The Digression Sessions - Ep. 140 - Joe DeRosa! (@JoeDeRosaComedy)

Episode Date: November 3, 2014

Twitter: @BetterRobotJosh – Josh Kuderna @StavComedy– Stavros Halkias @DigSeshPod – For Podcast Updates! @JoeDeRosaComedy – Joe DeRosa Hola DigHeads! On this week’s episode, Josh  and special guest cohost Stavros Halkias are joined by the comedian, writer, and director – Joe DeRosa in a Phildelphia hotel room. DeRosa’s new album, “Mistakes Were Made” is available on iTunes, Amazon, etc. You can also get his book, “Cheat,” he coauthored with Bill Burr and Bobby Kelly. He’s also be on HBO’s Bored To Death, FX’s Louie, IFC’s Z-Rock, E’s Chelsea Lately, and DirecTV’s The Artie Lange Show. And he wrote for the Pete Holmes show. Josh and Stav are huge fans, so this was an honor to talk to Joe about taking his approach to playing in bands and applying it to comedy, new material Seinfeld, how podcasting is a pain in the ass, the table at the Comedy Cellar, and Joe’s love / hate, well mostly hate relationship with the internet! Please subscribe to and rate the Digression Sessions on Stitcher and iTunes. And check out our podcast network, Thunder Grunt! Thanks everyone! We love you! Thanks everyone! We love you!

hey everybody i'm josh kaderna and i'm mike moran and you're listening to the digression sessions podcast a baltimore-based comedy talk show hosted by two young, handsome stand-up comedians slash improvisers. Join us every week as we journey through the world of comedy and the bizarreness of existence. As we interview local and non-local comedians, writers, musicians, and anyone else we find creative and interesting. Yes. Who's the guest this week? Joe DeRosa is the guest on this week's program. Very funny comedian who you can find online.

He is on Twitter. He is at JoeDeRosaComedy, and his website is JoeDeRosaComedy.com. And he currently has an album out right now, which is very funny. It's called Mistakes Were made and uh it's a collection of b-sides and rarities stuff that didn't make the cut or didn't seem to fill out or find its place within an hour or on his previous albums but check it out it's really cool it's like i don't know it's pretty raw it's like hearing a band and you know like the b-sides the stuff that didn't make the other albums which actually turned out to be some of the best stuff.

Yeah, so Joe DeRosa, very funny guy. And we went to go interview him. Josh here, Josh Coderna, of course. And we went to go interview him in Philly. And I was going to have Mike Moran, my trusty co-host, or Mike Fonazzo, who fills in a lot, very funny comedians as well. And they couldn't do it. It was on a Friday. And I said, who fills in a lot. Very funny comedians as well. And they couldn't do it. It was on a Friday. And I said, who else do I know that's funny and doesn't have a job? And that

was Stavros Halkias, very funny guy who co-hosted with me on the Joe Mattarese episode. I said, I got another funny comedian named Joe. You should come with me to Philly. So we drove up to Philly and interviewed Joe in his hotel room. And it was awesome. We talked about how he got into comedy, his musical tastes, how playing in bands influenced his approach to comedy and the business as well. And then got his thoughts on the internet and Twitter. And it was really cool, man. And I was glad Stav came along because I felt like I would have been a real creeper if I went up to Philly by myself like,

hey, Joe, big fan, can we go to your hotel room and talk into microphones? So yeah, I was very excited to talk to Joe and he was a really cool guy. So I hope you guys dig it. A couple of things to plug here for digression sessions. First off, Stavros, very funny comedian. You can find him online.

He's on Twitter. He is at Stav Comedy. And his website is stavcomedy.com. And me, Josh Kaderna, got some shows coming up. You can find me on Twitter. I am at Better Robot Josh. This Friday and Saturday, November 7th and 8th, I will be at McGoobies hosting a show.

And the headliner will be the great Kevin Nealon. Very funny guy. So come out to those shows. If you go to digressionsessions.com slash calendar, that has all of our shows listed there. And you can see what Mike Moran's up to as well. Check out our network, Thunder Grunt. Go to thundergrunt.com and see all the podcasts that are in our family. And, yeah, very funny, very cool stuff over there. Uh, yeah, I don't think there's anything else to plug. This

was awesome. I was, uh, this was really cool. Um, thank you to everybody that's listening. Really appreciate it. And, uh, I think I'm done rambling. All right. Thank you. All right. Let's talk to Joe DeRosa. Yeah. So this is pretty much, we just kind of start. I'll do an intro later. Oh, we just power it. Yeah. You know, like every other podcast. I make my guests sit through my intro because I'm so lazy. I don't feel like doing it. But your intros are so thoughtful though. They're so nice. Thank you. I don't do them. I don't, we, now that we don't feel like doing it but your intros are so thoughtful though they're so nice thank you i don't do them i don't we know that we don't have we don't really have guests on much these

days so i don't really do the intros anymore and i don't know what's i don't know what was easier like or what was more of a pain in the ass like having to write an intro uh about the topic and then like a thoughtful intro about the guest yeah weaving the two together yeah just have a discussion or if it's harder to not have to do that and just talk by myself for an hour right but you know neither yeah doing a podcast is a real pain in the ass it really is like most people think it's just like you just do it and then it's done but like the post stuff of like editing and making sure it sounds good and all that stuff but you have a guy that does that right uh yeah but i've been traveling so much that he doesn't well he does i i record it on my own now mostly these days i

record it on my own and i send it to him and then he sort of you know massages it does a pass on it make sure it sounds okay right and uh and then does whatever edits it needs but i feel bad that i can't be there with him during the recording so like i try not to send any edits at this point i try to just let it really go yeah straight through like the only edits we used to do were like i'd read i'd be reading my intro and i'd keep stumbling so gotcha you know yeah right right that's it yeah is it uh is it hard doing the the ones by yourself because i feel like i would i would feel like a crazy person especially like in a hotel by yourself just ranting about one topic it's nice the nice part is not having to deal with anybody

else's schedule and you know not having to like wait for to a certain time wait for two guys to come up from baltimore yeah yeah not you know so like just being able to do it whenever you feel if you want to do it at 2 a.m you can so that's nice but like the hardest part about talking alone is like i never know quite what i'm rehashing. So I'm finding myself pretty frequently saying like, okay, well, we already did a whole episode about that, so I'm not going to go too far down that road. But anyway, in case you haven't heard it, real quick, da-da-da-da. And then stuff like that because you don't want to –

your thoughts are way more repetitive. Especially when you don't have anybody to bounce it off of yeah like you just keep going down that rabbit hole and like wait where the fuck was i yeah exactly exactly it's also got to be tough just like i can't imagine especially doing stand-up it's like it's the one art form where you have a reaction from the crowd or from an audience right every 10 seconds and so like to be in a room where there's no chance for a reaction right away it's like to me seems like bizarre i could never i would be too in my head like is this funny is this like is this worth listening to is probably

garbage you know what i mean like i don't make it funny yeah set the bar low yeah i'm talking about apathy people it's not gonna be funny yeah i don't give a shit yeah it's funny at all i don't fucking care i did one about uh it might have been the apathy one it might have been the apathy one actually yeah now that you say that it was like it was like there was not one joke. I dug it, though. It was interesting. It was fun to listen to. Thanks. I mean, I figure like, you know, it's like people, you know, I only wanted to do a podcast if I felt like I could bring something personal into it.

So it was like, I was like, okay, I don't want to do an interview show. I won't be good at that. And, you know, like you hear like marin and those guys and you're like they're doing it it's great yeah and then there were like other guys that were really good at doing like the morning zoo style shows and whatever and i was just like i'm i wanted to try to do something i thought i could be good at and then also wasn't just a rehashing of stand up right yeah so i was like you know just i i really like like am radio so yeah are used to it's not really a thing anymore but right just a casual long form

conversation yeah i just i always liked that i was like in a for my college paper in when i was i guess a sophomore in college i was a opinions columnist columnist and i just always liked that like kind of yeah liked that editorializing about something that was it that makes sense because a lot of your stuff has a really strong point of view but I also feel like

you just are hamstrung when you do stand up I've had bits where I'm like I really want to say this thing but there's not that many punchlines in it you know what I mean I don't want an audience to have to sit through six minutes of me like what i think about gun control with no joke you know what i mean so like it's cool to have like uh yeah yeah i don't know it must be cool to just have like a medium where because i feel like a lot of stand-ups have that

part of themselves where it's like i have these opinions and it's like, but I don't feel the need to just like, you know. It's helped my stand up because now my stand up used to get a little too preachy sometimes and it was like this hard, I don't know. It was just a very hard thing for me to regulate because I would talk about these things I was passionate

about and then you get on a roll and you start getting like kind of preachy and then that sounds condescending and i never liked doing that but it was hard not to slip into that mode uh but the podcast has helped because now i can go on there and just kind of you know go off on whatever i want and i find myself now when i'm on, like really making an effort to be like, okay, make this conversational. You know, I'm doing this whole thing now. My closing bit now is about entitlement and the entitlement problem, I think,

like, you know, the Twitter and whatever else is created. And like, you know, I like when I do it, like if I was doing this bit like even six months ago it would have been very like don't you get it yeah sure and now it's that's not it's very like just like yeah i try to make it like funny and conversational yeah like i'll save the other thing for the podcast even seeing like uh your episode of modern comedian where you're working on like the the nurses chunk and like you could tell like you were very connected to that material like very serious about it and then having that woman like freak out on you and

then hearing it on the album like it's definitely still the same bite to it but it was sort of like it was rounded down to like a nicer bit you know what i mean like yeah it's it's it's it's hard to do that like like at you know when you're working when you're doing stuff that has an opinion in it it's kind of hard i remember hearing this interview with david cross where he said he has to write i don't know if he still does this but he said he would write at the top of his set list be nice he has to remind himself smile yeah it's like i i was like, yeah, yeah, I know what he means. But my manager is really great, and she was really helpful with that.

Like, she'll watch my comedy and give me, like, notes and stuff, which I actually appreciate. I think a lot of comics probably wouldn't want that, but I like it. Right. And she's helped greatly with like she's like you're this part it's too like preachy man like you pull back on that a little bit it's cool that she can just be that honest too like it helps you in the end you know yeah it's like joe great great job another great job yeah i don't need to hear that man you know yeah i don't i don't need to hear

that at all like so i need people to tell me like what's really happening how long you've been working with her uh i guess it's almost a year coming up on a year uh-huh still pretty new but she's she's really great yeah yeah the uh yeah you're uh the last album is it you will die and yeah that one was really great man because i saw that uh i saw you open for burr twice actually when you came to baltimore once at record theater that was cool I think that's when Depression Auction was out. And then at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. That was great. It was like over 1,000 people or something crazy like that there. And that KFC bit at the end was just so goddamn funny.

I just got to wash your balls up front. When it gets to that green beans line, I lost. Like, get the fuck out of here. That was so good, man. Thanks, man. Thank you. Thank you. That story served me very well. Yeah. line i lost like get the fuck out of here that's so good man thanks man thank you thank you that was a that story served me very well yeah for what's fun when you get a good story like oh

here's a closer it just comes from going to kfc and being a glutton yeah it's just gonna pay dividends i've never gotten anything from the fast food that i've eaten that's fucking i need to eat more garbage i guess that's why i don't have a good closer it's because i've been i always found that stories were a great way to close this this next uh i'm working on this new hour right now uh and it's my favorite hour i've ever done like i'm really happy with it and uh it's the first hour that doesn't end with a story. The first three albums I did ended all with stories. Yeah.

And this one doesn't at all. Like, it's, I don't know. I feel like I finally got into, like, a groove that's a little bit different of, like, the first three records I did were, like, you know, I don't know. I felt like there was like this balance I was trying to maintain, like where I was like, okay, I'll shit on myself for the first whatever, and then I'll shit on other people. And then it's fair. And then be nice.

Yeah, be nice. And not that I didn't mean either thing. I wouldn't like fake shit on myself. I meant the stuff I was saying. But there was a strategy to it. And I kind of got, in a very nice way, called out on it when my last album came out. Really?

Where one of the reviewers, it was actually a friend of mine, she said, and she wasn't being mean. She was just like, he goes through the standard self-deprecation stuff at the front and then you realize oh he's doing that because he's going to turn the guns on these other people later yeah and i was like god damn it that was exactly yeah so this is the first time that like i'm doing like this new i'd still shit on myself and and on other people.

Yeah, it's a part of comedy. You got to be self-deprecating. You're not going to be the hero in every story. And that's why I'm great. Right, right. But it's much like... It's like deep... I guess deeper strokes.

I'm talking about my anxiety problems. It's way less like, I hate my body. Right, right. uh drinking and what you know and whatever it's like i'm getting deeper into like you know like real shit in my life and like i don't know i'm very happy with it i don't know why i'm talking about this it's not interesting no dude it's interesting what joe will cut all this out yeah you're not even hearing the jokes behind the jokes with joe de rosa i'm actually i am actually super interested about like the process because you've done a ton of i mean this would be your fourth hour right like this is the fourth i have a four albums out the last album was B-Sides. Yeah, which is a cool idea, too, like the rarities.

And then I liked you put out on You Will Die the one where it was like, all right, this is a fucking train wreck. It's nice to hear, especially from up-and-coming comedians doing shitty bar shows, like, oh, this happens to everybody. Even people you think that are killing it, now and again, they're going to run into a shit show. Yeah, that, I was so excited when we, so we, just in case, for the people listening that don't know what it is, like, the second disc of this album is the, it's just a bad show. It's a recording of a bad show.

Yeah. And it was a recording from when we were attempting to do the album like yeah like it was supposed to be a good show the stakes were fucking you were you're all ready to go yeah we were yeah we were like we we had our back against the wall we went down to atlanta to record the album and we we got to atlanta and it was the week after the comedy festival had happened down there so that was working against us because i felt like a lot of the interest in stand-up comedy had been sure that would the week before that wave had kind of crested already yeah yeah right um so there was that then then it was also the final

four which was happening in atlanta oh geez dude. And then also there was this gigantic outdoor music festival that like bands that like, I think like Weezer, it was like that level of band. Foo Fighters, that type of show. Jesus Christ. And those also attract the worst people. Like they're bringing in the worst festival music goers. Well, they brought in

everybody yeah we had nothing like we were doing these shows we're trying to record and we were all excited because we were gonna we were in a small venue and we were like this is gonna be great laughing skull right yeah yeah and it's gonna be like 75 people packed into a room and it's gonna be so cool and man there was like 30 people showing up for each show and we were like i was like okay this is gonna be we're gonna do like a different album we're gonna do it like it's gonna be like really cool like intimate like you know stripped down whatever and then the producer this guy jason r, who runs the label, was like, I was coming off stage, and he was like, dude, it's not working.

It doesn't sound big enough. It just doesn't sound right. So then finally, we had a sold-out show, Saturday late show. It was packed. I was like, thank God. Here we go. We're pulling through, people. We made it.

It was scary, but we're making it. Yeah, here we go. We're going gonna do it and just one by one listening to the openers go out and just get heckled and screamed at by this drunken audience and i was just like you gotta be fucking kidding me and my blood was boiling of course so i go out on stage and if you listen to the set like it just starts with me like basically yelling at a guy in the front row yeah and then goes from there um because i was so aggravated but the show was so interesting and weird when it ended the i walked off stage at the end of the show and i went right up to jason and i was like that's the album we did it yeah it's real it's raw yeah he's like what do you mean i was like that's the

album man that's fucking like let's put that out like that's the album yeah and uh and and we'll call it uh i don't think it wasn't going to be called originally it wasn't going to be called it was the album was supposed to originally be called never believe and uh because it was all this stuff about like you know like like you know a lot of it actually didn't end up getting on the album a lot of it is on the b-sides album but there was like a thing on there about like you go through eight phases of life you're never free um you know it was stuff about like yeah kind of not believing in god like what happens after we die like like shit like that. So I really liked this idea.

The nursing thing was on there. So it was like a lot of stuff, like don't believe in these institutions, or I don't believe in any of them. So I was like, it's perfect. We'll call it Never Believe because we believe this was going to be a great album, and it's terrible. There's a a theme jason don't you see yeah and he goes uh he i remember he goes it's a he goes it's an album it's not the album wrong article so i was like all right so then we i left it i was on this tour through the south and i left atlanta to and i was on this driving tour i was going all the way down to austin yeah for like three weeks and i was just driving and then my friends two of my comedian friends

named gilbert and mike called me from atlanta and they go hey man if you want to record again we can set something up at star bar okay and i was like which is a really cool like sort of like punk rock music venue in atlanta it's awesome and they have a great comedy show there on monday night and they were like we can do a monday show we'll make it your show instead of like the the open mic or whatever that it usually is and it's always packed and it's always great yeah and i was like i don't know man like that's just gonna be one show and i was like like it's it was literally like well i am passing through atlanta to go home on that day it was like so fucking down to the like yeah it was just no breathing room right we're like yeah we could do it and i was like fuck it do it So they promoted the shit out of this thing.

This guy, Rodney, who runs Starbar, really got behind it. And I got there, and it was fucking packed. Yeah. Like standing room, sweaty music club. And it was like, this is it. We got to do it. We got to get the album. And we got it.

Like, we got it in one show. Nice. That's awesome. And everybody was so supportive and excited and rodney was great he hosted it and he was just like yeah he really revved the crowd up yeah this is the first time we're ever doing this shit here yeah record a fucking album you know so it was great so we got like the album we wanted and it was funny because the the hour of material changed over that three-week tour oh i was writing a lot of like what ended up on that album i wrote over that three weeks oh cool

because i was starting to realize like this is like really it's too heavy like i gotta like lighten it up yeah i noticed some stuff even changed like the tattoo bit kind of changed a little bit from uh from set to set yeah well that changed because uh because when i was on that tour i found myself doing that bit in front of like really rough and tumble like tattoo you're at a punk rock bar you're like tattoo artists are dumb i mean great i was in columbus south carolina was it columbus or columbia columbus i believe south carolina at a at like I was in Columbus, South Carolina. Was it Columbus or Columbia? Columbus, I believe. South Carolina at a really grungy punk place doing a show. And I was like, there were these dudes that looked like fucking bikers.

And then you shit on plumbers too, right? So there could be some crossover. There could be plumbers with tattoos. Plumbers by day, tattoo artists by night plumbers by day tattoo artists on the weekend yeah that was the first time and i think one of them was a tattoo artist and i had to like that was the first time i had to look that bit in the face and be like this may not be a good idea i just go i'm scared to do this next joke but i'm gonna do it and then they laughed and they thought it was funny yeah and i was like okay but it softened the bit where i tried to make it like more like i'm not shitting on all tattoo artists i'm shitting on people that have this attitude right uh or particularly this one tattoo yeah less of a blanket kind of statement yeah so that's interesting it's like the second time you've

talked about like kind of having to soften or kind of like filter maybe some bitterness or anger out of bits. You know what I mean? Is that like a regular part of the thing where it's like not only are you working it over to be as good as it can be as a joke, but also tonally you have to kind of – do you start a little hot or like angry and then kind of have to sand it down or something like that? Yeah. Well, I used to start – yeah i i probably still do this i

i'd start from a much harsher place because you're revved up about something and then the audience doesn't understand because you don't explain to them it's not their fault but they don't understand that your anger is revved up because of a scenario that you were involved in right that's what happened with the nursing thing like a lot of people thought people would get mad at that bit because they thought i was just shitting on nursing right this guy's anti-nurse right yeah and that bit came from your mom was in the hospital so this is something that you were very close to and it was really scary it wasn't just like you know i've had it with nurses like you had a personal experience with yeah and that that whole routine was because was excuse me was because my mom had some really great people taking care of her where she was.

I'm not shitting on the facility or the people that work there. There were some really, really amazing people. But you encounter a few that you're kind of like, I don't know. There's a part in that joke, and it's true, where I say to the nurse, my mom's diabetic, and she was unconscious after the operation, and I said, why is my mom's sugar spiking? Because it was really spiking high. And the nurse goes, I don't know.

That really happened. That's what started that bit. That was the moment where I was like, holy shit. Nursing isn't a magical thing like you could be like theoretically bad at this yeah yeah and you're in charge of like somebody's life so that's where it came from yeah and the more i did the bit the more i was able to translate that to people but when i first started doing it i mean yeah i had people screaming at me yeah and like walking out and like not everybody everybody, but just like some people.

Yeah. And I always, anybody that heckled me, I always, every time it happened, I would get the better of them. And it was so funny. And then I, like, I remember once it happened at Caroline's, I came off stage and my friend Brian was like, please tell me you're taping this set. Please tell me that video could go viral like that what you just did with the heckler i was like i'm not taping it so when the thing happened on scott moran's web series modern comedian yeah

i reacted to her i almost went into autopilot and reacted to that lady heckling me the way i'd been reacting and it didn't work and it got weird and i was like oh shit okay um so that was a whole different thing but yeah you start kind of you start kind of harsh at least i do and then you there there's a really great thing that i try to uh work by i'm a they might be giants fan and john linell said uh said nobody wants to it's sorry he said something like public you know something like crying publicly is boring nobody wants to hear you cry publicly because they were talking about how their lyrics are kind of dark and somber but they're're set against these very poppy and infectious... The music's so happy, yeah. Yeah.

Right. And it's also what Morrissey did in The Smiths. And his reason, and John Linnell said his reason for that was because crying publicly is boring. Nobody wants to hear sad and sad. So I feel like with comedy, it's the same thing. You can bitch about something. That's the sad part.

You have to then put entertaining and funny over that there's got to be a reason for it other than just to bitch yeah yeah so i'm doing a lot of stuff right now about death and dying and like obviously you know the fun stuff yeah it took me a while to like figure out how to make it funny yeah and that's one of the reasons I'm so happy with this new hour it's stuff I've wanted to talk about forever my fear of death I've wanted to talk about this forever wow and I just this

album really probably should be called you will die you will die again I never told you to explain we changed the title from never believe all right right yeah we had everything done the cover was done the cover was this was uh you tattooed the uh circle the line through it yeah it was it was just that on the front cover and it said never believe in the bad religion font it kind of was supposed to look like a bad

religion like an homage kind of thing yeah yeah and um and then metallica their concert movie came out and it was called through the never and the symbol was the no god damn it so we had to change it you're like mega death in that situation like god damn it yeah this whole album yeah so i always wanted to call something you will die so it's like you will die is a great funny title. The finger artwork is fucking hilarious. Yeah, it's like so accusatory almost. It's like you're putting the person just on the spot. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Yeah, I wanted it to be like, yeah, and anytime you looked at it, it was talking about you. I think there's a sketch group. I wanted to do another one. I can't because it turns out I think there's a sketch group that is already called this but i wanted to do one called i'll see you in hell yeah and have the eyes like uncle sam just eyes looking at you uh it's like kind of like a sequel but uh uh it's not gonna happen so do you feel

like that's what you're saying about like Being able to tackle like heavy topics And shit like that Do you just feel like You're technically skilled enough at this point Like it's taken you However many years And however many albums To get to the point where you can handle

How long has it been Something like death Yeah It's been about 13 years No I mean it's I'm still learning all the time Like I don't think you're ever done Yeah

That is the cool slash scary thing Like the fun part is Like there's always room i don't think you're ever done yeah um that is the cool slash scary thing like the fun part is like there's always room to grow but then you're like oh i'm always climbing the mountain you know what i mean like there's always more to do yeah always yeah i still have bad shows you know you have great shows um you know that's one of the reasons that i always try to include if something bad or crazy happens. I try to include something on each album where I'm kind of pulling the curtain back a little bit and showing the listener, like, look, it's not perfect. Right. Even the first album, you had one of those shows where it was that woman that was yelling out.

The redheaded Asian, right? Yeah, you put it at the end. I thought that was so cool. Like, hello, for you yeah because it's like you know it's like so much of stand-up that you said it's fine to see the to see the theater thing you know you you know you but that's all anybody sees a lot of the time right that's all anybody sees a lot of people have never even been to stand-up shows and all they know are like what they can see on netflix or whatever and it's just it's it's perfect it's a theater and everybody's dressed well dressed and it's very nice and they're laughing at every joke and yeah attentive yeah and i always thought that there's nothing wrong with presenting comedy like that, but I always looked at comedy as paralleling music, you know?

And I always felt like, well, that's not the only way bands perform. Certain bands perform in an environment like that. Other bands perform in, like, sweat boxes. Other bands perform in stadiums. And, you know, every type of band plays in a different place. So I wanted to just kind of shine the light on like the kind of performer i was becoming or and the kind of

performances i was experience experiencing right you're like look this this is how this goes sometimes yeah and that was that was the really fun thing i mean i mean stav like you know just definitely i'm sure even beyond us like up-and-coming comedians like oh yeah everybody goes through this like it's not all just like a perfect theater every time and you're like oh good night like shit's gonna go wrong sometimes you know the more you do stand up the more it becomes bizarre like a lot of times i feel like you judge things off of like a half a comedy central half you grow up watching comedy central half hours you grow up watching hbo specials and then yeah and you almost have like, oh, this is, these, some guy sucks,

or like, and then you realize, this guy, it's like these weird theaters, they're doing three at a time, you know, maybe he's not a, maybe this isn't his, you know, his play, like this isn't his location, maybe he is like a club comic, maybe he should be here, and it's like, and then you start watching live comedy, and're like this is completely different this is like and the skill set that i really respect comedians to just kind of be able to do whatever in any environment and kind of grab someone's attention it's almost kind of neutralized in like the special environment in the theater in the you know when you got your name you know behind you and big generic font or something like that like it's completely what makes stand-up so cool like i you know every time you know i love seeing comics when they come through my town i'll see every show you know

if it's if they're in baltimore or dc because it's just like that's where i want to see great comics in a club i don't want to see them as specials are fun to watch and i watch them because i like joke writing and stuff but to really appreciate someone as a comic, I feel like you've got to see them live, honestly. Yeah, it's always extremely different. I feel like most comedy specials are like the music video. And most comedy shows, live and in person, are like the bootleg album that you would buy at the record show or whatever. Absolutely. And I, from as far back as I can remember, when I started going to record shows in my teens,

I was a huge fan. I was obsessed with bootlegs. Yeah. Obsessed. I would buy them. I mean, I would save my money to go to record shows. And back in the 90s, you could get that sort of stuff. You can't really get it anymore.

And I would buy tons of bootleg VHS tapes. And the stuff I saw on those was what made them so cool. I'm a huge Mike Patton fan, and I have a Mr. Bungle video. This is kind of a famous amongst his fans. This is pretty famous, but like I have a video where somebody in the crowd is like trying to like pull him into the audience and he hits them in the head with a microphone. Damn. And like the person's like bleeding and like,

yeah, he like, they, they have to stop the show. And then he comes out and he's like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And you can see that he's like,

feels like terrible about it. Jesus Christ. But it's like that moment to me is amazing. I just got to see, you know, NoFX put out a live album called I Heard They Suck Live. Yeah. And there's a great part where Fat Mike's like, stop spitting on me.

He's like yelling at somebody in the front. Yeah. And he's like, I'm not that punk, okay? Stop spitting on me. It's gross. You get hepatitis like that. And it's like, that's the moment I want to hear. If I didn't want to hear that moment, I would listen to the album.

Because the album is perfect and there's no... No mess ups. They don't start songs over again and stuff like that. Exactly. Exactly. So I always really liked that sort of bootleg punk rock spirit with comedy. Because I feel like, and I get made fun of a lot for using the term punk rock when talking about comedy. But I do think they're very, very similar mentalities.

It's more like the DIY style to it, like do-it-yourself kind of thing. Like you're getting out there, you're getting in your car touring. That could be considered punk rock, you know? Well, it's DIY. Alternative venues. Yeah, it's touring. It's building your own fan base. It's also saying whatever you feel like saying.

You know? Like there's not a huge difference between, you know, to me, between, you know, Jello Biafra and Patrice O'Neill. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, here's two people that are going to say whatever they want to say. They're going to say it in the way they want to say it. And it's for the sake of creating their own art and entertainment, entertaining type of art or whatever. Yeah.

And that's it. It's unapologetic. It's very middle finger, fuck you, fuck authority. Yeah. You're not going to tell me what to do. Think about how many times a comedian drives somebody out of the room. Yeah. Yeah.

And fuck you, get out of here. Get the fuck out of here. They'll want you here anyway. Fuck you. The person paying you. In theory, the person is... I've seen Ian McKay or Mackay do that in the middle of a Fugazi show.

I've never seen Britney Spears do that. You know what I mean? I would like to, though. Yeah, now I've never been to a Britney Spears show. Out of all the Britney Spears shows I've gone to, and I've been to all of them. And I have all the bootlegs. The one where she hit the guy in the head with the mic.

But I've been to like, I saw Michael Buble once. It'd be great if Buble accosted some grandmother. Get out of here. Called her a cunt. Break your fucking necks out there. One, two, three, four. Slimy to the mood. Buble, two, three, four. Fly me to the moon. Buble, hell of a showman.

It was a hell of a show. I enjoyed it thoroughly. He's a crooner, man. I enjoyed it. But the vibe at Buble is not the vibe at Fugazi. That's my point. So I would liken stand-up to Fugazi. But I've seen Ian McKay stop the band in the middle of a song and point at a guy that's trying to start a mosh pit and go, you, get the fuck out of here right now.

Damn. Fuck you. I'll give you your fucking money back. Get the fuck out of here. We're not playing until you leave. Holy shit. That's awesome. I've seen that happen.

And it's exactly like what happens with a comic. Yeah, you're fucking up the show for everybody. Get the fuck out of here. Yeah. the stand-up show with the comic yeah like you're fucking up the show for everybody get the fuck out of here yeah it was like I was in I was in Cleveland no sorry

Minneapolis and there's a guy being an asshole in the audience and I was like I was like why are you still sitting here man if you fucking

don't like it like just leave yeah and he's like because I paid because I paid to see you I'll fucking sit here and talk on my phone

if I feel like it and I go you need the $12 that badly? And he goes, yeah, I do. And I took $20 out of my wallet. And I go, here, take this. You just made $8 to leave my show. Get the fuck out of here. Like, fucking leave.

You know what I mean like and it's like that's that's that's something to me that like that you know you know somebody like Bill Burr or Doug Stanhope or or or Patrice or whoever would do yeah and it's also something that you know that a band like you know to me like you know maybe bad religion or or you know uh fucking you know that's like that's like a henry rollins kind of oh yeah black flag they definitely kick people out for being shitheads yeah so just get the fuck out of here you're a douchebag it's so weird you know like did the guy leave yeah go good what was the isn't the club aren't they supposed to be on top of that like getting that guy out of there?

It happened very quickly. Oh, okay. They weren't, they weren't, they weren't slacking. It was just like, it just happened so quickly. Right. And I just, you know. It is weird though. Just like comedy is like a thing where people, I mean, you talk about your, the bit about

being, you know, about being about entitlement. It's like comedy audiences are, have this weird sort of like, entertain me. You would never do that in a fucking play. You'd never do that in other live performance. You'd never just talk through it in the fucking front row. It's weird that like comedy crowds. No, no, I'm on Broadway. I'll call you back.

Yeah, it's weird that comedy crowds think that's an acceptable thing to do. There are great clips i thought that too but there are many great clips online of uh broadway shows oh really people calling out assholes in the audience there's a great one of uh lion king whoa i think it's patty lapone uh-huh uh she it's like from like gypsy or something Like she stops the song In the middle of it That's awesome It comes out of character and starts yelling at a guy That's fucking amazing

Put your phone away You were warned You were told several times But who do you think you are And the place is going crazy And she goes back into the song she counts it off and goes back into it there's one of hugh jackman being like no wait don't worry about it man yeah i've heard him tell stories too he was doing some

some play where he was a gay guy and like he's about to kiss a guy and somebody just goes don't do it wolverine no does he react to it i think he like smiled and he's like jesus christ and then like you know just go on don't kiss a wolverine to be a homophobic x-men fan that goes spend your money on broadway fucking plays just to yell that at wolverine exactly christ um yeah circling back to the music thing you started out playing music Yes. So you think that kind of influenced like, because putting together a music show is definitely kind of the same way of like that DIY style. Like we're just going to go like any venue pretty much. You're just kind of excited to play and then it's putting in the work. Did that influence your comedy style?

Yeah, it definitely did. I always like the musicians that I was friends with, and by default, I started playing, one of the bands I started playing with when I was in college, the bands that they were friends with, I just became friends with those guys because they were friends with my bandmates. Yeah. And they were very like, we were not a very raw and aggressive band but all the bands we're friends with were it's like punk rock bands uh no hardcore they were like uh one band was called wally and they were literally like if you mixed Slayer with Rush. Oh, geez.

And then like the songs and the Misfits because the songs were all a minute long. Oh, okay. But like crazy art rock metal songs that lasted like a minute. They were insane. Right. They're still around.

They still play. That's interesting. There was another band called Bobby Cork that were just like raw raw, dissident, not hardcore, that groove, baseball hat, beaded necklace thing that was happening in the 90s. Yeah, the ball necklace. Yeah, it was way more like rel know relapse records type shit like really really fucking like raw nerve stuff um and they were just really really intense bands like and

they were awesome and uh i remember they they they started this thing called the 98 comeback special that was like kind of based on like the elvis elvis's 68 comeback special no we had like the leather coat yeah performing the round and stuff yeah and i guess the whole elvis thing was like he didn't like what was going on in music and he was like trying to get it back to the roots so they were like they did they were doing this thing called the 98 because it was 1998 the 98 comeback special where they were like they wanted to do like get like help start a music scene in philly that was very like do-it-yourself and like raw and like whatever um none of us got famous from it it was a rousing success now everyone knows everyone

talks about it they brought it back man that was the year uh so so but but but like everybody's we were all trying to do this thing and everybody's heart was in the right place and that was that was kind of like what started me down that road of like of like you know look it's not holier than thou or whatever it's just saying like you know i think it could function this way it doesn't always have to function that way. It could be like this over here. So that's kind of where it started. And then the more I got into versatile music, I was always attracted to candid and sort of in-your-face musicians.

Right. sort of in your face musicians right whether it was whether it was like you know no effects or bad religion or frank sinatra right yeah you know what i mean i liked anybody that gave you know just like hey fuck you man like i'm my own man i'm gonna do my own thing right uh as when i when i heard gangster rap when i was a kid, I was obsessed with gangster rap. So I should say that's truly where it started. Like fifth grade, I got into gangster rap. I heard Ice-T and NWA for the first time, and I was immediately hooked, immediately obsessed with West Coast gangster rap.

And I bought every single thing I could get my hands on. That's all I ever spent my money on. My allowance was Gangster Rap albums. That's so funny. From your paper route. Yeah. Do the dishes. Your parents give you an NWA album.

There you go, Joey. Go buy something about killing police. I had to sneak it. So what I would do is, my mom couldn't remember the albums I bought. So what I would do Is I would buy I had Kid and Play Too Hype

Was their first album Yeah Friendly enough Of a rap album Right So I had that I think I had a Fresh Prince album You know

Like whatever So I would go into the store I'd have The Kid and Play album In my pocket I'd buy the NWA album Or whatever I'd take that i'd put it in my other pocket i'd walk out of this i i would while i was in the store i would take the case

of the nwa album the plastic case yeah put it on the case switch cases with kid play so kid play look brand new yeah then i would walk out of the store with the you know like with the rapper acting like i couldn't wait to open it yeah you're just unfolding yeah i can't wait to get my hands on this kid and play yeah and my mom would go i have to i have to inspect what you bought and i you know you hand her like that's the other guy she doesn't go in with you like you go get it and then i'll wait here i'll see what yeah it was really like a stroke of luck yeah minimum security yeah if it was a movie scene like somebody would be like that's a yeah why isn't she just going in like it'd be like bad right get a rewrite on this yeah um but yeah i so

i managed to uh to get my hands on the stuff i wanted to get my hands on and um i i that that was like really the beginning of it for me i i you know i was i went to catholic school i grew up in a very um very white area like very white bread area um of philly right outside the suburbs outside of philly it was there was not a lot of diversity virtually none there's virtually no cultural differences or whatever you know it was very standard like middle american type stuff and you know i found it to be at times racist at times homophobic and and i was also in catholic school so i was just constantly being told at school like this is wrong and this is a sin and it's wrong to hold hands if you think it might lead to sex all this

stuff so when i when i heard you know these rappers that were only a few years older than me at the time um and that were from this other place that looked completely different from where i was from and we're from fuck you different cultures and races yeah exactly yeah i loved it like man fuck your teachers like i had a ghetto boys thing it was like they were they were literally on the album like saying like fuck your parents they don't get it and all this shit and i was like yeah guys are awesome yeah and then that was that was coupled with seeing george carlin for the first time when i was 12 on hbo the doing it again special and that was crazy to me because i here's a guy that looked like my parents right and was older than my parents and was saying things like religion is nothing but mind control and you want to piss off a feminist caller come

and i was like holy shit yeah what the fuck like there are grown-ups out there that think like that yeah that's when i got into stand-up that's when i i'd like stand-up before that but that's when i wanted to do it wow because i couldn't believe that there was this job where you could stand on a stage and tell a room full of people essentially or potentially what was wrong with them. Right. Yeah. Right. You know, you're not surveying every person in the audience.

Right. You're saying these things and you could be talking about them or just somebody they don't like or whatever and you're getting accolades for it. I couldn't believe it. That's really interesting and it makes sense with a lot of what you're getting accolades for it. I couldn't believe it. That's really interesting, and it makes sense with a lot of what you're saying about what draws you to shitting on a bunch of different, I mean, it makes sense from hearing about

and just being a fan and knowing your stuff that the initial reason or the initial love affair with stand-up was just kind of a response to being told what you can do so like stand-up and you saying even your favorite guys are the people that just say go fuck yourself i don't care what you think like yeah it makes a lot of sense it makes sense why you need you come from an angry place when it comes with your material you know what i mean it seems like the whole reason you got into stand-up was just to kind of channel maybe like

that energy that you were getting out maybe just by – at first just by listening to angry music and shit like that. Yeah. It was very angsty. Kind of a release. Yeah, kind of like an angst thing. Yeah, it was a very angst-fueled thing for me because I didn't – I was always out of step with my classmates for the most part. And I got picked on a lot. And the typical story, all that stupid bullshit that you always hear.

And even through college and stuff, I had friends. And I was friends with cool kids. But I didn't quite fit in with them i was always trying it was an effort like it didn't just fall into place it was a natural yeah yeah you weren't happy to be with those i know exactly what you mean like you try and kind of endear yourself to these people you're like why the fuck am i even doing this like why am i like making such an effort yeah like be here i'm not comfortable with you're shaping This isn't what friends should be. Yeah, you're shaping your thoughts to fit into their paradigm. Yeah, it was tough.

And it wasn't with all my friends. I had some very close friends in college to this day that I'm still friends with. Sure. But even, you know, it's funny. I was kind of going back and forth in college from hanging out

with ice hockey players and hanging out with theater people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wasn't... A lot with theater people yeah and i wasn't a lot of overlap in that event i'm gonna do hamlet and then shoot some fucking slap shots afterwards i didn't i didn't fully fit in with either crowd because i couldn't contribute anything to either group i wasn't taken too seriously with the theater kids because I wasn't a theater major. I was a theater minor. Yeah. And that was kind of like a sin.

Really? You know, it was kind of like, hey, man, you're not committing to this like we are. So fuck you. You know what I mean? I would hang out with them. But there was always that thing in the air where I just wasn't part of it. I couldn't get cast in any of the plays or anything like that. You weren't getting respect because you weren't fully committed to this thing.

Yeah. And then I would hang out with the ice hockey kids because we lived with them in the building. And again, we were friends and we had fun together. But they were crazy. And I was always trying to meet their level of crazy. And it was obvious that I wasn't one of them. And it wasn't until, uh,

I started a rap group in college and, or joined a rap group in college. I love the beginning of that sentence. It didn't come together until the rap group. That, that was, I swear to God, that was when they,

when that was when all my friends at once. Wow. Respect me because then I finally had my thing. And that's when I started to realize, oh, this is my path that I'm on. Gotcha. I'm doing my own thing over here, and hopefully people will like it or whatever.

But it's not going to be... Yeah, so you're not getting respect from them because they're like, well, Joe's cool, but this isn't his thing, and we kind of know it. it you know what i mean and then once you went down your own lane they're like oh yeah that's what he should be doing once i played music yeah they were like oh dude that's awesome man right and i finally felt like i had my place yeah like a thing that i could contribute yeah and then um so that was that like that was uh and then that that went into stand-up.

And it's funny because a lot of my college friends are coming, I think, tomorrow night to one of the shows. Oh, cool. You know, and that's, like, fun for me because now it's, like, you know, my friends that I used to watch in school and do all these great parts and plays and stuff and that I get to, that are still out there doing theater stuff. It's, like, great for me that they can come to a show and see me do my thing. Right. Yeah. You know. And they're happy for you, you know?

Yeah, and I'm happy for them. Yeah, exactly. Because there's resentment in college, man. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Big time. I couldn't get cast for shit,

and I was like, you motherfucking, but there's still, there's still teachers, there are still teachers I have from college that I want to send my current television resume to. That's hilarious. Remember when you wouldn't put me in anything? Dude, that's fucking...

We were just on the way up here talking about bookers that wouldn't work with us a year ago that are working with us now, but I still fuck them. I don't like them still. Maybe that's a comedian thing of just holding on to yeah holding on to those resentments that's that's probably my best skill yeah tune in at midnight tonight professor yeah yeah yeah exactly did you see me uh did you see me on louis yeah i was on it that's a real tv show it's won emmys and shit so check it out uh yeah good enough for him in the academy i guess yeah

uh so i i guess that that transitions into because i wanted to ask you um because you are such you're a guy that is so like raw and kind of not hard on the sleeve but you're very just honest with what you're feeling so what was it like so like i didn't know you grew up with that too kind of trying to always find your place what was was it like going into the Opie and Anthony crowd and then being at the cellar where it's a lot of ball busting happening, you know what I mean? To the point where it's like, I know the vibe of it is like, I like you, so I'll shit all over you, you know what I mean? But at some point, it has to be too much, right?

Was that weird? Was that a repeat of college and kind of high school? At first, it felt like it because i was so insecure about all that stuff um but then it it i realized like oh this is like how it is with everybody and this is good right and it thickened my skin up and i was so happy and grateful for it after a while right it was like my god like i'm able to now take these poundings that would have made me cry when I was in high school probably.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And I think they're funny now. And then, so that's the first step. And then, first step is just being able to take it, just sit there and take it. Then the second step is like being able to sit there and laugh about it

and actually think it's funny. Then the third step is like being able to hit back. Dish it back out, yeah. Once you've been broken broken down now you're built up again with a tougher skin yeah so that was always great like i i really appreciated that you know like i and i still i still do it like keith robinson just i'm on twitter yeah just tweeted let me see here thanks for all the birthday wish it was his birthday yesterday thanks for all the birthday wishes my only wish on my 74th birthday is that joe de rosa gets fired wherever he's at god bless yeah it's hilarious you're on his mind on his birthday he's like i had a great day fuck joe de rosa it's so it's so fucking funny, man.

Yeah. And Burr and I still do it. And then, of course, it was big with Opie and Anthony and going on there. Uh-huh. You know, it was always fun, man. It was fun. I grew to really appreciate it. Right.

And it's very different than what happens when you're a kid. When I was a kid, like, I had guys pick on me when I was a kid that like legitimately wanted to hurt me. Right. I don't mean emotionally. I mean physically. Yeah, yeah. They wanted to hurt me. Yeah.

So that's not what's happening. Like the ball breaking in comedy was like, we like you, dummy. Yeah. We're doing this because we like you. Right. Because I remember somebody, I think Oakerson told me that.

He was like, the worst thing is if they don't do it. He was like't care about yeah yeah it's like don't you want to make fun of me a little bit yeah you're wearing like stupid shirts trying to get some attention like no guys nothing okay cool just come in wearing lipstick guys didn't notice please make fun of me it also helps you recognize who you are like when american splendor came out um it's a great movie yeah i remember bobby and burr both calling bobby kelly and bill burr both It also helps you recognize who you are. Like when American Splendor came out. It was a great movie. Yeah, I remember Bobby and Burr both calling, Bobby Kelly and Bill Burr both calling Jay and going,

did you see American Splendor? It's DeRosa. And I was like, you know, I was like still so new that I was like offended at first. Like, what's that mean? What do you mean? Yeah. And then like I watched it. I was like, oh yeah, I am kind of like that. It helps you kind of you kind of see who you are you know right but it has to take you off guard at

first you're like oh man do i really look like that or do i do that like shit that you never noticed before yeah yeah you're like it's just on full display for everybody all the time yeah yeah exactly yeah exactly and it's and then you accept it and then like you still hook up with girls yeah you're like it's fine yeah yeah who cares gotcha gotcha um when did you move to new york like what i guess you started out here in philly and then i think you went to austin for a little bit austin was in comedy before comedy i came back from austin and i started doing comedy immediately i was in philly for two about a year and a half and then i went up to new york about a year and a half in oh wow it was damn it's pretty well i guess it's so close but

yeah like yeah it was pretty fast it was uh it was uh yeah about uh i don't know i was in new york for 10 years oh wow yeah because I'm coming up on 13 years, and I've been in L.A. for a year. Uh-huh. So, yeah, I was in New York for like 10 and a half years or something like that. Wow. And then you moved out to L.A. for the Pete Holmes show, right? Yeah.

Well, I was going to move there, and then I got that job, and that helped me move more quickly. Oh, that's awesome. Hit the ground kind of running, but yeah, more or less. But I knew I was going to stay. Yeah. So that's where I am now. Are you liking it out there?

I like it. I mean, I like writing for TV. That's fun. Yeah. I think it's definitely diversified my career. I've definitely gotten acting jobs in the last year out there that I would never have gotten if I was in L.A. Just because of the proximity. Like, you're already there, right?

Yeah. When the night before, they're like, they need you there tomorrow morning to audition. And you go in, and then you sit with a casting director for 30 minutes yeah and they're like do it this way now now do it this way you can't do that if you're sending a tape from new york right yeah you know it would have been the one take like well it's good but let's see if we can find somebody else or yeah can you fly out for a callback or a screen test you know and all this shit so uh it's definitely been helpful to be there. A lot's happened.

It's been very nice. But, you know, ultimately, by the time I'm 40, which is three years from now, I would like to be living back in New York again. Oh, interesting. You know, I don't want to be in L.A. forever. I don't want to for the rest of my life. I'd like to hopefully get to a place in the next three years that i can go back and live in new york and why i do what i want to do why is this new york is like home new york yeah

you know i just miss new york yeah like i love look la is great i'm not shitting on it like it's got some really really wonderful aspects to it uh it's got stuff i don't like too of course uh but uh it's a good life like i have a good life i'm much healthier there than i was in new york yeah um it made me start like taking better care of myself right you just can't go out and drink there yeah you could in new york a lot of driving you have to fucking drive yeah yeah it's a lot of driving also the bars kind of sucks you don't really yeah yeah skinny mojitos and shit like that yeah like la is weird because you you feel okay with sitting home alone right it's not a bad thing you're like i'm sitting home tonight it's fine new york if

you're sitting home oh my god slit your wrist yeah yeah you're missing some kind of everything something awesome yeah for sure some kind of coke You're missing everything. Something awesome. Yeah, for sure. Some kind of Coke, whiskey party. There's Coke whiskey out there. Yeah. Like half the cast of like fucking Hot in Cleveland is there or something. You know, like some weird hangout is happening somewhere, you know?

But like, but yeah, I mean, LA isn't really like that. It's, you know, it's way more just like, I don't know, I don't really like the scene. I have no desire to go to a party where there's a bunch of famous people hanging out. I don't get invited to those parties. But my point is, I'm not saying I'm against it,

but no part of me is like, ooh, I'd love that whereas in new york if you were like hey man there's 16 amazing dive bars right out there right now right we can go and meet chicks and get into all kinds of trouble to five a like yeah open until four in the morning that's all i want to do right it's so exciting to me yeah you know there's definitely something magical about it. And it's like I'm at the point, I've been doing stand-up for like four years, and it's like I want to move soon. And it's like I visited LA, and I thought I was going to move there. I have a friend out there.

But dude, I just took a trip to New York, and it's like if you love stand-up, it's just like magical. It's like New York for someone that grew up loving stand-up is like if you could just if you grew up loving harry potter you could just go to hogwarts you know what i mean it's like it's like it's the best thing it's amazing it's great new york stand-up's great it's it's it's it was everything i needed it to be for the first 10 years or whatever and then and la stand-up is great too like that was also what I needed. I needed to go to a new scene and get into new places and new venues and whatnot

because I couldn't keep spinning my wheels in New York. There were clubs in New York that were never going to book me. That's so strange, man. At that time. That's crazy. I feel like now if I went back,

it would be different. Yeah. But I needed to get out of it because you get into this, it starts to become like college again you start to go fuck that place yeah yeah give me a fucking shot like and you you kind of lose sight of like dude you might not be right for that place it's okay you know yeah but you're just so deep in it like you can't have perspective yeah right and i got

to a point i was like how long am i gonna sit here and bitch you know that the comic strip never gave me a lot of good spots or whatever yeah it's like what am i doing like this is this is yeah who cares they're doing their thing i'm doing mine it's okay everybody's surviving like yeah so like going to la was really healthy because i was able to the stamp scene has been really wonderful there to me and i really welcomed me in which has been really nice there to me. Oh, cool. They really welcomed me in, which has been really nice. Is there a stress going out there of trying to ingratiate yourself into that scene? Yeah. I was terrified of it.

Really? So the fact that I'm through that now, it's fine. They like you. It's okay. It's such a relief. Because before I did it, I was i'm gonna there nobody's gonna book me nobody's good you know what i mean and then you go to a couple you call a couple clubs and they're like of course dude yeah we'd love to have you and you're like really oh that's nice yeah you

know and then like the the the kids producing like the the smaller shows and whatever and the indie shows like they put you on and it's it's cool like it's a different scene there's a there's a longer rotation to get in right but like it's it's really cool nice it's really cool i i'm having a good time out there so if you move back to new york is is that your ultimate goal is just to be a great stand-up like you're doing the writing and stuff like that would that i'm guessing that would subside a little bit if you move back to new york yeah i don't know i don't want to move back at the expense of that what i would like to do is move back that's why i say three years from now i feel like yeah hopefully if i if i play my cards right over the next three

years then i can i can kind of i can go back to new york and then like call have a little more liberty with calling some shots and going like okay okay, well, I have to go to LA for three months to do this thing. Whereas I don't think I could do that now. I have to be out there connected to it. That makes sense. To be considered for any of it. Get yourself out there, get your name out there. Yeah.

So stand-up's part of it. It's very important to me. I don't want to leave and then come back to it. Yeah. I want to keep doing it. It's very important to consistently, for me, to build that audience. But I also don't want to just do stand-up. I'm very focused on these other things, too.

Yeah. Acting and, you know. Totally. I always liked guys like Sidney Pollack and Bob Odenkirk. There are guys out there that have had very versatile careers. Odenkirk has one of the coolest careers ever, I think. Yeah. As far as what he's been involved with over the years, it's so cool.

He hasn't been anything bad. Yeah. Whenever you see he's attached to something, you're like, oh, I bet it's good. Or it has some unique kind of... There's going to be something interesting no matter what. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's got an amazing career. And I've heard him say that when he started, he wanted to...

He was like, he wanted to do a lot of different things. He wanted to do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And that's kind of how I always felt. Right. So I feel like if you do that at the end, you can kind of still... You can have a nice balance. Right. But I feel like it's dangerous to at the end, you can kind of still, you can have a nice balance. Right. I feel like it's dangerous

to put all your eggs in one basket. Yeah. You know, unless, I mean, because what are the chances of becoming, you know, Jerry Bruckheimer or Al Pacino or whatever, you know what I mean? It's like, it's very hard to be the one thing.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's easier now to be versatile in comedy. Like, it's easier to write stuff it's easier to film your own stuff and get it out there versus just doing stand-up right so yeah dennis miller's another guy that i think has had an interesting career where it you know snl into stand-up talk show host still doing stand-up second talk show still doing stand-up radio guy movies all over the place then like yeah then now like touring stand-up radio guy like that kind of that kind of road is like that's that's how i think you should do it yeah and it's stuff too you can't really plan

it's not like bob odenkirk's like there's gonna be this show breaking bad that's gonna be really great you know like you just keep moving forward and then hopefully cool shit happens right so yeah if you're just staying in the game and you're doing good stuff's gonna happen yeah so it's always nice to apply yourself to different stuff like i love new material seinfeld man oh yeah we wanted to bring that up yeah yeah that's like is there any chance he's seen that you think any word from uh oh yeah he tweeted about it oh really yeah that's awesome yeah i couldn't believe it what'd he say um he said something like uh it was something like uh new new material is new material seinfeld is funny uh does kind of remind me of me though not like that other mean version of me on louis

i just compared the two and said like the puppet was more like him right right than like the mean guy he plays he played on louis yeah but he said it was funny that's cool that's so funny yeah and uh yeah that was amazing i woke up one morning and i was looking at twitter and i was seeing all these tweets to me and to the new material seinfeld account and to seinfeld and i was like why is why are all these people tweeting to seinfeld with these and then i traced it back and saw that he had tweeted about it that's so we're all pretty psyched oh of course yeah yeah nick bernstein the executive producer of the show and p Pete Holmes. And we were all like, wow, that's pretty cool. That's awesome.

Yeah. So it's a shame the show didn't keep going because I think we all... It was a cool show. It was a really cool idea, too. Like, not the monologue. Yeah, the monologue. It was stand-up. It wasn't like current events stuff, so it could be ever great.

Yeah, it was really cool. I mean, yeah, it had a really cool vibe to it. And, you know, that podcast is great. Yeah yeah and i liked watching the clips online too like the unedited ones because it was like a podcast like the conversations and it was people that he knew and had a rapport with the sketches were really good too it's weird to think that that was like uh exactly what they're looking for but yeah i heard pete holmes talk about it he's like it just sucks like the for most talk shows i think he said on the box it says needs one year to grow you know what i mean like if it's like a plant like you had to give it time and it just kind of was like almost there yeah it takes kind of got cut down it takes

a while man it takes a while and it's tough because yeah you know the studio i feel like is essentially hemorrhaging money yeah until it gets there so it's it's really like opening a restaurant it's like if you're not ready to lose a lot of money in that first year two yeah yeah i mean conan it's gonna be tough yeah i'm gonna take conan originally like a while they were always gonna get always about to get canceled yeah i heard he was on like month contracts or something crazy like that like the amount of pressure you must have had like be funny while you know it could end at any moment. Yeah, and you watch those old clips

and they're like bombing. Yeah. And it's not because it's not funny. But there's a pressure there. It's like they just didn't, like the audience didn't get what they were doing yet. It was different.

Yeah. You know, and then you see now like it's pretty much the same thing. Yeah. But now it kills. You know, like, yeah, they found their audience, like, and it worked, and people caught up to what they were doing or whatever. So it was, yeah, it was tough.

So we were, you know, it's a bummer it got canceled, but we got to do 80 episodes, which was a lot. And it's still on the internet, and, like, people can still see those clips. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I can't complain. Yeah. That's awesome yeah yeah yeah um let's see you mentioned twitter i've listened to you on a couple podcasts i know you vacillate

in between wanting to quit twitter and then like embracing it how's it how's it going now as far as your relationship with the twitter i i i took it off of my phone. Right. Because I don't want to check it all the time. I check it like infrequently. Maybe not even once a day. I've been checking it once a day now because I'm just trying to see if people are writing about coming to the shows and stuff like that. But I mean, it's strictly promotional for me at this point. It's not a good environment for somebody like me to be in yeah and then with like that anthony kumia stuff like that seemed to be like a world of shit there and kind of just kind of like just a mess that you

don't want to deal with you know it was just like i'm the kind of person where if you want to i want to like i'm always going to engage in the discussion you know and if i'm talking to you and i think you're saying something about me that's inaccurate yeah or i don't agree with your opinion yeah i'm gonna try to debate you on it right it's not great for me to go on twitter right and you know where there's a thing called a troll that exists yeah that writes stuff purposely to try to make you have that reaction there's sole purposes yeah you know what i mean it's and like it doesn't really get to me it's just but like like but you like you read it and you're just like that temptation is there to

engage yeah like i can't just let that sit out there yeah and then you don't, and then... It's just a dumb, childish game. It's a stupid, pathetic universe. I don't understand it. It's like this thing where it's like, hey, man, well, you've got to not respond and show that you're the bigger person. So we're all just supposed to accept that there are these assholes out there pushing people's buttons?

Yeah. We're all supposed to accept this? We're all supposed to accept that these out there pushing people's buttons yeah we're all supposed to accept this we're all supposed to accept that these people hack into people's personal information and post it online we're all supposed to accept that these people threaten other people we're all supposed to just accept these things just ignore it they're just pests they'll go away yeah you know and pests i don't mean ona pests yeah pests Yeah. Pests in the literal. Yeah, yeah. But like, it's stupid. It's like, you know, it's a really, really, really gross climate right now with the way people cannot handle the responsibility of the internet.

I was talking to my friend about it yesterday, and I was like, he was talking about how gross that Gamergate thing was. Oh my God, that's fucking horrendous. It's terrible. And he was like, he goes, I can't read about it anymore. It's making me too depressed. And I was like,

yeah, go think about it, man. The internet is truly the only unpoliced thing out there. It's the only thing. For better or worse. You can do almost whatever the fuck you want with zero consequence you can create a fake profile you can cover up the paper trail you cannot get caught there's a million things you can do as long as you're willing to sink to the level of not having any dignity you can have a field day on the internet yeah and so many people

are willing to sink to that level and it's so sad to me yeah it's so gross like if they put it to a vote i would vote to get rid of the internet i truly would wow i truly would uh-huh what what do i need it for because i'm too lazy to go to a library to look something up do you know what i mean right because i don't want to go to a store to buy the dvd or whatever it is i mean so much of so much of the internet is entertainment like a lot of it a ton of it's just fucking around that's all it is yeah it's all it is and everything had everything had more value before the internet oh yeah you appreciated jerking off more uh way more yeah you appreciated your music more uh you appreciated your movies and your television more yeah you appreciated your music more uh you appreciated your movies and your television

more yeah yeah appreciated communication with other people more information the easiest information forget so much shit like oh let me google that there's like 10 seconds later after you google you're like okay yeah you never remember that great pete holmes bit about that oh yeah yeah yeah that's a great discovery yeah we don't have that anymore it's done i really believe that it's for the most part worsened us as a people um i know people out there would argue with that it's it's opened the floodgates that anybody can cloud up any market now yeah or and or clog up any market now uh-huh you know i i really love when people make that stupid analysis analogy of that itunes is tower records and it's like no it's not because

there was a discrimination process that went that you had to go through to get your record into tower records right yeah it had to be a real record yeah it had to be on a label of some kind that had distribution whether it was indie or corporate or whatever yeah it had to get in there by following some kind of system that determined whether or not you were worth being in there right yeah anybody can put anything on iTunes. And thus this podcast. My podcast, too. I mean, anything, yeah. But it's like, I just hate this, like, I don't even give a fuck if it sounds snobby or what,

but, like, I just hate this concept that somehow we're all equal in every way. Yeah, yeah, no, seriously. You know what I mean? Totally. When it comes to human rights, of course, yes. Yes.

But as far as opinions go. Well, even with opinions, of course, everybody is allowed to have their opinion. Allowed to have it, but the weight that's given to it. Yeah, the equality

that every opinion should be weighted the same is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Yeah. It's fucking ridiculous. It's ridiculous that any asshole

can go on like you you know if you if you work your whole life to write a novel the great american novel i mean that was an achievement right that it still is an achievement the fact that any fucking asshole can just go on amazon and ruin the credibility of your books. Shit sucks. Too long. Did not read. You suck. First. Yeah, I mean, it's fucking absurd. Yeah.

It's fucking absurd that anybody can just write a blog and call themselves a journalist and a writer. It's absurd. Right. Get out there and work for it a little bit. Yeah. Work for it a little bit. And nobody has to work for it anymore with the internet yeah um you know these fucking vine

celebrities yeah i mean and like here's the thing i never had a problem with vine celebrities until i saw what fucking assholes so many of them are yeah one dude was what charged with rape or something like yeah i saw that whole thing. And they do shit where they just get into somebody's car, like a stranger's car. Oh, I hate those Vine people that are like, oh, I shouted in a stranger's ear. How funny is that? It's like, no, that's not...

Like where they play a prank on a stranger. Dude, a ton of that is just white people being racist in the hood. Oh, my God. They go to shitty neighborhoods and just are racist. Here's a racial stereotype. There's that one girl who's like a hot girl britney ferlin yeah and she did i think that's her and she did the one she does she always does like the crazy scary face thing i think so yeah that's her right she'll go like that's her yeah yeah um i think there's one with i think it's her but there's one with like where she's like walking next to a dude rollerblading

and she's just like, you know you're on rollerblades, right? You're on rollerblades, right? Hey, Brittany, do you know that if you weren't a fucking hot chick, this dude might lay you out in the fucking street? Do you know that, Brittany? Kick you in the face with his rollerblades.

You know, you're getting away with being a fucking asshole right now because you're a hot girl and you're somehow getting credibility with it on vine right she was a dude doing that it would be a fist fight yeah you know and it's like and maybe it wouldn't but my point is is like it's it's so fucking entitled like i'm allowed to do this this is what i'm talking about man i'm allowed to do this the law says i'm allowed to so i can sorry i'm a bitch yeah because i can be yeah like just because you can be doesn't mean you should be right that's a great point and and and that's everybody's attitude now is i will because i can and it's your fucking problem so deal with it right and that's what i think twitter uh-huh

has has allowed for i think Vine has allowed for it. And it's not Twitter or Vine's fault. It's the way people use the service. People can't fucking handle the responsibility of it. And not being able to handle that responsibility does also apply to somebody that is just willing to do anything they can to get followers. And that's what people fucking do. The blogs, any asshole, you just have to spend 10 grand to have a website built.

Any fucking idiot can build a website now for $100. Oh, Squarespace, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, totally. Now, is that a good service? Absolutely. Hey, we want to post our wedding pictures. Hey, I started a business. We don't have a lot of money.

My band, anything like that. Yeah, whatever it is. But then but it's it's it goes so beyond that yeah and it's and it's anybody you know they start foursquare you know they start a thing like foursquare and it's like hey is this good that people can communicate online yeah it is is it good that people are using it to broadcast their suicides and shit like that. It's fucked up. Yeah. Foursquare is the check-in thing, right? Oh, wait, not Foursquare. Sorry.

I was thinking that's weird. It's like checking into suicide. No, sorry, not Foursquare. Suicide social network. Hold on a second. I like that it's going to be in your Google history. Yeah, I know, right? Just hold up in the hotel.

It's suicide threats on social network sites. It's got to be. What's the one? It's like the meetup site and the kid. Oh, it's not living social, is it? No, it's not living social yeah yeah is that just a dc thing what living social yeah it's around it's everywhere but living social is like groupon right right right yeah i'm trying to think i don't know it's uh where the fuck is it that doesn't matter yeah yeah but it's a famous it's a... Where the fuck is it? That doesn't matter.

Yeah, yeah. It's a famous... It's a very popular social network. And it's been talked... Like, people have described it to me as like... They're like, dude, that is like... That is like if you took the bottom-feeding scum of Reddit and just put it... Blew it up into just one website it's that way

4chan 4chan yeah that place is the worst yeah that is the dark corner of the internet yeah and then you look at the 4chan website it looks like a fucking mom's arts and crafts website oh yeah you don't know what i mean yeah but it's like i think a big part of it is just like the what the internet's great because it makes everything so connected, but then you realize how much of humanity is fucking garbage. Like how much is terrible. Everything shouldn't be connected. Yeah.

Everything doesn't need to be connected. Yeah, yeah. I was talking to – Crystal Lee and I were talking about this, and he was like it's so – it's anybody can have access to you at all times. Yeah. He's like it's really weird that he was like, and he was saying it for him to other people. He's like, it's weird that I can access anybody at all, that I can write to like Tom Hanks or whatever.

And I was like, I go, yeah, dude, I shouldn't be able to look at Anthony Kiedis' personal photos. Right, right, right. Or see photos. You know what I mean? It's so weird. His wife has tagged him in. Yeah.

It's fucking weird. Yeah, it's weird. And you can comment on that and be You know, like his date night. Yeah, it's fucking weird. Yeah. Man, it's weird. And you can comment on that and be like, you're a fag. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah, there's no more like, there's no more going out of your way to connect with somebody. You just, it's direct. Yeah.

I feel bad for kids, man. I feel bad for like 12, 13-year-old kids. It's weird, yeah. You have to deal with like cyberbullying. Oh, dude, yeah. Speaking of bullying, yeah, that's a whole new frontier, I'm sure. sure it's horrible and i used to scoff at it i used to think it was ridiculous and then like i can say this much i at 37 i can handle people saying horrific shit to me online yeah i'm a grown man but i when i saw it when i experienced it for the first time i was

like man i i understand now why like a-year-old kid kills himself over this. I wouldn't be able to handle this if I was 12. Because you don't know that it's going to get better. You're like, oh, this is just my life now. You think that's the whole world. Yeah. So I got to pee. Yeah.

We can wrap this up. I was going to say, the flip side to it was that we connected through the internet. But thank you for doing this, man. This was awesome. This was really fun. Like I said, we're both huge fans so this is really cool that it works out

absolutely man anything you want to plug at the end podcast down with Joe DeRosa check that out it's on iTunes subscribe to it

it's on Stitcher it's also on my website JoeDeRosaComedy.com you can go there for all my dates nice and live appearances and stuff

and then my new album Mistakes Were Made The B-Sides is out now get it on Amazon or iTunesunes awesome man thank you stav uh yeah just add stuff comedy yeah on the twitters i'm at better robot josh on twitter go to digression sessions.com for all the past future past and future episodes uh we're on itunes stitcher as well and then uh digression sessions.com slash calendar we got a bunch of live shows i'll be at mcgoobies hosting for kevin nealon on uh november 7th and 8th and then check out our network

thunder grunt podcast network bunch of good shows over there thank you joe thank you stav this was awesome thanks everybody's listening we love you bye Thank you. you