The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament - #634 - Steven Brody Stevens

Episode Date: November 13, 2018

Steven Brody Stevens, a comedian, actor seen in "The Hangover," and the host of the "Festival of Sports" podcast, joins Joey Diaz and Lee Syatt LIVE in studio.  This podcast is brought to you by: �� Hellotushy.com - Go to Hellotushy.com/muffler for 10% off of your portable bidet order.   23andme.com - 23andMe is a DNA testing service that can offer you insights on to how your DNA can influence your weight, sleep quality and much more. Order your 23andMe health and ancestry kit at 23andMe.com/church before thanksgiving and when you buy more than 2 kits each kit is $49.99, a 50% discount.    Blue Apron: Go to blueapron.com/JOEY to get your first THREE meals for free.      Onnit.com. Use Promo code CHURCH for a discount at checkout.   Recorded live on 11/12/2018.
  

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Any portable bidet they got in stock, all right? And they start as low as $69, different colors, hot water, all that stuff. Go to tushy.com. Lee, kick that motherfucker mule. Oh shit. Tuesday, the 13th of November. Are you fucking nuts or what? You're 10 days away from Pilgrims.

You follow me? Brody Stevens. Yes. Uncle Joey. The Christ killer. Here we go. It's unbelievable. It'll never happen again.

Here you go. What? My main man, Brody Stevens, it's Tuesday morning. The 13th, listen, if you came to any of the shows of Gotham, I want to thank you personally. It was a great fucking weekend. No chairs were thrown, no bottles. That's always a good fucking weekend.

You're great audiences. If you've been watching a Netflix special, thank you very much for the support and the love. And that's it. It's about Brody Stevens. Yes. We are here feeling good, relaxed in the moment. I'm comfortable.

I've been on this show. Good to see you guys. Lee and Joey. Always great to bump into you. You know, I was thinking about who can I have on this time? I said, fucking Brody Stevens. I just saw him at the store. Let me get my fucking hour.

Yeah. It was, yeah, I saw you at the store, show on my face, see you, how you doing, call me. What time of your spots usually? I get, normally, I'll do Friday or Saturday in the main room. closing it out, which is like 1230, 1245 late. And then occasionally I'll get an earlier spot in the original room, like a 1045 or an 11. So Adam, the Booker, and they mix it up for me. But I get two to three spots a week.

But I make the most of those, if I get those main room spots, and I go up at the end, I get to spread my wings and do my own thing. And that's what I made my special based on doing those late night and main room spots or I'm just kind of letting it go. So I still do those. I've kind of, you know, I've done it already. So I'm looking to do something more, but getting some motivation for, you know, but they switch it up, but you got to hustle.

Got to play The Laugh Factory. Got to go to the improv. Got to do these other shows. Got to show your face. Listen, the hustle never ends. Like I said, Sebastian Manus, Scott, sold out four shows in Madison Square Garden. And I'm telling you, every day, all of a struggle. whatever level you're at comically you know stat whatever right every day you got to get up and face it

work and fucking you know whatever it is that you do to get you know closer to your goal whatever the fuck it is you know it was interesting you were talking about the beginning of the show that you're done with the meds you're done well i have been for how long now four months how do you feel good my mood is low i feel like i have to build up my rewire my brain a little bit and my body. I think that it takes several months to get it out of your system and then you get used to being different. But essentially, I feel like my old self.

But that doesn't necessarily, like pre-comedy, because I had been taking some kind of an antidepressant, something to take the edge off since Seattle. You know, and I only had a year or two in New York when I was not really on. anything. But being here in Los Angeles since 2000, I think the pressures maybe of the internet made me, you know, all these, just so many more things happening. But initially I started taking it in Seattle because I'd get up there and do comedy and I wouldn't feel right. I wouldn't, I felt like, oh, Brody, you're funny. You're funny playing baseball. Then when I went up there and did comedy, it was rough. So I did take something to help me have the edge taken off. However,

I feel like 20 years now later to say you're only on a med because it helps your comedy is kind of like a weak excuse Well listen before by the way. I think it's I called it just to stay safe I always said it was November 15th But it was more like the eighth or the ninth when I gave up cocaine and this is 11 years 11 years coke free this week congratulations 11 fucking me as coke-free something that I never ever ever thought I could live without like something that I thought but if I got off it I wouldn't be funny that was my biggest fear of getting off the cocaine was that I would lose my sense of humor yeah so when you said that before the show started

I assured you that that does not happen you know I don't know what your history was with uh meds and I didn't want to put it up in the front street, but you put it out in the front street. Well, and you know what, man, there's a lot of people who listen to this show that are on meds. And maybe it's maybe you inspire them to maybe go, you know what, I'm going to give my own self a chance. I'm going to try to live my life. I'm going to try to get a good control, good, what do you call that around you, a good support? Support system. Showing your face. It's fucking important. The support system around you is the most important.

important thing you know I took Kate Quigley to the New York Comedy Festival and Wednesday night I had all my friends meet at a Chinese restaurant and we all ate and little by little kept she kept seeing my friends and she goes I understand you now a lot more you know you've kept in touch with these people for 40 fucking years and they support you and you know instead of me going out and buying a BMW and getting an assistant I call one of them every day and I hear them telling me how they have to call me back because they're delivering a package for Federal Express and they tell me how

they have to drive home at 8 but go back to work at 10 because a ship is coming in and they got to count stuff so when I talk to them every day it keeps me grounded it says to me fuck they're 55 and I have a friend who delivers

he's 56 my brother and he delivers fucking packages all day for Federal Express I would give up if you think I deliver packages, Federal Express today, you better fucking shoot yourself if I had to climb upstairs all day

and drop off boxes. That's not going to happen. I would quit in the middle of the day. Depends on what city? Any city, I think, I wouldn't have, I don't have it in me to the loo of the packages all day right now. There is no fucking way. Even if I was 50 pounds lighter,

100 pounds lighter, there is no way at 55 that I could be walking up and downstairs. I know there's plenty of men that are doing. The Amazon guys, I'm sure. But when I speak to these guys that I grew up with, you know, my one friend says he reps on the weekends to make us an extra $200 a week for his family.

So during baseball season, he goes up on stage, you know, he goes up on stage, I'm sorry. He fucking goes to a little league field at 8 in the morning, and he's dead at 6 at night on Saturdays and Sundays. After he delivers, fellow express all fucking week. Oh, same guy. Same guy.

They make $175 for the day so his family can have an extra $1,400 a month. And I'm like bitching about having a gig for $400. Like, you know what I'm saying? Right. So when I talk to them, it keeps my life in perspective. It keeps me in check. I don't want to be surrounded with people who look at life

for like a value. I want it always, always, you know, so that's who keeps me grounded. That's my support group. Those little fucking friends I call in the morning and just how I break your balls, I break their balls. I know when they're busy. I know when they're busiest.

I call them, then I call them again. You know what I'm saying? And these are friends back east or all over? All over. Just saying hello. Saying hello. Because it keeps you fucking ground. I talked to Bob Lillinger's today.

Oh, nice. A listener from the podcast, you know. Tomorrow I got to call Bobby Shack. Every day is somebody, you know, and these people keep you humble. Is it also just socializing, keeping those? I love my friends in Jersey. I love them more every time I see him. I see him for 10 minutes, and it means the world to them, and it means the world to me.

When I'm home, I go to breakfast at this one. I go to the sea, my mother's cemetery with that one. This one takes me to get Cuban food. This one takes me to Rudy's. This one drives me the chance. So I have a different relationship with all of them. And I talk to them. I have a friend who, 55, went to MIT.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology? No, no, no, no. The one in New York. Yeah, the New Jersey one, I think. The one where people are fucking geniuses. You know what he does? He delivers bread. From midnight to 11 in the morning for 200 of the house of shift.

He makes $1,000 bucks a week. bucks a week and sometimes he works Saturday nights all night delivering bread in the village but he's got to work from six in the morning with all that traffic he's got to get over to the Jersey side and I wouldn't fucking want to do that at all at my age again so all these guys keep me grounded so whatever keeps you grounded from the evil in your mind coming out or whatever the fuck happens to all of us that's the most important thing I'm telling you this as a 55 year old. Like, I'm an old fucking man.

And I wish I knew this when I was 30. Yeah. That you have to have three people, four people, and you breathe for them, and they breathe for you. No questions asked. Yeah, I have friends I need to, I mean, I'm from here.

It's a little different. That's an excuse, though. Like, my best, not my best, one of my close friends, I still, like, lives up near Magic Mountain. I should probably call them. Maybe tomorrow I'll call them. Call him.

I'll call him. Take him on lunch. I just haven't done it. Make a deal with him that you're going to make sure and meet him every two weeks for lunch. I need to. At the same diner, to eat the same bowl of soup, whether it's a Jewish. What if I have an audition? Who gives a fuck?

That's the problem. That's the problem, that we forget who we are because we have the audition. I had a commitment with you. Every Sunday at 11 o'clock, you have to make the moment. that commitment. Tomorrow, you know, pisses me out tomorrow, that today was my heavy day.

So today I lifted it and I went to kickboxing. Tomorrow, I don't know how I'm going to wake up how my back is going to feel. If I miss Jiu-Jitsu, I feel guilty because I had a date with Jiu-Jitsu. When I get a fucking call

for an audition on a Tuesday at 1, I get pissed because I got to miss Jiu-Jitsu. When I got a call for a fucking meeting to meet somebody at 2 o'clock in Hollywood, that means I can't go the jih Tzu, I can only do the conditioning, and I get fucking pissed. You know, I don't want nothing to interfere with whatever keeps me grounded.

And I wish that I had known this when I first moved to L.A. And I did have a grounding. I had people like Ralphie Mae and yourself and Josh Wolf and whatever, but nobody protected me from myself, which nobody could ever do. Nobody could protect you from being you. It takes you to protect yourself. I know, right? How hard is that?

It's hard. It's hard. You know, it's, that's why you need, you know, having family, having a wife or a husband or a dog or something or it's, you got to have to build. If you don't have that, you've got to build up your support system. You got to, it just takes effort. It takes effort and you want it and be a good person, I think, but also getting out of the house. It's just with the Internet these days, social media, it does affect people. How long have you lived alone, Brody?

Probably now for... Great question, Lee. Probably now for six years. Because, like, I've lived alone for eight years, something like that. And even this weekend, I was, like, some things happened that I annoyed me and I was just getting into my head. And I didn't, I talked to a few people, but I know most of the day I'm by myself. And even just as terrible as I sounded, I was just driving. And I just was thinking about what's going on with.

the fires. And I was like, you know what? This is, that really doesn't matter. Like what I'm going through is in the grand scheme of things. I'm making it worse in my head. So I think it's hard sometimes as a person who lives alone to like get out of their head. Well, yeah. I mean, that's why I, well, one, I go for walks, actually getting out. And then I do that periscope. I do talk. I mean, I'm not hearing their voices, but I am doing these check-ins. I am connecting with my community. There is something true to having your audience, your fans, they do mean something. So I do lean on them sometimes more than others.

So having a roommate, I had a roommate back my last apartment, and he was a really good roommate. They're hard to come by. But I think, yes, being social, and when you are living alone and you're, it could be, you've got to like make it happen.

But when you, if you, like I said, like you called me today, Joey, I didn't know. You know, this was not like something that was booked. It was energy. I feel like you got to be in it to win it. That's half the battle. So, and not feeling sorry for yourself, but I think having a roommate, you think that would be better? No, I, because trust me, I haven't had a roommate since college, and that's.

Oh, really? Yeah, it's, but I have sacrificed financially for it. I could have saved a lot of money by getting a room. roommate and or even if I was spending the same amount of money getting a bigger place but I live with someone for a year and even he would say when I did it that it's like I'm a very I'm a very much introverted person yeah and it takes a special I can't live with that many people okay I like my space I like I like to go somewhere and have no one like to unplug like something that's been kind of a struggle for me that I have to work on

is hanging out after comedy sets. I don't feel comfortable, really. Hanging out after? Yeah. After the show. Yeah. And then what, talking to the other comedians, talking to the fans, audience members?

I mean, the people who come, it's a little bit different. It's quicker conversations. I can ask them about, I can talk and be like, hey, what do you do and this and that? And I have some friends that I do open mics with now. Right. But I don't, unless it's a few people, like two or three people, I could hang around for an hour.

If it's seven or eight people, I'll hang around for like 20 minutes. So you just want to get out of there? Yeah, I just want to go home. And you feel like that's not good? Yeah, I think I need to be a little bit more. I mean, I'm more social already, but I think it would be beneficial if I was, you know, hanging out, you get into know people on a more personal basis. I mean, that's why the comedy store is so popular. Yeah.

You can hang out. You hang out there, right? You come by there? A little bit, yeah. And I've been, I just have to force myself to stay and do, I haven't, I've done it like twice in the past week. But one of the times I had a show, so it didn't really, I didn't really count it as just hanging out. But you set up, you go like on, you know, whatever night once you're, I have to start doing that more. I've been avoiding it.

Yeah, because everybody's hanging out there. They're all similar, same likes. And, you know, you're at the comedy store. Right. And then you're going to meet other comedians. You're going to meet fans. are going to be around people, all that stuff. I mean, that's why I go.

I go, I know I have a place. I do the same thing. Yeah. I do the same thing. I force myself to go to the store, but let's back this conversation up because these are some interesting fucking things that are happening here.

Okay. Just now. Lee and I, when we first started doing the podcast, we started in my apartment. I had an extra bedroom. And then, and this is not, I'm not hating on Lee people. Lee knows what I'm about to tell you people.

And then Lee got an apartment, and it was a two-bedroom, and we do the podcast out of his apartment. And I love Lee. Lee has come home. Lee knows my family. Lee could come to my home whenever he wants. He knows that. Yeah.

I know from doing the podcast that year in Lee's apartment and how he acted, that I have never been back to one of Lee's apartment. Not because he's a bad person. He's always hosted me. He always had Diet Coke for me. His apartment was clean. Okay. Okay.

I just know Lee. I know from me being who I am that Lee, there's people who want you at their house. There's people who love opening up the door going, come in, come in, sit down, take your shoes off, put your feet on the table. There's people who are naturals at that. Yeah. There's people who are fucking naturals at that. They want to entertain. I wish I could be one of those people.

Okay, so just that relationship of me going to Lee's home in the mornings to do his podcast. And at one time there was a girl sleeping on his couch. Oh, I could see that the effect of when that girl moved out on Lee. And I tried to tell him, not because I'm a hater, before Lee told me he was going to let his girlfriend move in, I go, Lee, from a standpoint of a fucking old man that reads people, And there's a loner. Remember guys, I was a loner. You put me in my room by myself as a kid. I was an lonely child.

As long as I got a fucking record player and a TV, but something happened to me in 1987. At 1986, something interesting happened to me. And I admit this on the air right now. And it's called something, but it affected me in a different way. It's called cabin fever. Okay.

The same thing that happened to the guy in the show. Yeah. Okay, so what happened is in Aspen, the spring of 86, my girlfriend, who became my wife, said, it's the off season. Everybody loses their job. So instead of sit, all the restaurants close, right? Everything closes. I mean, it goes from being, ah, heavy duty, fucking people jumping off clips with bikinis on to April 15th. Nothing. Like nothing. Like from traffic. six cars. And the only thing that stays open is a supermarket. At least this is how it wasn't 86. All that would stay openly was the supermarket for limited hours. Because all there was left was the residents of that time.

People who worked at the... Instead of there being nine bars now, there was a hotel with one bar open. And that's the way it was until mid-June. Then the bicycle races came and the hot air balloons came. And then it became people come back up. Yeah. But this is a six weeks span ofly that I had to work three hours a day,

some days just to open up the video store. And I can look at you guys in the face and tell you that there were days I wouldn't even open the door. The dog, this is no drugs. This is me smoking pop, popping video after video in the movies. Video after video. Just watching movies. Yeah, pissing and shitting in between. eating something in between, making a shake.

Yeah. I did that. You could do that back then. I did that for six weeks. Well, it's like a film festival. And it had been really weird because before that, I lived in New York and I had a hustle. And I was out of the house every day by 8 o'clock,

stealing, selling drugs, stealing fucking tampons and selling them on the New York side, the bodegas up on Washington Heights. I was just a fucking, you know. And those six weeks affected me. I started to twist a little bit. I started to get bad thoughts, not suicide. Oh.

You know, I'm coming back and murdering my stepdad and just bullshit dumb stuff. So from those six weeks, I learned one thing for my personal mental health. It was always good for me. Get up. A cup of coffee. You know, go to your balcony and hit your joint twice. Get your head together. Yep.

Write out of plan for your day, what you want to accomplish for the day, like in written form in a paragraph. So, I feel great. I got eight hours of sleep, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And take a shower and get out of the house, even if you have nowhere to go. And make your bed, actually. It's so healthy for you.

But if you look at the questionnaire for depression, it starts with that being alone. not getting your hand forced. I'm not crying. You get in your hand forced to do something. A lot of people don't like their hand forced. When you say hand forced, if you get a roommate,

you can't do what you usually do. Act like a fucking Gabon and just sit on the couch all day and watch videos. Okay. Now you have a roommate. Lee made a point that he's been living alone, but if he had a roommate, maybe he'd get out of the house more.

I believe in getting out of the fucking house. I think the sun has amazing powers. I think the air has amazing power. You know, some days I'm feeling the whole hum. And I know exactly what it is. I haven't jumped in the shower. It's proven walking is beneficial for you, for your brain, for your body, for everything.

So there's no, the only thing somebody would say about walking, you should be doing more. You should be, then turn it into a hike. The bottom line is walking helps anybody. If it's helping you, and especially as a performer, you know, mentally I go out and I walk and a lot of the creative ideas come from when people walk. I do my periscopes when I'm walking. I check in with people. And then luckily we're here in Southern California and we have that sunlight.

So I do, you know, at least I'm doing that. I always say like I'm not a couch potato. I'm checking in. Even if I'm doing another periscope and I'm playing drums, I'm sitting on a Swiss. I'm exercising. So I'm trying to at least, you know, show people like being active. And if I don't do a periscope or, you know, I don't do an Instagram video, people are going to go, hey, Brody, what's up?

So they kind of, it's, it still doesn't be having an actual physical person with you. It's a little bit of an AI thing when you, when you have relationships with your audience members that you actually don't even hear their voices. So you do need that human interaction. action. And part of it is having guests on a podcast. I got to the point where I wasn't even booking guests on podcasts. There's just me and, you know, the mic and the camera.

It's like, I need to be around people. So I've made a concerted effort, I think, the last couple months or so, is like, be social, put the, put the effort out and get out of your head. Just so. And I see results. I got at least try. I mean, listen, you. And I like it. You have to be in your head to be self-conscious,

but I don't want you to be the self-conscious that you destroy yourself. From 79 to 85, walking was my psychiatrist. Walking with and without an iPad on, whatever. What did you call those? A walkman. Walkman. I walked miles, and that was my psychiatry. Mm-hmm.

I would just walk. Walk, walk, walk, walk. Get your steps in. Walk, walking. I didn't do it for health reasons. It was the psychiatry. I had to break down what had just happened in my life and how I was going to make my future better.

And it would be smoking a joint and walking from Clipside Park to fucking Englewood and back, six miles or something of retardation, just wasting time. I was pre, what's that called, procrastinating? Yeah, that's what I do. But I was also breaking it down. What had just happened and I was breaking down my next attack. And I finally had the balls and it took me and I launched in 85.

That was my attack, but that was a year of walking. So you were walking before you were doing stand-up? Stand-up wasn't even in my future. Okay. Prison was in my future at that time. Gotcha. And I was a walker, walking away. Like if I lived here, I would walk towards fucking, you know,

Sunland every day, you know, on a slant with a knife-bile. I would force myself to walk. by myself. No cell phone in your pocket, no calls. And break down what had just happened in my life. The death of my mother, how I was going to survive? Was I going to go to vocational school? Was I going to go to college?

Was I going to get my GED? How was I going to, you know, it was just a constant walking. Was my psychiatrist? You know, today I got up this morning early. There was no school today. So me and my wife had a shared duties. So I got up this morning, hung out with her early, watched television and then at nine I went and went to my movie tie little conditioning class but I

remember before I walked in I got to the quarter of nine I just stood there on my car for four minutes and I just soaked in the sun and naturally I said to myself just being outside is helping me you know I always tell people that you can take private lessons or you could be in a class setting And I'd much rather be in a class setting. So I have relationships with different people in that class because I'm the type of guy that I can get up at 8, go to MRET, and sit there riding until 1. And then go home, go to your office, get on social media for an hour,

return emails, and then talk to my wife, talk to my kid, and I could stay home. And I could do that for three or four. nights in a row. And that sucks dick. That makes me go crazy. The reason why I call in for spots at the comedy store is to force me take it off my ass and go down there because you can't cancel. No. So you have to go down there. When I'm driving back from the comedy store, I feel so satisfied at the end of the day. But I accomplished my mission for the day.

Even if you have a bad set? Even if I have a bad set. It's not about a bad set for a guy like me. it's about the same two things you guys are talking about. Human contact. Yeah. I mean, that's what then you need it. We're human beings. I'm talking about as soon as you wake up, I want you to give yourself an hour for you.

I want you to take that hour. I always think when I get up in the morning, I thank the Lord that he gave me another day, and I thank the Lord that I didn't grow up. I'm not growing up in a house. We're at 6.30 in the morning, a bomb gets dropped in your house. Lee's getting shaved. I got to wait for him.

We can't use the bathroom because Brody took a shit. It smells like fucking 10 people died there. Yeah, yeah. The washing machine broke so the fucking your shirt's not ready. Now you've got to iron it by hand. Everybody's getting up in a bad mood. And now you've got to get on a train in a bad mood. And everybody late to work, I fucking hated that shit.

We don't want that. That shit did not fly in my world. I know I needed to get up. I need a little break in the morning. I put music on. I get coffee. I sit there with a notebook that's wide open. I put Tuesday, November 13th on it.

And I say it's a beautiful day to be alive. And from there, I just let, and I don't stop to the end of the page. So you journal. I journal in the morning to get the waste out. Today I'm going to do this, this, this, and this. I fucking don't want to do it because the 405 is going to have traffic on it. I mean, I talk myself out of everything I could talk myself out of. So it's all over.

After that page, my day is decided. You know what? I was going to do, what's his name, his podcast? I'm not driving to Marina Del Rey. I'm texting him at 9 o'clock and telling him you're in no danger. You know, that's when I decide how I feel. If I wake up on my back hurts and I can't move, then I'm not going to go to J-Jitza with 12.

Let's make alternate plans. Who's got a podcast? You got a podcast yet? When do you do it? Wednesdays is Tuesday. Well, let's do it tomorrow or 12. That's how I work because I don't want to skip. I don't know when I'm going to be available.

But it's about also, you know, scheduling stuff. Scheduling stuff and always keeping yourself busy. This business, what we do, let me tell you something. And I'm not going to do this to none of you people anymore because I know sometimes when comedians can bond here, fucking in today's world, it gets crazy. If you get caught up in today's world, Between the internet, the media, and what's going on, you are going to go crazy.

I'm not going to mention no names because I'm not here to embarrass nobody. But I think we have discussed that we've seen a couple of people lose their minds within the last two or three years. Oh, yeah. On the internet. On the internet, in public we've seen, we've heard of people losing their minds. There's too much information getting poured into the human mind right now. Yep. So right now you have to learn how to control that too.

You have to learn how to control that too and decide on what level, how much of this are you going to take in? You know what? I'm listening to 11 podcasts a week. That's 33 hours. I've got to chop it down to five. You do? You know what?

I'm watching too much fucking football. I got to chop it down on with just Sundays. No more Thursday game. I'm going to take a shift to fucking chilies as I cook. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm going to take an extra shift. You have to control what gets put into your mind right now because of what's going on in the world,

what ABC News is feeding you, and when the Internet is feeding you. It really, really is overwhelming for the mind. Yeah, well, I don't look at the ABC News, really. I'll glance at those guys, but I listen to KFI local radio here in L.A., but I go on the internet for my news, and it's a battle out there, to be honest with you, how it is,

and I wake up every morning, and a lot of times, to be honest, I'm up in the morning, I'm looking at that internet, I'm looking at that Twitter, and I'm trying to find things, and I do my sets at the Comedy Store, I come home, I go straight to Twitter, and I'm not on there, like getting fights with people. I'm just researching stuff.

I'm researching stuff. And I feel like I'm ahead of the game on what's happening. And I feel like the last few years with the politics the way they are, it has kind of taken, taken, pulled me into an area, at least my energy, not necessarily. I'm not getting to fights on the internet. I'm not that guy. But it does get your blood boiling a little bit. But I do avoid it.

but I also I'm digging in I want I want I want honestly I want everybody to be happy I want to do whatever it takes to get it back to where we're happy and working together and that's what I'm pulled in there too

and it takes takes your time and I feel like I'm not a part of that mob mentality I'm a little I'm a little different I'm blue collar I'm from the valley grew up you know and it bothers me I don't like seeing comedian friends of mine

angry on Twitter. So I do not, I try not to not try to block it and not see it, but it's a bummer for me. And so that can get to you. I feel it's a tough time to be a human being right now. It's, I feel mentally, if you get sucked in, it's a tough time to be a human being right now. You have to know your yin and your yang and your yin and your borders, you know, You have to make time for yourself. You have to take care of yourself. Yes.

You have to, you know, you're talking to a guy that lived in his head for years, and it got me nowhere. It got me nowhere until I expressed what was in my head. That's right. It started getting places, you know. We overthink things, and in the process of thinking, we think ourselves out of the game. Right.

There's nothing to think about. You have the idea, you got a piece of paper, you write it out, and you go to work. So you weren't journaling during the years you were in your head? Not even thinking about it. There was no journaling, there was nothing. There was no journaling in my life until 1994. Me too. journaling my comedy stuff.

That's what I'm doing. And then I went to Seattle, and there was a skinny woman. There was a comic that wasn't that funny, older married. And one day she turned me onto a book called The Writers Way or something. And she told me I could borrow it for a few days, and I read it. And then there, already I was doing it. In there, it recommended, excuse me, that when you wake up, in the morning you should get a fresh piece of paper and express your thoughts for the day and i was

like i'm on to something if they're telling you this at this time this was to the hot book you know the book right the writer's way or the right way was it jean parre no no it wasn't it wasn't comedy writing okay writing and how self-help all yeah journaling this is i learned that in college at arizona state i never knew about journaling though comedy I remember when I used to get coked up, I would journal at night. You know, like telling myself this is the last time I'm going to do it. I have to stop this life. Even though I had a good set tonight, I'm making good moves in my life.

Why am I still writing, doing coke? I think journaling is the best thing in the world for you. I think journaling is the best psychiatry. I think every Friday, every Saturday morning I wake up and I read, and I read, but I read for the week. I read what I read. I wrote from Monday on. Number one, everything that I write in that journal in the mornings gets done. Plus, I have another notebook that has my schedule. Plus, I have a calendar that has my schedule. And, you know, I have three things to know my schedule. One is my day, step by step.

9 o'clock 11 o'clock 1230 4 o'clock 530 8 o'clock podcast 10 o'clock spot at the commerce store and then there's the journal part of it right where it's just a yellow notebook and every day I wake up and I write backwards to front so I start the back and I write to the front I don't start in the front I start in the back and I write to the front just superstitious I don't want to write like everybody else I'm starting the back and I write to the front and it opens up with Monday, November 13th, first line is always it's a beautiful day to be alive. That's the first thought that's just coming to your head. I don't give a fuck if you're in a ditch and there's a rock on top of you.

As long as you're breathing, if you say that to yourself, your day is going to be completely fucking different. It's been proven. It's been proven. People who pray, the limits go up. You're not supposed to pray? They say, though. The thoughts and prayers.

You're not supposed to pray, but saying that to yourself, it's a beautiful day to be alive while you're pissing. Why you're pissing? All that piss is coming out of you, and your knee hurts, and your neck is stiff from eating pussy, and you've got a blister under your tongue from eating pussy and ass. It can happen. And the chick's got chlamydia.

It still doesn't matter. Why you're peeing, if you say to yourself, it's a beautiful day to be alive. whatever shit comes into your mind on top of that it's not gonna matter i gotta go to court today i'm broke i'm hungry i don't have money to pay the rent if you say that to yourself first it's a beautiful day every journal of mine starts like that right thursday november 16th it's a fucking beautiful fucking day to be alive today i got to do this i got to do this i got to go see this fucking scumbag i got to go deal with this fucking piece of shit and whatever i got to do i got to do this i got to do

And whatever. I got to pick the baby up at four. But hey, you know what? 20 years ago, I was fucking trying to stab somebody. Look where I am today. At least I'm living. I'm breathing. I'm healthy. I got my, you know, it's just that part of it.

Yeah. Well, that's why I like working on a TV show every day or maybe with the baseball team. You bring that energy in. Yes, we're here. Push. People like that. They like that energy bringing it, lifting people up,

positive self-talk. You have to do it because it does work. I know it sounds silly, but it does work to put that, you're putting that energy out. It really is an energy of you're putting it out. I'm not saying it comes back to you, but you do put it out. And people like being around it. That's the thing. People like being around that.

That's, you know, it's a motor. It's like a coach. It's motivational. Upbeat. It can be done. And you can kind of train yourself, I would think, at least a belief. believe that it works. You know, it's not easy to do, but if you believe it, you know it's there. And that's what I, and I learned that from, I learned at Arizona State about the power of

the mind being positive and visualizing, because I saw it affect my pitching. I saw it affect my schoolwork. I saw it affect my confidence. I got everything out of, out of baseball, Arizona State that I wanted. And it's the, and I, and I apply those rules today, like at the comedy store. Playing Division 1 sports was a big thing. And I happen to go to Arizona State where we have a lot of players in the major leagues. And we had access to professional baseball coaches there. And that's where I learned the visualization. And then I see it around when I hung out with the baseball teams, the Yankees, the Dodgers, and the Cubs. And there's something to it. So I'm not trying to figure it out still, but I know it's something

there. And I got to apply it to myself a lot of the time. You know, it's easy to say. But, and, you know, that's why I wouldn't mind being around in baseball. CNN did a thing that bothered the fuck out of me. It bothered the fuck out of me because I felt that it gave an excuse. It had a, they had a docu-series called The Dark Side of Comedy. The Dark Side of Comedy? Yeah. They had different comics, and they discussed Robin Williams and the suicides and the drugs and the Knessens and all this shit.

and I agree with a lot of part of it but I recently dealt with some shit I don't know what it was I don't know what it was it started like in March and it went on until maybe the second week of July after I shot the Netflix special it wasn't pressure it was

just this doubt this this form of depression that came over me you know it affected my stomach and it was just really weird that I found out from reading the old journals about a month ago, three weeks ago. I go, let me go back and see what I was writing in March. Yeah. And one thing about depression is depression is a motherfucker if you let him in.

Yeah. Okay. So how do you let depression in from getting into your mind and not getting sunlight and not having contact? And I know all about it because, like, I'm telling you guys, I fucking hate driving. I fucking hate it. But those weeks that I'm in town all week, I thought I don't have to go on the road. Sometimes I schedule something for Thursday that's out of my character.

And the whole week, I dread it. But while I'm driving in the 405 in bump of the bumper traffic, I go, thank God I got out of the valley. Like, thank God. like thank fucking God like enough is enough that's the other reason why I call on for spots at the store makes me get out of the valley yeah we go over the hill every night

every night you know I know I can't do it every night but guys I suffer from the same thing you guys suffer from I learned about it 20 years ago because I could 30 years ago I could stay in

they could put me on a fucking island that's my dream guys that's my dream that my daughter grows up my wife tells me she's going to go and live in fucking New York and I fucking go you know what there's an island for 60 G's fucking the Navy drop bombs there 20 years ago

and there's fucking nuclear reactive I got a little chip of the island get some chicken colors you can mash I'm the type of guy that I could be alone with that with music marijuana I swear to God drums I like weights, a punching bag, TV, and internet.

Internet, will you podcast and Periscope? No, no, no, no, no. Oh, done. Lock myself in. Oh. I could be one of those guys that I could stay in. I could eat the same shit every day. I could either mortadale or salami and American cheese sandwich every day.

Oh. Protein shakes. I could live on one every day. I'm a fucking creature of habit. So I'm the time. I scam. I scared myself with that shit. I scare myself with that shit.

That's why I forced myself to get the fuck out. I forced, I went through that cocaine morning shit where you don't want to leave the house because the cops are watching you and all that. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Ever since I stopped out, I forced myself out because even I always knew that that was the dark side of comedy. The dark side of comedy is getting into your mind.

But it's not the dark side of comedy. It's a dark side of life. side of life yeah it's a dark side of life it's not the dark side of comedy if you let depression in so as soon as you start feeling that shit or that stuff that that gets you all wound the boom that's it you're out of it but go smoke a joint go for a walk go get for a gig go talk hopefully go talk to somebody and I'm not talking about somebody that you pay I'm talking about go talk to a friend a friend somebody at a Starbucks who's there day who sees you. Just forcing yourself. You know, I do a stupid joke about the universe. It's very

true. You get back what you put in. Yes. You know, you're lonely. Go to a kickboxing class. There's eight people in there. You're going to drive one of those people. That one hour of you talking to those other people, that gets you out of your head. Your phone's in the car. Your mother's fine. You're going to bring. You're going to bring. You're a person. You're a person. You're you got to worry about is your mother and your father. Everything else is bullshit. One of the brothers ain't going to call you while you're in kickboxing class. Nobody's going to call you while you're in kickboxing class.

There's times I go to like a jit-to class and I'm like, oh, when I get in the car, there'll be eight messages. No. You ain't got nothing. Nobody's going to call you. But just the thought of getting away from the phone. Yeah. Just that other thing.

Just forcing you away from that phone. One hour, it's in the car. And if it melts, let it fucking melt. I got insurance. What am I going to do? But just getting away from... All this is lately is we have too much fucking information. Why do you think comedy is so big right now?

Why do you think I'm telling you to do a show in the daytime? Because, man, I wouldn't fucking say this if I didn't believe in it. Five years ago, I would not believe the statement. Okay. People need comedy. They do. We're telling the truth. People love it.

They love it. That's why, especially we're on the front lines at the comedy store. We're here in Hollywood, and I feel like if you have stage-time. You're fucking just watching you interact with the donut Korean. Let's say you went to the same cold water and riverside. Next to the dry cleaners, there's a Krav Magadju place. There's a Chinese place. Donate in there.

There's a donut in on the corner. I know what. There's a Mexican joint there. There's a frozen ice. Shaved ice. Those people are real Korean in there. I went in there when they to get a bagel. I asked them for like a fuck.

And the guy tried to sell me like that Korean is ruthless. He's like, put on pumpkin bagel. Listen, you don't put logs on pumpkin bagel. I'm from New York. You know what I'm saying? He don't give a fuck. I have no onion, but I have blueberry. Put a lot on some blueberry.

It's good for you. Oh, good for you. You go in there and torture that day every day on camera for three minutes. That's a series. For four minutes a day, people will pay a dollar to see you going to that donut place and ask that motherfucker. Any cinnamon donuts? You don't tell you.

I tell you yesterday, I got no cinnamon donuts. And you just run from there. But I know. Every day you open up and say, please don't ask that guy every day for like a second. I would. If I knew that that China guy would get pissed off, I'd walk in there every day. knowing that he didn't have a donut and then I started sending people in this like

that's the best thing so you torture people to keep your brain sharp like you torture people just like entertain like like you're like just doing it to like it's worth a few patrons oh my god you have no idea how much fun you can have on the internet today if I had the time and the energy I just go into yum yum every day the yum yum the yum minute just go in there torture them how many calories in the donut and them like looking at you like you know they don't know the language you go on every day and you ask a different calorie you never get a donut but that's the thing now today gluten-free donuts gluten you have almost like no reason to be not saying no reason to be depressed but there's so many outlets before like what if you were staying home you were sick

what do you had like 10 channels on tv and that's it now you've got so many yes there's a lot of drawbacks to the internet and social media and all that but It is, there are a lot of positives associated with it. You just got to be able to maintain it. Also know that it can be used for some good. Well, I mean, times have changed. I don't know, but you guys are in hotels every week pretty much. Whenever I go to a hotel, I used to love I would have TV on,

I'd watch SportsCenter, this and that. I don't, I'll be in a hotel room for a weekend and not turn it on. See, I watch TV. I've forced myself to leave a hotel room every two hours. Smoke a joint. That's why I bring extra weed. I smoke a joint, I get the gym. I force myself to leave the room every two hours.

And I forced myself to leave the hotel room for a patch. I forced myself on Saturday to go to lunch with somebody. You know, somebody from the club, the club owner. I do little things, but just enough to scratch that edge. I can't go to a baseball game for three innings, seven innings. You know, I do enough just to scratch that edge. scratch that age. So when you go to town, you'll schedule appointments with people to keep that human contact going.

Right. I'll schedule a movie tie class. When I went to Jersey is, we got to take a private jih Tzu class in Jersey on Friday. You know, I went to the gym on Saturday. I force my, I have to force myself because if not, I will sit in front of that iPad and I will watch sick. You know what? I love about the road. What do you love?

You know why I go on the road? To watch your iPad? Nope. It's not to make money. I love to meet different people and make people laugh. I go on the road for Friday night. That's your night. That's my night.

To go do a great show, make them laugh, meet people, memories, put out good energy. And no, I don't have to do shit on Saturday morning. You like that? That means I could go back and anything goes on Friday night. Okay, that means that if you come up to me and give me two Vicodans, I might go back to the room and pop one, put out a pot of coffee, get a notebook out. And I'll watch, I swear to God, I got no reason to line another is,

I'll watch five episodes of Sons of Hanuky. Jesus. Lee, how much do I yell at you for watching TV? A lot, yeah. On Friday nights when I'm on the road. Yeah. That's me. That's my gift for leaving my family.

I get a table. I put my feet up with a pillow. to elevate above my heart because I just been on stage for two hours. Yep. And I just sit there. I get to bring a vapor pen. I bring nicotine gum.

Sometimes I bring a bag of Doritos up to my room. And sometimes I eat it. Sometimes I leave it for the maid. I get coffee going. Coffee after the show? In my room. It's my night to do whatever the fuck I want. On Friday night after a show.

I can't wait to get back to the hotel. Sometimes somebody will give me a pill or something, and I'll hold it for when I go on the road to drop it that night while I'm in a hotel on Friday night. Like, if you give me two Vikings, I'll hold on to them. And I know that when I go to Portland, Friday night after the show, I'll pop two Vikings and go home and I'll scratch.

And I watch Narcos, and I watch four episodes of Narcos and not Blinkin' Eye. I could do that. That, to me, is fun. Because I know I'm going to get up at 8. I'm still going to go for breakfast and I'm going to go back to my room and sleep another three hours.

I'm still going to get up early and I'm still going to go to breakfast. I still force myself up to breakfast, walk downstairs. It sucks, but I make myself do it. Just to even talk to the waitress. Bump in, hey, that was a good show last night. Thank you. Then you go back to your room.

Sleep for three hours, get up. I'll watch a narcos. Right. I'm out. Come back. that two more hours riding one and a half hours writing out out go roll a joint

smoke a half a joint hide it behind the building come back that's what I do I don't walk into the hotel with that joint man and the whole room smells I get the thing and I put a rock on top of it

and I come back two hours later and I get to take the rock off it and I smoke the other half and how do you stay disciplined on all of this? Is this what makes you happy makes the shows better you feel better?

It makes the show better. This is what makes me better. This is, we are creatures of whatever. You know, we, and we have to force ourselves. And I didn't know this. You have to force yourself sometimes to, out of your comfort zone. Comfort zone is a big fucking word, man. That's an ugly fucking word.

And once you fill yourself in that comfort zone, get in the fucking call. Get out of the comfort zone. Yeah, get out. It was pretty funny. A lead to the show this week. And it was, you know, I fell in love with Brody, I don't know, 19 years ago at a bar in Gig Harbor. I'll never forget. And I'll never forget what he said, how he said it in the pause that he said it.

That's when I knew Brody was real. You know, he was on stage. And I've told this, you know, he's yelling and screaming. And in the middle of it, he turned around. And there was a bunch of photographs on the wall. He's up on stage yelling and screaming. He just stopped and he goes, how come there's no Jews up on the wall?

Because next time I come here, there better be Jews on the wall. I'll never come to Gig Harbor again. I'm in the back with Josh Wolf. He's a kid. I'm howling. But I fell in love with you. You know, Gig Harbor,

that gig was a gig of death. Yep, across Arizona's bridge from Tacoma. It wasn't no fucking evening at the pops, you know what I'm saying? No. So the other night, Lee goes down. to Eddie Bravo's 15th reunion. They throw this poor bastard on stage

while the UFC's on. He's up there, and the Korean zombie gets knocked out and poor Lee's up there with his aim material. In front of the screen. Thinking he's on Conan. Today, somebody came up to me, like, by the way, we were at the 10th Planet Party. We feel so bad for Lee.

He won't have to say, I swear to God. I swear to God, they were like... Tough spot. Who the fuck did that to him? I survived. I didn't. But it's weird. He, as he called his friend Eric,

gay Eric, my buddy Eric Rocha. And Eric bought him a beer because he was so depressed. He, you know, he felt it. And I explained to him last night. I go, I've been doing comedy 27 years. I opened for Roegan, I opened for Dice. I did all these gigs.

And I'm going to tell you something. Half of your career is those rooms. You know, where you get there and the Seattle Mariners are in the playoffs, and it's the seventh inning. and coming to the state. Those tough part gigs. And you hear like, boo, boo, we want to watch the game, put the game on.

Well, they got to do comedy. And also the owner gets into an argument. They do comedy here. We don't give a fuck about comedy. All right. Put the game on, but take the volume off. Uh-oh. Oh, my God.

Yeah, that's pretty much what happened. Yeah, that's it. You know, and you're up there on state, dying a slow death, thinking about career choices. You just went on a zip recruiter. You looked. know it's it's fucking harm but then you do a guest spot at the at the underground in

Seattle tell them and that makes all that go away because your strength isn't from going on stage in the Seattle underground your strength from going on stage at those places the hell gigs where they're not the youth hostels yeah well they're not there to see you yeah the bar I'm here to get a grandma blown the gig harbors suck and a chubby Jew wants to go on stage and do come oh I got this chick by the ear yeah I got this chick by the ear and some fucking Jew and a fucking fat Cuban are gonna go up on stage and try to be funny. People hate that shit, especially when it's unexpected. It's weird, because I did an unexpected one earlier that

week and it went fine. It went pretty well. But then I did a show on Thursday at a burger place, but it went okay. But I was talking to Jerry Rocha and the guy who runs the show Justin and he was saying, O'Bere Burger. Yeah, yeah. That's a good room. It was fun. I've done it twice. But they were saying that they did a show with someone who didn't get boot off stage, got talked off stage. And that's pretty much, I got,

I had a section of the crowd listening. But what they were saying was it's not that they didn't like them until they were just indifferent. They were just like the people that crowd was just talking amongst themselves so loud that the comic got off stage. Well, in those rooms is where you learn presence. Yep. You learn how to fake the funk.

You learn how to. it's a weird thing to describe. You have to learn how to overtake them without overtake them. Because if not, you've got a bottle thrown at your fucking head. That's the reality. You know, I've seen it and I've heard about it. You know, I was at a bar one night where they were flipping bottle caps at the comics. Like, you know, and they got like a red light on them.

And you can see the bottle caps whizzing. And you can see the comics like ducking from thundks. That still happens? I don't, you know, I, I haven't heard about it. Yeah. But there's got to be a fucking country bar somewhere or some fucking crazy bar somewhere that they're still, you know, throwing things at people.

You know, when we used to do Moscow, Idaho, they would send you 25 shots of tequila with, with Tabasco sauceing. Jesus. And you had to do them. Oh, my God, they booed you off the stage. Holy shit and you had a half hour and the trick was to kill the feature and to just make the headline and go into fucking convulsions That's what they wanted to do that's what they wanted to do they didn't care about the comedy

The first time you did a shot of tequila when you weren't on stage five minutes and they were giving you a What was called? Prairie Farn or a prairie dog. Oh my God They would give you see what it's called tequila and Tabasco Bleet. Bellingham. No, no, no, no. Moscow, Idaho, yeah. Close to Idaho State.

Yeah, Washington. Idaho State University. Yeah, the Vandals. Because that's the college that Drew Bledsoe went there. Prairie Fire. Prairie fire. Let me tell you something, Lee. Think about going on stage, okay?

Oh, my God. You're opening up for Theo Vaughan at this hotel, and it's all college students. 200 college students, and you go up on stage. And five minutes into your eye, the waitress comes up to you with a shot. You can't tell her like, what's in the time?

I'm not drinking the keel at time. As soon as you turn on that shot, it's going to be the 25, and you can't get off because you won't get paid. You can't get up because you won't get paid. So they're going to tie. The club owner is going to say to you, you only did 21. I've got to call the Booker and see what to do. Oh, my.

So now you look like a fucking jerk off. So you have to either drink that shot and take what comes with it because they're not going to pay that. And your material is not worthy of anything. Just take the shots and talk about getting drunk with them. That's what your 30 minutes is going to be about. Wow. That's what these road gigs are like. I did that Moscow, Idaho ten fucking times.

And after the third time I got it, sorry, Charlie. It's not going to be any different. First two times I just bombed, I drank them. the third time I puked in the sink. I never forget that. I puked in the sink. Jesus. And then every time after I just brought cocaine with me,

and I didn't get sick anymore. The one time I had the bed spins. Yeah, I don't want that. It's fucking bad. And there were 10, the eight ball end in Missoula, Montana was like that. There was 20 bars that dog, as soon as you went on stage, give him a shot of whiskey. Give him another shot of whiskey.

and you better drink them. God forbid you had to drive to another gig then at night. There's no, there's no, there's no dream. You don't even think about it. It's over. You're sleeping in the car, and you're going to fucking drive 90 the whole morning. Well, I was thinking about this when you told me that Brody was coming in. I was like, you, Joey, and Brody are probably two of the most comfortable people on stay.

Like, I feel like you feel comfortable on stage. Can be. Yeah. And like, it blows my mind that you, Brody will go on in the main room and do, like, the drumming. Like it's, I just did the main room for my first time ever and I got there like an hour early and was petrified. Like how, have you always been that comfortable or did it take years to get that sort of like that's a level of comfort that most people don't have? It took a long time, but you know, once I went for it, once you like take that milk and you poured into that cereal,

you like got to, you go for it. So I got to be honest with you had it the night I met you. The night that you did that, you had that already. So you already had that, I don't give a fuck, I'm shitting my pants. I don't give a fuck attitude. I could tell you were shitting your pants, but you were taking chances. Taking chances. We were young comics. In 95, I had been doing comedy for four years on paper, but two years,

come on, motherfucker. You want to do this? About two and a half years. Come on, motherfucker. And then they featured me for Laurie Kilmartin, and I didn't go back to Bold. I was like, I found a home. I was thinking about when I first found my real niche.

Like I was just going up there and trying to tell jokes and finding yourself. And then one Monday, I got back with the stripper. She invited me to a house. We had tremendous sex. I fucked her in the ass, came in the mouth, all the fucking thing. Nice. We went grocery shopping I had $175 to my name

Groceries were $140 and she looked at me and I paid for $140 worth of groceries At $35 we went back to the house She made me turkey burgers with mushrooms and onions With something on the side of salad It was 630 My clothes were there I was in a stay

We were back together And she started talking about some guy she had fucked and we got into an argument and I'll never forget that I said can I at least get half the money from the groceries and she goes fuck you last time I paid for groceries so here I am at the underground with my luggage behind the counter everything I owned dirty five hours in my pocket nowhere to sleep and I went up there on a Monday night and I said two or three jokesly and I just went into this for years I had that tape I gave it to Joe Rogan. It was one of the first times that Joe Diaz came out. And he came out and went right back in.

Like he got scared. When I saw it on tape, it petrified, man. I went up there and said exactly what, like I went up there and tried to be cute. And all of a sudden I go, who the fucking Mike kid? I want to kill this fucking bitch. Yeah. I just went on a rant. I destroyed that room.

you know and I forget the bit I got from it like I got a joke from it I'm dating the stripper we were in love everything was going great then I ran out of the money something like stupid and I just ran with it

and then I went into the fucking ball and chain something and then I went into why and this is when OJ was hot like that yeah 95 I started going into why now I know I he killed that bitch and people were like But that was the first time that I had done comedy.

It took me four years to really found my voice. And then I said, that's never going to happen again. Like, I was so scared of that guy coming out. And it took five years for that guy to come out again. Jesus. So you have it. It just never, the day it comes out on the way home, you're like, uh-oh.

What the fuck happened tonight? So you know you have it. You can go into that gear. you can go to that spot. So that was at the Comedy Underground? Yes, on a Monday night. That was the open mic night. I had a thick-bade sweater on with like a stripe on.

I'll never forget that. I'll never forget somebody saying, hey, I taped that set. Me looking at him going, no, you didn't. And they're like, yeah, I'll have it for you at the end of the week. Nice. Somebody taped that set for me, and I popped it in and tears rolled down my face. I was like, oh my God. Who is that person?

That club was the Seattle was just a great spot for me to start. That's who you first got on stage? Pretty much, yeah. I mean, when I moved back here, I graduated college, Arizona State, never did anything other than an acting class. Then I came back here in summer of 93, and I took a workshop at UCLA with Pauly Shore's sister. knowing that the comedy store sponsored it.

So it was a way for me to get into the comedy store. I knew that it was a way to possibly get seen. So did the workshop and then every Wednesday, I drive by the comedy store one day. Maybe I'll be in there. And then I did my graduating workshop there in the original room. It was packed. They did well.

People were giving business cards. I felt like it was a comedian. Then I did one open mic out in Chatsworth like next night. And it was a typical open mic, which was like a not a wake-up call, but I didn't want to go through that, being that I'm from the Valley. I just got done playing baseball.

It was going to be hard for me to have somebody probably not from the Valley, running the show, giving me like, hey, kid, you know, whatever. You know, yeah, I knew the open, I just didn't want, I did one open mic to know it wasn't for me.

And I went back to UCLA and I took the business of comedy class. I want to learn all about comedy. And then the guy said, if you want to do stand-up, you got to get out of it. Los Angeles. That's what he told me. Who taught the class, do you? Danny Robinson,

APA. No shit. Yeah. Do you still see him from time to time? Time to time. He still says hello to you? Yeah, yeah. He's a good guy. He represents Tiffany Haddish. Oh, he does? Yeah. There you go. Well, he taught the workshop, and he said, it's good to get away. And then I looked into going either back to Phoenix or I had friends, but no real feel for supportive art. I didn't feel. that vibe when I went to school there,

but my aunts and uncles lived up in Seattle, and they said, come up to Seattle. They support the arts up here. And then they had the Northridge earthquake in 94. I was working at Macy's Bullocks over at Topanga, Promenade Mall. I got, and the earthquake happened, got in the car, and

left, and drove up to Seattle, stayed with my family out in Bellevue area, and then I just jumped into doing the open mics at the comedy underground, just jumped into it, meeting people. Then I got a job at the comedy, underground, learning all. I just wanted to learn everything about comedy. What do you do with the comedy? Just sat people, you know, on Fridays and

Saturdays. Clay was, you know, was the gent ran it, you know, with the long hair. I still talk to them off. Oh, really? Isn't he like in Asia or something? Yeah, he's in Asia, Indonesia or something. Yeah. He taught me all about Clay Jones. Yeah. Clay Jones. He was a interesting guy and he taught me all about how the club ran and all the stories behind it. And I just learned about how to seat a room, run a room, see a three-person non-showcase show. I learned about comedy there in Seattle, and luckily, there's some great comedians, and there was just, you know, coffee shops. That's where I learned to write. I learned to drink coffee in Seattle. The environment up there was really conducive to being an artist. And then we had the cable access, me and Tena. We jumped on that.

We did that. And it was just a big, it was a great community up in. in Seattle where I found my voice. And then after three years, because I started up there, I could tell like I was only getting maybe guest spots, but I was itching to get out. I was itching. I made, I kind of like found my voice. I wanted to do more. And then you told me, Joey, you said, bro, you got to go to New York.

And then I went to New York. And that's where I really like broke out and found my voice, just talking and walking, getting off the subway, the L train, and walking the Lower East Side with my headphones on and visualizing, feeling like, yeah, I'm cool, okay, like giving myself that confidence. Because I had some based off the cable access show and mostly that because I wasn't really getting great spots at the comedy underground. I mean, maybe I guess I wasn't their guy. And I understood.

But when I went to New York, I felt that energy. And I really honed my voice doing the Lower East Side shows. And then I barked at the comedy cellar. but I was so because I thought it would lead to get in the spot, but I was intimidated by Esty, so I never really asked her how to get on. I was intimidated, but I saw the comedy, saw I bark him in, so I knew Dave Attell,

Judah, Gaffigan, Todd Berry, Marin, I saw how that room was run, but I still wasn't doing it. But New York is where, you know, I started doing shows, though, some alternative shows with Todd Barry and Marin and Dave Chappelle, and I was holding my own, And I just felt like I can come back home to Los Angeles.

And I have a marketable skill. And my friends were coming out here that I met in New York or working for shows. So when I got here in 2000, I had a place to stay. I had a car. I knew my way around. And then boom, I got a spot on CBS late night, late, late show with Kilbourne. I did a premium blend. And then I got Best Damn Sport Show.

And then the rest is history. So if you want to say that. But I kind of like New York is where I really like, I honed it. And as a kid, growing up here in the valley, I was just, I was just, I wanted to go to New York City. I wanted that gritty skyscraper energy. And that's what I gave them. You told me to go there.

And that's where I, like, just started talking. Like, that's why I did surf reality because they weren't into jokes. It was like talking. So I talked about what was on my mind, getting mad about just New York stuff or what have you. So I did that. And then warm up was helped me professional. like being around celebrities or whatever and then just doing shows and then going for it. And it's like this is the major leagues.

Now, once you're here in L.A. to have thoughts like, I'm not confident. What are they going to think? And I don't have that. It's like I can't. This is it. So I feel like I've done pretty good in terms of like of a lot of like my resume is wide and vast. I just haven't really capitalized on one thing and have done that, whatever that one thing may be. Well, I got to tell you something.

I almost had a tear in mind a couple minutes ago. A real ancient Seattle because, you know, I had this discussion with Duncan on his podcast how I would love to tell you there's not a God. I would love to tell people that there's not a God or a higher force or a higher power. But me going to Seattle was a pivotal point in my life. like pivotal like looking back at even though i got arrested six times right you know it was the pivotal point in my life like it taught me it took me completely out of my comfort zone i still remember going to the underground i got into town at one in the morning on friday night slept got up at 930 when got eggs and took a bus down to the county underground and just looked at

there and it wasn't even it was swanis yeah swanis upstairs club was downstairs and all i wanted to do was to figure out how to get a spot and i was there and the bar was closed and i'm looking through the fucking glass and my heart's pumping because i'm at the fucking comedy underground and then i went back sunday and they told me to come back on monday and i that was the happiest day of my life like that fucking Sunday when this had come back on Monday and signed up for the open mic and I signed up and the guy was great to me and I gave my drop the name Rick Kerns and the guys like yeah who put you up and I was like I do not believe this I'm at the comedy underground like I do not believe this and then a kid walked in with a Boston Red Sox had on backwards I know who that was

and it was Josh Walt there you go just latched on to him I said you got you're from the east coast yeah you gotta film me and what's going on here i came on heavy to josh i remember him being like kind of intimidated yeah i called him every day for a week like what the fuck you know call me back you know but i was just so ready and then car warm in haven i will assistant manager i will be it's like uh i'll be indebt to him for the rest of my life i can never say no to him if he calls me for or something because that year and a half with him was an education you know that I was not going to get in Denver I was not getting that comedy education in Denver Seattle new the arts they there's a reason there's a reason why all those companies are up there the contest took me to a different level yep just

doing the contest coming in like six to seven took me to a different level and then being there like being the feature act every six weeks. Every six weeks, I was a feature act. You know, I knew how to manipulate John Fox. I knew how to manipulate giggles. I knew how to, you know, get Bellingham. I had him on rotation. On Monday, I would fax Pat Wilson.

I would fax Donald Reed in Portland. I would fax Alberto, who booked the music box downtown. You know, in those days, Monday at 9, I was already on the corner. I didn't have a fax machine, giving them a quarter of fax. a cover sheet, and a fucking schedule. Fake. Fake schedule. Completely fake.

Vogous. You know, thank God a lot of comedy clubs didn't have webpages in those days. Right. But I would make up fucking dates. Like, let's say this week here, if I was home, I would say I'm in Carolines in New York. I would just flat out lie on the resume

and then leave three weeks open so they could see I was open. Hopefully they'd give me a Thursday at the music box. or sadly alberto book two things pat wilson had like four things donna reed had like eight ron reid's wife well she was a manager she was a manager she was a manager but she was a manor laura crock of uh rest in peace that bitch had she had josh she had josh but that bitch had 15 rooms in those days she had 15 to 20 rooms she had those two mexican rooms that one room up in Kent yeah she had rooms jack see she didn't really book me that wasn't booked me but I got back at

her I would call her and ask her for guest spots and I could feel her pussy hairs tightening up oh called because she hated me with every piece of her heart she hated me all the way down to her toes but I would call her three times a week and go hi Donna whatever was the name was it Donna Laura Laura I don't miss crocker Joey Diaz and I could hear her go I'm going to go down to your club tonight and doing guest spots. Is that okay with you? She would not pay me. She never paid me a dime.

But till today, I thank her because her hatred made me a better comment. There you go. I proved myself to her that I was better than she was. She might have hated me, but I did a free spot in her rooms three nights a week. And the club owners would say, why don't you work here? Because she won't book me. I mean, Seattle was like that. You know, it's like they're if you're a big, big guy, you know, an Italian guy.

Seattle and Italy, it's like Italians, two different things. Well, the thing about what I learned early on, the thing I learned early on was that, and this was a no-brainer. I think it was a guy named, there was a magician who worked the triple run, and he came in on a Tuesday, and he was a sweetheart of a guy, and I had him sleep over. This is my first week of comedy. at this point I was probably doing comedy nine months and I let them sleep over my house I was divorced and I had two bedrooms and the triple runs in those days went

Tuesday night Boulder Wednesday night you're off so a feature act will pick up $50 cash and I have to pay $40 for a hotel room because you were off right you were off so that means you had to

pay for your own hotel Wednesday night Then Thursday was Craig. Friday was Gunnison and Saturday it was fucking the edge of hell, tell you right? These were hell, these were tough gigs.

The Denver run was a big week. Craig Colorado was the only room that in the thing it said this room gets active. The stage was 30 feet away and there was glass and they would throw shit. Oh really? And they'd said if something happens

go to your room, lock yourself in and call them 9-1-1-1-I mean the fucking thing it said would just make you laugh like underneath the room there's a caution this room gets active so active what I would do in those days would let if the headliner or the feature were cool I give them my number say call me when you check out you got a conscious leap on tomorrow and some of those guys with Doug Stanhope the guy that took Freddie Prince's place and Chico and the man. I had a couple guys stay over.

But one guy stayed over. That wasn't the funniest guy in the world, but he was a magician comic, and he was kind of a nice guy. He gave me a list of bookers, you know, like those guys that have those sheets. Yeah. We went to the printing place,

and he made like 20 sheets of bookings. But he told me something. I said to him, do you think I should go to New York? And he goes, why would you want to do that? There's a thousand of years in New York. He goes, there's a thousand of years. in Boston.

Because you got to find the market where there's nobody else like you. So you could shine. You could be unique and people will hire you. That's why when the opportunity for Seattle came up, I was like, I'm going. Yeah, Seattle, it's... Because this is the same thing I told you. And I also told this to Mitch Hedberg. The reason why I told you guys this is because they had a thousand of you out here.

There's a thousand goofy white guys. they don't have that in New York. Now they do. Now they got everything in New York. Right. But not 20 years ago. 20 years ago, there was a lot of guys like me and everybody talked to the audience,

which is a bad habit that you pick up in New York. You talk to the audience. So the coasts were different. Yeah. So when I talked to Hedberg, God rest of soul, and I told him, there's nobody like you in New York. He hit in New York.

Went to New York. Because there's nobody like you there. That's where you're going to get love. Whether there are people like you, it's no love. I knew when I saw you that there wasn't nobody like you in New York at that time. Yeah. Now there's a thousand guys trying to review Brody Stevens. They don't work.

You follow me? Then they become themselves. Yeah. You know, when we all start, we start being somebody else. Then we become ourselves. We evolve into ourselves. I just think, like, comedians. I try to send them to New York City, try and spend some time there, go there.

I, you know, moved there. I lived there for three years. I wasn't going back and forth. I was living there. And I got to experience that New York lifestyle, taking the subway and being, you know, you could, did it wasn't like who you were. It was what you were. You know, people, you were like, you didn't, you could, didn't matter what you look. like. New York, nobody cared. Whereas L.A., I grew up here in L.A. I went to school in Arizona.

It was not, it's completely different from New York. Just New York just really opened my, gave me that confidence. If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere. That's what they say. And I just recently went back to New York last month and I felt that energy again, just walking around that city and, you know, getting out of Los Angeles here, getting out of the valley, just getting into that and getting off the internet, getting out of your head, walk in that city and you're feeling, you walk in,

and it inspires you and you start saying yourself, I don't need to have these meds, necessary, I don't need to have all these things and overthinking. You jump in and you've got to sink or swim there. It's good for you. I think everybody, I think most

comedian should strive to live if they can there for time. I did, I did 10 more. instant there in the beginning and it woke me the fuck up like it let me know who the fuck I was or what I wanted and what I needed to do to get to my goals like and that that's why I went right back to Denver with a firecracker in my ass and I went to Denver and I worked every night and I took that work ethic up to Seattle and I just in Seattle it was double the work right so now I had double the payload you know no matter what you

do in life you have to sacrifice man and you have to get out of your comfort zone to get to where you want to be whether you're an artist or fucking you know you're you play the trumpet but you play the trumpet in fucking louisiana not louisiana in utah who wants to listen to a trumpet louisiana you got to go to a jazz bar in minneapolis or a jazz bar in new or you know a jazz bar in l.a you know sometimes you got to end and people can't make that step so they never fulfill what the fuck they wanted to do you know i mean when you came in tonight and you said you got off those men's i got to tell you something brodie i'm proud of you thank you i'm proud of you know like you said well whatever i'm calm and one thing about me is man i put myself in the worst case in there

and i told you i said you know and it was a joke and we laughed you know a couple years ago you want a rubber room fucking squatting imaginary flies that's right you know what i'm saying like you and a rubber room saying, help, there's a fly, who's talking to me? I was combative with the Filipino nurses. You know, they threaten me with the needle. But I was all, I go, I don't need to be here. I go, I made a mistake. Go look on the internet. I'm a good guy. I kept telling him, like, look me up. But that was a crazy time. But I was kind of like, to be honest, I, yeah, I couldn't believe that I was in the UCLA hospital. How many days to have you over there for? 17.

No, they didn't. They wouldn't let me leave. It went from three days to six days to nine days. Did you make any meaningful relationships in there? Did you meet anybody in there that you've contacted since? No. One girl, like, attack me over, like, chocolate ice cream. So spent 17 days?

Yeah. Now, who knew about this at the time? Did your mom know? No. My mom. I mean, people knew. I think because I was tweeting about it. I think I just needed to like dry out because I went off those meds cold turkey.

I made a mistake. I went to Ireland. I went to Montreal. They told me to take a victory lap. I'm having fun. I actually took a little less because I wanted to. I had always had wanted to not maybe be on the Lexapro, which is common. But I also knew that going to Dublin and I was research like,

if you want to drink a beer, maybe cut back a little bit. I cut back. And then I got sick in Montreal right after. It was like a two-week trip altogether. And then they gave me the Z-pack. And I had strep throat. And then they gave me the Z-pack. I felt better. And I said, I feel great.

I don't think I need the meds anymore. I'm like through this period. And then, but here's the thing. I was just. I'm still laughing about 17 days. Like one floor of the cuckoo's nest. Well, you know what? It was like, they did.

Riley thing about this? I wrote. I have my notes somewhere, but I felt, I mean, I, I, we do a short film about your 17-day stint in there and you'd be brutally honest, like what you did and shit in there. That's the secret right there. If we could recreate you. I played ping-pong. I smoked meth-methyl cigarettes. What's methyl? Menthal. Menthol. Um, listen to the radio, watch TV. You talk to anybody when you're in there? You just, um, not really, but I had a lot of, uh, visitors, a lot of friends who came by, Ozak came by Nick Kroll, Steve Renazizi.

I didn't even know you were in that. This is crazy. This is the first time. I had a booker. They were like bringing people in, you know. We could have got you in, worked you in. And where were you? UCLA, right over the hospital there, Ronald Reagan, I guess psychiatric ward. But I wasn't,

because I felt that way before, well, not necessarily. I just know not to go, you just can't do it. What was the trigger that time? I think when I came back, so I want to. What do you need to avoid to stay off the meds and not end up back there? What is the Brody Stevens?

Back at you, Sirley, Swarton Flies talking to Chinese people. It's feast or famine on this one. Filipino. I don't know. I mean, I should probably have some, like, a support system with this, but I'm being my own advocate. I know my body. I'm mature.

I know choices. I'm not saying that I won't ever go back on a medication. We'll see. But so far, I'm trying to implement life skill, you know, like socializing, booking,

working, being an adult, and taking supplements, doing my comedy, believing in myself. I'm just calmer. My body feels better. I'll say that.

For me to not go back, I mean, I never had a problem before or after. I had a reaction to these medications is what I, because I was never headed like this guy's, it was never going to be like something like that. I went off them. It was just, and I was agitated.

It was like I attacked a guy at a couple Starbucks, a 7-Eleven. I was like a road rage guy. But I was just, but I. Did you get banned from the Starbucks for a while? No comment. No, here's what happened.

I felt when I got back, I think my friend saw me and they were surprised like, oh, Brody, you're not yourself. But I felt like, okay, I'm, you know, I feel better. I'm not the audience warm-up guy. I'm Brody now. I have this show on HBO happening. I have good things happening. So I came back confident. And I think people were a little like taken aback that, oh, he's confident.

We're not used to this guy. Because I did the TMZ show. They loved it. I did it. That day, I did a taping. I did a show at UCB, and I did fine. I was just out of my character. They weren't used to it.

And then when they questioned me, then I became defensive. And I became agitated. So, and this was like a first time of it happening. And then you tie in the Twitter. That's the other thing. I had that outlet to go, you know, to lash out. But I was also, I mean, I did stuff on Twitter also. You know, I was saying like F you.

The Twitter thing was what I had heard. that you were cracking on Twitter. I did hear that. I heard something about a roof. No roof. No, no. I was never, I never, I felt great. Not that you were going to jump or nothing.

That you climbed or something. No, no climbing. No climbing. I don't know. You have a zip line with Lee. You took it down. I don't fucking know. They, I did go on Twitter and I was lashing out,

but part of it is because I did TMZ. And I felt like, hey, I did a good job. job and these guys are saying I'm out of my mind. F you. I know what I'm doing and I just had all this confidence and not being on the medication to like hold me back. I was I was basically manic. That's all. I mean, not that's all, but that's what was happening to me. And it was freaking people out. So they called the police as opposed to maybe saying, hey, Brody, maybe I'll go to, let's go to, you know, go to Santa Barbara for a few days and chill. It could have been handled that way, looking back on it, to be honest with you.

Because I've learned since. Believe me, if I take Red Bulls and do something, I know I could get agitated. I was just, yeah, just typical signs of stopping the meds culture. I could have happened to anybody. So I don't feel like I have that's something that's in me whether it's going to happen. I don't think so.

I would hope not. I don't know. We'll see how I deal with. with stress. That's why podcasting, that's why having a support system. You know, I started doing the periscopes after all this to check in and be more, you know, and be more present and walking, making appointments. The periscopes are brilliant. That's brilliant. I didn't know you used it therapeutically also. I did that a little bit after. Yeah, like this was like a year or two after, but definitely like walking became therapeutic, like getting out of the house. I learned to get

out and walk and go to the Starbucks. People like associate me with going to Starbucks. That's because I walked to it. I made it known like I'm known for being out. So you're forcing, again, you're doing what we discussed early on. You're stopping the motherfucker before he

even shows up. Yeah. You're stopping depression before he even shows up. You're stopping your mind from going there before they could even take you there, you know, which is always that's, I've learned when your mind is taking you there

to take it somewhere else. Trust me, it took me 30 years. I'm no psychotherapist. I just know, if I go to bed and I wake up at 3 in the morning with something on my mind, I did that for years.

I did that for years, probably. And I would go insane and pace. And then, and one night I took a notebook out. And I wrote down when I was mad about. Go smoke, go make a cheese sandwich, come back and read it. You'll fall right to sleep. But a lot of this depression, for me, or I'm susceptible to some of that, if I am,

so I think it's a lot of its career, fine, it's like that sort of thing. It's not, these are not irrational thoughts. So some of these thoughts about like money or career, I can, I can rectify him by taking, action so for me to go hey I'm gonna I need a pill or I go need to talk to somebody no you need to go book a podcast you need to go show your face you need to go for a walk you need to sign up for a class so I'm implementing you know those activities to stave it off and I you know I get down on myself I've always been somebody all got we all do I've always been that but I'll say this like I'm

lucky I'm grateful that I have the that that that I've made you know I've I've I've been able to do comedy and I can perform at the comedy store and I can go places because it's an outlet. It's not therapy. It's therapeutic and I know it helps other people as well. And I think today with it being so negative out there and if I can share some of my philosophies without jamming it down their throat, but baseball's fun. I've been around successful baseball, successful TV shows, successful comedians, podcasts. I'm sharing that and then the comedy store being the hottest club

and if you have your name on the marquee and you have a spot at the comedy store, that means something. And I know that and I try to share with people how I might think you know like I'll even joke like I got to you didn't laugh at that joke well I get free Red Bull you didn't laugh at that joke I park for

I park wherever I want so why don't you do what I do? It's kind of a joke but it is a joke but I think that yeah I'm lucky. I'm lucky, but I'm just, you know, how lucky we are. Very lucky. Very, very lucky. Just the fact that we were together in Seattle.

Mm-hmm. You ready, people? Grab a pen and a piece of paper. 1997. Even before. I got there in 96. I got there in 94. But just for, it's 90, it's 2018.

So we've known each other. We've been in the struggle for 22 years. We've been apart for four of those years. You were in New York. We're very lucky. We're very lucky. There's a lot of people that we were up there in those one night. That 16 list, I'll never forget this.

Listen, man, when I'm in that fucking old folks home and my memory's gone and I'm dying. I'm going to think of those Monday nights. They were great. They were very, very special to me. They were your whole week. That's what people don't understand. That's what sucks about doing comedy in LA.

That you don't have a home club and you don't get pushed apart by your peers. Because in Houston on Monday nights, you had to show up on Monday with a new five minutes track. Your peers forced you because if not, you look that fucking bad. Mm-hmm. So, you know, we had that.

We had that every Monday. You had to show up on the three minutes. Yeah, you could show up with some of the shit you did last week, but you better show up with something to fucking kill them. That was your goal on Monday. Two minutes. You only had six minutes, right? Yeah.

Six, eight, and then the close is the 15th? Oh, no. The open mic, you'd get six apiece. It was, I think it was five, maybe six. Light at five, six, because they were training you for the Seattle comedy competition. Okay. Remember the Seattle comedy competition was five, six the first week. Light at five, you got to be off by six or you got a point taken away.

So they trained you for that to do the open mic system. So, I mean, just for that alone, if I don't wake up tomorrow, we still had the opportunity of growing together, going through. I mean, I got locked up in jail. for 30 days in Seattle. You got putting a looney bin down here for 17 days. It's no difference. What happens? We all had our fucking shortcomings.

But what's important is that we're still in L.A., we're still doing spots. We're still relevant. And it goes back to those Monday nights. Yeah. If you go home tonight smoking joint, you really think about what we learned on those Monday nights. Just torture and Rita O.

Taking her pills and eating her. pizza and our nachos we would eat her nachos and read oh was the local trendy good nachos there good nachos she was uh we had bill the bartender laughing and then i still remember his girlfriend and clay's girlfriend nodding from heroin sitting there on a monday night open my two chicks like this waitresses i think remember the hot asian there was a hot asian waitress on monday nights yeah i remember there was bill's girlfriend and then we go upstairs and that bartender fucking hated me. Anthony.

Anthony, but I had a tab in there. I still remember going upstairs and seeing Seahawks. All the baseball teams. All the baseball teams. It was, uh, and you know what? There was no ATM card. There was no car. There was no HBO.

There was no Netflix. I lived in an office a little bit smaller than this one. on the floor with three or four towels as a pillow a half a blanket and my clothes next to me on the floor

and those are the happiest times of my fucking life going down on a Monday night and then we would leave there and go somewhere else where they had cages they had another open mic on Monday nights

I didn't really do that one it was in our bar it was Newtown we'd go there and they had chicks and cages that was always great well you're on While you're on stage.

That's always great. You know what I'm saying? And then we got the Tacoma contest. Yep. We're there for a Tacoma contest. Crossroads. Crossroads. She contacted me recently.

Oh, really? To say hello. She's still around. So listen, man, you know, when you get a check now or if something good happens, I want you to remember that you earned all this. There's no reason to ever end up for me when I got something, this next. But everything goes back to those Monday nights in Seattle. So I'm thankful I had that.

And I had that scene in Denver before Seattle, but nothing beats my comedy upbringing. Those two years, those 18 months I did in Seattle, made my mind become a comic. And I'll never, ever, ever forget that. And you were part of that. You were part of that. Thank you.

Yeah, just they were so under the arts with the coffee house, the weather, and the late-night diner. and just the characters in the scene and the cable access shows. And they watched it. Seattle really supported that stuff. You couldn't do that in a Los Angeles. It was a big city, but it was a small city. And it was, you just knew you were doing something right.

It was on the, and Seattle, you know, it needed, I guess Grunge was just dying out. But there's just something. Think of all those guys who were there at that point. Mitch Hedberg, you, myself, Josh Wolf, Craig Gas, all those communities. medians. They're still working like they do the cruise ships. They do all the corporate stuff. Seattle. David Crow. David Crow. Oh my God. The Hawaiian kid. Kermit Apio. Kermit Apio. Vince Valenzuela.

Vince Valenzuela is still around. Yeah. He lives in Santa Monica. I don't know if he's doing comedy anymore. So I'm on Facebook. I think you got a new hip. Did he? Yeah, I was talking about on Facebook. But there's just characters in Seattle that you wouldn't get, I would say, like, yeah, you said maybe a Denver, you wouldn't get. or Phoenix, you or Dallas. The one I think about a lot is the cook at the underground, downstairs with the long hair. I remember that. He was, if guys, he was one of the most interesting guys.

I haven't met. We don't have time to go into him now. What was his name? I have to call Josh. Okay. I remember. I remember his face. I remember his long hair.

And the nights that I couldn't make the bus back to Belleville, wherever Josh lived. Bellevue? Bellevue, I would stay with him. Okay. And I can't tell you, every time I stayed with him, it was a different adventure.

First of the first one, he had no heat. He lived in the warehouse, two blocks from the thing. He had two broken windows to air. I remember it's snowing. And, you know, by the window, there was like three inches of snow. Turn to sleep.

And I'm in a corner with ten blankets on. My jacket on. Do you know I felt, I got so fucking. and I had to go take a show, because he lived in a warehouse. You had to pull the thing up and the elevator to go upstairs, and there was three people on the floor, but one shower and one bathroom. And that one day I was walking towards the bathroom.

I just remember this, and I fucking was hung over, and I was so fucked up the night before that before I went in the shower, I passed out and went through this sheetrock. and there was an imprint of me going through the fucking sheet rock. Until this day, it's probably me just tipped over and broke the fucking wall, but it was an imprint. You could still see my head

where I went through the sheet rock and he woke me up and they threw me in the shower. Jesus Christ. Crazy times before social media, before all of this technology. It was a simpler time. It was...

It's tough to be in now, man. A lot of information. A lot of, I've seen in the last three years, I've seen a lot more people go crazy than I've ever seen in my life. I can count them on two hands. And you think it has something to do with social media? That's one of the conduits for it. I think that it's rolled around.

It's everything that's going on. Social media, the way the news is portrayed, the way people are acting the political climate. I think that it's just people losing their minds. I see it every day and it's sad. It's sad. But hey, I'm happy you're off the meds.

Thank you. And I may go back on, but we're good now. For right now, we're balanced. Balanced, exactly. You have a support system with me. Thank you. You have a support system with Josh Wolf. Yep.

You have the comedy store, and that's the most important thing, man. I'm happy you're still doing your thing. You're always welcome on the church. Church of what's. happening now and fuck it keep doing what you're doing if next time you go to if next time god forbid i'll go visit oh you'll visit okay we'll get you booked i'll fucking i'll smuggle something in to keep you alive you'm saying a line of coke something to keep you going i love you brodie stevens thank you for coming out of church brother thank you leigh i want to thank brodie stevens

i want to thank my man lee siatt and i want to thank you guys i also want to fucking salute the soldiers happy veterans day pope bill aided Thank you for your duties and thank you for putting your ass in the line for fucking pieces of shit like me. But anyway, talk is cheap. Listen, next Thursday, Wednesday night, I'm all sold out of Irvine before Thanksgiving. But what I did was I added the second show Friday night at 945 perfect. It's Joey Dears and the church fucking all-stars. Tremendous lineup.

Lee Syed will be there on the drums. It's going to be great. If you're not doing nothing, then that after Thanksgiving you want to get out of the house. 945 perfect you don't have to fucking drive in traffic or nothing there's gonna be like fucking stealing we crack a couple jokes we got out about 11 1115 and everybody's happy you can make the flea market on sadly all right and don't forget Portland sold out i don't know what the fuck to tell you all right besides that i love you motherfuckers don't forget you know the church we got sponsors and they're the best sponsors in the world not i wouldn't have them starting with blue apron blue apron

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press in muffler and get 10% off, all right? I want to thank Tushy. I want to thank 23 and me, and I want to thank Blue Apron for being the best sponsors in the world. Number two, I want to thank you motherfuckers that came out for the shows in New York. And number three, I want to thank

all you motherfuckers that watch the show and support us over the years. You're some bad motherfuckers. Again, Brody Stevens, Joey Dears, and my main man to Christ Kill Elisae. I'll see you motherfuckers Thursday. Tip Top McGoo, ready to go.

Stay black. Kick this fucking mulee. I want to be around to pick up the pieces when somebody breaks your heart. Some, somebody twice as smart as I a somebody who will swear to be true as you used to do.

with me who'll leave you to learn that misery loves company wait and see I want to be around and see how he does it

when he breaks your heart two bits see if a puzzle fits so fine And that's when I'll discover that revenge is sweet. Laudden seat.

When somebody breaks your heart like you.