The Commercial Break - TCB Informercial: Paul Chowdhry

Episode Date: November 25, 2025

Comedian Paul Chowdhry drops into The Commercial Break for a fast, sharp, and wildly funny conversation that swerves between identity, fame, and the strange circus that is modern stand-up. Paul talks about becoming the first British Asian comic to sell out Wembley Arena, the evolution of his signature opener, and why pushing boundaries is basically his cardio. Bryan dig into taboos, touring for wildly different audiences, and the beautiful chaos of hosting his own PudCast. It’s smart, it’s weird, it’s spicy, and Paul absolutely holds his own in the TCB universe. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, Ontario, come on down to BetMGM Casino and see what our newest exclusive the Price's Right Fortune Pick has to offer. Don't miss out. Play exciting casino games based on the iconic game show, only at BetMGM. Check out how we've reimagined three of the show's iconic games, like Plinkgo, Cliffhanger, and The Big Wheel into fun casino game features. Don't forget to download the BetmGM Casino app for exclusive access and excitement on the Price's Right Fortune Pick. Seat and experience the Price is Right Fortune Pick, only available at BetMGM Casino. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. 19 plus to wager.

Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1866-531-2,600, to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. On this episode of the Commercial Break. America is first and foremost in the land of conspiracy theories and device of thinking around conspiracy theories. But now it's bled into other parts of the world like the UK.

Is that true? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's no truth anymore. It's your truth. You don't have to go to medical school for six to eight years, whatever it is, and specialize in your specialist area to learn your craft. If you do a Google search, you can debunk those. It's true.

The next episode of the commercial break starts now. No 30 at the morning! Oh, yeah, cats and kittens. Welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Green, and I'm here by myself on a Thanksgiving week, but it's a TCB infomercial Tuesday, and the trains keep running, and they must run on time, so you're getting a fresh episode of DCB's infomercial with Powell.

Chowdrey. Paul Chowdry is here, ladies and gents. And now Chrissy wasn't here when I recorded this episode. If you remember a couple of weeks back, she took some time off, then I fell ill. You know, it's just the round-the-clock nature of having 12 to 15 children. Someone is always experiencing some kind of sickness. And in this particular day, Chrissy had just come back from vacation, but I was not feeling well. I did not want to disappoint Paul and cancel last minute. So he and I did it together. Me and quarantine. Him. All across, all the way across the pond because Paul is an international superstar comedian sensation from the UK. He has sold out small little tiny little venues like Wimbley Arena.

He has headlined all over the world. He's extraordinarily popular over in the UK. He's been touring the United States for a very long time. And he's got a new tour that he'll be starting at the beginning of the year. Tickets are available, Paul Chowdry.com. I, of course, will do you a favor and put links in the show notes so as to make things easy for you. You can check out his specials on Amazon Prime. There's some stuff on Comedy Central.

You can find lots of content on YouTube, as most comedians have now, you know, disseminated a lot of their shit onto YouTube because guess what? It's 2025, and that is what you do. And speaking of YouTube, you can go and check this episode out. YouTube.com slash the commercial break. And if you want to catch us recording live streaming, then you can do that next week, Tuesday through Thursday, right around noonish. Follow us at the commercial break on Instagram and then you get notified when we decide to go live, get involved in the action. Please, we've been doing that for the last couple of weeks. We've been kind of keeping it hush, hush.

But now we're letting everybody know all three of you. We're letting all three of you know that you can stream us recording our podcast live and chat. it up with us. So there you go. But that's not why we're here today, Paul Chowdrey. Again, very popular comic all throughout the world. And he's coming to the U.S. to do another stint, another round of shows. So if he comes anywhere close to you, and it looks like he might be, you, whoever's listening, it looks like he might be close to you. Go get tickets. Paul Chowdry.com. Links in the show notes. Let's do this. Let's take a short break. And when we get back through the magic of telepodcasting, I will have Paul right here in studio with me.

We'll be back. Hey, it's Rachel, your new voice of God here on TCB. And just like you, I'm wondering just how much longer this podcast can continue. Let's all rejoice that another episode has made it to your ears, and I'll rejoice that my check is in the mail. Speak in a mail, get your free TCB sticker in the mail by going to TCB Podcast.com and visiting the contact us page. You can also find the entire commercial break library, audio and the video,

video, just in case you want to look at Chrissy at TCB Podcast.com. Want your voice to be on an episode of the show? Leave us a message at 212-4333-3-T-CB. That's 212 433-3822. Tell us how much you love us, and we'll be sure to let the world know on a future episode. Or you can make fun of us. That'd be fine, too. We might not air that, but maybe. Oh, and if you're shy, that's okay. Just send a text. We'll respond. Now, I'm going to go check the mailbox for payment while you check out our sponsors, And then we'll return to this episode of the commercial break. At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health. From the big milestones to the quiet winds.

That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Med-Can. Live well for life. Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. And Paul is here with me now.

Paul, thank you very much. Grateful for your time today. I read in my show prep and getting ready for the show. Did you sell out Wembley or you played Wembley? I sold out Wembley a couple of tours ago, actually. Holy shit. Yeah. In my old mind.

The Wimbley is like the Mount Everest of like crowds because I was watching, you remember the old Paradise City video from Guns and Roses when they were playing Wimbly? And I always thought that was like the Mount Everest of Crowds. Like, holy shit. You play Wimbly. It's like, you know, you're out there. But then I watched the video on Bonnie Blue fucking 157 men. And I thought that might be.

A thousand and 57. A thousand and 57. That might be the Mount Everest of Crowdwork right. Well, in all fairness to Guns and Roses, they played Wembley Stadium, which is 80,000. I played the arena. Oh. So there's two different, so the arena or the stadium. So I wish I could say I was an stadium comic, but more of an arena comic.

And I don't know if comedy works to 80,000. I don't know if it does either. That's a great question. So there's comics here, Nate Bargazzi and some other, you know, Tom Sagar and others, who go and they sell out, I'm in Atlanta, they'll go and sell out 27,000, 30,000 seat rooms. And there's, when I've talked to other comics, they say, who have played bigger places,

they say, it's different. It doesn't, it doesn't work the same when you have, you know, 15, 20,000 people in front of you. And it does when you have 200 people in front of you. And a couple of them have admitted, I kind of like the room where there's 200, because I'm able to see, I'm able to push the energy one way or the other

with a motion or a look or a stare. Well, this tour I did the O2 Arena. Holy shit. And a couple of months before that, Paul McCartney was doing a show. Unbelievable. So I was in the same room as McCartney. And then I did Birmingham Arena. So on this tour, I did some different arena dates to Wembley,

just because I've done Wembley, so I wanted to see if I could do the O2. So just for context, that's where Madonna did her shows recently, and I saw Madonna there. And then I had the same, the week I was doing it, it was, um, Usher was there. So we had the same dressing room. He wasn't, he was there the night before and the night after me. So I, I shared. So actually, Usher had to take down his set so I could do my show and then put his set back up.

So he probably wouldn't do that. He's like, I'm doing, what? For who? But in the UK, you're huge. I mean, does it, but for you is, which. which experience is better, or is it just different? You just have to work the crowds differently.

Well, you know, with the arena comedy, you have screens. Yeah. So if you do talk to the front row, then you have a cameraman that pounds to them, then the audience can see it, and they erupt into laughter. But it's a different type of performance

because you have to wait a couple of seconds for your voice to reach the back of the stadium. Yeah. Or the arena. So it takes a couple of seconds. And so the timing is slightly different as it would be so immediate with, you know, 200 people. Very interesting. You have to think about the minutia of that as you're walking into the room. They're like, hey, Paul, remind yourself to give a beat.

Like, give a beat so the laughter can reach the back of the room and then I can move on to the next beat, right? Well, going back to Wembley, because when I was a student, I used to help der-rig the stages. So after the show, you have a team of people that would take down all the scaffolding and the stage. And so you start after the concert finishes at around 11 o'clock and you finish at about 7 o'clock in the morning. And when I was about 20 or 21, I was working at Wembley taking down the stage from Mariah Carey. Whoa. And then I had to carry her bags to the car. And I kind of said, just kind of glimpsed at Mariah Carey.

She was like, who's this guy? He's derrigging the stage. and I thought, one day, you know, I went from Bauer, I'll sell this room out. And then I went from derigging Mariah Carey stage to then performing on the same stage as Mariah Carey. That's insane. I have to imagine that for all the different reasons, when you're a kid, essentially, and you're derogging these. By the way, some of my favorite Instagram accounts, this might just be an indication of how old I am, are the guys who do the rigging and the derrigging of these big stadiums watching them as they shift around these huge stages and go up into the rafters.

I've always been interested by that kind of backstage life. And it's dangerous. It's hard work, but it looks like a bit of fun too. But how, I mean, do you still, to this day, do you still get that feeling when you go into one of these rooms and you've sold it out? And just 25 years ago, you were the person taking down this light. or whatever it was, do you still get that, holy shit, Paul, you did it? Well, when you see the guys doing it, you realize the cost involved. So when you, Arena comedy has a high expense.

So you could do like, say, a 2000 seat of venue and Apollo or something, for example, 3,000. You could do three nights there as opposed to doing one night at a stadium or an arena. But generally comics do it as a statement. Yeah. It's like an industry statement that. you can do it. So, but you pay for it.

Yeah. You are, you are paying for the privilege of playing. And it's not an easy gig. So with the first, at the, at the O2, it was an arena and I did,

I did the second, I had some acts that go on in the first half and they warm up the crowd as, as comics do. But generally, when I do a tour show in the UK, I do the whole show. So I do around half an hour in the first section. And then we have an admission,

which you don't generally have in America. And then in the second half, over an hour. But at the Birmingham Arena, I thought, can I do the whole show on my own to over 10,000 people? So I did the first section and the second section, and I couldn't really speak much to the next day because the projection in an arena. That's an interesting statement that you just made and one that I don't think I've heard before, but makes a lot of sense if you follow the industry and you understand, especially what a lot of musicians have been talking about for years. And that is that these big stadiums, even the medium-sized rooms, the expense involved, in putting on a show and getting there and getting the rigors and all the stuff, right, everything,

from, you know, craft services to, you know, making sure there's some food in the dressing room to all this other stuff. And the immense amount of money that the ticketing agencies and the arenas themselves and the production companies take away from every single seat sold in the building makes it almost, if you break even, you've won the day. Like you've won. If you almost if you break even, you think that, oh, he's selling out the O2 arena. he just made $6 million. That's likely not true, right? It's likely that you broke even, but you did it because you could do it.

It's a flex, it's a statement, and hopefully an attention grabber for the next big thing that you're going to do. I wish I could make $6 million a show. That would be awesome. You know, I just less Beyonce kind of level. I think she charges a million dollars a corporate. She charges a million dollars a corporate gig.

I think it's a million of corporate. if not more. Do you do corporate gigs? Are you open to the idea? I've done a lot, yeah. I do corporate shows. I do birthdays. I do anything I'm available for...

Gince, you know. Wedding. I've done weddings. I've done bar mitz. I almost got attacked a few of them. I remember I did one just after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars and I did some routines.

in a wedding kind of function tent in somebody's house and one of the guests almost attacked me just after. Yeah, so I've had these types of incidents.

Corporates quite dangerous shows to do. You know, I understand it though because when someone's waggling a check in front of you and all you have to do is just go up there, knock out 30, 40 an hour

whatever you're contracted to do and, you know, you're not taking, I mean, you would like to think. It's not like you're doing something, outside of the norm of what you would do, you're just doing your act in front of a smaller

crowd that's paid you to do it. It's almost in some sense. You know, that's like just icing on the cake. You're walking and you're knocking it out. But why did you get attacked? Well, I remember I did a show for a family and then I got flown out to Dubai and I did a wedding and it was only to these Muslim men on a rooftop in this multi-million pound property in the Beverly Hills part of Dubai. So I go out and I did the Dubai opera house on my last tour, but I go out to these weird and wacky kind of like, you know, weddings or wherever. And they went down, you know, it went down all right. They seem to enjoy it. And then I got called to do another wedding in the UK for somebody that was related to that family. And so whenever I do a corporate show or a, if I did

you a birthday, I'd ask you for some information about your friends or your family. And then I'd do some jokes about them, right? So you don't do your conventional set because it never works. So it's got to be about them. And then one guy, so the guy getting married said, call my cousin gay, which obviously I've got not an issue with, but I call the guy gay. And the whole audience erupted into laughter. Everyone was laughing except the guy called gay. And he wasn't laughing, and neither were his wife and kids. And then I may have taken it a bit too far with that. And then he rushed the stage and grabs the mic off me and said, if he, can you swear on this podcast? I'm not sure. Yeah, no, go for it, yeah.

He used a few expletives at me and said, if you continue to say this, I'm going to punch you in the fucking head. No. And push the mic down. And at that point, he had to be kind of pulled off me. And then his dad got involved and said,

you know, you know, this isn't appropriate material for a family, Muslim family audience. So it goes completely, and I said, well, it was good enough for Wembley Arena. Yeah.

And he said, you've got to get yourself out of this position now and make them laugh again. So then I had to then dig my way back out of that hole. Wow. Wow. So, yeah. So you think Chris Rock had a hard time. Yeah.

Listen, I saw Chris a couple weeks, month, whatever. It was his first gig after he went after the big slap. Right. And, you know, he was obviously shaken by the whole thing. That was a very, very public disturbance in the force. let's put it that way. I still don't know what that shit was about. But it feels like to me that in comedy, small stages, big stages all around the world and any live performance, it is getting more dangerous in sense. I think people have, they're quicker to snap, they're quicker to get

aggressive, they don't respect the boundaries, they don't understand, you know, comedy is not, every, you can't please everybody all the time. And every line isn't going to hit with everybody the same way. It feels to me, and I just think this is anecdotal, but probably is true, people are quick to get crazy. They're quick to snap, and, you know, we've seen it. People bumruss to the stage. They throw shit at musicians. They attack comics on stage. You know, have you experienced any of this outside this one instance? Have you ever? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've been doing comedy for 26 years now, right? So I've been attacked. I've been people waiting for me outside. I've had death threats. I've had the police come to my house three times to take statements because I've had

online threats. I've, um, you know, are you guys experience out there? Uh, the difference in the UK is they don't carry guns, right? So, right? So the, the threat is slightly less in the UK than is in America. I know it's slightly more dained. But comedy has changed because 26, 25 years ago, when I broke into the club, say 24 years ago, people understood that jokes on stage were jokes. And now people are taking this very seriously. So when I say, if I was said to say this at Parliament or at the White House, then it doesn't, it's not a joke. But what I'm saying on a comedy stage at a show that's been billed as a comedy show and you're buying tickets for a comedy show, they should be taken as a joke no matter what the subject. But we don't live in that time anymore. No, people are so

entrenched in their own divisive thought. And I can't exclude myself sometimes for, from that too. I don't think I would bum rush a stage, but it's like everything is so damn personal, you know, and it's really not. I always thought of comedy is a little bit of a noble profession in the sense that it allows people to open up, right? When you're laughing, you're opening up, even to ideas that otherwise you wouldn't, you know, if you're talking to your friend or watching a news story, whatever you wouldn't think. And then it'll laugh, it's like a Trojan horse. It allows for additional perspectives to come in your brain or for you to laugh at something that otherwise you don't find funny on a normal day.

And then you go, yeah, maybe that's not so serious. Or maybe I could think about things this different way. But not everybody is there. You know, there's people out there that are not well. They're just not well. And they, you know, they... I think the internet has created this kind of discourse where people take you very serious.

Like when I put a clip, I'm very careful now as to what clips to upload on the internet because people are scrolling and as soon as they see something that they... People are only offended by material when it affects them. So I could do 10 jokes about something which is so offensive, but I do one joke about, say, a sweatshirt shirt that you're wearing with letters on it, for example. And that could affect you.

Or you wear glasses. And I do a joke about glasses. You're offended by that because you wear glasses. People are only affected by jokes when it's about them, really, or it affects them in some way. But I think as long as it's funny, I don't have to like the subject matter. you know, I worked with Patrice O'Neill when he was around in America and the UK. Now, I don't agree with him on his viewpoints. Was it funny?

That's the point. Was it funny? Yeah. And it was. Exactly. You've been doing this for a long time, right? You said you were around with Patrice and Bill Burr. Have you worked with Bill also?

Bill Burr first came to the UK around 2007. He did the Leicester Square Theatre. in London, which I performed at way back then. And a lot of Americans, Leslie Jones was just there a few months ago from Saturday Night Live. Or I saw there. So Bill wanted a, I used to do a golf club in Reislet.

This is just on the outskirts of London. Where, so in the UK clubs, you used to get to do 20 minutes, right? But this club would book me to do, say, 40 to 50 minutes. Okay. So I'd do about 50 minutes of stage time. And so you get to, to do an extended comedy set and then you'd have an opener. And then Bill came to, he was in London and

the promoter reached out to him said, do you want to warm up for your show? Do you want to, you fancy coming down to my gig? So he said, yeah, I'll come down to warm up. So he was my opening act. That's incredible. Bill Bird came to London and opened for me at this golf club. That's crazy. And then I met him and his wife and he invited me to the show the next day at the Leicester Square Theatre, which he did two nights and there was only half full. And he, you know, he was only half full. on each night. And Bill wasn't really, and then he went on to do Breaking Bad

and the likes of that and his specials. And this was pre-netflix, of course, right? Yeah. So, and then Bill went on to be, you know, I'm not sure what he went on to become, but I haven't heard of him since.

Yeah, he's a very famous podcaster and political commentary. If you're listening, Bill, you know, I gave you your first break in the UK. It would help. Yeah, Can you come and open for Paul when he's in America in the next couple of weeks?

He would appreciate it. He won't even open the door for me. Yeah, well, you know, Bill seems like one of those accessible guys, but, you know, you never know someone until you. Actually, I had a chance to interview Bill Burr. One of our first interviews was on this thing called Clubhouse. Did you do Clubhouse during the pandemic? Like the audio app where people would go in and start rooms. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard about this.

Everybody, all the comics were on that. Yeah, Twitter, Space. So when this podcast was early, we had a friend who the two of us interviewed Bill Burr. Could not have been nicer spent an hour and a half with us. And so I don't have anything but nice things to say about Bill because all I know about him is being nice. But when you come to the United States and you, do you, obviously you can't use some of the same material around the world. You've got to tailor it. And you're an international comic.

You're doing this all over the world, right? Do you, is it take you a couple of shows when you get to the United States to kind of warm up into the material, see what, see where the crowd is going, understand. I would imagine when you move a location like that, you know, what do they say, all real estate is local, all comedy might be local to have to come. I did last year I did the city winery, New York, and Boston, Chicago, and I did Canada as well. Yeah. And it's just the reference points, really. So when I do this tour, so this is a different tour.

Last year the show was called Family Friendly. This one in America is called AI Artificial Indian. So, you know, because people don't, sometimes they can't put the English accent because I got like a London accent. Yeah. But I'm an Indian guy. So my family immigrated.

My dad came to England in 1964 and I was born in the 70s, of course. So, but they don't normally see, they don't put the two and two together, but as you know, Indians were everywhere now. But I was, I'm British, basically.

I'm a British act. So it's, it's really the, the Americanisms which you change, you know, a supermarket. I might change whatever, like in the UK,

say Sainsbury's to Walmart. So these little little things. So I just, I did, I was just in America. I was doing the, uh, the comedy seller for a couple of weeks.

So, you know, I just thought I'd dip my toe in and, and I, and I always wanted to try to play the seller for, for years and I just thought, you know what, I haven't done the clubs in years, and I just reached out to them and they gave me a couple of weeks of shows out there, so I just kind of warmed up a bit. Yeah, of course they did. I mean, you know, you're a huge touring act. The

comedy seller, by the way, for those of you that don't know, is a storied comedy club, not one that might get as much attention as, you know, the comedy store or Carolines or whatever, but the comedy seller is extraordinarily well known as a place to go and cut your teeth, right? Go out there and cut your teeth and work on your act and put it. And put it in, a few jokes together. Are there, so Paul and I were talking right before we came on. And Paul kindly said that he had listened to the latest episode of the show, which as he was listening to it, is actually me rebroadcast or republishing the psychic after the break, the new show that I am doing. Thank you very much for the kind words. You come from a family that believes in this kind of

mystic magic? No, I mean, weirdly, you say that, but the, um, there's a woman that's gone viral on Instagram. Okay. Sylvia Brown. Brown. Yes. Because she was on the Montel Williams show in the 1990. You spoke about it.

You said the worst one. The worst of the worst. Yes. And it was great. I urge everyone to listen to this episode. Thank you. It's a great, great episode. And you really do a deep dive into these psychics

and people want to believe there's something out there. And I didn't know that because there was a fact you told me that you tried to speak to Montel about the show, but he wouldn't give any interviews on it. But the fact that he gave her a platform and Honey the Land is what now people are quoting on Instagram. They call it. They're calling what? They're calling her. Honey the land. Honey the land. So there was there was an episode where some woman says, you know, I lost my husband.

And do you know where he is now? And Sylvia says, I'm sensing water. Water. He's deep in water. And then the woman says he died in 9-11. Yes. No, but I'm getting water. She's sprayed with water.

I remember this. He drowned. He drowned in the water. He drowned in 9-11. Yeah. She was most definitely. And listen, you know, I'm not here to make a judgment call on whether or not any of this is true or not. Obviously, there's no, I don't see any scientific proof out there, but people can believe what they want to believe.

But this woman was so terrible in the sense that she would, Montel would bring on these grieving parents or grieving wife or husband or whatever it was gone missing, not found, years gone. Or even, it might even be fresh a couple of months. And investigators had run up against, you know, nothing. They couldn't find anything, a cold case, essentially. And she would start just telling people falsehoods, bullshitting them, and then after the show, which you don't know what I don't get to there, but after the show, and this has now been found out through many conversations and interviews with people who had kind of interactions with Sylvia on the Montel show is that Sylvia would approach them afterwards and ask them to pay her to give them additional money, thousands of. and thousands of dollars. If you give me $20,000, I can spend some time on this and get further. And some people did and most people did not. But she was, you remember the Natalie Holloway case, the girl who went missing in Aruba?

Yaron Vandersloot ended up, that fucking douchebag from wherever it was from the Dutch colonies or whatever. He actually, she actually claimed that Natalie was alive and that she was being held by whatever, you know, sex kidnapping ring. The girl was dead, but she strung that mother along, just like she strung many mothers along. And that's where I take issue with psychics. If you're calling a psychic hotline because you're having trouble with your love life

and you want to see, you know, if somebody has any indication, if you're going to fall in love, cool. If you're out there prognosticating about whether or not an investigation is going in a certain direction is correct or someone's dead or alive or kidnapped, that's where I just go.

I get nuts in my own head. I'm like, how could these people do this to these grieving folks? Luckily, I don't come from a family that believes any of this stuff. Like, my parents were pretty pragmatic. But I know there's a lot of families that are like really into this kind of shit. So you've heard of James Randy, who's no longer with us, right? Yes, I have, yes.

So James Randy expose these people. There's a great documentary on Prime, which is called an honest liar. So he exposes Uri Geller, a lot of these skept, you know, a lot of these psychics. And yeah, he went down, you know, quite badly for exposing them. So people, because people want to believe. They do. Kind of people, people want to believe a lie because it's something they get from believing there's something after this existence that we're in now.

and we have some connection to people aren't here anymore. You know what I think it is, Paul? I think it's the mind abhors a vacuum, right? The mind abhors a vacuum. And when we don't have information and when we can't get that information, it's just why I think conspiracy theories run wild on the internet these days is because in the absence of information,

in a world that's flooding you with information, we get crazed when there's not an answer to something that makes sense or it's not immediate. And just like that, the psychics offer something to people who are obviously having mental trauma, emotional trauma. And that is, they've just lost someone or they've lost someone at some point. Conspiracy theory was an experiment, wasn't it, in the 60s or 70s? They tried to see if they could make people believe things that didn't exist and how far it traveled. So it was an experiment.

And now it's the norm. It was like a game of telephone at first. It wasn't like the CIA would. And didn't the CIA, didn't the CIA, um, didn't the CIA, um, put out UFO, like, certain kind of UFO conspiracies that then were, like, driven by other conspiracies, like, the CIA did some damage by playing these games, and now people are, are, are, are, have gone crazy. Does this affect that, I'm getting the sense that it's, that America is first and foremost in the land of conspiracy theories and device of thinking around

conspiracy theories, but now it's bled into other parts, uh, of the, the, the, the world. world like the UK. Is that true? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's no truth anymore. It's your truth. It's, uh, you, you don't have to go to medical school for six to eight years, whatever it is and specializing your specialist area to, to learn your craft. If you do a Google search, you can debunk those. It's true. Whatever they've, you know, because they're all being lied to and we live in an age where everyone's lying to us. And, um, also conspiracy theories makes it's almost like believing a skeptic isn't it you want to believe things

that make you feel better about yourself it's true and i think there's some some part deep down also is that people want to believe they have some inside track some inside knowledge like it makes them feel like they have some control over situations that may not be in their own control like i really know what's going on i really understand what's going on all right back to comedy I'm sorry, back to comedy before we make this whole episode about conspiracy theories, but I can talk about all day long, by the way. But tell me, what did you find funny as a kid? Like, what were some of the first things?

Did you always want to be a comic? Was this a play? Like, were you the funny guy in the family? Were you the funny guy at school? I was a serious guy. I think people would say I was more of the serious guy, you know? But then I would say things that people would find funny. in a serious manner and that's where I thought oh I you know I grew up to weirdly I grew up to

horror I grew up to a lot horror films I'd watch as a kid oh really and also comedy was I'd say in the 1970s or 80s quite primitive in the UK in comparison to America so you had the you had the alternative comedians but we had mainstream comics in the UK who would do like we had I don't know if you know about British comedy it was very different to the Americans and then I'm very up speed on British comedy, by the way. It's my favorite kind of comedy. Oh, really? Yes, I love the shows. I love the, I love all of it. I'm a big fan. So back then, you know, I grew up, you know, I'd say the biggest export we had at that time was Benny Hill. Ben, yeah, in America. Yep. Now, looking back on Benny Hill, it's actually quite,

it wasn't really a respected form of comedy. It was quite a sexist and misogynistic. You know, you couldn't get away with that kind of stuff anymore. Michael Jackson's favorite comedian, apparently, right? He went to see him on his deathbed. It's insane, yeah. So I grew up to, you know, more come a wise, like all these guys. And then I dove into Pryor when I was, I'd say in the 80s, I was listening to Pryor,

Kinnerson, obviously Eddie Murphy back then and the delirious era. Yeah. But we'd get cassettes back then. So I'd listen to it. Walkman. Carlin, so I was, I was introduced, well, you kind of discovered them. Yeah.

Because in those days, you'd have to go on buy a cassette tape, which is people don't even have the players anymore. And then it moved on to CD and then, and now obviously, you know, things are going just disappeared. But back then, comedy was very different. So I had to go and go to Tower Records and buy these things into central London. You wouldn't even get it in your local area. You had to go downtown.

Yeah, you had to go downtown. It would take you one hour to get there to go and buy a tape to listen to it. Wow. This is our line. You know, so I grew up to that, to, um, who was, who was, say, the biggest comic in the 80s in America? We didn't really get an SNL was never broadcast in the UK. I think they tried it once, which they did a few. It's actually coming to the UK now.

Oh. But they're doing a UK version of it. So American comedy and British comedy is quite different. That's why you don't get many British standups doing the American scene as much. But now it's changing. It's different. And in the 80s, you know, you're right. You just named all the heavy hitters.

And, you know, Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Kennison and Carlin, of course, he's just a different kind of comic, right? He's almost a poet, a commentarian. Hicks was huge here. Hicks was really big. So when Bill Hicks, because he did the Edinburgh Festival, which made him big in the UK. Yeah. And, yeah, Carlin was more of an observational comic at first, and then when he became political,

that's when he kind of blew up. But still, he wouldn't be known to the Everyman in England. Right. Now, Hicks was huge here, but not as big as I think he rightfully deserved, right? I don't think he would be named with, I think some people would, but I don't think he would be named with Carlin and Murphy and Kenison because those guys, they were just putting

and they were just putting out these incredible hours, hour and a half. Did you, like, did this connect with you when you were listening to these tapes over, I'm sure, like on repeat like I was? Is it connected with you? Yeah, it was Seinfeld was playing. So I grew up, let's say, the Larry Sanders show, right?

Okay, yep, great show. And it was one of the best. Of course. And then Seinfeld, I discovered, actually first discovered on Rodney Dangerfield's. He did a compilation show where Kinnison was headlining. And I don't know if was Dice on that. I don't think Dice was on that. I don't think Dice and Dangerfield cross paths on it.

I think you're talking about an HBO special or a Showtime special that Dangerfield did. Yeah. It was Phil. So he had the Dangerfield's Club. Yeah. So he, yeah, that was when, so, but Kinnison wasn't really known in the UK either. Sam Kinnison wasn't known here. Wow.

And it was a very American style of comedy. So over here it was more set up punchline, whereas he was like rants and screaming. And obviously, he all went on to become a stadium comic, right? It's one of the first after someone like, oh, Dice. Yeah. So Dice. But then if you look back at Dice, you know, Dice has now made a comeback. He's done a movie with Eddie Murphy, but back then, you know, I remember the days when he got cancelled from MTV.

So that was the first incarnation. But now you look back on that kind of comedy. Stuff like the prior stuff hasn't dated too badly. But I don't know if the Dice stuff has aged that well. No. I agree with you. I don't think a hickory-dickory dock is on the top of anybody's list. You know, it's like, I agree.

Dice was one of the first. stadium comics, Murphy and Dice, right? And Ken and Knessen. They, they would, and Carlin would do big rooms. I don't know if he did stadiums, but he would do big rooms for sure, but. Well, uh, Dice opened for guns and roses, and I actually saw Axel Rose this close to me. No shit. Yeah, he did a Q&A in, um, in Soho with a, uh, Jimmy Chang, who owns a restaurant called China Tang. Okay. At the Dorchester in Park Lane in London. And he used to have like a a video podcast and I was front row and Axel Rose came in in a walking stick and there was only like 50 people there with me and he came in really late and he just did a Q&A with he'd since died actually

Jimmy Chang but Axel Rose was literally I said hello to Axel Rose there and I was thinking you know this is literally why is he come to do this but he just used to come and and and then I saw Slash because he was here recently um because I went to a party for and the Leeds and were evasive and the Leeds where of ACDC did a thing with Slash on stage for an industry party on TV. Holy shit. You know, Jimmy Chang's had a restaurant chain called Tangs, right? So it's called Tangs. So we did a whole episode about this because apparently back in the 80s and early 90s,

Meet Me at Tangs was a thing that people would do. They had like a location out in LA, a couple locations out in California. And people went crazy for Tangs. We actually got some merch made and it said, meet me at thanks. Yeah, so I was, I used to, I went to his, his, he's, I used to do it in the afternoon, in Chinatown, in London. Okay.

And that's where, he'd get the biggest A-listers at this, so he had some connections for some reason. And then he just used to release them online on a video. I think it's probably still available on YouTube. Wow. He's no longer with us. He since had a heart attack, didn't they? Yeah, he passed away.

Yeah, we read that also. Very young, very young guy he was, he wasn't, it must have been late 50s. that's, you know, when you get to a certain age, are you feeling the way that I'm feeling when you get to a certain age and then you, like, read in the obituaries, like guys like Tangs, they die at 55, 57 years old, you know, died in his sleep or died of a massive heart attack? And you go, holy shit, that's not like old guys dying.

That's like I could be that guy in a couple of years. It makes me, it upsets me. You know, when you get to this age, I think you're probably a bit younger than me. a little bit younger than me so and then you start to think you know when you when you can see your retirement like now you have a pension in america uh we don't have a pen no we don't we don't have pensions in america i mean there are companies some companies that offer them but we don't have like a governmental pension we have social security which won't be around when i retire so you know we've wrecked that

we've driven that into the ground so you know like but when do you retire is like a one of my favorite comics was Jackie Mason. Yeah, right? Yeah. So I saw his last few tours in the UK and I was at his last ever show. And he was in his late 70s by that point. And as with George Carlin, right? They did it until they're dead.

But when do you stop doing this? Because when I do these big, big shows and I'm on the road for like months at a time, I'm thinking, man, this is grueling at this age now. but I couldn't feel it when I was, half, I'm doing this over half my life now. Yep. You know, touring America is different to touring in the UK. In the UK, I could go up and down the country twice within one week,

and you won't feel it. But in America, the UK is almost the same, if not a tiny bit bigger than New York State. So we're a tiny little island in comparison to you guys. It is crazy because of the United States, my wife is Venezuelan. Right? So she, like Venezuelan, like when I met her, she lived in Venezuela. So, you know, she's been here for about 10 years. But she had been coming to America. She had family here for a long time. But she always says that the thing that has surprised me most about being a citizen of the United States is how incredibly large the United States is and how many different looks and feels there are in the United States. You can be in a desert and then you can fly four hours and you can be in subtropical weather down in Florida. you know, and you're still in the same country. And when you're touring around, I'm sure,

you know, planes, trains, and automobiles kind of thing, it must be another inside of a hotel ramp, catching another plane, catching another train. And I can imagine that at my age, it's part of the reason why I don't tour is because I just, first of all, I have small children. But second of all, I don't know that my body or my mind would hold up well that that kind of pressure. I think it takes a You've been doing it for a long time. So, you know, this is like rinse and repeat for you, but you've built up a certain tolerance for the bullshit. I don't know that I have that tolerance for the bullshit.

Yeah, you couldn't start at this age. You've got to start young. And like I was watching a documentary and one of my favorite horror films last night called The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Oh, yeah. Which I went to revisit because it's like 50 plus years old now. It's crazy, yeah.

Now, that was filmed in the depths of Texas in 1973, right? So the reason that movie existed was because people don't know how people live in the deep, deep parts of America, which you don't even see. You know, in London, in the UK, people can't really hide away too much, but in America you can hide into little crannies, and you don't even know where they are in the woods somewhere. No, it's so big that there are, I mean, it's so vast

that there are places, you know, there's, like, I have a friend whose parents are capital. Ranchers, and they own like 120,000 acres of land in the west part of the United States. 120,000 acres. I own less than half an acre where I live, and I complain about doing the lawn, right? But imagine how lost you could get on just that one family's property, and there are hundreds, if not thousands of people, that own that kind of property here in the the United States. And it really is a vast country. Do you enjoy any parts of the, like, are there

any crowds specific to the regions in the United States that feel more comfortable for you? Like, some people say the South is more friendly, right? Some people say that New York and Chicago are my kind of places. Some people love L.A. Well, you know, doing London, New York, L.A., Chicago, that's kind of doing a city, right? Yeah. But when you go into other areas, that's when you're going to discover yourself when you go into when you go to some township in south africa when you go to some small town in new zealand or australia and that's what you think am i really funny or is it just the the cosmopolitan cities which get to see everything anyway yeah i want to perform to the family in the texas jamesel massacre that's when you realize you know did you know that

story is do you know the ed gine story have you watched that on netflix yet yeah so at the Ed Gein story. Interesting that whole thing was the actor put on that weird voice for Ed Gein. Yes.

Which if you listen to the tapes, there's some tapes available of Ed Gein's actual voice. I think it would have been scarier if he played it as Ed Gein's normal voice because he had a normal deep kind of voice. It just sounded like a normal dude. He didn't go,

Hey, I'm Ed Gein, I want to take you out. He sounded like Michael Jackson. I didn't do it. I didn't touch those voice. He was a Kermit, the Frog Michael Jackson voice. He kind of, you made you almost feel sorry for the guy, but you're not, you know, that voice, I'm not sure why the actor put that voice on. He said it would make him look more sinister.

It made me kind of, it made you feel this as if the guy had special needs. I agree. Which you obviously did. Obviously he did. He had a problem. But I agree with you. I think he was trying to play it so that the audience, my opinion, he made. he made a choice, a conscious decision, the director probably with him, to give some empathy

toward this character that we were going to see through these entire seven episodes. But, you know, it just, when the first time that I heard his voice, too, I go, did Ed Gein really talk like that? I also did the research and then also figured out it doesn't sound at all like Ed Gein. It sounds like he's making some weird voice for affectation purposes. Most of the show was made up. Yeah, that girl isn't involved with him. Most of it was made up. I'm big into the...

You guys do make the best serial killers. I have to give you that, America. Thank you. When it comes to serial killers, you're the best. We can't... Although we did have Dr. Harold Shipman. I'm not sure if you knew about him. No.

He was a doctor in the UK who would just kill old patients by giving him lethal injections. So we don't know how many he killed. He could be the biggest serial killer of all time. He was based in the north of England. So his name was Dr. Harold Shipman. So hopefully they'll make a Netflix, he might get us on Netflix series. This is the thing, the more people you kill, the more chance you have of a Netflix series.

Well, Ed only confirmedly killed two people. So, you know, and he got his whole thing. But he did dig up a bunch of people. But, I mean, he's like kind of the beginning of this whole, you know. Listen, we do make serial killers. It's a very uniquely American thing that people go out and murder en masse, right? But you know what kill serial killers, right? What's that?

What killed them off? What, you don't get as many anymore? Tell me. CCTV. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that when you think about it, that's a good point. It's CCTV and camera phones. Yeah, because everyone's recording everything 24 hours a day.

Yeah, you can't. He never got away with most. You didn't even know if he killed his own brother. Most of the thing isn't fat-checked. So are there any survivors from that time? It was 19, you know, it was in the Second World War. So there's no way of fact-checking any of this stuff. No.

But say, so I actually went back and watched the Menendez brothers one, where now people want them out of prison, right? Yeah. It's a fantastic show, by the way. That was really well done, the Menendez brothers. Was that your favorite of the monsters? I, uh, yeah, I think the Menendez brothers is, was probably my favorite. I did like the one also about the guy who killed Versace, uh, or, um,

Was it Versace? Yeah. Gianni Vasachi. Gianni Vasachi. I did like that one too. Well, I don't think that was a monster season, but it was a great show. Yeah. It was a great show.

What was your favorite one? Yeah, I think the, yeah, and then there was, the first season was, what was his name? The gay serial killer. The gay serial killer. Oh, Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer. Oh, that was really good, too. Oh, that was super fantastic also.

And a lot of the facts, I went back and watched that and married it up to some facts. Not everything's true, because it's all serialized, right? They take a lot of artistic liberty in all of these series. But I think Jeffrey Dahmer is pretty aligned with the story. And I was alive during that Jeffrey Dahmer time. Oh, me too. Yeah. Dommer was one twisted motherfucker. I did some jokes about that in the last special.

So I did some jokes about Jeffrey Darme, because his first victim was a white guy. Yeah. And then there's the rest of his, because he lived in a black neighborhood, so the rest of his victims were all from ethnic minority groups, which goes to prove that white people are very bland. You know, if you want flavor, you go ethnic.

So that almost got to be canceled here. Yeah, people want the Menendez brothers out of jail because they think that, you know, that essentially their parents were paying the penance for these bad deeds. but well arguably I think they were molested

I do too I believe that side of it now what I couldn't understand was going they didn't just kill their parents they blew them to into literally they were in their

like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Preda yeah you know they went off for sawn off shotguns and blew them to smithereens you know that was you know that takes something have you ever done that before

Not recently. Not recently. It's been six, seven years since I've taken a sought-off shock on to anybody. And, you know, it'll take another six, seven years to get the courage to do that. Yeah. Listen, these guys had some super anger in them and they were ready to go. I mean, they were ready to go. But I think also they were driven by the fact that not only were they molested and that probably had, you know, your psyche is fucked. If you're getting molested at that age, by your parents, your psyche is fucked. Then the fact that the father, was such a weird, strict bastard, right? And the mother was kind of out of it and piled up and all this other stuff. But then there's a lot to gain from those two being murdered, right? There's a lot to gain financially. It means freedom from the tyranny, freedom from the abuse,

but it also means financial freedom for the rest of their lives. Well, the therapist told, you know, it was because they're a therapist, they got caught. And people say therapy is good for you. Yeah. But it didn't help them. It didn't help them one bit. They did not, they got a raw deal on that therapist.

And it turns out, yeah, he wasn't even like a therapist. He had gotten like a weekend. He had gotten like a weekend. It was the therapist girlfriend though, wasn't it? Because he told the girlfriend who was having an affair. So he was a shit therapist and then the therapist screwed him over. It was such a twisted series of events. I mean, honestly.

Why is the therapist not in prison? Yeah, you know, he wasn't a therapist. That's why he's. He was not in prison. He was like, seriously, he got like a weekend degree from DeVry. And he was just helping people out on the sign. He was, you know, if Ed Gein got therapy, he would have gone court years ago. Yeah, that's right. Ed Gein needs the therapy. But, you know, he lived so far away from a therapist. He couldn't go to a therapist.

Yeah. So tell me, what is, when does the tour start here in the United States? So, good question. That's a great question. By the way, all the links are in the show notes, as they always are, listener. So, you know, Paul's got a lot of stuff on his mind. He's got a pack. I've got a, I start in, on the 6th of January in L.A., and then I'm in Seattle, Denver, San Fran, Chicago, Washington, New York, Toronto, Philly, Dallas, Atlanta.

It goes on. Oh, great. You're coming to Atlanta. Where are you going to, where are you in Atlanta? Are you playing like a club? or a bigger hall? Georgia. GA.

Oh, in Georgia? Yeah. Yeah, that's Atlanta, Georgia. I'm not saying, do you know which club you're playing or which... Oh, it's... Yeah, it's one of the theaters there. Oh, I'm so excited. I will come see you.

Atlanta, Paul. I'm going to come see you. I would like to see it. I've really enjoyed this conversation. We can shoot the shit about... Oh, yeah, you're playing the Buckhead Theater, buddy. Look at you. Bucket.

That's it. The bucket. Look at you. Look at you. It's named after a very famous double act you had called Beavis and Bucket back in the MTV. Good old Buckhead, Georgia. That is the, Buckhead is the Dubai of Atlanta, just to let you know. That is where all the rich people are.

And so that's a good place. The Dubai is the Dubai of Georgia. It's the Dubai of Atlanta. Oh, really? Well, I'm not Muslim, but I'll try. Have you played, you did play Dubai, right? You went and played there? I did the Dubai Opera House.

Yeah, that's the last day I did in Dubai. I actually did an arena in Dubai just after lockdown. So I socially did. It was only a couple of thousand people because it was like a 15,000 seat room, but they had to socially distance people. So it was sold out two and a half thousand. Wow. I've always wanted to visit Dubai.

That's like one of those. places that's kind of on the list because it seems like a, I don't know, a Disney world for money and adult. You know what I'm saying? Like it seems like it's just born out of nothing and they just made this amazingly shiny, pretty thing. And I'm a fan of big projects and engineering and all that. I feel like Dubai is one of those places. Well, the country's about my age, but most of it's sinking because it's just a man-made, you know, you're not supposed to be living there really, are you? No. It's inhabitable. Yeah. It turns out that. It's, They're just dumping a bunch of sand in the middle of the ocean

and making islands with big buildings on them. Wasn't all that well thought out. Well, then they do the clouds. They make the clouds as well. They can make it rain out there now. Yeah, that's what I heard, that they're seeding the clouds and they make it rain. Cloud seeding.

Yeah. There's got to be some repercussion to that at some point. Do you know what I'm saying? Well, they had the floods, didn't they? Oh, yeah, that's right. So they couldn't then control the floods, and then it went out of control. Whoops.

Well, they'll, they have enough money, they'll figure it out. Paul is on tour. Paul, where can we see your most recent special also? So my most recent special, I think I'm not allowed to say this, but I think somebody illegally uploaded onto YouTube. Oh, okay, so you can illegally not give Paul money by watching it on YouTube. So before I get it taken down because it was illegally uploaded, you know, I hope you don't see it. Yeah. Okay, so listeners, don't go watch Paul's latest special on YouTube. legally uploaded by someone not yet named. Yeah. Otherwise, in the UK, it's on Sky TV or Now TV, which doesn't work in America.

I tried. So I'm going to find the bastard who illegally uploaded it on YouTube before you guys watch it. Well, you look straight in the mirror and you go find that guy. All right. Also, additionally, he's on tour here starting in January. Paul, you are welcome back anytime, my friend. We would love to have you. And I will try and get to the Buckhead Theater

because it's right down the street and I would like to come watch you do some jokes. An honor and a privilege. And, you know, I've been doing this all my life, which has led up to the biggest. I've gone from playing, I thought, I don't need arenas anymore. I don't need to be playing the same rooms

as Beyonce Knowles, Taylor Swift, and the likes. I need to go into the Buckhead. Buckhead Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. Be there or B-Square. He's now made it on the biggest comedy, in all of North Atlanta, and so he's on his way up. We can tell him. Oh, an honor and a privilege.

Thanks, Paul. I really appreciate it. Rachel here. While Brian takes his old man bladder to the little boys' room, Let's Talk Turkey. TCB needs your help. If you love the show, do us all a favor and share. Sharing is caring. And we know you care.

Don't you? Well, don't you? Ooh, that was some childhood trauma. Rear in its ugly head. Do you want to be on the show? leave us a voicemail at 212-4333822, and you could be the next TCB disembodied voice. Ooh, what'd you do today?

I was a disembodied voice. You know, that sounds more dangerous than it actually is. Find us on Insta at the commercial break. On the web at TCB Podcast.com, and all the episodes on video are available the same day at YouTube.com slash the commercial break. I'm going to go help Brian get back up the stairs while you listen to the sponsors, and then we'll all meet back here and

get back to this episode of the commercial break. I'll take a raise now. Bitches. Bye. From the creative team behind the Brutelist and starring Academy Award nominee Amanda Seifred in a career best performance, Searchlight Pictures presents The Testament of Anne Lee.

With rave reviews from the Venice Film Festival, this bold and magnetic musical epic tells the story inspired by a true legend, Anne Lee, founder of the radical religious movement, The Shakers, the Testament of Ames. Lee. Exclusive Toronto engagement January 16th in theaters everywhere January 23rd.

All right, that's going to be the last interview that I do for a while without Chrissy. She's my security blanket. She's my binkie. She's my baba. I love her very much and I want her to come home. And she will. But not this week. I mean, not this episode.

She'll be back next week on the next TCB infomercial. And don't you worry Throughout the holiday, we are smashing new episodes left and right. And you know where you would have heard those episodes first on our YouTube channel, YouTube.com slash the commercial break. Now streaming all of our episodes as we record them except for the celebrity TCB infomercial episodes. Those you'll have to wait until Tuesday.

But if you want to catch early previews of us and you want to get involved and you want to be a part of the action, and you've got to follow us. YouTube.com slash the commercial. break, hit the notifications, make sure you get notified when we go live or follow us on Instagram at the commercial break. So many exciting things happening around here. Listen, I have been wrong, I have been wrong. Maya Copa's apologies.

Cudette to you, all of the people who have been texting us, I really apologize. We had a little problem with the phone, and then I got the phone fixed, and now it's the holiday and blah, blah, blah. I'm going to respond to everybody this hot. holiday weekend. You could hear from me on Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving. Isn't that exactly what you want? Give thanks for the mediocre comedy podcast that puts out way too many episodes for way too little money. Hey, that's, I saw our problem, not yours. Okay, I'll accept that on face value. All right. 212-4333-T-CB, 212, 433, 3822. Questions, comments, concerns, concerns, content, ideas.

We're going to respond. I'm going to get to it. You know, I'm like, I'm one of those people. I just, everything else distracts me. I'm like a cat with a shiny toy, a little squirrel with a nut. I run around the yard. I don't know which way I'm going. And then eventually I make my way up the tree with the nut.

Okay, I'll get to it this weekend. Yeah, I already said YouTube.com and all that jazz. I already said at the commercial break on Instagram and all that jazz. And I'll remind you to go to the website. DCB Podcast.com. Get your free sticker, all the audio, all the video. Okay, on behalf of Chrissy and I, I'll tell you that I love you, best to you. I hope you have a great holiday week. Until next time, I will say, I do say, and I must say goodbye. I have it.