do a story this 15 fucking minutes long and you set it up and you know the payoff doesn't come to real payoff for 15 minutes,
you can't bail.
And that commitment freaks people to fuck out when they're starting because they're like, well, shit, what if they don't like it?
And it's like, but you just have to reach this point where you're almost so broken in a way that you don't give a fuck what they like.
You're just willing to push what you like on them and you have to be okay with it not working.
And just, and that's fine.
And ironically, that makes it work so much better, you know?
My first two years of comedy, all I did was race to the light.
Yeah, yeah.
That's what I played.
Race to the light.
And you walk off of,
I would not shut up until the fucking light turned.
And then I'd run out of there like a fucking felon being chased.
Fucking by 20 cops.
It was the club owners would go, God, you've got to slow down.
Right.
Because it was just, I just wanted to get a laugh.
Yeah.
I wanted to quickly get a laugh.
And if you keep talking, you can't hear the silence.
Petrified of silence in the beginning, right?
And the bombings, like the early bombings.
Like I took a bombing
and a fucking private function
Some guy saw me at the New York
Comedy Club
And he's like, what are you charged?
He's in 1500
He goes, come to this edge
On Saturday night
I went up there
There's no microphone
Yeah
I was not prepared
At whatsoever
I was doing comedy two years
Yeah
Today I would have crushed that fucking
From the top of a rock
I would have got out there
And done my material yelling
And I would have banged them out
For fucking 10 Gs
I would have done a fucking
Like a savage
I would have had the bikini tops.
It would have been crazy.
The old men, I would have had them.
I did not know how to control an audience
from 30 feet away without a microphone.
Right.
I was in between a pool and them,
and they were all drinking champagne,
and I'm sitting there with no microphone.
But you know what prepares you for this?
Trivel.
Experience.
Trouble.
But, you know, without that,
it is interesting, though,
the journey of it where it's like I've gotten into that now
where it's like without all those lessons and stuff like
it's funny what brings you somebody just
asked me when I did that little live podcast
last week they did little questions
and somebody was like what made you think of
time stuff what made you want to do this and I just in a
moment of like just well just being honest whatever I go
failure I go years and years of failure
is what I created time suck
you know and it's just because you learn but then you learn from all those
and had I not had all those failures I wouldn't be able to pull off
you know like I do like a times like it's like an hour
and a half with no guests.
There's no way I could have done that
and kept it interesting.
Without the chops of a comic.
So many years of fucking up and making
horrible decisions about learning and learning and learning and learning.
And then it's, yeah, yeah, it is.
You know what?
This doesn't just pertain to comedy.
Oh, yeah, I guess.
This pertains to any art that you fucking choose.
Like, you know, I see,
I've not repeated this a thousand times.
I hate that they make you pick a major when you're 18.
That's not fair.
You don't know what the fuck you want to do.
You just hear what your stupid fucking friends say at Starbucks.
Right, right.
And you repeat what the fuck they say?
Yeah, three years.
And what are you going to tell your father the bad news?
And you want to be a chef and fucking Benny Hunter?
You're going to go fucking play the drums.
Right.
It's a horror show.
Right.
It's killed more people on anything because making bad choices.
Yeah.
But that's all a part of this fucking journey.
Right.
To get good at something, you got to do, you got to make bad fucking choices.
Yep.
And you know what really hurts when they hurt your pocket?
Oh, yeah.
That's when you really learn a lesson.
It's not when you, oh, well, my girlfriend left me because I don't play the flute.
That's something completely different.
Wait through your girlfriend left you and it stole 22 Gs.
You're out of bed.
That's two different fucking lessons.
You know what I'm saying?
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that's motivation, especially like, well, I got two kids and stuff now.
But when you know, I remember like...
And you live back in Idaho.
I live back in Idaho.
I live back in Idaho.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, man.
No drama.
You do your podcast in Idaho.
Yep, yep.
in a fucking back room of a mansion that you bought for $125,000.
You got a pool.
You got a fucking doorman named...
You got a Mexican named Paco with a shirt that says, I love America, hon.
He mows the lawn.
You live like a fucking king.
I mean, we live good up there and stuff now, but it's like, but it is crazy.
It's like, you talk about the financial motivation, you know, and like when you had those moments, I mean, I remember reading this book early on.
It's David Mamet, some playwright.
I'm sure theater people are like, oh, it's fucking David Mamet.
How do you not?
But he wrote some book about truth and lies, something.
It was for actors.
But the main piece of advice I took from that, he goes,
paraphrasing, don't give yourself an out.
Don't give yourself a backup plan because if you do, you'll take it.
Because this business is so fucking rough.
And I thought about that.
Like, I remember thinking, like, you know, if I would have had an out, you know, six years ago,
I had things where it was just a low point and touring and stuff, two kids, you know,
like money in the bank was almost gone.
Calendar was looking fucking dead.
Not to interrupt you.
Yeah.
I want you to close your eyes.
and honestly tell me,
I'll give you one minute,
give me a number of how many comics
could have been stars
that you personally know
if they would have given up their day job.
How many people would have been stars
if they would have given up the day job?
Yeah, I know three of them right now
that if they would have taken a chance
and really believed
in who the fuck they were,
they would have been on TV right now
in some sort of way.
I'm not saying they would have been a star.
I know three people right now
who are that funny.
Yeah.
who continue to have it,
and it's the biggest fear that you could have is that safety net.
There's one name that keeps dominating.
I mean, I want to say,
but,
no,
I don't want you to say the name.
He had a financial advisor job.
How many numbers?
How many people do you know that you feel in your heart?
If they gave up their day job would be making a living today in Los Angeles,
I could name.
Just based on talent,
just based on...
talent that I fucking respect.
Right.
That I would go, fuck, I wish I had that specific gift.
I wish I could write like that.
I wish I had that eye for this.
Yeah.
I got two of my head, two of my head.
Yeah, like, yep.
I know them personally.
And I want to punch them right in the fucking mouth.
But they always thought that that, they always thought that insurance was the key to
there and you don't understand that if you don't cut that out of your life that oh yeah
biblical cord oh man it's nothing motivates you like fear for me at least nothing motivates me like
fear when i'm like how the fuck yeah you do your best work am i going to help you in a corner yep yeah
if i put you in a corner and i put a knife to your throat right you're gonna do your best work oh yeah
you're you're gonna be fucking focused yeah that's when you become a jew you know crab maga you're
fucking you know you're doing elbows your cousins with kichi over here throwing sidekicks to the
Yeah. You don't do your best work when you're sitting there smoking cigarettes and somebody's rubbing your feet.
Yeah. You do your best work when you go home street and do your best work.
Well, you don't want to hear Joey Diaz or your father or your mother or Keishie or Lee say I told yourself.
Right. Oh. Oh, that's the one that makes my dick hard. For sure. That's the one. Okay.
Yep. I don't even say a word. I don't even reply to you. I don't even reply to you. I just make a mental note and I keep it in my mind.
It's the weirdest fucking thing.
And it happened.
You keep mentioning the podcast.
It happened with this.
It happened with the original podcast and now with Lee.
It's happened where 10 years ago, the people that are talking to me wouldn't even let me in their room.
Right, right, right.
They would ask Rogan, why would they bring me and Ari?
We were too disgusting animals.
Now look at the two of them.
you? Square business.
Yeah. And I remember
hearing all those negative comments.
Now, I could be, again,
you know, the other day I got to some beef
with a woman online and then she revealed that she
had been raped twice. And
I go, listen, I understand the anger
in your heart.
But until you lose that anger in your heart, you never
move forward in this life.
I was angry at the world, too. God took
my mother. I thought there was no
more gone. I had that chip on my
shoulder for 20 years. I didn't even
Yeah.
Funny.
So I lost that anger.
Wow.
There's so many factors that we put in our lives.
Anger.
Yeah.
That once you go away from that shit, you just go, you know what?
Done, I'm going to sleep.
I'm going to fucking sleep.
It's over.
You're not going to fuck with me no more because that's when it keeps you up at night.
When you're tossing and you're turning and you're going up and you're smoking cigarettes.
Yeah.
What am I going to do?
And how are we going to pay the rent?
You're speaking to me right now.
Yeah.
Oh, no, no.
It's horrible.
I'm getting some more.
It's horrible when you feel.
First take that chance off the cliff.
Yep.
You're like, I'm going, but.
And 18 years in, I still fight it.
I still, I'm getting.
I love it.
I love it.
I'm getting some more, oh, some like a new ink or whatever like that in a few weeks.
And I've been wanting this tattoo forever, and fear is your only God.
It's raging against the machine lyric.
But I'm having, like, that big with some imagery and stuff put on one of my arms
because I'm like, I have to still fight that to this day to take new chances.
And it's like, I'll feel that like, no, people aren't going to like, no, I can't.
Like, I'll still fight kind of betting on myself, you know, like that.
just because, but then I always, you know, in the end, I'll take that chance.
But it's like, yeah, man, you have to get out of your own way.
It's so fucking hard in this business sometimes because, yeah, yeah.
In life.
And life in general, life in general, not this business, I guess.
I'm happy you got to come on.
I know that you requested to come on a few times.
I already have guests and shit.
And we were funky with Wednesdays, but I'm happy.
I got to get you.
I'm so thankful.
Yeah, you have me on.
You know, like, I want people to know you're in Brayette this weekend.
Yeah.
You're close to home.
Yep.
You're not doing anything.
Swing by Bray.
That's a great fucking club.
Yeah.
I think he's got shows Thursday, Friday, Saturday, two shows Sunday.
Just one show Sunday.
Okay.
So just went to show Sunday.
Go see him.
And the podcast is where?
It's time suck.
And it's just a deep.
Where can where they find it?
They can find it.
There's an app.
There's a time suck app.
But it's on iTunes, Google Play, all that.
And it's just one subject each week.
One a week.
Cereal killer, historical figure.
It's all the same kind of research you would get in an academic podcast.
But it's more like every person language.
It's like, you know, I'm a fair amount of profanity.
I'm going to throw in some jokes and try to make it fucking interesting for someone who might fall asleep during a normal lecture.
That's how I am.
That's it.
And that's that.
What do you got playing this weekend that, Todd?
You got some gigs.
Yeah, I'm supposed to look at you.
You're going up against my man up in Santa Barbara.
People got to make a decision now.
Do we go see fucking, my man, Dan Cummings?
Or do we go see Lee Syatt and Santa Barbara?
It is both.
His both.
It is both.
Absolutely.
Yeah, go see, Dan.
I'm going to be the Velvet Jones with Sam Triv and.
Tripoli, Mike Catherwood and Mike Tully.
And then I think tomorrow night, depending on what happens,
there's a chance I might be on the Queen Mary in Long Beach
with Di Agostino Zorda and Steve Simone.
Look at you.
No, you're going.
You're going.
I love Tripoli.
You're good.
You're good.
You got clearance.
Everything's good.
I'm happy you've got to come on here.
Thanks for having me.
Like I said, Nyack is sold out.
Now you got April fucking fourth and fifth at Santa Fe Casino in Aberkirkie.
And don't forget, four fucking 24.
in Columbus, Ohio
with Kate Quigley on the fucking drums.
Who's better than you, bitches?
Thank you for the love and support all week.
You know, I love you.
Coxuckers with all my heart.
I want to thank Dan Cummings.
I want to thank my main man, Lee Syatt.
And I also want to thank me undies.
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And again, listen, everybody's trying to save money and do this and that,
especially when it comes to eating.
As far as I'm concerned, Blue Apron is the number one fresh ingredient
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You know why?
They offer a two-person plan.
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And while many people know this, a lot of people don't know.
And they don't know what type of meals you get when you cook with Blue Apron.
You're just not going to have burgers for dinner.
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You're going to be making sea at steaks with thine pan sauce and mashed potatoes with green beans and crispy shallots,
all in under 45 minutes
and without a trip to the grocery store
you're going, Joey, what are you a fucking magician?
No, I'm not a magician.
That's what Blue Apron does. Lee.
Lee lives off Blue Apron. Tell him, Lee.
I love it. My next box is
coming with three amazing dishes. It has Italian
style shrimp and sweet peppers.
I have quick Bucatini and I have
pan-fried chicken with zucchini and pickled
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You're like, Joey, that deal is too good to be true, Joey. How can you be giving me that
on Wednesday? Why are you lying to me like this?
Listen, with Uncle Joey Liddy.
Look at the menu this week.
You got pan-fried chicken breast with a sweet tangy zucchini.
Ooh, you got Parmesan-crusted steaks with mashed potatoes and broccoli.
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Are you kidding me or what?
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Get $30 off your Blue Apron right now by going to Blue Apron.
dot com slash joey blue apron a better way to cook i want to thank my man dan the fucking truck
cummings i want to thank my little flying jew over there the original christ killer leis i want
to thank my girl kishi for coming and visiting us and welcome him with our fucking beauty i got
to take the malook offer and fucking that's it i love you cock suckers don't forget i'll see you
Cock suckers and Nyack or Santa Fe, April, 4th, and 5th.
Don't forget to stop by and see Dan Cummings,
and don't forget to go give Lee a hug.
The rest of your motherfuckers, get ready for next week.
We're throwing heat at you.
Stay black, have a great fucking weekend,
and Uncle Joey loves you.
Take that fucking Mule Lee.
