The Digression Sessions - Ep. 199 - Chris Lamberth & Petey Steele! (@ChrisLamberth @SteeleBornDC)

Episode Date: September 19, 2016

Hola Digheads, this week Josh sits down with comedians Chris Lamberth and Petey Steele after doing a tiny show in Baltimore.   Check out Chris' pod - The Mundane Festival   Check out Petey's pod - Steele Born FM    Follow the podcast, Josh Kuderna, and Mike Finazzo on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  Josh - @JoshKuderna on Twitter and @JoshKuderna on Instagram Mike Finazzo - @TheeMikeFinazzo on Twitter The Pod - @DigSeshPod on Twitter The Pod's Facebook page - Dig Sesh on Facebook Thanks for listening, all! Do the pod a favor and rate and review the pod on iTunes & Stitcher plz!

Welcome to the Digression Sessions podcast everybody. How are you? Josh Koderny here. Thank you for tuning in. Episode 199. And this is just, this is me and two other comedians, Petey Steele, who is based out of the DC area, and Chris Lamberth, based out of the New York area. We did a show in Baltimore a couple weeks ago together, and it was a little less than packed packed i would say and uh so yeah we did this show and then uh we're all hanging out afterwards and uh decided to do a podcast and break down the game film of that show as well as discuss other weird tiny shows we've done before and just kind of talk about comedy and movies and whatever else in general and ended up sitting like powwow style at my house upstairs on a carpet and it was actually it was a lot of fun i really enjoyed

hanging out with those guys and had a good time at the show uh given the uh the circumstances of the show but uh yeah both of these guys very funny if you want to check them out on twitter pd steel is at steelborn dc and chris lamberth is at chris lamberth and they both have podcasts as well steelborn fm for pd steel and the mundane festival for chris lamberth which you can check out uh mike finazzo not on this episode because this was a late night episode i think it was like thursday like midnight or something like that uh we're bad boys bad boys And yeah, if you want to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, I'm at Josh Kaderna on both of those platforms. The podcast is at Dig Sesh Pod. My usual co-host,

Mike Fonazo. He is at the Mike Fonazo. And shows coming up. I will be in Magoobie's joke house at the end of October the 20th through the 22nd. I'll be with Gilbert Godfrey one night. And Mike Fianazzo will be there as well. And then I will be in Harrisburg at the Comedy Zone in the future as well in November. But that's a little ways out. Mike Fianazzo is still showing Wits End at a bunch of different festivals

and things like that. The big one he wants to promote will be in Baltimore on October 6th at the International Black Film Festival at the Charles Theater, October 6th. He'll be showing Wits End. So get your tickets for that. Come out to see it.

Yeah, and that's it for this rambling intro. Really appreciate you guys listening. As always, say hi on the Facebook page and all that stuff. tickets for that come out to see it um yeah and that's it for this rambling intro really appreciate you guys listening as always uh say hi on the facebook page and all that stuff let us know what you like uh some guests that you want to see on the show and things like that and uh that's it have a good week everybody let's uh let's let's talk to pd and Chris Lambert. Check, check, check, check, check. Two, two, two. Check, check, check.

All right. You guys are good. All right. Petey Steele, Chris Lambert sitting on my floor like we're elementary school kids. Yeah. Show and tell. Kumbaya, motherfucker. That's pretty much the vibe we got going. I don't think they said that, Petey.

I said that. No, I'm fucking kidding. I know you are. This is nice, man. Oh, thank you. I liked coming, like, the way you took us from the spot. It just kind of looks like anywhere USA. It's like middle America.

But you're still in Baltimore. Yeah. I felt like it was a scene from the deer hunter. You go down the mountain, see a bunch of taverns, some guy leaving with a ponytail, a cigarette, and a duffel bag over his shoulder. Is he going to commit suicide? Possibly.

Maybe. Right. He may pass out beforehand. I wouldn't begrudge him if he did. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So we just did a show here in

baltimore and uh packed house capacity room man it was at 13.5 percent uh yeah so it was at a wine bar in hamden and uh yeah it was one of those shows where you're like small crowd but we're gonna have fun and i think that's what we did it's one of those where you're like, small crowd, but we're going to have fun. And I think that's what we did. It's one of those where you learn about yourself. Yeah. It's learning experiences. You can't always perform in front of a packed crowd. No. No.

Completely unrealistic. One of my friends, just a Facebook friend and someone I went to undergrad with, hit me up on Facebook and asked if I would come down. I was like, sure sure i'd love to book josh and then pd uh you know so it was just uh just like why not i'd rather take off work and not work there and i'll come down and do a show yeah it's like you just wonder if they promote do people promote anymore yeah i guess but i think they like put up flyers and i had some flyers that i passed out but beyond that i don't know

if you've never run a comedy show in your venue i don't think you know the first thing about it in terms of just signs they're not gonna well honestly they don't even have other performances there like i i've never heard of like open mic night there or like a band okay and they have a like a burlesque thing okay a monthly type thing yeah because the the the friend that booked me does burlesque right and uh yeah so i i think they have like singer songwriters gotcha okay but rolled up they were like they didn't have a mic they asked if we needed a microphone i'm like yeah if we want to do yeah that was one of those questions that made me feel kind of stupid because i'm sitting outside the car with lamberth you know and the guy's like hey are you guys gonna need

a microphone and i'm kind of thinking well uh i think you've probably lambert's probably been debriefed like what do you think chris microphone like i haven't been doing this five fucking years but i'm like thinking this is like an artsy wine bar this is some experimental hut where we're just gonna like scream like the town crier right right yeah that's an odd question it's like like we travel with microphones like oh yeah yeah let me just get it on my holster like shout out to josh from the wine bar because he went uh down the street i guess and got the mic oh okay good yeah above and beyond got the speaker and then left them with the dudes and then they fumbled around with them for about 15 to 20 minutes yeah that was the funny thing too we're finally ready

to start the show and they're like okay let's get going uh this guy's gonna bring you up and then he's like does is this mic on does this work and then him and the owner fucked around with the pa system for like 10 minutes like i don't think this show's gonna happen yeah i was worried that i was just like no i was like no we want to get paid. Yeah. Let's go. Let's do it. Let's do a show. Yeah. Because I've done worse shows than that.

Sure. Just in New York City. I always say that you guys in this scene are spoiled. Oh, absolutely. Because you guys have crowds. Open mics are just what would be like one of the top shows in the city. Right. The Draft House or the Big Hunt.

The fact that people go to open mic comedy blows my mind at all. But DC, the scene is so good. I mean, now that we have mics every night of the week and multiple mics, and usually the audiences are pretty packed almost every night of the week,

and it's insane to me. Because it's a real show. I was talking to a comic just about the open mic scene. every night of the week and it's insane to me because it's a real show like you yeah i was talking to a comic just about um the open mic scene when i started uh it would we we every it just seemed like the the comedy community became fractured after comics closed it was a club called comics in in new york in new york okay yeah packing district gotcha and they had a basement here you have your national headliners come perform right right yeah i remember that spot i never went there but i remember seeing stuff on youtube with comics in the background yeah and they had a basement uh room called ochi's lounge okay and they i think it

was named after the bathroom attendant downstairs so you had to go to the bathroom oh i think yeah and he had to go downstairs to piss uh-huh yeah and ochi would be there but then they'd they'd have a little room like a little stage right and uh they had open mics and they had shows they had independent shows there and then once that closed i want to say around 2010 or 2011. Right. It just seemed like there was like this diaspora from that. And it was just kind of, it just wasn't the same after that. Interesting. And I guess I kind of hold it near and dear because that's the first place I ever performed.

But at the same time, I felt like I did notice that there was a definite change. Interesting. So are most mics in new york they're a little just is it mostly just comedians like there's not much of a it's non performer audience and even at that place even at ochi's lounge it was sort of a it was sort of a you're practicing i would say you're practicing against the first team defense gotcha and if you make them laugh you know maybe i have something yeah i always say it's it's like magicians doing magic for other magicians they're like we know magic we get it right you know they go they go hi you feel like maybe you'll hear you would hear mark norman laugh and then

or someone you know because we don't laugh right right so just say ha it was funny that bit you know or if somebody goes they're in the crowd they go that's funny yeah like okay that if i was in front of a real person they might actually laugh and after that you know the mics it's just it's pretty fucking brutal some people do a good job of of making stuff happen but i just remember in my in my formative years which i would still say that I'm still in. Right. Even further back, you know, it would be, I would go do mics in New Jersey when I wasn't getting booked on stuff. Yeah.

And it would be music open mics. So I would say, like, if you can find a good music open mic, if your fans in other comics that listen to you that aren't that if they're not in new york or dc if you go to a music open mic you still have civilians you still have another crowd that can watch you and give you you get that feedback i used to do that all the time oh yeah yeah and that's hard too because it's like what people envision as comedy it's like oh here comes like a one-liner guy or something. You know what I mean? Because it's pretty cut and dry when somebody goes up there with an acoustic. You're like, I know what we're going to get into versus I'm the comedian.

Then again, if you are good and you get asked to go on one of these variety shows, you could just go in there and clean up the laughs and the attention. If it's a legit show, absolutely. Because shit, shit man they send in all these turkeys they're like okay so who do i know that plays an accordion i'll call up larry have him come in you know who do i know that like does uh erotica poetry or something and it's just like this totally unsexy and they're like get pd steel and i'm doing it. Have you done any of those Howard Gaskin shows? No. I'll say his name.

I don't give a fuck. He does these variety shows here that are like bringer shows in the bottom of a fucking motor lodge underneath a redneck bar. Jesus Christ. My God. You go in there

and they're charging $25 at the door for all these folks yeah 25 bring up like paid yeah i mean well initially at first they did they would do like a base pay of 50 then they'd be like commission based on whoever you could bring or sell tickets to then they said oh we're gonna do something different with like the shit no more base pay now it'll be like you know we'll just up the points on the tickets or whatever. Right, right. And my God, some of the talent they brought in there, like, you know, people doing 10th grade erotic poetry and then like, you know, rap acts would come in and just do their like first Fisher Price crunk set.

You know what I mean? Jesus Christ. And then there'd be me and Sonny Fuller and all types of folks or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, we got most of the stuff done, and then people are selling like BKNY, fake merchandise all along the perimeter. Jesus. 50-50 raffles.

So they're cleaning up on the Lucci. This is this place called Chappie's. The dude that runs it's Howard Gaskins. He's the Senate auto insurance guy. Kiss my bumpa. Just kiss it. You remember that dude? Oh my God. It's in Maryland? Yeah, it's in Hale Thorpe.

Where the hell is that? That's like on the other side of Arbutus. I know you're familiar with Arbutus. No, Arbutus is this... It's like Baltimore County. Kim Ambrose hails from there she's a funny comic family owns the funeral home in town and stuff that there's so many places i was talking to you earlier to yeah tonight just where the fuck is that place yeah a lot of baltimore county like if any of that stuff just falls under the umbrella oh it's in the county hun don't worry

about it yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah that show sounds like a fucking nightmare dude yeah that sounds terrible it is but it was a good you know first year learning experience kind of thing right and um you know it speaks to the point of like if you do you know expand your comedy to these other kind of oh yeah goofy rooms you can really you know see some of your own results and then also kind of learn to sharpen your blade a little bit you know it always every time you get up you it always helps i would say yeah especially shows like that it stretches you out so you're like i know i can go this far i don't want to go that far all the time but like you know like if if it's like uh like think about it in terms of like volume like if you go to 10 it's like your six is going to be a little bit louder you know what i mean like that's how i

kind of look at it like like nights like tonight where it's like okay if i can get four people to pay attention i can probably get a bunch of people to pay attention. And it tells you about yourself, like how far you're willing to go to pursue this passion slash career, whatever. Right. Do you have the endurance, really? Because it doesn't even become about heart necessarily, doing comedy for four people, but the fucking stamina to write this off is like,

all right, this is part of the lifestyle I chose and you got to do it and let's do it. Yeah, it's something when those people enjoyed us. I'm not just blowing smoke. They wanted to buy us around. Yeah. That's something that you can take to the bank sometimes when you're feeling like shit.

And that they were regulars too. That's their normal date night apparently and the fact they're like oh there's comedy cool and they paid attention they were super sweet so nice and then to be like yeah let me buy you guys drinks afterwards it's fucking nice i captured the attention of a kid on a date with his mother so yeah there's six people six people in the audience, and Petey goes up first, and he's trying to, like, warm them up and trying to engage the audience. Yeah, so we got a couple up front. What's that?

You're his mom? Okay, all right. It's like, okay, good start. That was a hard recovery. I was just like, well, you know, standards have loosened, you know, so give me a break, guys. Yeah. But, no, you know, standards have loosened, you know, so give me a break, guys. Yeah. But no, it's funny.

I love Petey. You're so funny. The stuff specific to Petey is what gets me. Like when we were just getting pizza a couple minutes ago, you got some Cheetos. And I was like, man, I love Cheetos. You're like, have a couple. Get your dick sucked. Sure.

That's a good way to describe eating cheetos i guess yeah you gotta be able to uh say that as a kind of knock yourself out sort of thing get your dick sucked you know sure sure chris you ever get your dick sucked in that way this may be in a good podcast or transitioning yeah i mean you have to you got to get your dick sucked out there yeah your proverbial dick right all right so so chris you're based out of new york pd you're you're in dc uh and we're talking open mics and stuff have you guys been out to la i have yeah no san francisco i've only got you did you do any mics out there? I worked with Chris Hardwick out there. Oh, that's cool.

I didn't get to at Cobb's Comedy Club, but I didn't get to do any of the indie shows because I didn't. I think a name drop W. Kamau Bell put me on to some people, but I didn't want to sully his name. I didn't want to do the show. Yeah. And then he's like, and then like the and I don't show up. Right. Right. I didn't want to say, hey, can I do this show? Yeah. And then he's like, and then I don't show up. Right, right.

And then I'm an asshole. Gotcha. Gotcha. I didn't get to really do much, but I want to go back. I'd love to. Yeah. Yeah. I've done New York a couple times and kind of had what you're talking about,

where it's just like a lot of just comedians. And then in L.A., I was fortunate enough to do a good show out there uh the hot tub show yeah and then but it was great man it was really cool um but i did a couple mics like a few days before and i just felt like such an idiot like i got there on friday and i was super fried and my friend took me to a couple mics and one of them was at like 6 p.m and they do a thing out there called like on deck and i didn't know about this so like they don't at the mic they don't just call one comedian they're picking names out of a bucket they call two at a time oh yeah yeah so they're like all right up first we got josh cadern and i was like wow this is crazy i'm like i my

flight was at like i don't know like 7 a.m or something like that and i'm super fucking tired so it's like 9 p.m east coast time like oh shit i'm first all right and i go to get up and the guy's like whoa i didn't call who's on deck all right act like you've been here before fella it's like oh i didn't fucking know i was like i've literally never even been to la before and so they they're like okay so we got they'll be like all right we got pd steel and then on deck we got chris lambert yeah and i had no idea about that system and then so i go up there for like three minutes i'm like taco bell's weird am i right all right see you guys later it was just brutal it's just 16 comics that hate themselves and hate you no other no civilians

in the crowd no it was just all comics and they're just oh man it was there's book shows that are like that sometimes you really hell yeah in new york uh-huh like i remember doing a show it's in in brooklyn one time and it was uh people are eating you know families are yeah and i'm you and i'm talking about my parents or some shit like yeah it's just it's they didn't come for that i call it like guerrilla comedy yeah yeah the worst is when it's like people are at a venue and then somebody goes up with a microphone it's like oh you thought you're gonna talk to your friends and family exactly you gotta pay attention to these assholes right that's exactly i think i said that at some point right yeah they laughed or whatever but it was just like well I got the words out

I said those things yeah I went to a place and I was just like sometimes you just need to hear it and then when you get to you just need to hear yourself saying it good special name sometimes you just need to hear it and when you do a

good show like a show that's packed yeah you kind of there's another pressure yeah so it's just like doing a doing a show at like the knitting factory on a sunday right it's like that's a one like a one of the hottest shows in the city yeah that used to be hannibal's room right now it's been handed off and clark jones will miles and kenny deforest yeah and it still has the same energy like people still come and yeah and that's one of those shows you want to you want to do well on yeah yeah like that absolutely i mean absolutely and you just want to yeah like uh the dc improv uh just started doing an open mic night and it's it's not really it's not a mic it's called open mic night because it's cheaper and it gets people there but it's like do not fuck around up there yeah and uh but that's

fun it's like just to be in that room oh my god dude it's it's so fun you get up there and if you do well man just the high you get from that unparalleled yeah to anything in comedy because it's such a cool little like sardine tin of a fucking room it's perfect yeah it's super low i mean it's literally like a basement but it's nice but you have to go downstairs to like get there and then the ceilings are low people are packed in tight it's dark except the stage and then it's also the dc improv so you're like the first time i did it i was just like this is surreal you know like just having that dc improv behind you in the crowd man so good so yeah we're totally spoiled where it's like you

know like hey do you want to do 20 tonight at some spot you're like sure and then in new york it's like i would love to do 20 no eight eight to ten or yeah yeah is that what shows in new york typically run in terms of like showcases it depends it's like 8 to 10 or 10 to 12 right if you're at a club i ain't like a club like the stand where it's kind of like a showcase place you'll do right do like 15 um yeah everybody does like 15 even the host i used to host there. I would host there sometimes. And you do 15, and it's good in front of a hot crowd. Yeah. So it's just like you have those shows where you feel like you're toiling away.

And then it just gets you prepared. Yeah. You just have to look at it like that. Absolutely. That's how I try to look at it. It's all building towards something. Or even like tonight where it's like a smaller crowd. You're like, oh, I feel fortunate that I've done shows like that before because you know how to handle it you

know and like you have to treat those people like they're humans because for us it it sucks like you want to go up there and be like man what the fuck like five people this fucking that yeah and that's why i didn't do like i was just like like like, I think, I was like, man, because before I even started, I was just like, you think about all those people that don't fit. You talk shit about the people that aren't there. Yeah. And then you say, guys, thank you. Let's fucking do a show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. Yeah, I had that once where I did a mic in D.C. And I did a few that night. And then the last one I showed up, I went last. And there were literally four people just at one table. Like this bigger venue, this place, Beer Baron. So, yeah, so there's only four people there. And I just went up there and I'm like, why are you guys here?

And they're like, we like it. And I was like, oh, right. Of course, you're having fun. This is your night out to me i'm like this spoiled brad i'm like four people what did you do yeah i did a play uh in front of two people oh my god i did it was a full-on shakes it was the merchant of venice and it was in this uh my buddy from grad school uh reduced it wrote like he didn't write it in shakespeare yeah he directed it and his parents were in town from seattle and it was this was in chicago and we did the whole fucking thing

for his parents pretty much that's amazing yeah so i i was like well we can do this in front of four people oh yeah you know i remember remember leaving the RFD maybe like first six months I was in here. I was at the last spot. I'd been bumped a few fucking times. That was when RFD was like every Thursday was a powerhouse. Yeah, yeah. That was the room. In D.C., yeah.

You know, I remember getting up last, and there's like three people left. I'm like, motherfucker, you know? Yeah. I start off, first joke doesn't get a hit, and then I start flipping out, and I was like, you know, fucking with the audience, and blah, blah, blah.

I get off, and I see turnip seed, and I'm like, yeah, man, fuck this audience, you know? And he was just like, nah. He's like, you came off weak because all you cared about was being the last guy, and that pissed you off,

and that's why you did what you did. And to this day, I'm thankful to him for telling me the truth about the deal. And you just have to be ready. Whatever comes your way. Yeah, it's to be in the moment, too. You have to just treat it as, okay, this is what the show is. This is what the room is. Versus, man, fuck this.

Because the fucking room can change for like a longer set in your 10th minute you could be knocking them out for nine minutes and then the 10th to 11th yeah one joke falls flat or yeah pick them all the way the fuck back up again how are you going to be ready for that if you can't deal with performing in front of four people especially doing longer sets too but it's like okay like it's not going well in the ninth minute what are you going to do in the 29th minute you know yeah you got to keep that arch going all the way well you say well i'm still getting paid i'm gonna do my time yeah i'm gonna do the allotted time that i was supposed to do yeah i'm getting off stage but yeah then that's it yeah i think it's almost just hearing just hearing you guys talk it's really just comedy is stand-up is kind of like an RPG, like a role-playing game.

Right. You're building up your experience points. Yeah. And the more, the longer you do it, the better you get at it. You just, you learn those things. I was listening to myself on the way here. I believe it was the great chris lambert that once said i was just thinking like sometimes when you have those moments where you can track that i always talk about incremental progress right and and sometimes you forget like

how far you've come and things that i remember just being really like those times where you're just being like really lucid and just like present like so present yeah that it's just like well who the fuck was that right how do i get that guy back yeah how can we keep him around all the time i mean that's something that other other folk other guys they're jedis that can do that every night yeah like tony woods just seems to float in an ether yeah when you watch that guy he's amazing amazing yeah and he can do like old material and make it seem new and just be in the moment completely and you're like god damn you are so good he's a fucking performer i mean i i mean i opened for him did i open for him i think i just went to see him like at levity live my home club and uh-huh he's just present yeah exactly you know

it's just like a he's a like just a pure headliner yeah and it's like watching these i'm sure you guys see it like when you i just treat watching a headliner like auditing a class oh totally writing writing mental notes and like oh you can do that or like so much of it too is just the confidence as well yeah not so it's not like bravado but it's also just like i believe in what i'm doing and then if you're present there comes there's a confidence with that too because it's like i'm so confident in this like i am here in this moment and whatever is going to happen i'm in control of yeah And it's, yeah,

it's so cool to see that stuff. Like that was one of the things I had to learn early on was to like, wait for a joke to, to hit or something or like laughs. I'd be like, and so here's another thing. And then the guy did the, you ever noticed that clouds are weird.

You know what I mean? Like it like, just it's like, no, no chill. Yeah. Just wait. And then if you actually just let them come to you, you know,

like speaking to an audience versus at them. Yeah. And I think that's what tonight was too. Like, if you have six people, you're not really, you're doing stand-up, but there's no artifice. It's not like, there's a guy on stage. It's like, no, that's just an asshole with a microphone. He's the same as me.

Yeah. There's five people here and then you have to kind of earn that too well they noticed the craft i mean you could tell after the show that they they enjoyed yeah yeah exactly but but we all did a good job being like what's up like let's and let's all embrace this moment together versus like no i remember doing a show earlier this summer now this past summer but yeah just doing a show at a a barbecue spot in croton on hudson like in westchester in new york and it was like uh it was their anniversary and there was something else going on in the town right and

and it was just like maybe five or six people same around the same yeah i was like look man i was like okay the people that they're not here these people are here so we gotta do let's do let's give them a show yeah yeah it's very like waiting for guffman-esque it's like it's the day of the show y'all you just some you just gotta do it yeah you know so chris you talked about it tonight about like uh uh going to school for acting and stuff like that is that still something like where did comedy come in well on that journey god i always loved it i mean i was always a fan i just i was i would listen to martin lawrence was one of my favorites because he was from the PG County. Right.

And he was just that dude. And I always listened to tapes like Pryor, Paul Mooney, Def Comedy Jam. I would watch that like Saturday morning cartoons. Gotcha. And then I think I saw somebody get booed on Showtime at the Apollo. I was like, I can't do that. That seems terrible got the sandman and then i'm doing it uh like i did a weekend of hosting for bruce bruce and let me live

just one show they did not like me oh no one guy was like you won't like that guy the the host didn't have he had on new balance sneakers like not having it and i'm still wearing it and i was like fuck i was i was just like that was one of those nights where you're just like fuck should i be doing stand-up nothing to do with your jokes though it's just the shoes he didn't like me and i guess the crowd like there was a point where i had turned into like a vice principal oh teacher right trying to come like come on guys yeah and is this a primarily black audience well that crowd for him yeah it's just that's a cool place because it's you it's a it's always a different um it's a different monster every time right depending on who's there depending on who the headliner is normally i've that's a place where you know i've had good sets mostly been mostly good but that

was probably one of the worst shows that that i had there it's one of those nights where the staff knows it's bad yeah the the comics know it's bad right everybody knows it's it's a shit show yeah it's like well you still have to exist. Friday night, late show. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because people are pretty wasted and they're tired and they're like, don't give a fuck. Yeah. So it's just kind of like one of those things where you have to come back or you have to kind of bounce back from it. But just to answer your question, it was just something that I saw the guy get booed on Apollo.

I just kind of always respected the art form but then just got into acting it was just something that i've been doing for a long time and right i moved to new york in 2007 i was trying to find my place to try to recreate what i had in chicago where like i was a dude that didn't know anybody had a you know stuff going on like i was i built a community of people and right and shit yeah and then to leave that and go to an even start all over it's just like fuck and i was trying to figure my figure shit out yeah at 29 2009 i just decided to do stand-up and damn 29 29 years old wow and it was sort of it was one of those things where you know i'm about to turn 30 and i think just just remember looking at like some lists and

i still really don't remember what it was it was like i think it might have been comics under 30 or something people 30 to watch under 30 or something like that yeah i remember hannibal burris being on there and i clicked on like a thing he did and it was like oh that guy's funny and he's like doing it he's not doing it in that def jam way yeah he's got his own style and i think aziz was on there right and i said you know i've always wanted to do this and at the time i was taking improv at ucb yeah yeah uh before people started raping each other and uh before it was good you mean yeah yeah and i actually did date a girl that for a little bit that i met an improv class yeah you know took her out like a fucking gentleman yeah you're a sweetheart yeah i'm adorable yeah and uh

and you know those classes were like 400 bucks oh they're a lot it was expensive and i was like look i i got a master's degree i just need to i need to perform i need to figure it out yeah and uh we had a graduation show so you you do the class for eight weeks and at the end you do a graduation yeah you do your showcase yeah i remember doing it uh and you start off with a suggestion you know and and someone said red wine and i talked about like a story about my high school reunion mm-hmm this girl that I was in love with and you just kind of tell them the story yeah and then you start the scenes I remember getting a

laugh and I was like oh yeah maybe I should try you know try that and I just yeah never really look back I think improv is kind of the gateway drug to stand up cuz then like because i kind of had the same thing of i uh i had friends that were doing improv and i went to their showcases yeah it's like oh this looks so fun and then so i'm doing that and then it's it's fun and you feel safe in a way because you have other people you're like oh if this isn't going well there's like five other people that are going to do something else or bail me out and it go yeah but then when you get like good at it and you're like oh i kind of want to do this on my own well it goes back to to the fact like you're hiding like when you're talking

about the artifice yeah with acting you're just kind of like i'm playing a character and yeah it might be an aspect of you if they don't like you they don't if they of you. If they don't like you, they don't like your character. Right. Stand up. Yeah. I think the way that, you know, I always say it like a douche, the way that we do it. Right. You're not, you're a heightened version of yourself.

Yes. Yeah. You better be. And if they don't like you, if they don't like you, they don't fucking like you. Yeah. So be it. They don't like you. Totally.

Totally. That's good. Yeah. No, I fucking like you. They don't like you. Totally. That's good. I'm telling you, I don't know a stand-up that is famous or is great or anything where they don't have haters and can't be comfortable with that. You know what I mean?

I don't believe in universal appeal. Yeah, the stakes are a lot higher. Oh, yeah. It's more of a there's oh yeah yeah you know this is more of a yeah a tightrope walk that you're doing but i yeah the only people i hate are the ones that are like oh you know that guy pd steel yeah he's all right fuck you you don't like those middle of the road just say you hate me you know what i mean just say you hate me that's your special name just say you hate me get your dick sucked just say you hate me get your dick sucked there's a whole mix there yeah it's good hey

um yeah okay so yeah so it was acting and improv, and then it kind of got the bug there of like, oh, this is fun. Yeah, and it was a part of, I would say, a discovery process. I was doing community theater in New Jersey, who is now on, works with NBC Sports. And she's doing really well. Cool. As an anchor and stuff. And reporter. And she said, I took a class at UCB.

You should try it. And I was like, okay. And I did it. Yeah. And that was the thing. I was like, I got to figure something else out. I kind of had that, too, with improv. Like, every podcast I listened to or book or interview i saw

every person it was like tina fey adam carolla like tim meadows just just random people like oh i did improv for a little bit or that's where they started and like didn't necessarily mean that they're going to do improv the rest of their lives but i was like oh i should get into that and i think it is a good springboard yeah i mean that movie don't think twice uh yeah i really like that people are kind of hating on it are they really why are people on facebook people kind of hate on it why what do they say uh just like i think when i'm when something gets a lot of praise okay you know if you i would say if you like mike berbiglia and hate on the berbigs yeah if you liked if you like sleepwalk sleepwalk with me yeah i would say it's it's an even better it's

an even better film and it just oh it's have you seen it yeah it's great yeah yeah it hit pretty hard if you've done improv before or if you're in any type of artist if you're an artist at all it hits home pretty fucking hard and i said that when i saw it when you know he did a talkback like he at the landmark sunshine yeah and he you know they had talkbacks and everything and it's a very sobering piece and i think i tweeted about it yeah and i see like now like i saw it the first week like a fucking nerd yeah i was excited to see it yeah and then you see all these other musicians and rappers talk with oh it's if you're in any type of artist i was like yeah i like you guys but fuck you a little bit i said that shit first right everybody's gonna see it yeah no yeah but it was one of those things where

the keegan michael key character was like it's improv has a ceiling or something like that yeah yeah you can't do it forever yeah yeah but um we when i lived in chicago we would go see uh we go to improv olympic all the time i'll see tj and dave i don't know dude i i'm not familiar that much with improv the only improv guys i know are like you two and pete bergen well dude me i'm i did this show speaking of variety shows there's a show at ucb i think they do it in la too uh improv versus stand-up okay so they'll have one improv team do about maybe 12 10 or 15 minutes uh-huh and the comics will do like three comics will do some time yeah and then they make one of the improv people do stand-up for four minutes oh that's fun and

then the comics all have to do like a four-minute scene that's fun and that was fun like that's like a variety show yeah i'd run a mash-up show here we'll we'll have a world we'll have a stand-up go up and do like five to seven minutes and then we use their act as input for scenes yeah so i like that a lot we had matt walsh on the podcast and i told him about it he. He's like, yeah, that's ASCAP. And I was like, well, not really. It's a little different. Like ASCAP, they have somebody do a monologue versus do their act.

They call it a monologist. Yeah, they have a monologist go up there. I hate this shit about improv versus stand-up. It's so dumb to me. You're using a different part of your toolbox yeah they're all comedy muscles it's not it doesn't have to be like a verse i mean that show is like a kind of like tongue-in-cheek verses but it doesn't have to be i remember somebody was like hey you do improv but aren't you funny why do you do improv like come on man like comics will try to they'll they'll say stuff like i mean because it could be like dude there's bad stand-up i know but people

say it too like dude when improv is bad is bad like same with fucking stand-up though like the only thing that sucks about improv when it's bad is you can't call attention to it to kind of nose dive out of it still just like i'm a fire, and so are you. It's all burning. It's like that meme. What's that meme from where there's the dog, and he's in the middle? Oh, everything's. I don't know what it's from. Everything's fine. Room's on fire, and he's just at a table drinking tea.

It's fine. This is fine. I'm too selfish, though, I think, to do improv. Because if somebody started weighing me down on my team or whatever, I might just slap them to get like a laugh i would love to see you on an improv team it was just like zip zap and you're like fuck you man what was that shit like that scene in sopranos hey christopher moltesanti pops that dude in the mouth yes the funniest take on improv was that i've seen is on the office when michael

scott oh he keeps pulling out the gun he's on the improv team yes breaking all the rules and fucking everything up that that's classic yeah i kind of want to watch that when i get home i do love that he just keeps pulling out a gun and like killing people michael don't use a gun and he's like he's like what's this behind your back and he's like it's not a gun the average improv teams of like four or five is there any real soft numbers yeah I can go anywhere from like yeah like basically like two to like eight you know but go ahead I was gonna say just TJ and Dave yeah like just if you don't even know anything about improv if you watch those guys you're like oh they're ninjas like they're masters dude do you know those

you've seen those sonic commercials i probably with this like two assholes like sitting in a car talking about how great sonic food is yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah the blonde guy is uh tj jagadowski yeah he actually came to our play, our thesis. Oh, really? Yeah. That's cool. There were a couple guys that were obsessed with him, and they got him to come. He just came out to watch the show.

Oh, man. It was a really cool. That's awesome. Cool fucking dude. Yeah, those two guys. Yeah, Dave. Ask Waze. Yeah, I almost got him on the podcast.

Oh, shit. Because he's on Veep, and they used to film in Baltimore. Right, right. And I tweeted at him, and he was and he was just like ah sorry schedules don't line up but he responded yeah it was cool man i would i would have loved to talk to that guy but what's so cool about them too from an improv standpoint is they don't take suggestions they just say trust us it's all made up and they just kind of look at each other and then they go for like an hour and then they're just two dudes but then there might be like five characters on stage so they're playing like multiple people at once and like responding to each other wow fuck dude and it's is it on netflix streaming or is it just on dvd yeah it might be or like on youtube but yeah that's the name of the documentary

it's all made up yeah like those guys man and it's tough too because improv when you watch it if you're not there it doesn't really translate but if you can see them it's so good we used to go all the time and see that's i was spoiled yeah i would go and then you'd see people i mean there's some good people in new york i mean i just think my thing is just talking to comics that are from another, that aren't from New York. And so I'm thinking about moving. I was like, you can do it. And one of my friends got on me for this. Like I was saying, like New York is, it can be intimidating, but it's not.

I don't think you should really be that afraid yeah i i had that for a while too with new york is putting on a pedestal like new york comedy holy shit but then once you go up there and do a couple mics it's kind of the same it's just like there's a few shitty people most people are pretty decent then there's some like some really standout people and it's like it's like you can pretty much hang you know what i mean like if you're pretty decent in your scene you can probably go to new york and be okay yeah yeah it's just uh i i just think sometimes people get afraid of because it's just yeah it's just and then and then with me i always say that i started with an ignorance of just being in new york just like oh i'm gonna start stand up and i live in this area so i guess i'll start right

right because there was some there's some guys in new jersey uh where i live in new jersey but there will be some guys that don't go to this city interesting what the fuck dude you're 15 minutes yeah that's like doing comedy in baltimore be like i don't do DC. Yeah. It's like, why? Now it's more guys making that transition. Yeah, why the fuck wouldn't you? I always treat performing in Jersey like a treat. Yeah. It's just like, oh, I can drive down. There's parking.

I don't have to pay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There might be an audience. Yeah. It's like you practice running with a parachute, and you're taking the parachute off for the night. You're like, oh. Dick Russian Sessions, coming to an end. Thank you. Oh yeah, oh yeah