The Digression Sessions - Ep. 47 - Ben O'Brien!

Episode Date: August 17, 2012

“Podcasting With Friends” Hola Digheads! This week Mike and Josh are joined by the mega multi-talented director, writer, comedian, and thinker - Ben O’Brien! Ben created the web-series Showbeast with Erin Gleeson back in 2006. Webster’s Dictionary defines Showbeast as “films for people who like TV for the internet.” Ben and his comrades have made over 21 videos with Showbeast including music videos for Beach House, Dan Deacon, Height with Friends, Dope Body, and Ear Pwr. They’re currently hard at work on creating a full length episode. In the meantime, check out Showbeast's videos here: showbeast.net   Ben also manages and performs in the Wham City Comedy Tour and co-hosts the monthly Wham City Comedy Night with Mason Ross and Ellie Beziat. The next Wham City Comedy Night is Tuesday August 28 at Liam Flynn’s Ale House.   Ben was a great guest and shares some stories from the road and how the Wham City Comedy Tour came together, how the concept for Dan Deacon’s “True Thrush” video is based on game they play called “Nipple My Garden,” his similarities with Ol Dirty Bastard and their affinity for things that are raw, his love for Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, his involvement live theatrical presentation of Jurassic Park, and his super hero origin story.   Also! CHECK OUT THE BALTIMORE IMPROV FESTIVAL THE WEEKEND OF THE 17th THROUGH THE 19th!   Have something to say about this ep? Or do you have anything else Digression Sessions related / unrelated to say? Should we create a Podcasting With Friends app?!?! Say it on our forum!! DigressionSessions.com !! PLEASE rate, subscribe, and provide a nice comment on the iTunes!! It’ll help the podcast climb the charts! Follow us on the Twitters:  @DigSeshPod @BetterRobotJosh @MichaelMoran10 @BenfOBrien RATE AND SUBSCRIBE! WANT A SHIRT? EMAIL JOSH – [e-mail]

It's on, it's on, it's on, it's on, it's on, it's on, it's on, it's on Okay. All right. All right. You know. You study. You work hard. You're going to make it. You're going to make it. You just got to give it 110%. Wake up every morning, you know. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Pull yourself out of the mock damn thing. You know what I'm saying? You make excuses all afternoon, but.

Or you can just go out there and do it. Ain't going to make nothing but a whole hill of beans. You can walk 10 miles around the problem or one mile right through it. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. You can just sleep through your afternoons, too. Yeah, because Rome

wasn't built in a day. It took like two at least. Yeah. At least. Probably, yeah, probably two. Yeah. I mean, if they're

working really hard. I mean, Coliseum was pretty big. Yeah. I mean, I could probably do it in a day, but, you know, back then people were

You don't want to brag too much. Yeah, I got you. Good work, I think. Well, I am one half of your favorite pair of earbuds. Josh Katerna. Sitting to my right, the other half of your favorite pair of earbuds.

Mike Moran. There he is. Mike Moran, how the hell are you? I am pretty darn well. Can't complain. Okay. Doing good. Things are good. Got the next three days off from work.

Yeah, we got the Baltimore Improv Festival coming up. Yes, we do. That should be exciting. We're performing on Friday. Friday is at the 17th, I think. I think so. Yeah, Friday the 17th. But it starts on Thursday the 16th at Creative Alliance.

And there's a bunch of troops performing from Chicago, New York, Philly. My troop will be performing on Saturday. And, yeah, it should be a lot of fun, so come and check that out, everybody. How are you doing, Josh? I'm doing pretty good. I'm excited about the Improv Festival. Are you? So, yeah.

Yeah, it's going good. Is this your first one or your second? That I've performed in, it'll be the first. I joined Gus back in, like, October of last year, I think, so, yeah. It's a great theater

to perform at. Yeah, Creative Alliance is really, really nice. I can't remember, like, not having a great time there, like, ever. Yeah. Like, with anything

that I've been to or performed in. Right, yeah, because the stage looks great, just the whole atmosphere is really, really good. Even when I saw that woman's hair catch on fire. Really?

Oh, yeah. Still fun, huh? Yeah. Okay. All right. Not for her, obviously. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

But for the Dodgers. Yeah. The Dodgers. Yeah. The Brooklyn Dodgers. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, they didn't have a good time. The Brooklyn Dodgers moved where?

Los Angeles? Yeah. Okay. Was that a big controversy? It was a controversy. So New York City had three ball clubs? Three. The Dodgers?

Uh-huh. The Giants? The Giants? I'm sorry, not the Giants. The Mets. The Mets and the Yanks. Yeah, I guess they did at some point. What are the Giants?

They're a football team and a baseball team. Yeah, but where are they baseball-wise? Where are they baseball? Yeah. In San Francisco. Okay. They baseball in San Francisco. That's where they baseball?

Uh-huh. Okay. I reckon. I reckon. All right, but speaking of fun things, we have a guest today, Mike. Ooh. Yeah. No wonder there's another man sitting here with us. I know. It's kind of weird. All right, but speaking of fun things, we have a guest today, Mike. Ooh. Yeah.

No wonder there's another man sitting here with us. I know. It's kind of weird. But now it all makes sense, right? A little bit more, yes. It's all coming together. Like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. There was a guest there the entire time. Oh, my God.

And I don't think he's a ghost or an alien, but we'll find out. Well, we'll see. It would be cool if we had twist endings to the podcast all the time yeah i wasn't the guest i was chris rock hopefully it's chris rock fingers crossed fingers crossed but we have a comedian a director a writer a head nodder a guy that that goes, mm-hmm. There he is. Mr. Ben O'Brien, everybody.

Welcome to the show, sir. Welcome to Digression Center. I'm honored to be here. Yeah, thanks for coming by. No problem. So, yeah, you'll be the host, or I guess you always host, the Wham! City Comedy Night. Yeah, I co-host that. I coast-hoded it. To be clear, I coast-hoded it. You coast-hoded it. To be clear, I coast-hoded it with Mason Ross for many months, probably about almost a year.

And then we just added Ellie Bizier, a very funny comedian as well. Oh, awesome. And she kind of runs it now, but we all three host it. Oh, okay. That's unusual, three hosts. Three hosts. Yeah, it is unusual. Are you guys always on the stage at the same time well see we we had kind of a little bit of difficulty trying to figure that out because it's it's it would either because the way that mason and i would do hosting like we're not like we don't actually well we would do our hosting style

is essentially just i tell a joke with him standing next to me. Wow. And then he tells a joke and I stand next to him. Right. And if any way we can, we'll be like, oh, ha-ha. Like we'll add some stupid thing to make sense why that person's up there. But now we have three people, so it can get even more awkward of like one person telling a joke and two people like. Post it up like old school, 80s hip-hop absolutely like

every single time yeah um but so we've kind of been switching it up where now we always send out just two and we're we're getting our host chops right we're learning our host how'd you do it we're learning it kind of yeah like we are very um slow to get we are very, what's the word? Slow. Exactly. Slow and steady wins the race. You know what about that? Wins the race war. I was in 8th grade and I was saying to my friend

slow and steady wins the race and then he says, but what about fast and steady? And then I just like, my mind exploded and I still don't know and that man went on to win 20 gold medals mr michael but you burn out you burn out though if you go too fast you got to pace yourself that's why you go fast and steady you steady it you steady it but it's it'd be impossible to go that to go to steady it at fast you know i don't know yeah that's ideal

but you know look at all those people in Kenya. They go pretty fast in the state. I just think it's weird that you kind of assume that fast people are also, like, you know, out of their minds. Like, the rabbit goes really fast, then he sleeps for, like, a day. Sure. It takes it easy. That's just stupid. Well, I mean, what if he's working really hard?

You think he should just keep going. Perpetual motion. I'm just saying there's got to be a rabbit that's got his shit figured out. You've got to put all of your energy into the challenge. Which is why I try to starve myself of coffee until right before I go on.

There you go. That's good. I'm going to get a little closer to the mic. Is that okay? Yeah. I'm going to turn you down just a little bit so how long you've been doing wham city um how long have i been doing what the wham city listen the let's there's a lot in that sentence that we gotta unpack it's multiple things let's

start with the wham city comedy night let's start with that how long here let's say it together how long have your ass been doing the pineapple sorry freaking wham city comedy i think Ben's going to leave soon. Just keep going on for ten minutes. I've been doing it for about a year. It's been amazingly successful, has it not? Yes, it has been very successful.

A lot of people come and we have been lucky enough to get really interesting people to come. It warmed my heart. I just found out about this thing recently and it made me very happy to see a show like that being packed to the rafters. Yeah. And it does, there's something about getting, one of the things that we try to do is we

always try to get people who are doing it for their first time. We kind of hound people a little bit. We'll be like, you got to do it, You got to do it. Until they give in. And then they bring, and then all their friends that want to come see them. So then there's this really good atmosphere and stuff. Very positive show. Very positive crowd. Totally great.

I'm surprised you haven't done it yet. I'm doing it this month. That's great. Okay, awesome. Yeah, I'm telling you, Ellie kind of books it now. So I'm a little bit out of game. But it's not at the Yellow Sign Theater this time. It's at Liam Flynn's.

Oh, okay. Is that just for this month? Yeah, that Yellow Sign Theater this time. It's been at the Zodiac. It's at Liam Flynn's. Oh, okay. Is that just for this month? Yeah, that's just for this month. The Zodiac is filled with kitchen equipment right now. That's going to be auctioned. Okay. And it's going to be where this month? It's going to be at Liam Flynn's Ale House.

If you guys have seen it, it's like this enormous bar. It's like an anomaly. It looks very strange. It's going to be at Liam Flynn's Ale House. If you guys have seen it, it's like this enormous bar. It's like an anomaly. It looks very strange. It's very strange. It's cool. And they have events and stuff, but the ceilings are, I think, like 200 feet tall. Really? It's just like way bigger than a normal bar.

There's so much space. Cool. I think I've seen it, but I didn't know it was that spacious. I thought it was just kind of a little irish pub it's it's weirdly spacious you should go in you should go in just check out the space check it out have fun i'll come back but get a guinness originally was the the comedy night was it just wham city like wham city members which is like an art artist collective basically right yeah yeah i i apparently get off on convoluting

like everything i do as an artist so okay there's wham city the collective which does an enormous amount of things and then there's the wham city comedy night and then there's the wham city comedy tour oh boy oh wow the tour yeah the wham city comedy Tour we've been doing for almost three years. Really? That's awesome. We've probably gone on three tours, counting a mini tour. And that is just members of Wham City. Okay. Whereas the Wham City Comedy Night is the amateur comedy night that's hosted by members of Wham City. Right, right.

So what happens on the tour? What does your guys show? The tour is a variety show of comedy so okay i'll start with the way that it started was essentially like the the comedy night before my comedy night that was kind of at the same place was run by adam endres and andy abelow okay and i started doing that and that kind of got me into doing comedy again. And also I realized all of my friends over the years had created these either comedic duos or just comedic performances or whatever,

just on their own. And so I was like, we have to gather this all up into one thing and tour it. And so that's how we started the way city comedy so originally just started like do this do that bring your own bring whatever you've been doing for the past few years and uh and we'll put it together into something um and now we're starting to get more into scripting everything out submitting scripts and and having an actual like judgment process of like okay this is how we're going to form the night so now it's going to be like rehearsed and all that because it was fun the

first few times it's really it's always really fun yeah but you're kind of managing the tour on the first few days because you haven't you don't actually know what's going to happen i would just be like all right i want you on the tour so just come we'll figure it out we'll figure it out as we go along so we can't do that anymore so we're i'm trying to uh the audience keep things tight and scripted the audience knows better now exactly because after a year we run out of all that stuff we've been working on for like the past six years so yeah it starts to it starts to deteriorate so i'm trying to get it submission based where people say i want to do a solo performance and here's the script and all that stuff right so it's not just your standard uh stand up exactly it's it's stand up it's skits it's solo performances it's video cool duos it's it's uh we try to try to keep it well rounded and where do you tour like what kind of places do you

do um we do mostly rock clubs and stuff, like DIY spaces. And this last tour was really fun. We did Moogfest, which if you don't know Moogfest, it's this big electronic music festival. And not only were we the only non-electronic thing, we were the only non-musical act of the entire festival. And we were going on like exactly at the same time as like brian eno or something but it was this huge gorgeous theater

and and uh and it was like really it was like the second day of tour so it was really hectic and crazy but that was really fun and then we also played fun fun fun fest um where uh neil brennan played played right before us, and David Glover, these huge, famous... Neil Brennan made the Chappelle show, and David Glover's... I don't know what he does. He does a bunch of stuff. And then as soon as they were done,

everyone left. And then we went up and were like, thanks for opening for us. And now we'll... And Brian Poussain was there. Oh, that's cool. And that was the same. So we also performed at the same time as Slayer or something.

Wow. You guys are just set up for success. Exactly. Are you mad that you've had so many easy opportunities? Do you wish it was harder? No. OK. It's so hard.

Especially following a standard stand-up show and you're like hey here's this variety weird thing it's i mean it it it's a double-edged sword because it's it's easy kind of to book the show because so many venues and so many places want something different and there's not a lot of diy like touring comedy shows yeah that i know of and so when you say hey we got this like two-hour comedy show people are much more open to bringing you there but it's also just it's a whole it's a show and we're playing places that aren't are set up for like yeah you know rock so we get there and it's like we don't know if they hate us already

or if they're expecting us or whatever. So that on top of just trying to manage, like, 12 people. Right, right. We do these big veg oil school bus, and there's a lot going on. So it's a lot of work. And then, of course, all the booking and all the publicity. It's like a traveling, like, summer camp, and you have to keep everybody in line. Yeah, when you travel outside of Baltimore,timore like with your friends you realize that you're total freaks like everywhere else on earth right and the the wham city crew is

is a little odd yeah it's like uh like i remember we we'd be just driving down in the this big bus we'd be driving down the highway and i'd look out the window at any moment and see people like taking pictures really and like pointing and like, Mom, look! Oh my God, freaks! And I was like, oh my God, we are a traveling freak. Every moment, I would get tired and bored and I'd forget that I was even a bus. It'd be so normal to me that I would always just look out and people would still go.

We'd stop at gas stations and essentially be this mob of smelly, gross people. Yeah. You don't belong in these parts. Exactly. Is the bus painted or anything? It's just painted funky? It's Brady Bunch? Little subtle, colorful stripes.

It says cool bus instead of school bus, if you can imagine that. I'm going to need to take a break, but yeah, I think I can. That kind of pun is the cool bus. That's kind of our humor, so that's what you can expect. Right. What were you saying? But wouldn't it be cool with an H? Cool.

Like C-H-O-O-L? Yeah. Chool bus. Chool bus. Isn't school spelled C-H-O? No, it's S-K-O-O-L. They changed it like a while back. Oh, I thought it was S-K-E-W-L.

No, they all got together. They're like S-C-K-E-W-L. No, they all got together. They're like S-C-H-O-L. This doesn't make any sense. Right. Put a K in there. We're wasting all these letters. Exactly. Let's let some of the other letters have a chance.

Right. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's fair. That's nice of them. Yeah. They're cool guys.

The Alphabet Council. Why don't we just get rid of like... Consonants? Yeah. Yeah. Consonants. Why don't we get rid rid of the consonants you just have to stop saying vowels like really quickly like yeah see that sounded like i said that was a t very close why do we eat x why don't we get rid of x i like it all right what are you gonna do if it weren't

for x i wouldn't score nearly as many points as i do in words with friends i need that ben you play words with friends i don't i don't. Ben, do you play Words with Friends? I don't. You play Words with Friends does sound like something a kindergartner would ask a friend. Get the fuck out of here. Do you play Hi-Ho Cheerio? I just call it talking. I just call it hanging out with my friends.

We talk, we converse. Do you guys want to play podcast later? Let's play podcast. Let's play Words. Let's play Words. I'll go first. Okay. Parachute. Yes.

Awesome. Okay. That's one point. Alright. Pool. No. Afraid not. No, dude. See, I already said parachute, so pool is pretty much the same word. 14.

Number. Wow. Damn it. A lot of letters. It's a number. Sorry. Oh, yeah. Gorilla. Oh, wow. I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good at words, guys. Josh?

Tangerine. Come on. He already said gorilla. He already said gorilla. That's not the same. I'm sure you could have a gorilla named Tangerine. That one's close. Yeah, it's close.

Well, thank you. That's all. Close counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, not in words. Not in a game of words. Not in words. All right. Go ahead. A lot of writing on this one a lot

all right um parentheses oh are you are you trying to get meta on us i'm just saying you go for these like non-sensory words right exactly um i'm gonna go i'm gonna say yeah yes as your word i'm just gonna say i'm just saying. All I'm saying is yes. That's all I'm saying. I'm not. I don't mean to imply anything by it. I'm just saying yeah. Judges? It's all good. Alright. Dude, you've had that this whole time. You got to bring it up. While we're playing

words. We needed the judges. Alright. Just like the Bible. You need judges in the Bible. And apparently Ben, they're big fans of you. I love you. Did you hear that? Wow.

The judges. So I think we, I don't want to say there's foul play that the judges were on your side the whole time when I dropped the word pool. And, you know, you get to say, yeah. Judge Judy and executioner. Yeah. Well, it's good thing they're recording this because if we go back we can see how I said

parachute first and the word pool is pretty much except for the editor is the guy who's oh jeez editing

you guys edit this yep it's bullshit yeah we'll be editing yeah yeah we're gonna go for like three hours then we're gonna get

the best 15 minutes oh cool and then we'll make that we'll make that into something good okay it's cool I just thought you guys were like real about this stuff so it's like cool you know I thought for like three hours and then we're going to get the best 15 minutes. Oh, cool. And then we'll make that into something good. Okay, it's cool. I just thought you guys were like real about this stuff.

So it's like cool. You know, I thought that like... This is real? Are we not really talking No, no, no. I don't mean to start anything. All I'm trying to say is like, you know, whatever.

Some people make podcasts and some people like edit stuff together and make other things. We're actually going to auto-tune your voice too if that's okay. It's totally fine.

Should I start like singing a little bit? Yeah, go for it. Here, please. Guys, I'm not going to auto-tune your voice, too, if that's okay. It's totally fine. Should I start, like, singing a little bit? Yeah, go for it. Guys, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do it, guys. You can say anything. Give him a beat, Josh. You want to kick a few rhymes?

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. No. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, that was Ben O'Brien with his hit. Thanks, guys. No, parentheses, yeah. I was afraid you guys wouldn't really have the setup for me to do that, but you guys have the equipment. No, no, I did extensive research. I know you're an ardent freestyler in life and in rapping. Absolutely.

So the comedy tour is fun, and you guys are going out again soon? Actually, not soon. We're going out in April. Okay. And we're going to try my heart of hearts, which is a saying I despise. What does that mean, my heart of hearts? It's like if your heart had a heart. It's in that heart.

That's disturbing to think about. Like your heart's worried about its heart, you know? Your heart's got to work out. In my heart's brain. The chambers of my heart, you know? Or like the cockles. Cockles sounds terrible, too. Is that a real?

Yeah. It's like the insides. Cockles. The cockles of your heart. Cockles? Yeah. You guys are a couple of cockles if you ask me. Oh, here we go.

I know. All right. So you're working on the tour to go out in April? In April, yeah. So it's going to give us enough time to kind of put it all together. So one of the big challenges is that everyone on the tour is not just like, none of us really do comedy as our main art form. And so everyone's, like Dan Deacon comes on the tour

and he's a musician. And Alan Resnick, who's one of the best, he's a video artist as well. So everyone's kind of got their own stuff going on. They're all really hardworking and stuff. So it's really hard to get everybody's schedules to uh to line up and and especially along with mine too because i'm also a video artist yeah i was gonna get into that too that yeah you've directed directed a bunch of videos you did dan deacon's latest video for uh true thrush yeah and for his upcoming album america

right yeah co-directed with dan oh yeah yeah it was awesome it's yeah basically it's a visual form of telephone yeah absolutely yeah follow-up question do you own a construction paper company um no no but I would like to say that we we um we recycled all that paper donated it to a after-school art program that makes paper that makes paper out of paper really yeah that must not be very hard no that do that No, I work for this after school art program, and they're like, oh, we're making paper. And I was like, well, how do you do that? They're like, well, you take paper.

And I was like, already. And you flip it over. Already. You're done. You did it. But yeah, you just blend up paper and put water in it, and you pour it out over stuff and let it dry, and you've made paper.

Wow. So I don't know how people made the first pieces of paper. Right. But that's how we all... That's one of the age-old questions. Exactly. Right. I'm leaning towards God.

Yeah. Yeah. I think actually Joseph Smith dug up a bunch of piles of paper in the Midwest. A bunch of piles. Yeah. All right. And there were some in the pyramids, I've heard. Yeah.

But yeah, the video is really cool. Where did you get the idea for that? Well, it was Dan's concept. It was based off of a game that we've been playing for years, a drawing game where we draw. One person draws a picture, and they have like three minutes to draw it. And then they show it to someone for like four seconds, and then they have one minute to redraw a picture.

What if you got that savant guy that can draw like skylines? We don't play with that guy. Okay, I can see why. You made that mistake once. Yeah, and he's always trying to get in on our games, and we're like, no way. Savant guy. It's actually, the funny thing about it is it's one of the only games that if you were to actually do well at the game, it wouldn't be fun. It's based on the fact that everybody fails.

You should be called Everybody Fails. We actually called this embarrassing name, which is Nipples My Garden amongst us. It's called Nipples My Garden because it's one of the things that came out of one of the first times we played it. But you show it it to people down the line and then if you lay all the pictures out uh after you're done it's like the funniest thing it'll be like an alien that turns into marge simpson and right right that's kind of brilliant yeah that's awesome and that's what the video is i don't know if you've seen it mike but yeah it's like a video version of that yeah it's you and dan in the beginning and you set up a scene and then there's a team after you it has to do the same thing you put something on the wall they have did they have to draw the stuff that was on the wall as well yeah so we played it yeah they did they had to create all recreate all

the set pieces and everything we played the game twice so we play it played it once with the uh with the costumes and so we'd show them our shirts and then they had to recreate our shirts and then we'd show them the video of the last team. We'd show it three times, and then they would have to recreate that. Yeah, it's just quick. It's like, what, like five, ten seconds, just real? The video? I mean, just like each team.

Thirteen seconds, technically, because it's eight bars of four. Gotcha. So it turned out to be exactly so that it lines up with the song and everything. Awesome. Thought ahead. Hey, you're a thinker. I should have said that in your intro. Oh, really should well you can edit it i'll edit that in cool cool it'll be seamless perfect thinking is kind of more of a side project though okay

words primary words word lately yeah okay we should do thinking with friends you want to go first, Ben? Okay. No. I can't accept that. Really? This isn't an X-rated podcast. Sorry, guys. I'm a little disturbed. Jeez. I just don't. I mean, it's just distracting the way you guys are dressed.

Look, we were wearing mesh T-shirts before we got here. Do you mind if I describe how you guys are dressed? Sure. Yeah. Break down the fourth wall. So, like, Josh is over here. He's got this, like, tiny bicycle helmet. Under it what looks to be a wig.

I don't know, but it's like one of these Rapunzel wigs that goes all the way down. Okay. I have an itchy scalp. Could be natural. I have an itchy scalp. What looks to be a wig. What looks to be. Exactly.

He's wearing a wedding dress, which is odd. Right. Mike. It was my mother's. He's over to my left. He's actually all... He's completely shaved his head. Yes.

And he's kind of sculpted his eyebrows into spheres. I don't even know how you do that. I don't feel like going into it right now, honestly. And then he's naked except two things. Then he's not naked. He's got this huge hot dog. Steve Urkel tattoo. That's not a hot dog. Then he's not naked. He's got this huge Steve Urkel tattoo. That's not a hot dog, Josh.

Oh, boy. He's got this Steve Urkel tattoo with a word bubble that just says, Did I do that? No, no, no. Look at it. It says, Got any cheese? And then he's wearing this huge pendant that's like a full-size deer head. Yeah.

I think that might just be a deer head that you dipped in gold. I think it's crazy you guys dress up like this's like a full-size deer head yeah i think that might just be a deer head that dips in gold i think it's crazy you guys dress up like this to do a radio show it's like well we want to look good well it helps yeah it's part of our image you look good you feel good then you make there should be like a a pro vegan uh sign that that shows like steve urkel and it says got any cheese no yeah i think? No! I was actually just thinking about Steve Urkel's got any cheese. It's kind of the funniest thing to actually try to impersonate. If you try to impersonate it,

it makes you laugh to yourself so hard. Yeah, I had a co-worker who would do it, and I would make him do it to tables. Or he'd be like, do you want any cheese? But he'd say, like, Urkel. I don't remember him... I can hear him saying it, but I don't remember him i i can hear him saying it but i don't remember him saying that urkel yeah i remember did i got any cheese yeah that's good

sorry i couldn't even do it it's too embarrassing let's all do it let's all do it all right on the count of three ready one one two three got any cheese see that was fun i don't think i've done something like that since i was like nine where we like when you're really loud at the same time someone and urkel probably did that all the time yeah you know i do that uh if you get a chance you should really look up the video on how to do the urkel yeah it's instructional yeah cool dance called the urkel yeah yeah so um how did you get into video editing and directing um because you've got your fingers and a lot of pies i do i do i like to uh i like to have a lot of irons in the fire as they say sure um pies in the fire i uh it's probably too many i'm trying to i'm trying to whittle it down trying to focus more on just a couple things but it's hard because at this point if you're trying to find like any amount of actual success um you kind of have to stay flexible but

but uh yeah it's weird too because if you if you focus on one thing you'd feel like you'd get better just at that one i don't know sometimes i get caught up in that where it's like divest like your energy going so many different ways it's like well if i just focused on one thing exactly then it's not as fun it's hard to uh it's hard to balance yeah and it's a lot easier to now to be involved in so many different absolutely and have so many different like yeah accounts on different websites that's like the thing that drives me crazy like all day long is like tweeting facebooking like doing your own publicity yeah is always is like the hugest headache it's like you have to do all the work i know and then you have to do all this completely separate work which is just telling people about it right and if you don't do that stuff which you there's no reason you should be good at it

because that's not what you've been doing for like the past like yeah it's weird how that becomes like as much as a challenge as the creative and i always do feel like an asshole like i want people to hear and see the things that i'm doing but it's always like hey guys check this out you end up shouting to like i just feel like i'm screaming at the same 10 people right like over and over again this is my my closest friend yeah i feel like being especially being a filmmaker being a video artist like uh i can't believe those kinds of people have any friends because it's just constantly like will you guys like let me like hang out like shoot the scene in your room just real cool for days that's like yeah for free i can't pay you but i could

bring like hummus yeah and in fact could you make me lunch because i'm really busy i'm sorry guys exactly um yeah yeah and i hate that too like with the Facebook and Twitter and email like when I wake up I already feel behind like I gotta email this person

and post this thing it's just a perpetual life is hard in this new media age I know why can't we just live in like the stone age

or something where they had it easy or half star I suppose there was a place I could go where there's like people to talk to and like maybe they serve drinks or something where they had it easy. Or Half Star. Yeah. I just wish there was a place I could go where there's, like, people to talk to and, like, maybe they serve drinks or something like that where you could just, where it's just made it to hang out with people.

Are you talking about Farmville? Yeah, I'm talking about Farmville. Okay. Send me a request. Send me one of those requests. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm building a bar on my Farmville right now. Oh, wow.

Yeah. That seems kind of disturbing. That's one of the first things you're building, Josh. Well, no. I've got my chicken coops in the barn and I just need a place. Hey, man. Yeah. It seems kind of disturbing. That's one of the first things you're building, Josh. Well, no. I've got my chicken coops in the barn, and I just need a place. Hey, man. You got your eggs? Right.

You need your beer. Right? You're doing your raw eggs, and you just need to do that. And I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket. I don't. I don't. And I'm not going to. I was hoping that we would just stop talking for the rest of the podcast after he said

that joke. Whatever. We can edit it. I'm going of the podcast after he said that joke. Whatever. We can edit it. I'm going to make the really cool bus. It'll run on peanut oil. What? Yeah. You could.

I think you can. It's just more expensive, I think. So? So? I'm going to make it run on liquid money. You guys know what happens when you ejaculate? You pee nut oil. You get it?

Nut oil? Oh, okay. Oh, okay. I didn't think it was the end of the joke. Now I got it. Now I got it. Now I got it. So did you originally start out in video editing? No, I wish my story into video was exciting in any way.

Me too. My grandfather died and left me his video camera in his will and said, start making videos and editing them. No, not at all. It's not what happened. It was my grandma. It's like I was at college. I was doing graphic design. And I hated it because it was so constrictive.

And then I found video. And I started doing that for the last few years. And that was like a huge, because it's the opposite. You can do anything. And the teachers there were like that. They were just like because it's the opposite it's you can do like anything and and the teachers there were like that they were just like here's the camera go create your assignment today is love you know that kind of stuff and so it was really exciting love exactly and so i kind of i guess i can't use this uh stock nazi footage i kind of found like what i like to do with that and and then after college i started show beast which we haven't mentioned yet yeah um which is uh which

we won't that's that's cool you know just edit that out okay um which is just i won't even describe it then no please do you tell me what it is it is i'm imagining like a some sort of primitive animal some sort of ancient animal that like dances yeah and and maybe he plays a harp and that's wow that's shockingly close except he plays a five guitar like that one guy a five guitar later has like five necks on Yeah, so right after I got a college I started this like Char I just started traveling this tiny creature that dances right right which was cool because it didn't have anything to do with video or Anything like that. Yeah, right exciting, right? psych Wait, let's rewind the tape show beast uh-huh is this uh see this is the other thing i was telling you how i like to convolute my yeah art um it's always really hard

for me to categorize show beast and so i recently come up with a slogan for show beast that is films for people who like television for the internet and so like the problem the problem is so it's like a kind of a children's style show that comes out irregularly uh with no set time limit and anything so that's the thing it's like we were like we want to make this cool show like we were out of college and we were super naive and we were like we'll make it it'll be cool because the idea was to like be able to incorporate all of our friends because video is very collaborative we can get comic books made and like dvds made and have our friends guest star in it and do all this stuff and then we quickly realized how insanely hard it is to make like we're essentially

trying to make short films but calling them tv and putting them out irregularly but calling it a show it just didn't it never really made sense and i'm still doing it like we're still doing it we're just taking our time we're actually gonna we're actually right now working on a full length right episode like our font like our the first thing that we've wanted to make since in like six years or wow i'm sorry let me say that again six years ago the first thing that we wanted to make was a full episode. It's like that was always our dream

and then we have never been able to do it. So like a half hour long episode? Yeah, absolutely. With commercials and everything. That's awesome. Yeah, well, you do music videos as a part of it too, right? That are just kind of part of the show beast world.

Absolutely. That's something that as a video artist or as a filmmaker, and no one knows you, like, in the DIY scene. DIY just means no one knows who the hell you are. Okay. I'm going to write that down. Which is cool. But one of the best ways to, like, get stuff.

And that's why I like video is you can collaborate. And so it's like, so I don't want to, I like doing video, music videos, just straight up music videos. But what I liked about these Showbeast music videos is that it was more of a collaboration where we would take the song and we would work it into one of our stories so that we're pushing, so Showbeast is this, our own kind of, and we're pushing this video and this song and this band, and then the band is going out and touring and pushing, in effect, pushing our stuff.

So it's like this... Mutual thing. Yeah, exactly, this mutual thing. And that's kind of a niche in the sense, I don't really see a lot of other music videos like that. So that was something that we found to be like one little niche that we had created for ourselves. And they look really good, too.

I mean, conceptually, I saw the video you did for did for dope body and for beach house and it's just really cool that it's in that world as well but it's also could be something on its own like for them as well totally yeah that's what we're trying that's what we try to do yeah and it looked really good too so you just kind of fell into video editing and being a video artist? Or did you, while you were at school, like you... Yeah, I decided. I said, I don't want to do graphic design anymore. I want to do video. Okay.

Where'd you go to school? Purchase College, also known as SUNY Purchase. In Jersey? State University of New York. Oh, New York? Yeah. Yep. Let me finish.

New York? I'm sorry. New York? Yeah. Okay. New York. Thanks. Thanks.

Are you from New York? Yes. Okay. New York. Thanks. Thanks. Are you from New York? Yes. Okay. Why Baltimore? It's another long, uninteresting answer. Keep them coming. We're on a roll. Here we go.

I'm just going to get a drink of water for this one. Do you want some water? Go. Can you hear it? Well, Ben's drinking water. Let's take a moment to thank God for another beautiful day here on Earth. Thank you, God, for another beautiful day on Earth. And we are back.

And we are back. Yeah, so I grew up in upstate New York, northern New York. It's a little town called Oswego. It's near Syracuse. Okay. And then I decided to go to SUNY Purchase for college and art, and that's where I met a lot of the people that I still hang out with in Baltimore, like Dan. Really?

Jimmy Joe Roche. My brother was there, my friend. And all these people moved down to Baltimore? Yeah, well, at first I moved out to Oakland. I was out in Oakland for two years. Okay. Because because i just i'm obsessed with bill and ted's excellent adventure i could tell and i've oh thank you and i've always wanted to go to california i love california right and so at first i was like i want to get as far away from new york as humanly fucking possible and still be in america so i was like oh shit i forgot about

hawaii and alaska right anyway i wanted to go to california so we we we left and everyone always calls like norcal like california's new york so i was like okay i'll check that out so we moved out there and i lived in a warehouse space with, like, seven other people. And I lived in a six-foot by seven-foot pantry in this enormous warehouse space. So my room was, like, essentially six foot. I could barely fit in it. Well, you had first dibs on all the food? There was no food in the pantry. Oh, that's your problem.

No, just my stuff. That's where you went wrong. Stupid. You should have sold all your things and got some food. Absolutely. And this one time we actually couldn't figure out what the smell was. This was really funny. We were like,

and it was blowing. I kept smelling it right in my room. I have this obsession with smells where there's a bad smell. I can't not think it's me. And I can, I can mentally and intellectually know that it isn't. But as soon as i smell it again i'll be like oh my god i smell and then i'll smell myself to make sure i'll take a shower

yeah it's just weird i can't stop it it's like the it's one of the very few things that i watch my brain do that is insane um but anyway so this smell was happening and uh constantly we're like what the hell is it and then we realized we like, a mouse must have died in the walls. Yeah, it's brutal. And so being dumb, we start just hammering away at the walls to find this mouse. Now you do sound a little insane. Yeah, yeah. Find the smell.

Exactly. And then we discover that it actually died in the back of the refrigerator. So we just basically tore apart this wall just to find this. Yeah, you've got to bury those in hallowed ground absolutely absolutely i'll come back um all right so you're you're out in oakland yes so we're out in oakland and uh that's where we start making videos and stuff i mean i'm like 22 23 young but how old were you then dude sorry i'm gonna kill you no um it's weird that he was looking at me when he said that. Oh, boy.

Boy, you're looking at the air conditioner. Yeah, what are you looking at? Because I'm just not trying to make eye contact. I want everyone to imagine at home that we all have our eyes closed. I'm picturing. And whenever I'm not talking, Josh just kind of leans back and he starts brushing his teeth quietly. It's very weird. It is weird.

Now I'm just picturing people at home, like, in the 20s, how they used to sit around the radio. Like, Russian Sessions is on tonight. We should catch it. Martha, turn up the eye, doc. The kids on the carpet. So where was I? I was younger than I am now. What?

And part of that time, I was in Oakland. And then, I mean, basically, it's another kind of uninteresting. I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry, guys. No, I'm very interested in the journey. You just really like uninteresting stuff, I think. I love it. I'm so interested in the uninteresting.

You should see how often he watches the paint dry. I love Ellen. No, actually, Ellen's pretty good. Yeah, Ellen's pretty good. Dr. Phil. She has those YouTube videos. Where else could you go to see YouTube videos? And the thing is, she's so fun.

See the way she dances? She dances every show with a new dance. Really? Can you believe that? Where does she get those? Yeah, Obama came on and danced with You're like, come on. She dances every show with a new dance. Really? Where does she get those? Yeah, Obama came on and danced with her. Oh, my God. Wow.

Yeah. So that's what we got to do to get Obama. Yeah. To start dancing on this podcast. New dances, though. Oh, my God. That would be an awesome way to start your podcast. With a dance? With a new dance.

Every time. I don't know if I could come up with a new dance for every single one. I think we could probably fake it in this audio medium. Yeah, that was kind of the point. Let's do it. All right. Back. Guys.

All right. That's enough. Sorry. Sorry. Back to my story. All right. So where was I? I'm in Oakland.

Ripping the walls open. And I'm younger than I am now. Looking for a mouse. You can imagine what I might look like. More hair. Right. Okay. Pretty much everything I might look like. More hair. Right. Okay. Pretty much everything else is the same.

More teeth. You know, I did have more teeth. More eyebrows. I had some teeth pulled. Several more nostrils. Yeah, actually. It's weird. Put none on your face.

Sorry. Everybody knows. Smaller ears. Everybody knows. Thank you. Thank you. Really cool bus. Everybody knows. Thank you. Thank you. Really cool bus. All right.

Okay. Anyway. Your testicles hadn't dropped yet. Back to the climax of the story. Here we go. We're in Oakland. The roller coaster's going up the hill. Okay, yeah.

So actually, I went on tour at one point. Doing what? With this band. I was in a band with my brother. It was called Nuclear Power Pants. Okay. It was or is. They may still be.

They may have a comeback. Oh, all right. But I'm no longer in the band. But I went on this tour with them, and the last show was in Baltimore. And Wartscape was about four years ago. And so I just stayed. And my brother had already started living in Baltimore, and I knew a is about four years ago. And so I, uh, I just stayed and my brother had already started living in Baltimore and I knew a lot of people here already. And Oakland was just kind of not working out for me, you know, personal reasons. And so I decided just, I'm just going to

stay. So I just called someone up. I just kind of put out a thing on my space. If you can even imagine, right. I, I, Josh and I, I think that's what's in there. I'm working. Bulletin. Do you remember? I can fairly remember like pre-timeline Facebook. So you're going to have to. Yeah, without that wallpaper thing up top.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Top eight? Top eight? Yeah. Dude, I don't want to freak you out right now, but I had a top 24 once. Holy shit. And every single person in it was Mrs. Doubtfire. Wow.

Same picture? Well, actually, I had this really awesomely boring job in San Francisco where I would basically just – Make Mrs. Doubtfire MySpace pages? Well, kind of. I was a lab tech. Doubtfire MySpace pages. You were Robin Williams' assistant. Spread the word. I wish Robin Williams made his assistant make unending Mrs. Doubtfire MySpace pages.

How many MySpace pages did you make today? He's really the only thing keeping MySpace alive right now. I made you 100 Mrs. Doubtfire MySpace pages. Get back in there. He throws his coffee cup at him. Put, I made you a hundred Mrs. Doubtfire MySpace pages. Get back in there. Throws his coffee cup at him. Put him in the hole for a month. He throws you into solitary confinement.

He makes the MySpace pages. This is my life! He makes the MySpace pages or gets the hose again. And those hoses were ugly. Awesome. Sorry. Sorry, Ben. I'm sorry. I wish I was upset.

Me too. Yeah. Get mad. I bet you do. Should I throw something at you? Yeah. What would you throw? You have nothing.

What if I... You have nothing. What if I talk trash about Mrs. Doubtfire? That's cool. I really wanted to... I don't know why I just trash about Mrs. Doubtfire? That's cool. I really wanted to... I don't know why I just kicked your microphone. I did it. I kind of did it on purpose.

Subconsciously angry. I've been really wanting to make this recut of Mrs. Doubtfire. Re-cut? Yeah, where you take out all the scenes with Mrs. Doubtfire. Like in any mention of changing into Mrs. Doubtfire. So I'm fairly certain you can edit it into a story where a man loses his kids in a divorce, gets a job, and then gets his kids back. And I would call it Mr. Hillard.

Okay. Right. How long do you think that movie would be? 25. I started editing it, actually. Really? Yeah. And I think it would be about 25, 26 minutes

Now how have you felt about the Mrs. Doubtfire sequel rumors That have persisted on the internet for several years now? I didn't hear about this until this moment And I can tell you that I am In my heart of hearts The heart in my heart It's cockles The cockles of my heart heart

Is very excited. I can see it. Well, get ready to be even more excited because they are actually in pre-production on Bill and Ted 3. Dude, I was about to bring that up because I know Josh is about to ask me, like, what are your biggest influences? Anyway, don't worry about it. I just asked myself. All right. Crossing it off the list.

I'll tell you honestly my number one and number two favorite movie is bill and ted's excellent adventure and bill and ted's bogus journey really it's true and it's their dumb humor it's like but they take it so seriously and they're such like no i enjoy these amazing characters so this i haven't checked out the sequel since i was a kid is it good it's it's really an amazing thing because the second movie is just so much different than the first. There's so many almost iconic

Bill and Ted things that aren't even in the first one. It's kind of like how in Back to the Future 1, the whole chicken thing doesn't even happen until Back to the Future 2. Really? That's true? Yeah, absolutely. They add it in as a plot device to get through the second or third film. Or there's no of laurie strode being michael myers sister in the first halloween exactly exactly i'm talking about so um but in this like in the second oh also the

old testament no jesus it's a good example that's a really good point that's a good point i never when i'm next time i read it, I'll look. But Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey is like so wild and goofy and cartoony compared to the first one, which is like, I don't even know how to describe it. It's very 80s. Yeah, realistic.

But they're both really amazing. How do you feel about Kiss's God Gave Rock and Roll to You Too being played during the credits of Bogus Journey? I love everything about Bogus Journey. I loved that song when I was a kid. That song is still great. It inspired me to draw a picture of Kiss.

But it's true, though. Bogus Journey and Excellent Adventure, they did really inspire a lot of kiss in fact but but it's true though because but i'm serious like bogus journey and an excellent venture they they did really inspire like a lot of the things like showbeast like there's this way there's this thing that they do in those movies where they take themselves so seriously and not seriously at all in this like they they have these ridiculous characters but they love the characters like you can tell the writers and everyone loves these characters. And that's something that I think is absent of a lot of, like, humorous videos these days. Like, Tim and Eric.

Like, that's my big problem with Tim and Eric. I love them. I think they're really great and they're pioneers in a certain way. But they don't care about their characters. But it's always kind of like a wink to the camera to be like, isn't this so ridiculous? Exactly. And there's no real, like, that doesn't happen in Bogus Journey. It's just like, this is the universe that we live in.

These are the characters, and they're awesome, and they're going to save the day. And we love them, but they're totally dumb. Yeah. Bad robotuses. Exactly. I always thought that was hilarious. Yeah, they have a whole aesthetic to their stupidity,

and it's, and that's, I'm not a witty person as much. I really love just stupid i like how they they really toyed with the the time travel thing too at the end of it because you know whenever you watch like terminator or something like that it's always like well why don't they just go back a whole bunch of times until everything's fixed perfectly oh they have the whole going back to set stuff yeah they're just like dropping trash cans on people you know yeah just everything just sticks up perfectly it doesn't make any sense yeah but in the end So they have the whole going back to set stuff up. Yeah, they're just like dropping trash cans on people, you know. Yeah, absolutely. It's amazing. Just everything just syncs up perfectly.

It's totally – it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. But in the end, do you remember they come back and one dude's got – they got goatees and stuff because they went and practiced. Well, it's like a year later and one of them has like a two-foot beard. Yeah. And they both got kids and then Bill turns around and he goes, this is little Ted. And then Ted turns around and goes, and this is little Bill. Which is amazing, because now their kids would be 21 or 22.

Wow. So I hope Bill and Ted might be the new Ted and Bill. All right. That's a lot of pressure to put on the new actors, though, to take on that franchise. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves are 47. Wow. They're 47 years old. So the babes were different actresses in Bogus Journey

were they not? That's a really good question. I'm pretty sure they were. You know I wouldn't, I didn't notice. And George Carlin merely made an appearance in the sequel right um he he's more than an appearance but he's he's not like a figure throughout like he's he's all through all in the beginning and he's like the savior at the end essentially he's kind of i thought he just kind

of came back at a cameo in the end they bring him back in the end in this kind of ridiculous way where you find out that uh who's foxy brown what's that woman's name uh pam greer pam greer she's in it um you find out that he was pam greer the whole time like she's like pam greer suit and out comes george carlin yeah which is amazing right um what were the did it have like uh was slash in that movie or was it the no it's a no more guy yeah no there are a lot of people a lot of cool people in the faith no more dudes in it but there's a primus uh primus is in the battle of bands right before uh the wild stallions go on and save the world with one song right and then they find out the one because they go through that whole uh they go through through that whole newspaper headlines thing at the end of what happens.

While they're playing, God gave rock and roll to you too. Yeah, one of the headlines is Bill and Ted's 3, 2012. But one of them is air guitar eliminates pollution. Yeah, I remember that. That's awesome. Wow. I thought that was cool yeah i think that i've heard rumors that the third one will be about uh they're they're saving the world with one song but that's what the second one was about was it yeah i think you were just reading the plot synopsis oh maybe i was well and what was that song did we get to hear it it's God gave rock and roll

really welcome to the podcast Mike you've been faking your way in this conversation very well up until now what do you know about God gave rock and roll to you too just that you know it saved the world yeah

see I hope they just make a remake of Bogus Journey and they just put Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter in as 21, 22-year-olds, just with makeup. Right. I think that could be pretty interesting. Kind of Jeff Bridges it, like Tron, that type of thing? Yeah, absolutely.

CGI? No, see, that's what I hope they don't... I'm scared a little bit about this movie. Yeah, I could imagine a bunch of CGI. I hate CGI. Yeah. I could imagine a bunch of CGI. I hate CGI. Yeah. I think Avatar was the... I think that was...

I think that movie's evil. Why has no one noticed that CGI is terrible until a year ago? I think it works in some settings, but I don't... When you can't tell that it's there. Yeah, there's certain stuff that I didn't realize. Like the John Adams series that it's there. Yeah, there's certain stuff that I didn't realize. Like the John Adams series that was on HBO. I saw a little behind-the-scenes thing.

Stuff I didn't realize. Like when they had huge crowds, that was CGI. They'll just have like 25 people. Right. That stuff doesn't really bother me. Yeah, using it to enhance something where you don't even almost notice it's there is totally fine. Not where it's like egregious to the point of how it's hard. Jurassic Park used both

like puppets and CGI. It was made like 20 years ago and it looked way better than last. Yeah, it looked amazing. That's something that people constantly come back to. But what I really think

is like the weird, there's this idea that people have as like I think a general audience, that technologies change because that's what's better to make movies. Because CGI must just look better, but it's not. And the reason that they do CGI is because it's cheaper.

But people don't think that. It's the same thing with HD. HD, film, is still higher, better quality than HD, than digital. And so it's like that in the sense that like, whoa. Sorry. Oh, my God. Don't worry, it's a CGI dog. A dog in here.

Sorry, Ben. No, it's cool. I love dogs. She just got home from doggy daycare. Oh, wow. That's Munza. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

She loves new people, too. I had a dog that literally looks exactly like that dog No no no that's not me I think No actually you know what Every time I see a dog I just lose it What about your smell? I release Your bowels and the smell

Cause I'm deathly afraid of dogs But no it's cool I've got some wieners in my pocket deathly afraid of dogs. But no, it's cool. I've got some wieners in my pocket. I feel like Bill and Ted's bogus journey kind of marked the end of the 80s aesthetic. It was like hyper 80s. Right. And it was made in probably like 92, right?

Somewhere around there. I wish I knew. It would make me sound smarter. Pretty sure I was in 50s. Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's about 91 or 92. Because Excellent Adventure is 89. And I know it was at least like three or four years. Yeah, it was a pretty big gap.

Because I remember Excellent Adventure was like early to mid-elementary school for me. Yeah, yeah. And Bogus Journey was definitely middle school. Yeah, yeah. Totally. But if we could talk about Jurassic Park, you were in a live production of jurassic park yes that's true really yeah wham city did a wham city had put up jurassic park um twice and i was in the second round that's i was i was newman i can't remember his name right now you know what i mean though yeah yeah yeah the guy who caused all basically the only if you if

you could have there is the weird thing with that movie is there's no arch nemesis to it. There's no, like, huge bad person. It's like, this nerdy dude is selfish, and then it kind of sets everything else in place. There's no, like, really big bad guy to go against. I guess as a child, you probably think it's T-Rex or something. Right, right. But dinosaurs just be dinosaurs. Exactly.

That's all they're doing. They're just doing what dinosaurs do. So, yeah, I could tell you a funny story about that. This better be uninteresting. Oh, no. Actually, you're right. This isn't going to be good, but I'm going to say it anyway. Okay.

I'd wear this kind of big, large man suit to play him. Robbie Ratcliffe is a good friend of mine. He's also in Wham City, and he's also in wham city and he also on the comedy tours and everything he played the character before me and when he would do is like we just totally exaggerate him and he would eat like this green oatmeal while he was in i just kind of like constantly be scarfing down this oatmeal and so i i didn't want to like steal his thing but i i something that i haven't which i'm sure is going to open like a whole pandora's box of questions is i spent many years being a raw foodist and i would eat things like raw meat raw chicken raw eggs raw everything it's just a lot of experimentation it's a very like

kind of veal parmesan exactly okay um hot dogs you know yeah um anyway so i thought it'd be cool to eat uh raw raw meat to just, so I would, I would get a steak every night and just eating it. And then I would just like pop these raw eggs in my mouth. And the first night I had sauerkraut too. I was like, I'll do sauerkraut, which was a stupid idea because it's so smelly. And the sauerkraut juice got all over everything. And I thought it was me.

And, uh, and it made everything stink and then everyone was kind of like okay Ben we won't allow you to use the sauerkraut anymore I'm like okay but then the last night uh that we did the performance I got an entire chicken and I got on on stage and I was breaking eggs into the inside of the chicken and then drinking it out of the raw chicken oh my god And then biting into it. Some crazy cannibalistic sort of... That's what Rocky should have been doing. Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. That's what Rocky did on Thanksgiving. Yeah, they call it Rocky style. That's like what they call it when you do eggs like that. Rocky turkey. Rock turkey. Rock and roll turkey.

Rocky is one of those movies that's really awesome. Yeah, it is. But you forget about how cool it is because of all the sequels it's like scream that's the same way i feel like scream yeah yeah i haven't seen screaming in a long time i remember enjoying it but i think i was like especially for 12 about higher exactly it's it's it's good for that it's also just like it just reminds me of that time it's one of those movies that you just watch it and you're like transported back to the 90s. 95 or something.

Yeah. Ball necklaces, bleached hair. The newest Rocky I thought was pretty good. Oh, really? The Rocky Balboa? Yeah. I didn't see that one either. I saw it.

It kind of just, I mean, there's the Rocky formula if you stick to it and you've got Sylvester Stallone doing his thing. Yeah. But I feel like they did it right. It was a good. Yeah. I thought there was some nice touches to it. Which one is the one where he fights Drago?

Is that Rocky IV? It's Rocky IV. That's like the height. It's so funny. Yeah. That's one of my favorite bad movies. Rocky runs up a mountain in like 15 seconds. The training montage is so long that there's like an intermission.

I love it. Totally. And there's like several thinking man backflash scenes. I love it. Totally. And there's like several like thinking man backflash scenes. Right, yeah. And some of the backflashes are actually from Rocky IV.

Yeah, no, they really pared it down like the first, they got the Rocky formula and the number three was like a little weird like Rocky sells out for, I don't remember

Rocky, with Mr. T. I watched several of them recently. That I feel like got pulled into that like 80s. Yeah, that one was fun though. 80s decadence. That, I feel like, got pulled into that, like, 80s. Yeah. That one was fun, though. I thought it was.

80s decadence. That's when they stopped trying to make, like, gritty dramas and just made it fun. And I thought that one was pretty fun. Yeah, yeah. It has the Rocky, like, at the end of his, at the edge of his, what's the word? End of his rope. Uh-huh. You notice, like, the first Rocky movie has literally, like, eight minutes of boxing in it.

Yeah, yeah. No, Rocky I is, like, an incredible film. Right. Yeah, yeah. No, Rocky I is like an incredible film. Right. Yeah, it's just for like a drama. It won an Oscar. It beat Taxi Driver for an Oscar. Wow, I didn't know that. And then you jump to Rocky IV.

Yeah, and then you jump to Rocky IV and it's like, it takes pretty much just like the meat of whatever that movie was. And puts it out in like an hour and a half. You know what I think a really fun podcast to do would be like to review movies, like the best and the worst in a series. And put them together and a half. What I think a really fun podcast to do would be to review movies, the best and the worst in a series, and put them together and review them. And also do... Like Austin Powers next to Goldmember. Do Rotten Tomatoes,

0% movies against 100% movies. What do you mean by against? You just review one and you review the other? And we compare them. Would you pick movies with a similarity? Poss similarity possibly i think you'd have to right otherwise it's just well this one sucks this one's good yeah yeah you should probably try to find some sort of link there it would be awesome if you just were like this one sucks this one's good next these two movies this one sucks this one's good yeah the quickest podcast yeah that's a minute

and a half. Guys, it's Twitter. Tune in next week. Yeah. It's the Twitter age. Everything's speeding up. Twitter podcast. 140 characters in these podcasts. Not even.

I'm starting a new Twitter. Guess what? 10 characters. Get the... Yeah. Wow. See that? I didn't even use all those characters in that sentence.

It's called... Why don't you ease down to... I mean, you might want to start with like 14 characters. Let's not go nuts here. Whoa. All right. Slowly. Push it to the edge. I knew that I was going to get this kind of reaction. I mean, if we do it slowly, then maybe characters. Let's not go nuts here. Whoa. Slowly. Push it to the edge.

I knew that I was going to get this kind of reaction. I mean, if we do it slowly, then maybe we can get down to nine or eight characters eventually. Wow. Okay. All right. Just emoticons. Do you want to make $1,000 now or $1,000,000 next year? $1,000 right now.

Yeah. All right. Because what am I going to eat for the whole year while I'm waiting? Dead mice in the wall? No. No. In the fridge. In the fridge, which means it's been kept cool. No. No.. Dead mice in the wall? No. In the fridge.

In the fridge, which means it's been kept cool. No, not that part of the fridge. No. Underneath it? The hot part. You have a hot compartment? I remember thinking that as a kid. I thought I would invent the heater.

You got your fridge. You got your freezer. I'm going to invent a third compartment that keeps stuff warm the outside of the fridge called the oven yep that's called the oven all right i never understood why the washer dryer had to be separate either well also i never realized why there's no foods that have to be kept warm like you got to keep that that hot or it's gonna go bad well some stuff doesn't taste as good when you reheat it, though. Yeah, that's true. But, I mean, there's nothing that you can, like, store hot.

Yeah, I know. It'd be a small compartment. Your child brain just made me realize something. Refrigerator is smaller than refrigerator. We all know that. Heater will be even smaller. Obviously. Done.

So you just put, what, like a steak in there or a burger? Yeah, if you got something that you – or like you come home from a restaurant, you got like Chinese food or something. You're not really hungry then. It's not going to be as good when you reheat it. You know in like an hour you're going to be hungry. And maybe it has a detachable thing so that when you go to the restaurant, you put it right in there so it doesn't get cold. Just like one of those bags that keep the pizza in. Yeah, exactly. I remember when they came out with that, I was a kid, and they were all over the...

I don't watch TV, so I don't know if there's still a ton of Domino's commercials, but for some reason when I was a kid, it was only Domino's commercials. Well, so then you're unaware of Domino's newest campaign? It's really kind of unique. They're like, hey, we suck. Yeah, exactly. Come eat our pizza anyway. Feel bad for us.

Almost. Well, they just go, hey, guys, we suck Come eat our pizza anyway, feel bad for us Almost Similar They just go, hey guys, we know we used to suck But now we don't suck as much I kind of think it's brilliant They admit that their pizza has been horrible for years And they've gotten horrible reviews I love the commercials too Where they're supposed to be doing a blind taste test and it's these people in a room and they're eating

this pizza and they're like oh this is pretty good like what if i told you that was domino's pizza made with farm fresh tomatoes and the walls fall in the room and they're in the middle of they're in the middle of a farm and it's supposed to be like a real thing and they're supposed to be genuinely shocked like oh this is a farm oh my it's like they be a real thing, and they're supposed to be genuinely shocked. Like, oh, this is a farm? Oh, my. It's like they've noticed when they walked in the goddamn room. Or they brought in like they were going to interview Osama bin Laden. Right, like blindfolded under a tunnel.

It was just so stupid. And that's your selling point? Is that why you use real tomatoes now? Like, what the fuck did you use before? They should just have a thing that says, like, compare it to Papa John's. Like, you know how Rite-Aids will be like, compare this to Head & Shoulders. They kind of kind of do that i think on pizza commercials like the other guys yeah they're they're not as uh nasty about it you know what dignity i don't want to

freak you guys out do it do it i liked domino's pizza i loved deep dish as a kid that was my i just i i feel like domino's like took it when i was a kid. I loved Deep Dish as a kid. That was my jam. I loved Pizza Hut. I just liked pizza. I feel like Domino's took a... When I was a kid, I liked it. But I think it took a dive in the 90s. And I think that's what they're addressing in the commercial. Do you blame the Noid? They stopped trying. I'm going to open up that question to both of you guys.

I blame his absence. I know. Why isn't the Noid returned? He came out with that sick Nintendo game. Did you guys ever play that? I think so, maybe. It was... Probably at some point.

It was fun. It was just good times. The whole time you just run away from the Noid? No, no. Dude, I don't want to blow your mind. Just don't look at him. Just don't talk. I don't want to freak you guys out, but you are the Noid.

Whoa! Yes. And it's wild. Whoa. Wow. Okay, now this is starting to make more sense. I am the Noid. Wow.

I'm getting the Noid with you. Now, who do you think would win in a fight? The Noid or the 7-Up Spot? I like to think the 7-Up Spot because that dude's so cool. I was about to say the sunglasses. He was awesome. Did you ever play that game? He could be the 7-Up Spot guy.

Wait, what? There was a Spot game. What? Yeah, for sure it spot guy. Wait, what? There was a spot game. What? Yeah. I'm pretty sure it was called The Spot, wasn't it? Oh, that video game. I thought you were like, have you ever played the game where you sit around and think about, like, what would you wear if you were the spot? Yeah, have you ever played that? That's how you play it. Yeah, yeah. Jesus Christ.

Am I speaking English? Yeah, I'd wear a tiny bike helmet with a wig under it. Okay. Alright. That's a good choice. It's a sharp look. Thank you. That is a sharp look. I have excellent taste. Did you guys know they're making a movie of the Frosted Mini Wheats guy that turns around

and he's a different person? They're turning that into a full-length movie? Yeah. Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Frosted Wheat. Dude. For some reason, I love convincing people that they're making a movie. Yeah. I have this idea for a show, and that reminds me of it.

And I want to let it out on the airwaves because I just love my ideas getting started. I would love to, but we're out of time. Oh, okay, cool. All right. No, it's cool. Well, go ahead. All right, fine. Go ahead.

I'm going to make time. And I just want to say that no one can take this idea. This is, in essence, me copywriting this idea. I'm seeing the little C in a circle pop up around you okay cool so ben o'brien all you know i own all right patent pending yeah that's how it is we're not just playing words with friends here all right this is business all right great um so any of you punks out there you better lawyer up if you're gonna yeah don't triple word score this so i can actually hear his opinion because i'm not sure what to call it but i was originally going to call it spencer's house

and it's this house and every single piece of furniture everything in the house and everything that uh spencer wears is from spencer's gifts so like all he eats is penis pasta like he only wears all ass posters right all of the cups say pimp and glitter. Totally. And his furniture is blow-up furniture. He's got Miley Cyrus posters all over it. Shirts with no fat chicks. Exactly. But he is super lovable.

Okay. Absolutely just the most likable, lovable guy. It's kind of like the Bill and Ted thing. This is his universe. That's just who he is. Now, do we take a Bane style origin story Where we explain why and how Or do we go the Joker route

Where we leave it a complete mystery Complete mystery And so then the other ideas that I have Is that his neighbor Everything from Hot Topic And then I was thinking he could have this Beautiful girl Victoria I was going to say the icing

Victoria Who's always wearing underwear that's how you pitch it to the networks i know i see um and you could have one uh that just has uh gordon's bookstore stuff gordon's uh-huh gordon's house what about his what about his aunt annie always making pretzels ordealias um right yeah i was thinking you know like i was always thinking you could call it mall town yeah and just everyone but i also like spencer's house i think i think anyway it's just a mall though where people live yeah that's that's what i'm worried about it's like

you have to be careful how so it's not like some alternative universe where people live in the mall like when i know no no no it's like they're it's a neighborhood but no one ever mentions it these people buy stuff so do they say like hey i'll be i'm going down to spencer's yeah yeah they don't say they never mentioned they're not like hey where'd you get all these lava lamps you know right he never tells him it's just like obvious right and you're doing this to avoid copyright infringement right no i see what see why i think it's a it's a brilliant and or stupid idea is that you get Spencer's to pay for it. Right. Absolutely.

You're saying, hey, we're making this cool show. Now, at the end, would you have to say merchandise provided by Spencer's? Absolutely. I think it'd be fine if it was a 30-minute long commercial for Spencer's. It has to be. It's basically all product placement the entire time. Absolutely. I think that Spencer's needs a lot more play.

That's all I'm saying. Yeah. Let's get them in more malls, you know? Totally. Can the little guy get a chance? Exactly, man. I'm sick of just like the local Spencer's, you know? Right.

These mom and pop assholes. Yeah, exactly. Can the 1% get a break? Where would I go to get, like, you know... Plastic boobs. Yeah, exactly. Or, like, a federal body inspector card. Am I supposed to get high without a Blacklight Bob Marley poster?

Am I? I don't know. It's a shame. Is that what they... That's what they want. Where else are you going to buy in a Treyu t-shirt? Exactly. Spencer would have a whole Blacklight room, and every...

You wouldn't have doors. You'd only have beaded curtains. That Treyu t-shirt? Exactly. Spencer would have a whole blacklight room. He wouldn't have doors. He would only have beaded curtains. That are made out of blacklights. Exactly. Incense. Oh, dude. I'm just realizing his house would be cool. It would be a lot of fun.

Totally. Cool little Elvis dancing clock. He'd have a disco ball and that weird light thing that spins. Would he have the adult room? How they have one glow-in-the-dark dildo that's not shaped like a penis. It's just kind of like... Yeah, and the posters with the babes.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Would that be confined to one room or would that be everywhere? I think it's just kind of out. I think it's just mixed. But he has a black light. He's got to live in this place.

Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I think he should just make the But he has a black life. He's got to live in this place. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I think you should just make the back corner like the adult corner, like how Spencer's kind of is. The back corner. Yeah, yeah.

Rubber penises and boobs. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Let's do a reality show. Can you live in Spencer's house? Whoa. Novelty lighters. Absolutely.

Sex champion and whatnot. Yeah, yeah. I'm guessing they would die of starvation because I don't think they sell food. But... Oh, I bet they have some sort of creepy candy. No, they have penis pasta. I was telling you.

Oh, penis pasta. It's only penis pasta. No sauce. Just penis pasta. Mm-hmm. Just... Okay. I like it.

It's ice too, I think. Ice trays. Ice, sure, yeah. You can have ice trays. Sure. Yeah. If they make it Spencer's Faucet. There's really no limit to the idea. It's really why it's such an amazing thing.

It's completely ridiculous. But it's great. Maybe that would be a fun reality show too. You spin a wheel and you have to live off of only stuff from that store forever. That Craigslist movie that's coming out. Why did I sign up for this game?

Zach Galifianakis produced this, or he's either producing it or distributing it, but this Craigslist movie where some dude tries to live

for like a year off of only stuff he can get off of Craigslist. Wow. I don't really know what the rules are. It seems kind of ridiculous.

I don't really get it, but it looks like this touching documentary where at times he cries and things. Does that mean everything has to be delivered? My internet doesn't work everything's yeah i don't know i mean he needs the internet right it has to i don't know i mean yeah we'll just have to say it yeah definitely i don't think there's like a newsletter craigslist newsletter yeah no if you like the following items they have who took out my hooker section? I have a giant book that comes out every year.

Do you see Miss Connections? Wild stuff this week. You might be able to live off of Craigslist on the West Coast, but trying to live off of Craigslist in Baltimore would be like, if you want to do porn, you could totally live off of Craigslist. Yeah, does he have to? Well, I want to do porn. Dude, Craigslist has some listings for you.

Let's make the movie. Let's make the movie. Let's do it. So why were you a raw foodist? That's another... No, that's actually almost an interesting story. Almost. I had some rough times in college, as everyone does, because it's fucking college and college sucks. Getting acclimated.

So I had my first kind of dealing with depression. I had a bad year. And I have this really amazing cousin who's kind of a total nutball, but an awesome, awesome dude. And he is obsessed with health. He's a very obsessive person. He's very regimented with his diet and with everything and that he does right and um we had kind of just reconnected

he lived out in la and he was and i was like kind of talking to him like every day and he was like dude you have to come out to la um for the summer i'll hook you up with like he's like you won't have to pay for anything i'll feed you all this stuff as long as you eat exactly how i eat and he had just told me about this new diet where he was eating like raw eggs raw milk cream raw like i said raw meat raw chicken just like tons of wow crazy stuff so i was like all right i was like so ready to for any kind of change and up to this point i had pretty much been eating like Oreos dipped in peanut butter and like, you know, Mountain Dew and Pepsi. Right. Dollar menu stuff.

You know, if someone was like, hey, do you want some water? I'd be like, why would I want water? Excuse me. Is there caffeine in that? I mean, what are you talking about? I'll drink a Mountain Dew. Thank you. Yeah. And so I had never really done anything. I never really thought about health. And so I went out there and I'd never even eaten a peach or an apricot or a strawberry, really, until I went out there. You never had a strawberry?

No, I never did. Just not into fruit? I just wasn't. I wasn't. I mean, now I'm a much different person, which is the point of the story. Spoiler alert So he has me I go out there And LA is actually very cold

I mean it's cool It's very cool So I was like I don't want to wear pants On the plane Because I look like a total idiot When I get there And everyone's wearing shorts

And I get there And everyone's like long sleeves Long pants And I'm like shivering Because it's nice and cool It's always 70 I didn't know anything I was a total idiot.

But I went out there and – Drinking your Mountain Dew in your shorts. And as soon as I get there, he's like – he gave me a bowl of raw chicken. He's like, go for it. So I started doing it. Oh. It didn't make you sick? How was that?

No, it didn't. Because I feel like the consistency just in your mouth would be gnarly. Actually, some of the easiest starting raw meat is raw chicken soaked in lemon juice. It kind of gives it – it's got an easier texture. It's soft. It's kind of like fish, essentially. Okay. I can see that.

For some reason, it was more mentally hard for me to eat raw beef for a while. You never got sick? No, I never got sick. And since then, I've eaten hundreds of pounds of chicken. Wow. It's a lot about – the whole thing, if you really look pounds of chicken. Wow. It's a lot about the whole thing. If you really look at the numbers of it, it's a lot about where you get it from. And even then, the numbers aren't really that much different than cooked.

It just isn't. It's just a lot of... What do you mean, numbers? What I mean is the numbers of how many people eat cooked processed food and get salmonella or some sort of food poisoning versus eating raw stuff you know and i i generally try to make sure i get my stuff from good sources but and it's just as good for you as well absolutely i mean or better absolutely the idea is that it's better um i don't know you know what i have no idea right i was ready for i did it and i still kind of i have there's certain aspects of

it that i still to this day absolutely hold like i do it because i feel good yeah yeah well vegetables definitely helped me with my depression totally i mean just food in general it's oh my god yeah food's awesome amazing we're animals i love it is it does your appendix exist because our ancestors had to eat so many raw meats supposedly it's it come that's what the appendix is for right it's like judging the toxicity of your body i can't remember i don't know something like that they they they used to say when we were kids they're like oh that no reason for it right which is like even when i was a kid i was like that is so dumb you know the egyptians uh felt the same way about the brain believe it or not really oh yeah we toss it out when they mummify yeah where they embalm and mummify you, they would do the heart

and your liver. And then they'd just toss it. That is awesome. The aliens should have told them that first. Before they showed them how to make pyramids. Earlobes, too. Vestigial. Don't eat them. I like them, though. I like my

earlobes. I do, too. I think they look nice around my ear holes. They do. They kind of cut my They kind of I think they look nice Around my ear holes They do They do Anyway I chose to keep them They look good

They balance out the head Yeah Yeah I think they do Sure Alright so you're eating raw food Love and life You know

And I did I started getting real happy And real excited And I mean I was also on the beach And body surfing I would say were you exercising too? I was was body so yeah i lost a lot of weight and but i was eating so much like cream and like honey it was great it was wonderful and i would also meet these people who at this like secret raw farmer's market there's like kind of like this underground

thing you had to like it's illegal to sell yeah it's like yeah because you can't sell raw milk you can okay but you still it's a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot of different stuff you can't sell raw meat to eat like right away without a whole nother bunch of hoops so but whatever i don't really know their whole deal they're kind of sketchy but there's this giant it's like this big metal wall with this like door like out but outside essentially it's this big like gate and you go up you're like knock but outside essentially it's this big like gate and you go up you're like knock and they like let you in like come on and uh you do a chicken through exactly and so so uh so i was meeting these people who were like i used to stutter uncontrollably i

had these headaches i couldn't get out of bed blah blah blah and now eating this way now you know they're up and about and they're walking around and they you know they feel a lot better so i was just hearing all these constant stories for a while i was kind of like hypnotized by it i was like this is the way life should be and everyone needs to eat this way and this is going to take over the world right you know because i was young um and so i brought so so i was like upset so i got kind of obsessed with it and i i did it for for many years and i brought it back and like i tried to get everyone into it and all this stuff. And that's all you ate?

That was all I ate, almost completely raw, except I would eat some potatoes, which is on the diet, for about, let's see, straight up for probably about three, four years. Wow. Damn. Maybe four or five. So you couldn't really eat out at a restaurant then? I mean, I could get sushi. I would make certain, like, small exceptions. And then, of course, you eventually, you're like, oh, I just want to, you know, be friends with people and hang out.

Go out and enjoy. And I'd always be the one the one like eating out of a jar like yeah 10 feet away from everybody else so i i started and also i realized you know maybe i was eating a lot i don't know it listening to your body takes years i think it's like you start doing it and it just kind of you never stop after that it's like you realize oh when i eat this i feel like total garbage yeah when i eat this i feel great so i'm gonna keep eating that so now it's like to this point fast forward seven years i'm i'm still doing these like lots of raw milk some raw eggs raw honey like i love that stuff and i do a lot of like traditional style meals like soups and chicken and just i don't do anything

processed and i don't do anything with added sugar for the most part now i'm like super laid back though i'm like whatever but okay that's my basic thing okay i like to micromanage my life in almost every possible way make it more complicated the better exactly yeah awesome man so where do you get where do you get your food where do you shop um i love whole foods i love it it's pricey huh i don't it's like the one evil thing I'm sure there's tons of evil things I like but it's one of the totally evil things Mike Moran's a Satanist I'd say I love Mike Moran

I love Mike Moran too he's a good guy and Whole Foods I just get excited when I see it but I also like to not pay for some things. Okay, edit that. Yep.

Make it so you say you pay all the time. I don't love Whole Foods as a person. I love it as it has great food that I like. So you essentially use Whole Foods. You tell it you love it. Exactly, yes. Absolutely, totally unhealthy relationship. Right, right.

Like, I wasn't a giant baby i don't even like her totally safeway gross yeah okay all right all right all right so i think we've learned a lot about ben yeah i think we have that's pretty much all there is well i don't think we talked about you doing stand-up oh yeah how'd you how'd you get into stand-up um my grandfather died he gave me his microphone and he said make him laugh johnny dick you're like my name's ben yeah whatever tell the dick jokes um no i just started doing it i mean the way that people start it's like you start doing it in front of your friends at these like small open mics or whatever. And you're terrible, but your friends are laughing and you're doing it.

You're like, oh, whatever. I'll go up and tell a couple jokes. And then you go up there and it's kind of funny. And you're like, oh, that was fun. Maybe I'll tell a couple more stupid jokes. And then you eventually start to widen your audience. And you're like, oh, OK. Maybe I can actually do this and this is fun.

Awesome. But I like to do it as a side project because it's unlike everything else I do. I need no one else to do it and I need almost no equipment. So it's like super... Yeah, that's the great thing about it. It's totally great. And you can bring it everywhere with you. It's super awesome.

So it's really like a fun thing. It's also like I have anxiety problems. So it's like the only like 10 minutes that i don't have anxiety is when i'm on right wow i was gonna say wouldn't that just i bet it the same way i mean like it there is definitely because there's just nothing you can do like you can't think about it you can't like it's a fight or flight thing like i'm here i better fucking be in the moment yeah and essentially yeah you're just in the moment if you're not in the moment you have lost and especially once in the moment. If you're not in the moment, you have lost.

Especially once you get more confidence in your routine, that kind of fear turns more into excitement because you're like, this goes well. This will be fun to do if it continues to go well. Not that you can't. There's always bombing. Bombing is great, though.

Because you learn? If you don't know how bad something can be, you don't appreciate how good it can be. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And I remember when we were on the first, the last tour, the first tour, I just miraculously did good every night. And we only had nine shows. And they're all packed. It was like a great tour. It made us all feel great.

And then the second tour was a longer tour and did not make us feel as good. And we started out kind of like right near a holiday i can't remember which one at the moment halloween i think and played a lot of places that we don't normally play so we didn't have any draw and we were playing to these like crowds of like eight people now i had never done comedy that was to that few people few people and so i like kind of also because i was managing i didn't have time to work on my own set. So I was like, oh, God. And it's like, even if you do good in front of eight people, if you're not used to it, it makes you feel weird.

You're like, oh, you just feel bad. So what I started to do was go out into the crowd and just sit with them. I saw you do that at Auto Bar at Chuckle Storm a couple months ago. That makes it more comfortable because now it's not like... It makes the stage seem almost ridiculous when there's eight people

watching. It makes you almost seem like... And especially if you just don't acknowledge the vibe of only eight people in the room and you're just pretending that it's like... If you're just doing your set as you normally would. It's fun to talk to one person and do your jokes in front of them. It's a very funny situation.

And so that would kind of make that more comfortable for me. And then it got to the point where after we got through all those shows and we had an actual audience, I was like, wait, what? How do I do this? You're 57 people. Go. Go. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. But, and I feel like I've kind of, with comedy, I feel like I've kind of gotten to the extent of like the seven to 10 minute routine.

Because I have never done anything really longer. I mean, I've done like performances, like comedic performances. But I mean, I don't know, Mike, have you done like the full length, like 40 minute, 20 minute set? No, I mean, I've headlined, but not more than like 25 minutes. Yeah. So yeah, that's what I need to start breaking into is that because that's the next level of like being able to because you can't do like the crowd going into

the crowd it's funny and you can do it for a little while but in the end it's kind of like a gimmick yeah you can't do it for 45 you can't do it for 40 minutes uh it's a good for a seven minute routine to kind of break the ice and stuff but that's why it's like with comedy there's just these constant rungs it's like as soon as you hit the one, you're like, oh, my God, I'm a comedian. I'm so good. I'm great. And then you immediately are like, oh, no, no, I'm not. I'm just at the next level.

There's always something bigger. There's always something bigger. A Louis C.K. Exactly. You're like, oh, I've got a half hour. It's like, yeah, well, he has his own show and he sells his own sets. Or someone's like, hey, here's a video I took of you performing comedy you're like oh it was so good that night and then you watch the video you're like oh i'm so far to go that was reality huh exactly so your comedy's fun it definitely makes

you a better performer and it pushes what you do and it just also gives you a a venue for all the stupid things that you think yeah nice creative outlet and all the tweets yeah do you do your tweets a tweet do you i see your tweets i love tweeting in name this the most in name crap like i like to just come up with a hashtag it just lists i just like to list you only tweet raw i'm just a i'm a raw tweeter i don't even know what that would mean ben o'brien an old dirty bastard both like it raw. Exactly. Hold on. Let's pull up some Ben O'Brien tweets here. Oh, Jesus. You're going right to my tweets.

Oh, God. This is embarrassing. You can see some of my lists I'm very proud of. Let's see what he's got. I know you're a fan of soup. Oh, yeah. I had some soup tweets the other day. That was cool.

Had some soup tweets. I like to come up with, so that one was possible soup restaurant names. Yeah. And then one of them was Dave's Great Soups. See, I just like to cut absolutely the stupidest tweet. If it can do as many as possible in a row, I'll do it. It's fun.

I forget the one you were doing. You had a whole slew of them, and then the last one was like, Hey guys, Huffington Post just wants to print an article on my Dave tweets or something like that. That one was my nicknames for Richard. That's what it was. Just Ricky, Rich, Dick.

Just all the ones you know. Congratulations on huffing the post, though. No, no. That's fantastic. I know. They're all over my hashtags. Right. Well, it's that next rung of comedy.

HuffPo. I did actually. A couple funny stories. My friend Daniel Kibblesmith is this amazing comedian and just writer for groupon and stuff he's just like whereas i love the stupid like inane it's completely simple stuff he is like exceptionally witty and anyway i i messaged him one day i was like what's the new hashtag let's come on let's start hashing and he jokingly was like he's like rejected olympic events let's do it

and he just started doing it and then that hashtag became the number one oh i saw that yeah that became a thing for like three days straight yeah something like that in the country it was trending and it started trending from that point so that was really funny and it's also like the crazy thing about twitter which is exactly what things are like is that you could start like this huge twitter thing and it just doesn't mean it no one gives a shit yep like every you know i mean like a couple hours later like celebrities were tweeting this thing that we had just started and it just didn't matter it just didn't matter how do you how do you start your own hashtag you just you just start doing it you just type it

yeah you just do a hashtag and write whatever but doesn't it have to like link somewhere no no it automatically links to so it's just like a way of categorizing it okay right yeah so like if you're if it was just more hashtags yeah yeah like i'd be like cool hashtag business right cool shorts and then thinking about dropping out of college and starting a hashtag i'm in the wrong business um yeah hashtag here's hashtag farming, man. That's what you're doing. I don't even know what that means, but it sounds like it should be. Praying for a good hashtag. Nice viral hashtag. Yeah, exactly.

The Lord would just send us a hashtag. I'm obsessed with stupid hashtags. It's just the... Because I'm not witty enough to come up with funny things. That's essentially it. No, I'm not saying I'm not funny. I'm saying witty enough. So I just come up with funny things. That's funny? No, I'm not saying I'm not funny. I'm saying witty enough. So I just come up with lists.

So you guys can hash with me if you want. I would love to hash it out. Let's have a hash off tonight. That's cool. I think we can do it. Which should we hashtag, guys? Knuckle tattoos. Knuckle tattoos?

Good one I was thinking about doing that one Good one Just two four letter words in a row Alright Let's do it Let's do it tonight alright Okay

Everybody in Knuckle tats Knuckle tats on three Alright One Two Three Knuckle tats on three

Wait Oh Okay So We Yeah Synchronicity We moved on It's the other thing Oh did you want to talk about the police? Hashtag synchronicity we moved on it's the other thing oh did you want to talk about

the police yeah the synchronicity album is that what we're hashtagging yeah hashtag hashtag the police i don't i don't know anything about music nothing i like don't know anything about music i don't know yeah didn't you play in a band God gave rock and roll to you too is the extent of your musical knowledge. Why do you keep calling it too? Because that's what it's called. You claim to be obsessed with Bill and Ted's boat. We just got to audition this. To you.

It's a rock and roll to you. Put it in the souls of everyone. That's the second note. You think they say to? No, they don't say to. God gave that's the second. No. Wait. So, wait. You think that they say two in there? No, they don't say two. God gave rock and roll to you too? No. Because he certainly did not give rock and roll to you too.

Oh, whoa. Take that, The Edge. Boom. Boom. No, it's a remake. It's a reimagining, if you will, of another rock song that Kiss did as a cover. But they changed the chorus or the verses to make them more inspirational. Okay.

Which is why you've got, if you want to be a rocker or no, if you want to be a singer or play the guitar, you better start sweating or you won't get far. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Those weren't the original verses. They changed them. Yeah. It was like, please don't try.

You're going to fail. No one succeeds. It's very rare. The odds of you being successful are extremely slim. And that's why God gave rock and roll to you, so you can listen. Exactly. And you don't have to feel obligated to take part. Accept your destiny as a regular slob.

Yeah. Maybe I'd be more into music if think if like everyone wasn't so good at making it already you know i have plenty of music to listen to yeah you guys make music what do you do uh play guitar bass drums now i'm interviewing you guys yeah flipping the guitar bass and drums uh-huh and a little bit of Yeah. Flipping the script. Guitar, bass, and drums. Uh-huh. A little bit of piano. Just under your name? I do. Make tracks?

I do. Under the moniker Tremendous Athlete. Oh, cool. I like that moniker. Thank you. Thank you. But yeah, trying to form it into a band, and I think Mike's going to play bass. Awesome. I was playing drums in a band that Mike still plays in called Polaroid Rage.

Awesome. So I was doing that. Okay. Yeah, I've just been really busy. I wish I had more time for music, actually. Yeah. What's your main thing? Besides my day job, I work for SSA,

for Social Security Administration. Oh, that's your day job. That's my day job. Not your passion. No. What's your passion? Fuck day job. My passion, I would have to say, is comedy and music.

So I do the podcast, and then I started Better Robot Records, which is the label. Oh, I should have noticed that. And we put out our first record as comedian Mike Fonazzo's Stupid Genius, and we put that out in May. Oh, cool. And that made it all the way to 50 on the itunes comedy charts oh wow yeah so i just wanted to there's like a really good comedy scene

in baltimore so i wanted to make a label because i feel like it's i don't know from improv to uh to kind of like your standard stand-up to like wang city there's just like a really good scene i wanted an avenue to release it because I love comedy albums yeah I was just talking with Alex and you know Alex Brasovsky

and Owen Bement yeah at the show the other night those are two great comedians in Baltimore yeah

about how I feel like the scene is starting to get really like really like good like yeah and they get their chops up

and things are starting to really within the city and there's more shows popping up, more avenues to perform. Which is great. We just got to keep going because then there's a tipping point. I think your mic's off.

Really? Yeah, I turned it off like an hour ago. Thank goodness. You should do the comedy show more than once a month. It's twice. It's once every two months see the problem with it is is that we want we want we want to keep it unique we want to keep it like separated from other ones so we try to it's hard when you because what we were doing

is like we were doing it every month and then we started running out of people really and we just get kind of the we don't want to just get the same people over and over again. Because then people don't come out. They're like, oh, I saw this guy last month. And it's tough for comedians, too, to form new material that quickly. And that's kind of our niche, where, like I said, we try to get people who have never done it before. So we've got to kind of pace ourselves. And then when we have people back every now and then, that's great.

But like Umar Khan just started, another great comedian, just started a comedy that's every other week. Yeah, the Pretty Good Comedy Show. And I'm like, wow, like, oh, God comedian, just started a comedy every other week. Yeah, the Pretty Good Comedy Show. And I'm like, wow, oh, God, that would stress the crap out of me. Yeah, he does get a little stressed. But it's a good room. Oh, totally. There's always a good turnout.

It's kind of a douchey place, but it has – It works. It seems good. Because he asked me to do it, and I'm – You should. I don't know how you get this – I don't know how quickly you come up with new material. But that's something that's very hard for me because i yeah me too i come up with like little like jokes i try to work on it 20 minutes a day but uh i uh yeah it is difficult

and i try not to stress myself out about it too much like i try to just kind of like go you know yeah like just just kind of let it happen. Yeah. As long as I'm, like, continuing to work. Yeah. But I definitely don't write as much as I wish I would or could. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, I'm not one of the comedians that does, like, bits. You know what I mean? And when you are a bit comedian, you can, like, come up with, like, a new 20 minutes, like, every few weeks.

Because you just, you're basically conversational you know and i don't do that so it's like it's definitely just difficult like it and when i get a new joke i get so excited but i've been trying not to play as much around baltimore because i'm i'm tired of saying the same jokes at the same 10 people that come yeah um but that's something that i'm trying to do too because that's what i was kind of saying briefly with the managing i mentioned that i was like i managed the tour and then i didn't even get a chance to work on my own stuff. So that the first night,

like I bombed, like I did, I didn't do good. So that's like one of those things. It's like, you try to do all this stuff and then you realize like, Oh, I didn't actually work on the thing I was supposed to be doing.

Right. Um, so it's hard to, it's hard to keep that kind of focus. But it's good though. Cause you're like, Oh, here's what I fucked up. Here's what I need to work on. Exactly. Kind of focus. But it's good, though, because you're like, oh, here's what I fucked up.

Here's what I need to work on. Exactly. And that kind of puts you back in your place. Constantly reworking and getting. But, Mike, is that your main art is comedy? I guess so. Yeah. Comedy and music as well.

I would say so. I think I like playing music a little better, but I'm not nearly as good at it, or at least I don't have the natural talent. I mean, I'm decent, but comedy comes fairly naturally to me, where music I really have to put in a lot of work. But yeah, I would say stand-up. Of the different avenues of comedy that I explore, stand-up is probably the most prominent. And you do improv as well, performing at least once a month. Yeah. I do improv and I write.

Yeah, that's right. You guys mentioned you do improv, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, see, that's like that territory that I can't. I'm very scripted and practiced, and I want to get more into improv because I think it would help. Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, just what you were doing earlier, just describing stuff and like being silly that's a part of it it's one of those things that people think they can't do

but you learn little tricks like everyone thinks it's just like go out there and be funny I just can't just be funny but it's you learn that you actually kind of build a scene and build a world and the funny eventually just comes

it's kind of the same thing with bill and ted it's like once you realize where your borders are like within that world and the rules to follow so improv there are inherent rules that everybody's kind of working off of at the same time so it makes it easier than rather just like we're just on stage now let's figure it out and you know so there's there's certain building blocks that you can go from there. But, yeah, so I think we've monopolized your time enough. It's all good. It's been a pleasure.

Yeah, you've got to come back sometime. I would love to. Next time? Next time. Should we just schedule it right now? When are you free? It's like every day. Every day you're free.

Well, then we'll do it every day. Okay. All right. All right, we're going to run out. We've got a new host. I'll see you guys tomorrow. We've got to change the name. Digression Sessions with... Yeah.

Digression Sessions really kind of implies two people. Yeah. We're going to call it now with three. Right. Right. Trigression Sessions. Whoa. I was going to go Trace.

You're constantly... Okay. I was going to go Trace. Constantly blowing my mind. Wow. Yeah. And blowing your... Wiener too.

Hey. I'm just kidding. I'm not really. When you said blowing your, I had no idea where you were going. There's so many different places. He just got it. He nailed it.

All right. Well, well, Ben, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much. It was a lot of fun. Ben of Brian on Twitter.

No, no. Ben F. And Ben F. O'Brien. Ben F. O'Brien. Twitter.

Check my, check my tweet lists. Check my hashtags. Get that going. Check out'Brien. Ben F. O'Brien. Twitter. Check my tweet lists. Yeah. Check my hashtags. Get that going. Check out them hashtags. All right. We're hashing later.

And Showbeast. Yeah, we are. As well. Showbeast.com. Showbeast.net. Whoa. Dude, yeah. Seriously.

Anything, right? MySpace. Where's your MySpace? MySpace.net. Whoa. BenO'Brien.net. That's a real one. Okay.

But that's just basically like a large business card. And LinkedIn.net. BenO'Brien.net. That's a real one. Okay. But that's just like basically like a large business card. And LinkedIn.org? I'm not, like I'm giving you my LinkedIn account. Yeah, right. That's my private LinkedIn account. That's all this podcast was. So two hours later. Google, okay.

All you have to do if you want to find me is just Google search my name and then go to like the 17th page. Right. And one of those is me, I think. Okay. And then maybe you'll find my Facebook page, and I'm there somewhere. What about Bing? You ever think about binging yourself? Oh, you could Bing. Yeah, just Bing me. Okay. I think about binging

myself when I get really depressed. Yeah. But then I remember. Snap out of it. Do you think of a name? Yahoo. Alright, before we go, quick idea for a new show. Hit it. Friends spinoff. Chandler creates a company called Bing.andler bang and it's just him kind of running this search engine right and he has to have joey working there is it a period joey's

joey's in charge of like marketing and messes something up or something you know yeah and then it ends up being a viral vid but in a bad way oh no like it's like the outtakes of Joey, because he's an actor, because he wants to be an actor. No, I remember that. Yeah. So would this be a period piece that takes place in the late 90s? Yes. Okay. Absolutely.

So we'd have to do some makeup. And that's the thing. He'd be like, I want to make this search. And they're like, what are you talking about? That's not going to catch on. Guys, is there going to be like a two-hour finale where it finally goes through? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

I've already got the theme song, too. It's just the old dial-up noises yeah for like a minute and a half right and then at the end it just goes yeah absolutely guys all right all right i own that idea okay it should be like it should be like a trent resnick remix of the original friends song with the dial-up noises mixed in you know what i'm saying okay it should be like an electronic you know because the late 90s. I want to ping you like an. I'm sorry, guys.

No, it would be like, so no one told you life was going to be this waka waka way. You know. Autotune. So you just want a turntable. No. No. An electronic remix of the original song.

I just heard a. Done in dark, late 90s industrial style. With that sound from the dial-up thing. Absolutely. Mixed in there. Alright, print it. Look, we'll work on it in post. Okay. Let's just film this fucking thing.

Yeah, seriously. We really got to film this. We got to get Matthew Perry on the blower. Yeah. And let's work this out. Okay. Ben O'Brien, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Ben.

Again, it was a pleasure. Fantastic. And I won't keep talking this for joining us. Thank you, Ben. Again, it was a pleasure. And I won't keep talking this time. All right. See you, Diggins. Bye, everybody. Bye. I love you.