The Digression Sessions - Ep. 51 - Mike Storck!

Episode Date: September 30, 2012

Low Hanging Fruits  ---- Hola Digheads! This week, Mike and Josh are joined by the seasoned hand model and comedian, Mike Storck! Mike Storck started his stand up comedy career in 1998. Since then he has honed his skill for working with an audience and generating tons of fresh original A-list material. Speaking of A-list material, Mike shares an insane story about the time a woman t-boned him while he was on his motorcycle around 40 mins into the podcast. He flew 43 feet and LANDED ON HIS HEAD. Wear your helmets kids!   We also discuss a number of topics for this episode including, but not limited to: MLK’s sexual escapades, Storck dumped a girl because she didn’t “get” Arrested Development, (probably too much) Stars Wars talk, Bruce Springsteen, the posers at Bike Week, touring, working on engines, and so much more!   Have something to say about this ep? Or do you have anything else Digression Sessions related / unrelated to say? Should we start distributing powerpoints with every pod?! 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 @MikeStorck RATE AND SUBSCRIBE! WANT A SHIRT? EMAIL JOSH – [e-mail]

Welcome to the Digression Sessions podcast, everybody. How the hell are ya? Hi, everyone. I am one half of your favorite pair of earbuds. Josh Kaderna. And I'm the other half of your favorite pair of earbuds. Mike Kaderna. Miranda.

I like that. Thank you. How the hell are you everybody On this show we have the fabulous comedian Mr. Mike Stork Who joins us You can talk Mike Hey I didn't know if I was still in purgatory

Nope you're alive Like that radio purgatory Don't talk you're not really here We're gonna riff for a little bit And then you can act like you weren't there, you're not really here We're gonna riff for a little bit And then you can act like you weren't there Now you're here So we just wanted to get our plugs Out of the way up front

I have some shows Some improv shows Coming up September 29th I'll be performing It's a Saturday, September 29th Part of Center Stage's 50th anniversary I'll be doing some improv's a Saturday, September 29th. Part of Center Stage's 50th anniversary. I'll be doing some improvs at 1.30 on Saturday. So come out to that.

October 3rd, I'll be at McGoovie's doing some improvs. And October 9th, I will be filling in for the great Alex Broflovsky. Part of Chuckle Storm. I will be the Paul Schaefer to Dan Friedman's Letterman. Also his Andy Richter to his Conan. So come on out to that. That'll be a lot of fun. And his brain to Pinky.

Probably his Pinky to his brain. And, yeah, follow me on Twitter at BetterRobotJosh. Follow the podcast at DigSeshPod. And we stand up September 29th at night, however, so our dates won't be conflicting. Nope. It can be a whole DigSesh day if you want to do it. Come fun with us, everybody. Just do it.

Just have a – make a day of it. DigSesh day. September 29th at the Wind Up Space. I will be performing at the Call Girl of Cthulhu show. Oh, yeah, the benefit for... For Chris LaMartina's upcoming film. He'll be on the show on October 9th at Chuckle's. Oh, yeah, that's his first time doing stand-up, isn't it?

I don't know if he'll be doing stand-up. It's going to be like a talk show format. Oh, right, right. But, yeah, come on out to that. And find me on Twitter, Michael Morantin. And that is all. Mike Stork, we're out of time. Oh, no.

You could plug your things. Well, I should have all my shows posted on my website. MikeStork.com. My K-E-S-T-O-R-C-K. Don't forget the C. The C stands for? Candy? But, yeah, upcoming shows I've got September 30th.

I'll be at Expert of Nothing at the Wind-Up Space. Yes, yes. Excellent show. It's very fun. Then on the October 2nd, I'll be at the university of ohio and athens october 3rd university of kentucky wow october 4th 5th and 6 i'll be at connections in toledo ohio october 10th in galesburg illinois at funny business Nice. Let's see here. October 12th to 13th, I will be in South Bend, Indiana.

I can't remember the name of the club. Okay. You're going to get the Die Hard fan sex. We'll figure it out. There's a bunch more after that. I'll be in Canada all November. You'll be in a courtroom soon. Somebody can find you there. That's going to get thrown out. There's no fucking's no way yeah she was 18. it's ridiculous totally yeah we'll get into that story

on the podcast that's a tease that's what you call teasing the biz did you see that bit of a tease all right everybody well uh listen to the episode this is a fun one thank you everybody bike week to Star Wars to serious conversations about serious radio. We cannot stop talking about Sirius XM. We'll get off that topic soon. But, yeah, thanks, everybody, for listening. I didn't. Go ahead.

I actually, because I've been literally in the garage for the last four weeks, and I have XM radio. But the problem is that the little receiver runs off of your 12-volt thing in your car, cigarette lighter. And I'm like, I want to listen to XM radio, but I want to listen to it in the garage. So what I did was one pickup truck had a satellite antenna, so I just pulled all the wires out, and I got a ladder. And I went outside the garage, and I climbed the ladder,

and I threw the antenna thing, the little chip, right? It's like the size of a Dove chocolate. I threw it on the roof of the garage and ran the wire down into the window of the garage. Then I took one of those little, like, it's like a cigarette lighter, but, like, it's like a cigarette lighter, but it's like the actual part. And I plugged in my XM thing into that, and then I took two wires and put alligator clips on them and clipped the alligator clips onto the cigarette lighter charger

and ran the clips, the other end of the clips, to an electric forklift battery. And just for fun, I plugged it into a potato no to play it i had to run the little thing into one of those little mouse trap cassette tape you know the little cassette tape thing that you can play your ipod yeah yeah yeah so i have a cassette tape running from the thing from the satellite radio receiver into a stereo and playing through that. It's like the most Mickey Mouse bullshit.

That's like Redneck MacGyver. Like, I really love satellite radio. I am listening to Talk of the Nation, goddammit. Wait, wait, don't tell me. I am not going to wait. You're crazy if you think I'm going to miss that. I am listening to Prairie Home Companion now. Mark Steiner.

If I don't hear terry gross soon somebody's in trouble tell you what all right well uh yeah mike's thanks for uh mike's thanks for joining joining the show mike let's end it real npr and uh mike stork uh thanks take it out with a slow saxophone. Thanks for having me. You got to put your lips on that thing. Oh, yeah. Also, you have to get close to the microphone. Hey, it's only your 47 47 time on the digression sessions um yeah no the theory is uh the theory is that um that without the uh uh what's the word

i'm looking for um sort of the threat of like the militant black panther movement and like malcolm x and like that you know sort of by any and like Malcolm X and like that, you know, sort of by any means necessary kind of mentality like that. If it wasn't for that, that things might have taken a lot longer. You know, that it's like you had you had, you know, Martin Luther King Jr. You know, you had like this, you know, peaceful, nonviolent concept, you know, was like, yeah, more supported by the man because he was a pro-peace kind of guy. Right, nonviolent protest.

Right, and it's like we're not going to give the cops an excuse to beat the crap out of us and all that. But they're going to do it anyway. Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. But then you have, then it's like, you know, and so if the powers that be are like slow to move then along comes somebody that says all right fuck this shit we're tired of weight and we're gonna just burn everything and we're gonna take power that's when everybody goes oh oh what no

oh you know what hang on uh look i just found the paperwork here we're gonna go ahead and put that through like when you show up to the dmv an Uzi, all of a sudden things get done. Oh, I know. I know from experience. The Martin Luther King legacy in the dominant role because, you know, they obviously want to promote leaders that are peaceful and not violent. Cheating on their wives. That's a big part of it, too. Do you have to bring that up? I mean, the man did a lot of good things.

Yeah, he certainly did. A lot of naughty things, too. I read some manuscript, like the FBI tapes that they recorded of him have not been released. It won't be for like 20 years. But according to what I was reading, he was saying things the night before he was assassinated, like, suck my big black dick. And like, I'm fucking for God tonight. I don't know if that's true. But yeah, apparently they're just trying to besmirch him.

Like, I guess so. But I feel like I was reading a fairly neutral source, and it was, you know, this work. FBI.com. FBI.org. Yeah. They don't even have a.gov. J. Edgar Hoover's private stash. .angelfire.yahoo. 4BI.chan.

But while we're on this heady conversation, let's just say on the show we have a comedian. A man that I can quote as saying, Sure, you've shit your pants, but have you shit your socks? Mr. Mike Stork, everybody. Mike recently said that at a UMBC show that I went to. Really? Yeah. On stage?

Yeah. My favorite. In what context? I was talking about, it started with the drinking fuel injector cleaner. Yeah, as it always does. One thing leads to another. I shit through my pants. Right.

Wow. But it was a perfect mist. Did this actually happen? No. Okay. A perfect mist. I love that movie. It would have been a lot more boring if it was just a perfect mist instead of a perfect storm. Who's running the shower?

It's really nice in here. Three types of mist come together at once. It makes it difficult to see for a while. There's an air wick thing in the corner, misting. Do submarines ever just crash into whales? Um I don't know, that's kind of a random question

Alright, sorry, let's ask Professor Griff He might know No, we don't want to upset him He ran into a whale once And he's still sore about it No, I just don't want him to think that we're jackasses Who are just exploiting the fact that we have his phone number Well, that's kind of what we are I know, but we don't want him to know that we're jackasses who are just exploiting the fact that we have his phone number. Well, that's kind of what we are.

I know, but we don't want him to know that. Why don't we ask him that? Do you think we're jackasses exploiting the fact that we have your phone number? Josh, we can't just ask Professor Griff every single query that we come up with. All right. Should I ask him about my fantasy football team? The guest gets to ask Professor Griff. I have to think of something.

I have to really mull that over. Right. Something will come to me. It'll happen organically. Well, I hope it does because you're made out of organs and it couldn't happen any other way. How else would it happen? Should we ask Professor Griff that?

Should we ask him? Hydraulically? Pneumatically? Actually, I've got an air compressor and a hydraulic pump inside of my body. Oh, good for you. When I do this, you'll hear it at the end. It goes

pssh. You have a mist that sprays out of your back. It's close to a lightsaber sound, too. That was pretty close. There it is. Not the best ninja weapon, I would suspect. The lightsaber, pretty close. There it is. Bully artist. Not the best ninja weapon, I would suspect. The lightsaber, pretty loud.

Yeah. But it fucks shit up, though, so you got that going for you. And it can block lasers. So if anybody comes over and they're trying to hassle you, you just chop them down. Sure, it makes noise, but you got to outweigh the pros and the cons. Can you make your lightsaber turn on with the force when it's not in your hand because you can you can make it come to your hand right oh yeah can you just make it like do in the air I don't know I know that I know when some of

the uh so many questions some of the games it's you know you can throw it but it's already lit at that point right does it have a button to lock it in I don't know does it have a button to lock it in? I don't know. Does it have a GPS? It probably does. Does it have a grip? It's got Tom Tom. Turn right. Droids on the left. Droids on the left.

Your destination has arrived. Mike, you're a Star Wars nerd, right? Mm-hmm. Huge. Mike, you're a Star Wars nerd, right? Huge. So I'm guessing your favorite movie. Empire Strikes Back, of course. Or Phantom Menace. Phantom Menace.

Or Ewok Adventure. Great movie or the greatest movie? Ewok Christmas. Didn't they actually do that? There was a Star Wars Christmas. It was awful. Have you seen it? It was so awful. I've heard it's terrible.

Isn't there like a 20-minute segment of all in Chewbacca-ian speak with those subtitles? 20 minutes? I think it's pretty long. Yeah. Wow. Wow. That's a good quote. The Wookiees aren't going to have Christmas.

And it's like, really? Oh, no. Like the Wookiees aren't going to have Christmas. And it's like, really? Like, when Kashuk, the Wookiees know about an old German St. Nicholas. Thousands and thousands of years ago. That always happens in futuristic movies. They always have, like, pop culture references that go back to our day. Like, oh, I'm listening to Mozart. It's a 600-year-old musician. Right, right.

The Beastie Boys and Star Trek. Like, oh, we're on fucking Cloud City when Bespin, but somehow they know about Saturday Night Fever. Sure. But wait a minute. I just thought of a flaw here. What? The Star Wars universe is in a galaxy far, far away a long, long time ago.

Oh, my God. We got Christmas from them. From the Ewoks. From the Ewoks. Mm-hmm. Christmas from the Ewoks. From the Ewoks. Mm-hmm. Christmas from the Ewoks. Yeah. They're celebrating Christmas.

Yep. Yet. Yet, Anakin Skywalker was born to his mother, the virgin birth, the Immaculate Conception. Wow. So why not just celebrate him? Right. Well, he went dark. Why not have Luke Day?

He went dark. Oh, no, wait. Luke was a Right. Well, he went dark. He went dark. Oh, no, wait. Luke was a virgin? No, no, no. Anakin. Anakin. Anakin's mother gave birth. There was no father. And then, you know, he knocked boots with Padme. And they had

Luke and Leia. And then Leia wound up later on in the... After post-episode... Four, five, six. Post-episode six. Right. Leia and Han wind up together, and then they have kids,

and then they sort of restart the Jedi. I don't know. I'm kind of depressed about this. They kind of... Restart the Jedi. Han becomes kind of a Jedi So they've toyed with the idea Of making further sequels right I think so yeah

I've watched the Clone Wars I saw that movie But I haven't seen the TV show I don't really remember the movie There was a cartoon Yes No no no, no. Mike Myers, that stuff.

I should throw a temper fit. Like, no, no, no. No, no, no. It wasn't. Oh, my God. It was episode four. Get off. Are you fucking with me?

Go on. Not since Jar Jar Binks have I been this bad. Now let's get into it. Lucky I brought a dry erase board Here we go Me's a gonna suck on a shotgun We all wish he would I know, wouldn't that be great?

Don't all the little kids love him though? Just sidebar real quick I don't know, I don't I hope not You hang out with little kids though Oh yeah Hell yeah man Hell yeah

It's like a meat market at that point Jar Jar Binks is like The load of The Star Wars universe For all of our metal fans Out there The load? Oh yeah

Metallica Yeah Canon Uh huh Yeah Okay When they cut their hair short And give me fuel

Give me fire Give me that which I desire Yeah Mmhmm Okay Go on We cut you off With the Star Wars lineage

We cut you off Like Metallica cut their hair in 1996 Furthermore Go on So episode 7 Go Go ahead I don't remember what we were talking about Star Wars

Yeah but I don't They've thought about making further movies With like the old The actors older Oh that I don't... They've thought about making further movies with the actors older, right? Oh, that I don't know about. But I know that they did the Clone Wars cartoon series that airs on the Cartoon Network. It's actually pretty good. I've heard it's good. I've heard good things. I heard the movie is not as good as the show. The movie is worse than...

Episode 1? September 11th... 2001? Pearl Harbor, the Holocaust, and the Inquisition combined, all while listening to a nonstop audio tape of Jar Jar Binks. That's how bad it is. So you're saying you didn't enjoy it. Dude, okay.

Put it in English for us, Mike. First off... I don't get it. So did you like it or not? No es bueno. Je n'aime pas. Je n'aime pas. No comma es bueno or no es bueno?

No es bueno. Okay. Je n'aime pas. No comma es bueno or no es bueno? No es bueno. Okay. Okay. Je n'aime pas. Je déteste. Is that Klingon? That was either Klingon or the thing that Jabba speaks. Never mistake a Star Wars head for a Trekkie.

Yeah. They will fucking kill you, that's a no-no. They will fucking kill you. Yeah, that's like mistaking a Hell's Angel for a pixie dancer. Right, which I've done. Hey, you a pixie dancer with your flaming skull on your jacket? Big beard and your meth that you smoke. What are you doing with that pipe? Pixie dancer.

Yeah, so. Remember when all those pixie dancers killed people at Altam pipe? Pixie Dancer. Yeah, so. Remember when all those Pixie Dancers killed people at Altamont? Fuck yeah, dude. Yeah. They were like stabbing that guy. Yeah, and they were throwing like sprinkles in people's eyes and stuff. And making them fly away. Yeah.

Giving them ice cream cones. Yeah. And the whole time the Rolling Stones were playing Sympathy for the Pixie Dancer. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty weird. That's why Elton John wrote that song about hold me close, Pixie Dancer. Hold me for the Pixie Dancer. Yeah. Pretty weird. That's why Elton John wrote that song. Hold Me Close, Pixie Dancer.

Hold me close, little hell's angel. So, big Star Wars fan. Yeah. So the movie, somebody kidnaps Jabba the Hutt. Oh, yeah. I saw it in the theater, but I don't really remember it. I remember a baby Jabba the Hutt getting kidnapped. Yeah, a baby Hutt, which they nicknamed Stinky. Yeah, I remember that.

And they were climbing up a wall at some point. That's all I remember. And what is this? This is the Christmas movie? Remember a few years ago there was a Clone Wars movie that came out in the summer, and it was CGI. I remember the show on Cartoon Network. Was that related? Yeah.

Same animation, same... But all of the Star Wars canon is 100% in sync with everything else, right? Should be, yeah. Like, they can't release a comic book or a cartoon or anything unless it's all part of the universe. Yeah, it's gotta get approved. You can't just make shit like, Boba Fett came out of the closet

and had a gay relationship with, I don't know, fucking Jango Fett. It's like that's impossible. It would be incestuous more than I mean that would be the most important thing. Well shit gets crazy at the canteen in Tatooine.

It does. So how do you feel about the CGI tough touch ups to the old films? It was a bunch of bullshit over nothing. It's like, oh, look, there's an extra panther. Oh, my God. Panther?

This is totally worth $30. Right. Yes! That panther was worth it. Follow-up question. Did Han shoot first? Did Han shoot first? Did Han shoot first? I know.

This is tough. Take your time. No, no, no. I'm just insulted. Why don't we just ask Professor Griff who shot MLK? We'd probably all like to know. I don't think it was Han. No?

It was Greedo. No. Uta Kuta Solo. Am I okay? You know, there's footage of a human Jabba the Hutt from the first film. Yeah, big fat guy. Yeah, and that's where they got the new, when they redid it with the CGI Jabba, they just stuck him in there. Yeah, they covered it up.

Where Jabba's talking to Han Solo in the hangar, right? Right, yeah. And they had to make him walk on him yeah I guess he walked behind him you guys know that yeah yeah yeah we should ask Professor Griffith so um yeah I had a point and I don't remember where. Right. Why do you like Star Wars so much? That wasn't my point. What's wrong with you?

That wasn't my point. Oh, you asked me who shot first. Oh, yeah, yeah, who shot first. I just know that's a big thing among nerds. Oh, yeah. Well, it's not really a debate. That's the funny thing. It's like there is no debate.

Oh, really? Greedo never shot. But there can only be one no debate. Oh, really? Greedo never shot. But there can only be one official Star Wars canon. Yeah, Greedo never fired. If you watch the special edition. That's not what George Lucas would say. George, come on in. George Lucas is a fucking loser.

Wow. He doesn't know what he's talking about. Please not speak of George Lucas. He is a big fan. Big fan of yours, too. Yeah. Did you know Mike Stork shit his socks once? Hilarious.

Anyway, Jar Jar. It's so bizarre that Star Wars fans hate their own Messiah. Well, he just shit all over it. You don't see Trekkies talking shit about Roddenberry. Who? I think somebody's a Trekkie. I think so, too. No, I'm not.

No. I don't like either. I'm not a sci-fi guy really much at all. I mean, if a movie's good, I'll watch it. Doctor Who? I watched one episode. Everybody thinks I'm a geek, and then I'm into geeky stuff. I'm really not.

I'm getting into Doctor Who pretty big time. A lot of people do that. It seems like you either got to hate it or just be all about it. I haven't met too many people that are like, talk to who's okay. Have you seen it? Oh, my God. Yeah. It's like heroin.

You either don't do it at all or you do it way too much. Try it. I don't get heroin. I watched a couple episodes. I watched a couple episodes of heroin. Not for me. It was just, I don't know. I just don't get it.

Kind of boring. Everybody's doing heroin and watching Arrested Development. I'm listening to Arrested Development. I actually broke up with a girl because she said that she didn't think Arrested Development was funny. That's a solid choice. Yeah. Wow. I had no, and that's the thing, is when I said in my head, like, it's over, there was no, like, doubt.

Right. Do you know what I mean? Laying in in the background it's been done right she's like yeah i i watched the rest of development like i don't know i just didn't didn't really think it was that funny and then literally the next thought in my head was well we're done uh i guess i'll just like wait until the week's over and she's heading home then i'll break up with her yeah it's it's one of the best shows of all time it's fucking brilliant it's not only is it super funny but the way everything ties in together and like the jokes that come back you go back and watch like a previous season and then there's now jokes that that now make sense because you've seen season three right and you go back and you're like oh my god that's why the kitchen looks familiar you know exactly or just little things pop up like mr f like sometimes they'll do that and you're

like oh yeah that's from this and it'll just keep popping up there's also uh like editing tricks they do are hilarious they got in the word fucking but they just chopped it in half really yeah so and in the beginning of the episode um joe it's when he's like, a guy in a $3,000 suit is going to hold the elevator for you. Come on! And he goes like, and so it's like, the price of the suit keeps going up. He's like, a guy in a $12,000 suit is going to answer the phone. Fucking come on! Or something.

They cut him off before the ing. And then they do a flashback, and they play the ing. So basically, they got the word fucking in the episode but it just kind of happened. It's like little stuff like that. That's genius. I love it. I liked when the one guy was trying to convince his dad to get his mom to smoke pot

or no, to have sex with her but his dad thought he was talking about pot. And so he's like, well I just don't know how I'm going to get in there. And so he's like, well, I just don't know how I'm going to get in there. And then he's like, well, you know, whatever. I don't need to know the details.

Maybe I'll put it in a brownie. It's like, ah, that's too much information. Yeah, I can't wait until the rest of the development comes back. Is it coming back? Yeah, they're doing 10 episodes for Netflix. It might get extended to 13 episodes.

It's been like a decade since it's been on, right? Not that long. It probably went off the air like seven years ago, somewhere in there. This is brilliant. Yeah. This is like one of the most brilliant shows. Every episode is so layered, too.

Better than Mr. Belvedere? Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. George, ma'am. But yeah, they're going to put all the episodes on Netflix at once too, which is going to be great. So we'll have all 13.

I think they're going to do a movie too. Arrested Development Party. So when you broke up with this girl... I'll dress up like Mr. Wendell. So when you broke up with this girl. I'll dress up like Mr. Wendell. Mr. Wendell. So when you broke up with this girl, did you say why? No. There were other reasons, too. But it's just, to me, it's like a sense of humor.

You can have different musical tastes. You can have different food tastes. You could date somebody that's a vegetarian or a carnivore or whatever. Yep, right. Smoker, non-smoker yep right smoker non-smoker smoker non-smoker whatever sure you know um aphrodite yeah dick no dick male female those things are fine two dicks five related unrelated right so uh living dead those things are cool we're all on board with that. Trekkie or Star Wars? Jar Jar Fan or no Jar Jar Fan?

Does anybody else think it's weird that I watch porn with my family? Do you really? No, I don't really. A lot of people laughed when I said that at work today. It's not. No, I just was concerned for your well-being. No, you weren't.

I was wondering how many family members were present if that were true. Everybody? Gather round! It's a new Anal Adventure 9, everybody. Just picture the grandma sitting in the rocking chair like, I can't... Is it in her ass or her vagina?

I can't tell. What's with all the spitting on the cock? Why did they have to spit on the cock? We never spit on the cock. We used lard. Even after we would cook the food. During the war, we had to use corn cobs. It's just wasteful.

They were war bonds. Felt with the war effort. We were happy to do it. You were saying you broke up with a girl over a restive element. Because she watches porno with her family.

Well, yeah. I just think it's like if you've got a different sense of humor, then that's so much more telling than anything else.

Especially such a smart show, too. Yeah. It's like, you don't get that? You must be dumb. Yeah. Or the worst person alive. Or both. Or Hitler. Are you Hitler? Did you ask get that? Like, you must be dumb. Yeah, or the worst person alive. Or both.

Or Hitler. Are you Hitler? Did you ask her that? No. Okay. Let me ask you guys this. What is this? Why are you asking?

I'm like, oh, do you care for a bagel? What's wrong? Why are you sweating? You don't want any salmon? Lox? No? No? No?

Do either of you have, like Opposites of guilty pleasures Like things that you're supposed to like But you just can't get that into I feel like Star Wars Is kind of one of those things for me I'm gonna have to think about it Chanting Is also one of those Didgeridoo

I think it's stupid Yeah It's like we used to do that shit With a fucking paper towel Christmas gift wrap To the dog You know you take the tube The Christmas wrapping paper

You blow it at the dog, and the dog goes nuts. You're blowing the dog's nuts. No. Okay. That's stupid. I want you to edit him so that he says, you're blowing the dog's nuts. No, no, Josh. Leave it in.

Leave it in because Mike needs to learn his lesson. I'm just going to edit and you say yes emphatically. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. That'll be the entire podcast. On a very special Digression Sessions podcast. Do you like to shit into your own mouth? Absolutely.

Or edit it like the old Weird Al interviews that he would do on MTV. He'd take some celebrity interview and edit it up so they're answering all these ridiculous questions. Yeah, he's doing that again now, actually, for the Nerdist YouTube channel. Oh, really? Yeah. I'll have to check that out. He was supposed to be interviewing Michael Cera, but it was just an old interview with

Jesse Eisenberg, the kid from Social Network. Really? Yeah. Because those two get confused with each other all the time. It's funny. Yeah, I felt bad for him. Things that I'm supposed to like But I don't Can you give me some examples? I feel like the Beatles Are kind of

I mean I like them But I don't think They're like that brilliant I haven't given them That much of a chance I think a lot of my friends Yeah What?

A Beatles song? I don't get it Or a Star Trek song Enough with the Star Wars songs Okay Oh my god What? A Beatles song? I don't get it. Or a Star Trek song? Enough with the Star Wars songs, okay? Oh, my God. That was from Star Wars, the musical about the dark side. Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

There has to have been a Star Wars album at some point, right? All right. Is there Star Wars music is what I'm asking. Well, yeah, there's like soundtracks. In a galaxy far far away There was rock and roll Darth Vader on drums Darth Vader would be playing

The groove is strong with this one Darth Vader would be playing synthesizers Yeah he's got like a really cool guitar. 45 minutes later, Mike's still just doing this. Yeah. All right, so give me some other examples. I'm trying to think. I kind of feel like Radiohead is kind of like that for me,

along the same lines as the Beatles. I like Radiohead a lot. I like them to think. I kind of feel like Radiohead is kind of like that for me, along the same lines as the Beatles. I like Radiohead a lot. I like them, but I don't think they're super brilliant like everyone seems to think that I should. I'm not huge on them. Why are you avoiding eye contact, Mike? I'm not.

Just with you. We should say that Mike Stork's naked. You know, you think better when you're not staring at someone's eyes. That's why you look away when you're thinking about something. How can I lie to this person and get away with it? How? What's his face? Bruce Springsteen.

I fuck, I despise Bruce Springsteen. Despise the boss. I hate. Doesn't even have some good songs. Don't. I despise the boss. I hate. Doesn't even have some good songs? No. Don't like the songs of the boss. And I just am out. I will literally walk out of the fucking bar or wherever it's playing.

I will literally walk out, smoke a cigarette, walk around the block. Somebody on a plane next to you. You can hear it in their earbuds. You're like, well, I'm out of here. Yeah, time to go. Open the hangar door. That's right. D.B. Cooper time.

I'm out. You're in the fallout shelter. Sorry, guys. I know this door only opens once, but I'm leaving. Somehow it's just Mike Stork and the boss in a fallout shelter. I can't listen to any more Triangle. It's a good thing I got my acoustic down here. Let's go through a couple tunes.

One, two, three. Mike, where you going? Ding, ding, ding. They got like the Triangle guy. Do they have Triangle guy in that band? That's all you fucking hear. Ding, ding, ding. There, there, there, T-Bone. I was working in a turnip

factory. And my hands are bleeding a lot. Yeah, and now you have to say how you love your girl, but her dad hates you. But you're going to get out of this town eventually. I got to get out of here because I'm working hard. I've been a millionaire for about 30 years, but I pretend to be blue collar. Right, exactly. Exactly.

I had a friend that we got into a huge argument. He's like, dude, he's like a working class hero. I was like, yeah, horse shit. He's a fucking musician. He's not a coal miner. No. He's not a mechanic. He's not a roofer.

Right. He doesn't fix toilets. Yeah, he doesn't ride dirt bikes. He doesn't ride, that's not even a job, but okay. Yeah, but that's a thing that working class people do. But, you know, it's like he's no more of a working class worker. He's no more working like blue collar than like fucking Trent Reznor or Billy Joel or Elton John. Right.

I do want to hear that Nine Inch Nails album, though, about the common man. Right. It's like industrial techno. Riding the train. I want to work all day in the factory. Get overtime like an animal. So I can get my kids some braces you bring me closer to paycheck yeah that's true like since the mid-80s he hasn't had to worry about money at all no he's a he's a

musician he's not a yeah i'm sure he was starving when he started out right yeah yeah but who the fuck isn't you know it's just it's the thing is, it's like the whole Bruce Springsteen blue collar, always a working man. No more than Larry the Cable Guy. It's a fabricated image and a brand that was created, and people just buy into it hook, line, and sinker. I hear that he is an amazing performer, though. A lot of people... Yeah, that's fine. I hear that he is an amazing performer, though. A lot of people.

Yeah, that's fine. I don't take that away from him. Right. Just don't buy into the facade. I don't buy into the facade, but I just don't like the music. You know? I mean, there's just bands that I just don't like. Yeah.

I think he's got some good songs. Yeah, I'm not head over heels. I'm not a big Springsteen. I don't know if I can think of a song by him that I really like i don't know if i'm quite as offended as mike is yeah i think a lot of times though is like you'll have people that will they'll like latch on to a particular musician or artist not because they really like not not necessarily the music but because they just buy into the whole brand package yeah that's definitely much you know right yeah i think that's i mean isn't that true for most people though that i mean you know kind of the image and the feel and the vibe in like the psychology you know you usually find a musician that you can

relate to yeah i think in that way i maybe maybe i yes, but I think most people eventually grow out of that. Right. You know, where that's just like, okay, I've moved past trying to define myself. And now it's like, you know, I'm an adult. I know who the fuck I am. Like, I don't look to other people to validate me or define me. And now I'm just going to listen to music that I like to listen to because I just like the music, you know,

whether it be death metal or jazz or jazz metal. Mountain Dew banjo songs. Pick up that old Mountain Dew. But, yeah, I have noticed like now in my 30s, I can just listen to music because I like listening to it. Right. When I was in my teens to early 20s, I kind of like, it had to, I don't know. This is who I am.

Yeah. It was more about, I wouldn't buy certain albums or download certain songs based on what I would think. Like your friends like or people make fun of you. Yeah, I think I grew out of that kind of in college, I'd say. In middle school, I was a huge metal kid. I think we've talked about this before. Slipknot was my favorite band. Mudvayne and Seven Dust and anything metal I was all about.

No, I never got into them. Really? I can't understand a fucking word they're saying. It doesn't matter. But it was shitty music too. What? What?

What? That song is awesome. That song is so good. That is way better than anything Seven Dust ever wrote. No way. Home's an awesome album.

I can't imagine to be like you. I don't know that song. That was on the first album. That can't imagine to be like you. I don't know that song. That was on the first album. That was the one I had. Oh, that one wasn't as good. Home is an excellent record. Really?

But Snot, that was a really good band who I liked. Never heard of them. I definitely remember reading about them in Metal Edge. Yeah, when they went straight to high. But then moved on to pop punk stuff. Mashed it on. Yeah. Never got into them, though. What? I've heard of them though i've heard of them i've never actually

heard really yeah wow that's surprising i've heard of all people yeah everybody thinks you're a nerd that listens to master right yeah i don't really listen to that many metal bands yeah he's like that angry guy that like watches star wars and punches the wall right and listens to metal he can fix computers sometimes. I only like a handful of metal bands, and it's only because I think they write good songs. I don't really like metal per se. He punches walls while he listens to Slayer or something, I think. Nobody understands him.

And he writes Star Wars fan fiction? He wrote the Thanksgiving special? Why are you talking like that? What is the significance of that? This is the person that's describing. That Mike Moran guy is kind of scary. He wears a knee brace. Probably because he was kneeing holes in his wall while listening

to Metallica. His Metallica. Knee and holes in the wall. Are his jokes all about punching holes in stuff? I'm pretty sure they are. He's so angry. Does he write poetry on the wall with a magic marker? And then punch it?

So, Mike Stork, what have you been up to? Fixing trucks. As comedians. Are you writing another Bruce Springsteen song? I'm fixing a truck and working hard. Are you mechanically inclined? Auto mechanically? Yeah, you could say that. So you can do stuff for me when I need things in the car? No. Why not?

I don't work with other people's shit. Come on. What if I gave you one of Josh's microphones? A Toyota Camry is not shit, okay? Yeah. Alright. Ford Focus. Mike? Wait, who's driving the Camry? I need you to? Yeah. All right? Ford Focus. Mike? Wait, who's driving the Camry? I need you to Ford Focus on the question at hand.

I especially am not working on any more Fords. Really? No. In a fucking way. Those things are garbage. Don't ever buy a Ford. Hey, shut up. Sorry, dude.

I'm trying to get that Ford sponsorship, you asshole. No, don't do it, because then you're a liar. No, I'm not. Ford strong. Yeah. The statement I'm saying right now is a lie. So you've been working on cars, writing songs. That's the engine we pulled out of my mom's SUV.

Uh-huh. I can see that. Again, you're not... I'm trying to make the duck face. Yeah, he's making the duck face. He's naked. There's an engine on a garage floor. That's hanging out by chains. I used a forklift.

Forklift, okay. He wrote a song about it. I'm using my forklift. Cooling in the spark plug. One, two, three. Spark plug, spark plug. That's a pretty good picture of a spark plug. If you use an iLoop and put it in front of your iPhone camera,

that's how you get the crazy zooms in. We're going to have our tech segment later. That's a good-looking spark plug. That's with a five-time zoom. All right, so you're working on that. You also told me that you're involved in some litigation right now. A woman hit you. Oh, really?

You were on a motorcycle, and a woman ran you down. Yep. Tell me all about it. Well... Mike, too, while he's here. You can tell him, too. Yeah, I was riding my motorcycle, and I got hit by a car. And I actually got T-boned, which was pretty spectacular.

Not nearly as tasty as it sounds. No, no. A lady in a car threw a T-bone steak, is what you're saying. And then a dog ran after it. I got Flintstones. I tipped over, you know. Oh, no. So how fast were both of you going?

I don't know how fast she was going. I was probably doing like 35. Wow. Wow. So where was this? Yeah, was this in the city or parkville right so could you see her coming at you oh fuck how long ago is this two years ago okay yeah i remember hearing about it a while did this knock you off the bike i assume yeah did you tumble like pretty far did you tumble we measured we measured it um when I was when I was about the blood drops and bone fragments. You can clearly see. Well, she actually accelerated before she hit me.

She was turning left and she T-boned me. But like right before she hit me, she actually stomped on the gas because I was I was I kind of could tell him like I think this car is getting ready to turn and so I kind of like started like moving over to the right part of my lane so what's her logic like maybe if I hit him hard enough he'll explode into smithereens and then he'll cease to exist and no one will know just drive right through him yeah okay she's watching many skittles by my commercial logic this should work yeah then we'll all taste the rainbow and i'll be a hero nope he's almost dead no i just almost killed him damn you skittles yeah so um so basically like uh the bike she hit me so hard i lifted my left leg up out of the way

right before she hit before she hit me um so all the energy of the impact went into the inside of my right leg which is why i had this i had like a massive bruise on the inside of my right leg wow they were worried i would have like a blood clot and die and shit um that was a double e because you're spitting into a can, right? That's right. So the bike flew. We measured it. It was probably like 20 to 25 feet. So if you picture a motorcycle traveling in a straight line for a car to hit the bike hard enough to literally propel it sideways 25 feet, that's a pretty good hit.

Right. Jesus Christ know did you fly off I went over the handlebars after like that you know the bike basically went through my right leg which is why my right leg was all up oh my God and I kept I I basically catapulted like a Superman kind of thing right like just at the front you just land on your back? No, we measured it after the fact we went back, because I knew exactly where I landed. It was just a divot in the ground. Right, right. But I basically did like a Superman, and my head was the first thing to hit. Whoa!

We measured it. It was 43 feet. Jesus Christ. I flew 43 feet, landed, literally did like a... You know when Olympic divers do the first dive off to start swimming? Picture that, but it's concrete. Oh my God.

And you landed on your head? On my head. It was like right here. Like the top of your head. Not the top, but like here. Okay, kind of like the forehead. Right about here. Kind of kind of like forehead, like top of the forehead, right where it starts to bend. Kind of south-central. Yeah, exactly.

South-central forehead. And then from that, tumbled, you know, down the sidewalk, down the concrete. And that's what I think broke this knee and broke my right toe. And everything, like my hands and my elbows and my feet were all swollen and busted up. Yeah. Just from impacting concrete. You flew 43 feet?

Yeah. That's incredible. And then landed on your head. On my head. Wow. What happened to your helmet? Did it crack? No, no.

It was scraped up and everything, but... Damn. Didn't break. That's a good helmet. Yeah. I have new faith in helmets because... Before you were a little suspicious. I don't know if this will save my life.

People get all like... Bikers get all this like... Other than the Harley morons that wear just like those cheap bullshit... Little calf. Those things are going to do anything. They're not going to do anything. It's not going to help you. Yeah, who's wearing the smallest possible helmet allowed by the law?

One of those pixie dancers is going to learn, you know? Yeah. They may as well be yarmulkes. Might as well. They're worthless. It's like, anyway, so you're only supposed to use like if you ever use a helmet in a crash, you're supposed to just junk it because

the inside of the helmet has like foam and all this stuff that like compresses right like one impact that saves your skull and then doesn't come back like it's just right yes that's it yeah so it's not like it yet and but you'll see really oh I drop my helmet a couple you know you're supposed to just you're supposed to throw it out so how much is a helmet like well see that's the thing you have people that are spending like you know between 200 and 900 for helmets you get helmets that are like two grand you know i have a friend get your helmet refurbished no no because it's like uh it's just like part of everything.

One piece. Right. It's like Star Wars canon. It'd be like refurbishing a mattress. Like, well, I want to keep the padding, but I want new springs. And they're like, well, but it's all kind of one part. So you're saying I can't refurbish my mattress. Or use it as a helmet.

Or that. Get duct tape around here. But can I write my own Star Wars fan fiction and have it be part of the canon? Mm-mm. Damn it. All right, continue. Never. You can approve him wrong, Moran.

I'm for it. So I was like, I'm going to destroy the helmet before I take it to the dump just to make sure nobody pulls it out of the pile and like,

hey, look, he's a helmet, you know? Right. I found a helmet in the dumpster. Now I just need to find me a motorcycle. Hey, there's one here in the dumpster. My lucky day.

Or if like, he doesn't call it a helmet. I found a new popcorn bowl. Look at this. My fish gonna love this. Man, I'm saving all kinds of money. I found some condoms. You just rinse them out and roll them back up. Look at these people.

Pilling up with putty. I got me a bowl of ball. And they told me not to go dumpster diving. Who's laughing now, city of Baltimore? Who's laughing now, city of Baltimore? Who's laughing now? I hit it with a baseball bat thinking that'll just crack it in half. Nope.

I whacked it a good couple times. I'm like, alright. Do you think you should have been masturbating while you were smashing your elbow? I wasn't going to go there. It's a low-hanging fruit. I whacked it.

I whacked it a couple times. That's the alternate name for the digression session, actually. Low-hanging fruit session. So then I started beating it. You want me to keep setting you guys up? Please. And, I mean, I'm just going to town, you know. Just trying to rub it out, you know.

Right. Just rub it out of existence. Just rub it out, you know. Just, you know, really pulling on it, you know. Right. So anyway, so I go get an axe. Jesus Christ. Like a big fucking axe, too, you know.

Right. And I'm like. i hope you're just doing this outside they're like well this is out in the yard there's mike there he is just smashing a helmet like the kind of decapitated people with during this he's a big fucking axe right battle axe bounces right off of it wow like what the fuck it wasn't double bladed was it no i'd watch that forehead yeah so uh uh a lot of bounce back so uh uh you're trying to smash a helmet i hit it with the axe maybe like 10 times right and it's like not even making a dent in this thing i'm like this is fucking ridiculous i tried a machete i tried dropping cinder blocks on it finally i'm like

this is bullshit like i i had no idea chaining it to the bottom of the lake. So finally, I just shot it. I shot it a couple times with a Beretta. Out of a cannon? No. Shot it out of a cannon. Where do you get all these weapons from? I know.

Do you have an armory in your house? From Professor Griff. You put it in an Iron Maiden at one point. Then I gave it a Treffen treatment. You gave it a trial by ordeal. Then I just tried to psychologically damage it. None of the other helmets like you. You're not that good.

They just say that to your face. But you should do what they really think. Come on, buddy. Come on. Call that advisor. Come on. Wish I had a real helmet. So, yeah, so where are you?

I got my cinder block, my gun, my axe. So I took the helmet to the dump, and the guy's like, what do you got? And I always make a joke every time I go to the dump. I'll be like, oh, you know, just dead hookers or oh some russian plutonium right now or uh whatever uh-huh and uh and he sees the helmet and he's like oh help any plutonium right right yeah just uh you know people that voted for the wrong candidate you know right and uh he picks the helmet up and he sees like four bullet holes in it he's like what the that's a good helmet and i was like yeah you don't need to know about that that's just so anyway gotta go yeah take it easy i have

a long day speak english you know where i can get some bleach um so okay how uh but anyway here's the best part so now on call me ted the woman the woman that hits me uh no insurance you know suspended tags like the whole you know so my insurance company they're trying to go after her legally dead for years right you know and uh the you know the police report says it was her fault like you know the ambulance the emts like there were like witnesses everywhere everybody saw where the accident happened everybody saw that it was her fault yeah even like i think one of the witnesses in her car said it was her fault made like a written statement like it was cut and dried like there's no and then she was trying to claim that it was that it happened like it happened further up at the traffic light.

And it's like, no, it happened about 100 feet before the traffic light. And I even said, you can look at the pictures and tell we weren't anywhere near that traffic light. She was trying to say, oh, he ran a green arrow. And it's like, no. Like, there's no way that I, you know what I mean? Right. And this was two years ago. Two years ago.

This is insane to me. So basically, in a nutshell, if you get hit by somebody that doesn't have insurance, your insurance company, as long as it wasn't your fault, your insurance company has to cover you. You know, it's like an uninsured motorist thing. Right, right. So, you know, so my insurance company you know cover the medical bills and damage to the bike and all that kind of stuff yeah um you know there's still stuff wrong with me but there's no more money you know right you know so it's just did you go to physical therapy oh yeah yeah i mean i was on i was on i was probably like immobile for like about a week or two.

I couldn't get off the couch. I was pissing in a bottle. Really? Oh, yeah. What about in the hospital? How long were you in the hospital? They only kept me in the hospital for 24. They kept me overnight.

Wow. That's it? I didn't believe. They gave you a bottle and sent you on your way? Right. There you go. Here's an empty Gatorade bottle. Medical grade, of course.

Move along. They write P on it in the magic marker. Write the doctor. Not Gatorade. Don't drink. Get your prescription for a Gatorade bottle. You can get the bigger one, too. Go for it if you need it.

Free refill. The pharmacist walks over to the drink aisle and pours out an Evian. Dumps it on the floor. And here you are. And there you go. Did you decide these HIPAA forms? So, yeah.

Fortunately, I didn't have a concussion and I didn't have any neck damage, which is kind of surprising. Landing on your fucking head. Right. Forty three feet. Right. So that's insanely far to fly and land on your head on your head.

Yeah. So. So anyway, so, you know, so my insurance company covered up to, you know, what my coverage was. And, you know, I mean, I still needed more physical therapy, but it's like, you know, my lawyer's like, you know what my coverage was and you know i mean i still needed more physical therapy but it's like you know my lawyer's like you know you can keep going but you're gonna have you know you you're gonna have to pay for it i think i paid for a couple couple more sessions but right i was just like you know i'll just i i know what the exercises are like you know sure do you do them regularly um i haven't had to do them in a while. But, like, actually, the last week, my right foot's been bugging me again.

It sucks because I'm not sure exactly what's wrong with it or, like, what it's doing. But, like, it's like I can barely walk. Like, it's almost like picture, like, your big toe is just locked and you can't bend it. And if you try to bend it in any direction, it just hurts really bad. And so I don't know if it's a joint that gets, you know, out,

but that's, that's from the accident. That's the shitty thing about breaking your toes too. There's nothing you can really do. Right. To set them or anything. It's just like, well,

you got broken toes. Yeah. There you go. Enjoy it. So I'm looking at your toes. You got broken toes. Right. There you go. Enjoy it. So I'm looking at your toes. You got broken toes. Right. But the best part is.

The pharmacist just gives you an empty bottle. Right. Nothing we can do. Sorry. Just pee into that. Put this bottle on your toe. Huh? That might help.

Who knows? But the best part is a week ago. Try something and let me know if it works. What are you going to do? I find out the woman decides she's going to try to sue me. Sue you? Yeah. Wow.

You're in a car that hits a motorcycle and almost kills the guy. Right. And oh, you've got back issues. Come on. Give me a break. Oh, that's what she's claiming? That somehow she got hurt. That somehow your right leg hurt her car enough that it jolted her back.

Right. When she center punched me with her 3,000 pound car. The balls on this woman. So you're going to have to get a lawyer and everything? No. I talked to the insurance company and they're like, this is horseshit. There's no way. They're like, we're not.

And I told them, I said, don't dare. Do not give her a dime. Right. I was like, if ever there's a case of clear-cut just fraud, to me, this is it. This is just total horseshit. People are ridiculous with lawsuits. Yeah. How do you even try to do that? How do you come to that conclusion?

I hit a guy on a motorcycle. You know what? I'm going to sue him. Does she have a friend telling her, nah, you gotta sue him right he shouldn't have been there probably his right leg was probably real muscly and probably the lawyer probably thinks like i probably messed your back up that's his fault yeah exactly it's like a bus driver running over a baby and then trying to sue the baby because his neck is screwed up i would that's what i was gonna say yeah i was gonna say it's like a bus driver running a baby over.

Just for that visual. You're always making that metaphor. Like, this election is like a bus running over a baby. Yes, we know. It reminds you of Josh. You know what this omelet reminds me of? I'm going to say, Josh, we've heard it before. Pop and then hydroplaning.

Just skidding on baby guts. You know what I mean? I got to pee. Hydroplaning isn't nearly as fun as it sounds. All right. Yeah, we'll take a break. Go pee. Do you know where the bathroom is?

Do you have a bottle with you? Did you bring your medical grade bottle? Do you need me to hold your bottle for you? Are you talking about his penis? All right. We'll take a break. We'll be right back after old broken-toe McGee relieves himself. And we're back from the break.

I was at the bookstore the other day. I know where this is going. I'm reading. So it all started from Bike Week in Ocean City. I was going off about Bike Week to a friend of mine. This is Bike Week. It's when you motorcycle enthusiasts get together. Oh, right. Right around. You must stick out like a sore thumb in that, Mike. To a friend of mine. This is bike week. It's when you motorcycle enthusiasts get together.

Oh, right. Right around. And. You must stick out like a sore thumb in that, Mike. Why? Because you just, you don't seem like that type of person. You don't seem like one of them. What, bikers?

Yeah. I don't know. Well, I actually ride motorcycles instead of pose. It's a lot of posers. Anyway, so. And that's what. It's a really hard thing to pose. No, it's a lot of posers anyway so and that's what like it's a really hard thing to pose like no it's not you gotta like park your prius around the corner and be like hey man i came here on a motorcycle dude guys do that shit i shit you not like you go to bike week and there's people that like they're wearing like the chaps and the leather and this and that and and

it's like but they like drove in their pickup really and like like i rode down they just want to hang out well it's like they yeah i guess they're like they're just posers you know right and uh like i rode down i went from baltimore i went up the top way like up through like delaware and then like just zigzagged all these back roads down through delaware and then made it to ocean city my other friends they all met up in glenn bern Delaware and then made it to Ocean City. My other friends, they all met up in Glen Burnie, and then it was like a pack of like maybe 10 of them, and they rode over the Bay Bridge. That sounds like one of the most terrifying things ever, a motorcycle pack from Glen Burnie. That just doesn't sound good. Hey, you going to do wheelie?

Do wheelie. Do it. Do wheelie, then I'll punch your girlfriend. Come on, man. But it's like I'm riding, and I see punch your girlfriend. Come on, man. But it's like I'm riding and I see these people with trailers. Like, really? Like, you can't ride three fucking hours to Ocean City, you pussy? Like, it's not February.

How do you know they even have motorcycles? You can see them on the trailer. Oh, I see. They bring their motorcycles. Yeah, they put it on the trailer because, you know, you know, I just, you know, well, we'll ride it once we get down there. It's like you're a retard. Right.

I rode my bike to Canada like I don't know how many times I've ridden it to North Carolina multiple times. Like that is Ocean City. It's three hours away. Like most people, when they go out for rides, it's a two or three hour ride. Like it's if you can't ride for three hours like just fucking sell your bike you know what i mean yeah so and it's just like why are you even doing it you know it's like you get down there and there's so many bikes and it's so just crowded with

traffic that you get on your bike and like hey let's go down to you know thrashers and get fries or let's go check out the crap up at the convention center and, you know, whatever. I hear there's good crap this year. There is good crap. So you're just you're you're putting along like 10 miles an hour because there's so much traffic. It's like this isn't fun. You know, we're like roasting in the sun. Yeah.

Doing like 10 miles an hour. And there's just people like you're just surrounded by cars and bikes and all this. And it's straight, flat. It's the epitome of a shitty road to ride on. People that really like to ride, they go out of the city. They go up to Carroll County or Pennsylvania. Not a lot of stoplights, not a lot of traffic, some hills, kind of carve it up. Go through the mountains, ice curves.

Right. You know, it's just, you know, but it's like, hey, what's the worst place you could ride? Oh, how about like a flat, straight, just boring, congested road with no tree cover where you're roasting in the sun? And it's also a vacation spot, too. So there's just tons of cars there anyway and tons of people. People aren't paying attention. It's just like sharks if you get too close to the water. Right, right. Can we talk about the sharks at Bike Week?

I think people miss that. Or the bikers at Shark Week. They just crashed the Discovery Channel headquarters. Fuck Shark Week! Yeah, Bike Week! Did you guys want to go to Thrashers? So anyway, so it's like, and there was like a bunch of other stuff I was going off about, like just like the whole, like you trailer your bike down there,

so you're avoiding the actual ride to Ocean City. So then you're going to unload your bike just to sit in traffic? That's stupid. Why even do that? Just ride the bus at that point. I'm picturing a bunch of Harleys on the front of a bus like the bike rack up front like one sec i gotta unload the soft tail the front of the bus is like touching the ground going to bike week man

going to discovery channel discovery channel uh building over there yeah and then the other thing is is that all the stuff there it's like there were like three locations. There's a convention center, the inlet, and then this like stadium in Salisbury. Right. Well, we checked out all three different, you know, let's see what's over at this one. It's the same shit. Like, you know, dumb patches that say, oh, if you can read this, the bitch fell off, you know. And, you know, who farted and all this shit.

Right. Right. Yeah. And, you know, the patches that people legitimate question. I was still trying to get to the bottom of that, you know, and then it's just just junk. You know, it's like shitty, like belts. And, you know, what's the haps with these new chaps?

Come on down. Yeah. But you go down there and it's just like You go to the second location And it's literally all the same vendors That were at the first location And they're all tired as shit They just ran there to get there in front of you guys

Hey I got more crap You want to buy this twisty coke bottle With sand in it But that's the kind of shit they're selling hey, I got more crap. You want to buy this twisty coke bottle? Put sand in it. But that's the kind of shit they're selling. It's like, what does this have to do with motorcycles? Sand art, but the glass is like a motorcycle. Pretty cool, huh? I got a where's the B bumper sticker.

So anyway, so I decide, all right, I'm going to just write a blog just kind of ripping this shit apart, you know. I love that. It's so like 2012 for Bike Week. You know what? You know what I'm going to do about Bike Week? I'm going to write a blog about this.

I'm going to write a blog about this. And everybody's going to see it. You're going to pay. Just guys like on their hogs like, hey, man, did you see Stork's post on his blog? I know. Quite scathing if you ask me, man. I almost threw out my leather tassels i had to punch my old lady twice i was so mad but that's the thing and it's like you get all these

like you know doctors and accountants and like you know right like i like to ride right but to see the thing is is that they they they play pretend you know they play dress up you know it's like they it's like the village people come to bike week. They put their bikes on their trailer. Somebody's dressed like an Indian. Somebody's a plumber. You're not even part of the village people. Plumber week.

Let's get it going, you guys. Plungers for everybody. Got the new XJ2000 plunger. Pretty cool. Titanium handle, bro. How come you notice like maintenance people

always look like they're living in the 70s? And I'm not just talking about the village people. All right, Mitt Romney. Jeez. Come on, though. I mean, every time

someone comes to fix something, they've got the mullet, they've got the big old-time glasses. I don't know. I meant they're not really worried about fashion like you are. They listen to the spring scene. Yeah, they're working-class men.

Somebody once said that a person's haircut, if it's frozen in time, that a person's haircut is usually tied to the last time that they were like truly happy and free right really you know like uh like you you see brain candy right kids in the hall yes no like that part where it's like you know latching on to the fondest memory you know oh yeah so it's like if you see somebody that's still sporting the Charlie's Angels feathered haircut, that's because that was that time. They're holding on to that particular era of their life. Yeah, still dressing that way. It's like, no, this is still cool, right?

That's why I've still got the one-sided hanging down mohawk with the braids. Skate or die. Mike's saying that all the time. That's your choices. You skate or you die. Yeah, man. That's all I know. I'm going to go with skate.

It's the redneck skate. It's the redneck skater. Hey, man. You got to grind it sometimes, you know? Sometimes you got to do a heel flip. Sometimes you got to do a 50-50 hurricane to nose grab. God throws an obstacle, you ollie it. Were you a skater back in the day, Mike?

What's that? Were you a skateboarder? Old school or new school? What do you mean? Did you have the double? You weren't a skater. That was just starting to come in when I was phasing out a little bit.

Did you skate with the Parkville guys? I used to skate up at Lutherville. They had a skate park up there. A guy named Denny Riordan. He owned the Island Dream Skate Shop in Towson. He was a freestyle skater, like Rodney Mullen kind of stuff, you know. And he was pretty decent from what I remember. But he had a skate shop.

And somehow or another, he convinced, I don't know, like the school or Parks and Recreation or somebody. He convinced them to let him build like a skate park at this school in lutherville right and it was it was all the ramps were they were wood but they had like a like steel surface you know okay yeah um there was a box ramp with a rail slide on the other side it had a kind of a high curb for for doing like lip tricks and shit two bank two big bank ramps on either opposite corners of the it was on like an old like tennis court or basketball court or whatever yeah there was a wall ramp there was a i'm sorry a walrus a wall ramp yeah you could grind the walrus's uh big teeth i love that song grind the Walrus by Peter Gabriel. Grind the walrus.

Grind the walrus. Watch your god damn foot, Josh. Actually, legend has it. I wasn't there so I can't vouch for it, but legend has it that Bucky Lacek actually did a fucking grind on the wall.

Really? I showed up like one day and they're like yeah there was this kid from like down like i don't know like south of baltimore like yeah i can't i don't know i forget where he's from but like but they're like yeah there's a kid from like southern maryland or south of baltimore like he came up he's doing sick shit he's like fucking hit the wall ramp is he the one that was on jackass bucky lasik he's like like one of the best skaters on the planet really yeah yeah he's one of the wall ramp is he the one that was on Jackass Bucky Lasek he's like like one of the best skaters on the planet really yeah yeah yeah he's one of the big one of the biggies

yeah he's one of the yeah but he was like and this was like you know he's I don't know how he was a couple years younger than me and I was like everybody's like yeah it's like this kid you know he's like eight or whatever he's doing. Can't walk, man, but he can do a fucking sick grind. Right. Yeah, he went off the launch ramp, did a backflip McTwist, and then landed on a nollie. What? Are you kidding me?

He did a Madrid air. He did an Afghani takedown to a forward diner. It was like the most ridiculous. It was like, I'm trying to rememberiner. It was like the most ridiculous. I'm trying to remember. I think it was the Madrid air. You did a collie wobble on a bowl Mario pumpkin patch. You would do like a judo air, and then you would pass the board behind your back, wrap it around, and then land on it.

It was like the most insane. We literally spent like an entire day trying to Tennessee muffin top. But yeah, so there was a skate park in Lutherville. I actually never got to go down to the Lansdowne Bowl. There's a skate park not too far from me

now. Like right over there on 36th. I don't know. It's interesting that the city pays for that stuff to be made or whatever. There's grants and stuff. There's one in Cockeysville. That's the thing. It sucks because back then, there was nothing.

You would literally skate in drainage ditches. Right, and that's why people would do swimming pools because that's what was there. They just drained the swimming pool. We didn't even have that. We were just like pot sprinklers. You guys had an above-ground pool, and you're like, fuck, it's not working. We just had a sprinkler. We had an old sprinkler that we turned off.

We skated on it. A slip and slide. It's pretty sick, bro. I just did a pop shove. We had a baby pool that we'd blow up and take all the water out. Grab some of that World War II era lard, bro. We can grind it. As soon as you grind it, it pops and deflates.

Nobody grind it. It's totally worth it, though, man. No grinding. Yeah. We should make a sign. Only inverts. When did you get into comedy, Mike? You got this crazy Star Wars skateboarding

car. Motorcycles. Motorcycles passed. And then all of a sudden, you wake up and you're a comedian. Yeah. All right. It's just hitting him.

You're right. Oh, no. Guys, I have to go. It's just hitting him. You're right. Oh, no. Great. I think he's contemplating his life now. Poof. This is the best podcast ever, though. Sorry about your ceiling. Broke another psyche. Add that to the September death count on the regression sessions.

I would definitely take that into account if I were to shoot myself where the bullet would land. I probably set it for you. Dude, I have so many ideas if if I were to shoot myself where the bullet would land. I probably said it from a big shot. Dude, I have so many ideas if I'm going to kill myself. It's going to be a mess. First you're going to do it with a bat and then an axe. If that doesn't work, a cinder block. Right. And a gun.

Yeah. I'm going to do something crazy. I'm going to launch a van into Orioles Stadium or something. Wow. But you don't want to kill other people. Now we could really get him in trouble. Or like what if you could hang yourself with a helium balloon and just float through Camden Yards? Just like this dead guy.

You really got a intent against the Orioles, don't you? Well, that would definitely make national television. Refuse to sign my hat in 1986. Count Ripken Jr. Well, that would definitely make national television. Refuse to sign my hat in 1986. Cal Ripken Jr. Well, yeah. Bill Murray can kiss my, I don't know, what's his name? Ed Murray? I don't know baseball players.

I shouldn't try to name them. $9 for Eddie Murray or something. Eddie Murray. Something that was very close to Eddie Murphy. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Yeah. It'd be funny if your plan, like, to kill yourself with the van, it's just like, that's just a goalie.

Once you shout a van into Oriole Stadium, you're like, well, now I can kill myself. And I'm done. I have the same vendetta against the Baltimore Stallions. There's not a whole lot I can do about that. The CFL. Baltimore Blast. Take that, soccer players. Take that, Keith Van Aeren.

I'm pretty sure I went to a Baltimore Blast game, and the person I was with insisted that it was like the Super Bowl of indoor soccer. And just maybe eight years ago. And just their moms were there. Yeah. Like, no one was there. Yeah. He's like, yeah, this is like the big game. And it was like a third full.

Yeah. It's kind of shameful, because when I was a kid, we actually had season tickets to the Blast for, like, four or five years maybe. Did you guys want to go see some soccer? Like, get him! I'm just kidding, you guys. I swear. Stop hitting me. But, yeah, like, the Blast actually won, like, the championship, like, a lot.

Right. And it was one of those things, like, where, you know, it was, like, in that, like, world or that community, it was, like, huge. Right, right, right. But then, like, it would, like, barely make the, like, local news. Right. You know, it's like, you guys, like, we have, like, a fucking national championship team. Right. In Baltimore.

And it got, like got 30 seconds of mention. By the way, the Blast won the big championship. Anyway, what's going on with college lacrosse? That's so weird how every culture and country loves soccer, except for us. They're killing each other in Europe right now. Yeah.

They're fighting over soccer right now. Yeah, a little bit. It's the fan, computer fan. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're the only nation that doesn't embrace

football as like or soccer as a, you know. I don't know why. I find it boring. I don't really enjoy it to watch. It's like on

The Simpsons when they had the two commentators when they had the big soccer match in Springfield. Like they're just passing it back and forth and it's Kent Brockman. It's like on The Simpsons when they had the two commentators when they had the big soccer match in Springfield. They're just passing it back and forth and it's Kent Brockman. He's like, wing passes to the center.

He holds it back to the wing and then it cuts to the Latin America guy. He's like, to the wing! Hold it! Hold it! He's like smacked on the window. He's like super excited. That's exactly how I feel though. Yeah. He's like smacked on the window. He's like super excited. That's exactly how I feel, though.

Yeah. Cool! I couldn't imagine running up and down that field, though. Yeah, it's a hell of a workout. Yeah, it's a big field. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just picturing Baltimore Blast players like having actual jobs, too.

It's like, I'd like to celebrate, but I drive a bus bus i got a good bit to work in the morning yeah thanks guys thanks to stan for working at subway hooking us up again he gives me the day old bread so i can feed my family literally stealing bmts for the team right yeah yeah they didn't i don't think they made shit for money like yeah it's so sad i'm sure they if if they can get people to show up i don't think they made much money honestly 40 grand a year not even like really yeah they definitely have to have another job it's kind of like my mom was saying like back in the day with like the like the colts right no yeah donovan and and and. Oh, those guys made dick. Right.

And so that's why all of them had restaurants and bars, because that was like to sort of supplement their income, because they weren't making anything from playing football. There's no retirement package either. I mean, you're not making much money, and then your body gets beat to hell, and then you're done playing football at 40, and you should be in a wheelchair.

And you're like, well, I guess I'll do do something else it's not like you saved up money from playing football unless you're like a huge star like a johnny unitas or something right it's it's insane i mean even now like when people complain about how much money football players and they make i don't care like give it to them they're literally killing themselves for our entertainment stars well plus two and this is the thing that like because i i like there was a period where i was like those guys make five million dollars and they're complaining fuck them but then it like i somebody explained well yeah they're making five million but the owner of the team is making 40 trillion you know it's like they're they're basically like the players are the reason that people are there yeah and spending money yep and the owners and the fucking the vendors and the

stadium and all the parking the merchandise there's so much money that that is generated just by these like 30 players or whatever well it's worse as college like i think the players should get paid in college, too. Because that's why they're all there. That's why these huge schools make money. I mean, look at the Penn State thing. Everybody gave a shit because of the football team, and they don't make any money.

And those kids could get their knees shattered in the third year, and they're taking sandbox as their major. They planned on being football players, and now what do they do for the rest of their lives? They're broke. It's crazy. In more ways than one. Same thing with comics.

Comics don't make shit unless you're the Johnny Unitas of comedy. You know what I mean? Louis C.K. Right. How many years did he slog away and perform and write and everything else? And you're watching these other comics that get just ushered in through the door of fame and blow up.

Come right this way, through the doors of fame. Here's a couple TV shows, millions of dollars. How does that happen, though? Make sure you pick up an endorsement deal over there as well. Well, it's like when you see... To me, this is the most transparent example. You can see it with all types of comics, but when you see an attractive female comic,

all of a sudden. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like, all of a sudden. Yeah, that's with anything in entertainment. It's a unicorn. But, like, you know, with guys, and it's different, but, like, when you see, like, you know,

oh, who's this comic that's, like, all over the TV now? She's on Comedy Central. She's on NBC. She's doing guest appearances on the talk shows. And she's here and they're there. And she's, you know, and it's like all of a sudden, just like this, you know, this person came out of nowhere, but they're fucking everywhere. And then I bet you within the next six months, she's going to have her own sitcom. And bam, sure enough. And what it is, is it's, I think, an actress or a comedian,

but she's good looking. You know, she's good. And that's her sitcom. It's like, on Monday nights, catch Jenny on, eh? Right. Eh? Like, but you know what I mean? She's photogenic.

She looks good on camera. She's attractive. People want to watch her. Right. As long as she can hobble together like a decent stand-up set But you know what I mean? She's photogenic. She looks good on camera. She's attractive. People want to watch her. Right. As long as she can hobble together like a decent stand-up set that's at least passable. It doesn't have to be Louis C.K. or Emo Phillips quality, but it's just, it's funny. Then we can sell her.

Acting. And we can sell her, you know, she's, you know, the acting, you know, and a lot of times that's what it is, is that they start out as actresses and they just sort of their management and their agents say, look when we try to push you through and and and develop this this tv show around you it's all like packaged and ready to go you know and so that's why you know those managers they're the ones that are i think you know it's like push get her on here get her on this show get her on that show just get her as as much out there as possible so there's like buzz getting generated and like people get to know who this person is so that when they do launch that sitcom it it happens you know it's not just like who the fuck is this you know so what would you say the percentage of comedians who make it are making it because of their talent or just making it because of their... I have no idea. Right.

I mean, it's just because the thing is, I'm sure you guys see it too. I see comics that get the world handed to them on a silver platter, and you're like, the guy's fucking terrible. Right. He's not funny.

He's really not funny. Well, there is a huge market for mediocre comedy. I mean, if you look at... I mean, most comedy on TV and in movies isn't really that funny. Yeah. Oh, yeah, especially sitcom comedies. That's why an Arrested Development is so rare. They're like, wow, this is smart and insanely funny.

Right, Arrested Development. Brilliantly written. Yeah. What do they have? Three seasons, right? Tiny minority. Full house. Right. Never dies.

Yeah. You know, who's the boss? Right. Angela, I'm just a boxer from Brooklyn. Good. You know? Right. I mean, you know, that shit, like, it just, it never goes away.

Yeah. Something that's actually good. Right. People just can't, you know, it never goes away. It's something that's actually good. People just can't, not enough people, people want simple and stupid. Lowest common denominator. Right, and that's why it shows Big Bang Theory. I've never seen it in Two and a Half Men and stuff, but I just see the commercials for it, just watching football today. They're like, on a very funny Wednesday, Big Bang's coming back.

It's like, did I ever tell you that i like your haircuts like only when you're drunk i heard that show's actually pretty funny that's what i hear too but whenever they show the previews i'm like yeah i'll say this i think big bang theory will have it has some good funny stuff but it's like i think it might fall into that or like sort of gravitate towards being a funny show that has smart like or what's the word like instead of being smart jokes just jokes that happen to incorporate smart things. Do you know what I mean? So mediocre jokes with some intellectual packaging. Yeah.

It's not that the joke itself is very smart, but it just happens to say particle wave theory or something. Oh, boy. Do you know what I mean? It's like, you know, i mean it's like you know yeah yeah you know what am i stephen hawking you know it's like right yeah okay that's a reference to stephen hawking which i mean you could say that's like a a nerdy or smart reference but it's not really it's just it happened do you know like you don't have psychology behind it isn't clever in and of itself.

You don't have to think to get it, you know? Right, right, yeah. Which is actually another alternative name for our podcast. What was that? You don't have to think to get it. No, not at all. Lots of fart jokes on this one. Lots of fart jokes.

Hey. What was it? What was I what was i gonna say oh yeah about tv but there is some really good tv out there yeah um but also about comedy are there some people that you've seen like people you came up with that kind of get that shot and you're like yeah i don't really think that they deserve maybe what they're getting well yeah i mean it's you you see people that should have more success that don't get it yeah you see people that you're like right he's okay but like not as much as he's you know yeah people are all up his ass it's like you know you know right he's not a bad comic but it's like that with music too yeah it's you know probably any art form that

definitely it's kind of like you see you know comics who um like this is something that i was explaining to somebody like recently to me i like watching i like if if i'm gonna watch a comedian i want to watch somebody that that gives a shit about the art form right um there's comedians that really they put their heart and soul into it like uh um they just had ryan stout at mcgoobies like about a month ago he's one of the best comics i've ever seen he's fucking hilarious yeah i i i saw him open for bob saget like i don't know five years ago down in D.C., Stout just destroyed. Really? Like, destroyed. And Saget, eh.

You know, he's famous. Yeah. A lot of people are there because, oh my God, Bob Saget. But he's not the better comic. Right. You know, Ryan Stout was the better comic. Yeah, that happens a lot.

You know, you'll see the local guy is better than the comedian he's opening for right and bob saget probably isn't working as hard as ryan stout either i think bob saget's just at a point in his career where he can just coast you know like i like i you know he might work on his stand-up a little bit he used to be on full house right so and he's already rich and he's just like i can just go out there and people already like me so right they're gonna laugh at whatever I say. That's the thing.

They're headlining. They're on the bill because they're famous and they're going to sell tickets, whereas the opener is on the bill because he's a funny comic. He earned it. Yeah, exactly. Like merit.

By virtue of the strength of his material and his performance and everything else. Yep. Or somebody like Pauly Shore is God awful. Right. But he's famous. So every club knows. Yeah, he's not funny. He's a complete asshole.

People know who he is. He treats the staff like shit. He's a douchebag. But we're going to sell tickets. I hope that's how they describe him, too. He's an asshole. He's rude to the staff, and he's not funny. That's how he's promoted on the post.

But you'll pay for it anyway. So, fuck you! You're a stupid asshole. Like a land of the slaughter. You fucking idiot. Go ahead, Lemmings. Move along. Fall off the cliff and onto the Pauly Shore.

Onto the Pauly Shores. Man. But yeah, that's the thing. It's like, to me, it's... Sail to Pauly Shores. Hey, buddy, I'm the whistle. I'm going to rape your waitress. Buddy.

But that's the thing. It's like, you know, when I talk to comics, it's like, that's the thing it's like you know when i when i when i talk to comics it's like that's one of my things is i look at who's who's trying to be a better comic you know who's working who's going on stage going over their material taping their sets going back over right going up every week you know drive driving to dc driving up to fucking Pennsylvania, you know, whatever. Sure. And, you know, there was a comic, and I'm not going to say who it was, but, you know, it's like every conversation, he's like, how do I get on on E-Rock and da-da-da-da-da? And it's like, you know, he didn't give a shit about.

Are you talking about Gravely Voice Ted? Gravely Voice Ted? Yeah, that's his shtick. Hey, man. He's all gimmick. I don't want neither. Once you get past the gravelly voice, he's got nothing. There's not much to Ted.

If your focus is entirely on how do I get this gig? How do I get on this? How do I get on any rock? Gravelly? It's an illusion. That's the thing that i think a lot of comics don't realize is they think that they're just they're gonna they're gonna get on

the radio or they're gonna do a podcast or they're gonna fucking be on tv or whatever one time and like the floodgates are just gonna open but that's that's the thing it's the culmination of everything that's i mean with a lot of comedians too like whoa this person came out of nowhere it's like well not really they've been grinding away for 10 years doing little bits of everything right mark maron well what the fuck you know and then bam no dude like he he was another like 20 year comedian as well like just grinding it out so yeah and that's the thing it's like when when i when i hear those kind of things from comics it's, you know, what I hear in my head is your focus is not on how do I make this craft? Yeah. How do I make this joke better? How do I get this punch line to hit harder?

Right. And the funny thing is that like those things will happen as you work harder on your craft. Like the reason you're getting that those people get those spots is because they're good comics. It's not like just because you knew somebody. I mean, granted, that does happen. But where is it going to get you if you don't bring the goods as well? Like, sure, you're there, but you're not that great. Yeah, you can get booked at any comedy club once. Right.

Right. You know? Right. But that's the thing. It's like if you spend the time working on being funny, you know am i getting laughs right am i making don't make excuses oh it's just not my crowd or you know oh it's just a bad hoof it's a dumb crap no your job like you should be able to win animals can't laugh hey i don't speak english you know but it's like you know your job should be to get the audience to live. I can't tell you how many times I've seen comics just bail halfway through their set.

They just you can tell they give up. They're like, oh, and they phone it in. Yeah. And every comic, they just they just write it off as a bad crowd. And then I'll go up or another comic will go up and they just say, no, watch. And they just fucking get them and the next thing you know the show is great and it's like well how did that happen you know he was able to do it you make the effort you know just check out that comic was able to pull that crowd around

yeah you know he figured out what they needed and how to just turn it and and look at that now he's having a great set sure you know and if you want to be where he is then you need to be able to do that too you know and you know if you don't work on your craft and that's and if you're always blaming it on something else or like the guy in front of me went long this is my people my Tables are crooked. Yeah. But that's the thing. My mother didn't hug me enough. Right. I grew up in an impoverished area.

You're going to leave the AC on all night? God. Jesus. The clock is three minutes slow. How am I supposed to kill? Let me ask you this, though. As far as creative writing, can you sit down and say, I need a good punchline for this? I need to punch this up and create something funny?

Or do you kind of just have to let it happen? A. So what's your technique for that? A. Because I have difficulty with that. Well, organic is always the best. Ideal, of course. Because it's the easiest and it's the most natural.

Do you find organics a little too expensive, though? No. Sorry. I write all my jokes at Trader Joe's. Good for you. Good for you. I recycle them. But see, this is the thing.

There was a quote. I can't remember who it's like there was a there was a quote i can't remember who it was it was like you know seinfeld or one of those kind you know but it was like writer's block is is for amateurs right and that's just it it's like there's plenty of comics that just like yeah i'm just gonna go get high and play fucking you know world of warcraft because you know i just you know joke I'll wait for some... I'm not going to force it. Do you think it's something where you should kind of force it? Because I know

when I'm writing a column, I kind of have to force it because there's kind of a deadline and I've got to get it done. When I'm writing comedy, I can tell myself, well, I'll just try this out and see where it goes. But I feel like that's kind of my laziness saying you know you have to right you have to push yourself to to sit down and i i struggle with it just as much as any i've been busy fixing these damn ford trucks so

that my mom has something to drive right and you know so all of my literally all of my time for the last month has been preoccupied with this. I set aside an hour to go to Starbucks and just sit down and write, you know, and but you have to do that. You have to just just like whether it was going to the gym or, you know. Well, it's it's a comedic muscle as well. Like you just got to keep writing. I fucked up a joke. I did a set at uh someplace the other night umbc umbc and i did yeah the fried chicken bit i totally i i fucked that joke yeah

completely up yeah that's your that's your big closer too like it's like it's a solid bit and i and i blew it because rust i hadn't been on stage in a bit. I hadn't been writing and I got rusty. And that joke just went in the shitter because I fucked up because I'm rusty. You know, so it's like if you don't force yourself to write and perform like a lot and regularly. Yeah. You know, I mean, there's there's comics in Baltimore that like it kills me because I'm like, this comic has talent. Like they have potential and they're blowing it. They're not getting on stage. They're not fucking writing. Meanwhile, you have other comics that suck shit, but they're actually they're getting better.

And they're like getting booked on stuff because they're out every night. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the repetition, too. I mean, if people are going to see them, they're like, oh, you're you do comedy. You might not be that great, but you can get on my show. I mean, you're around. Yeah.

Versus somebody that's talented and doesn't perform as much. You're not going to get seen by a promoter or another comedian who puts on a show. Yeah. So. One of the things that I remember seeing like a parallel, like I used to go to, i i would go to my shrink like once a week right and that's where you test out all your new bits yeah i'm like you know so i'm thinking of killing myself and then i'm like hey wait a minute what's the deal with these shotguns i mean 12 gauge 20 gauge what who needs all these gauges am i right i don't know how to Gange So

Do it like Carlin Nevermind Go ahead I realized I got nothing Another name for our podcast I realized I got nothing I realized I got nothing

The Mike Stork story You on the cover making that I realized I got nothing. The Mike Stork story. You on the cover making that like, I got nothing. Reached in your pockets. So the shrink session will be 45 minutes, right? Come in, you know, what's going on. You got a good opener. They do a tight five.

Right. Just kind of warm them up. Right. Get them loose. So are my parents divorced? Your shrink's like, I love this stuff. Who's drinking? Who's drinking?

Where are you from? But I realized that, like, the first, like, you know, 10, 15 minutes of the therapy session would be like just kind of like, oh, what's going on? Kind of good week, this blah blah it's really just kind of sort of warming up bullshit it's buffer yeah you're just kind of getting in the groove or whatever and then you know she's like what's going on

what's on your mind that kind of shit bugging you and we wouldn't really start getting to the meat of it until like the 35, 40-minute mark. And it's like just when we're starting to get to something. Right. You know, we're like, well, you know what? Maybe the reason I get so angry with this is because it made my eyes.

Yeah. Time. Ding. Fuck. And scene. We're just getting to something. I've noticed that with improv too, I think. In practice, I feel like I'm ready to go around the 35-minute mark,

which is why I feel like we should do scenes before we go on stage because I usually feel like I'm only warmed up right when we get off stage. Yeah, I've been doing that a little bit with one of my troops. We're not really doing scenes, but we'll just talk like we're different characters and just making stuff up. Like, well, that's why you aren't going to get your brown belt. I mean, you're really scared. And then, like, from there, like, whatever it goes to,

like, it's basically just getting loose and doing it. Yeah. That's why, like, doing, like, a whole week of shows, like, if you're doing, like, Tuesday through Sunday, it's, like, by the time you hit, like, Friday or Saturday, like, you're just... You're in the zone. Yeah you're just in the zone. Yeah, you're in the zone. You're just you go up, bang, boom, you know, and you're just you're in

that fucking mode. And so is that what you're saying about going to your going to your shrink? Is that like just get right into it? So what I would do one time we did a double session, right, where it was we booked two hours, which would be, you know, hour and forty five ish. And we like really got to the meat of some shit. I was really good. So I'm killing at this point. I got it right where I want it. This crowd is eating out of my hand.

So what I started doing was I would go to Panera or Starbucks or whatever, and I would just sit down with my notebook, and I'd get a coffee or whatever, and I would just start writing about whatever was pissing me off at that time, like what's really bugging me. And I would literally just write, and I'm not trying to be funny. I'm just getting my thoughts out on paper. And I would do that for like the hour before the session. So by the time I walked in the front door of my therapist office

i'm ready to go right it's like okay so here's what i'm here's where i'm at right you know girl that i'm dating is doing this and you know and it's like she doesn't get arrested development right she doesn't get it yeah you know and so it it it made that 45 minutes an actual, like, productive 45 minutes. Absolutely. You know, and so I think the same thing is with writing. It's like if you sit down and you write and you just try to get your thoughts out on paper. Say you're like, all right, I'm going to write a bit about Ocean City Bike Week, you know. Yeah, I could go up on stage and just try to work it out right there, but it would be so much better if I can sit down

and just get all my thoughts out on paper and just exhaust everything and then go back over it and sort of pick through it and realize, okay, well, you know, out of these five pages that I've written, the real main points that bug me or that get get to me are this, this and that. Those are the three that really fucking. Sure.

There's other issues that I could kind of maybe make something out of. But these are the three. Like the crux of your argument. Yeah. Yeah. And and so then it's like, OK, well, I kind of zeroed in on what it is that bugs me or the thing that I'm sort of like seeing as a hypocrisy or whatever. Sure. So when I go on stage, it's like I'm a lot more focused on where I'm trying to go with this.

Mm-hmm. And I feel like it makes the bits sort of congeal a lot quicker and a lot more coherently. So do you kind of do it sounds like you do it kind of half and half like writing like where the bit's gonna go you're like you know here's how it starts here's where i want to get and in between there here's a couple posts for jokes that i'll hit right do you kind of work it out on stage as well like here's the idea okay and what about comedians that insist that the best thing you can do is just have an idea and go on stage and just... That works, too.

Uh-huh. I mean, but the thing... I guess the thing is... It doesn't seem to work for me at all. I think that it's dangerous, though, because I think sometimes comics will only try to do that. Right. And then you just ramble, and you're not really getting to anything. But what you're doing, you know where you're starting and where you want to go versus, like, what else about bike week?

And there's a fucking guy in the boots. Yeah, and it's when you're sitting in the audience as a comic or an audience member and you're watching somebody just rambling about like, I don't know, my dad's kind of like, well, why didn't we get pizza?

It's like... You're not going to finish the story? We're all sitting here. You didn't put any fucking work, we're all sitting here. Yeah. You didn't put any fucking work into this before you got here. Yeah. Fucking get to it, man. You know, it's almost like an insult.

Like, you're wasting our time because you didn't put any effort at all. Sure. Do you know what I mean? Oh, absolutely. It's like when you see, like, then you look over and there's another comic that's, like, got their notebooks out and the slips of paper and they're like working on this. No, no, I'll do this. And it's like this motherfucker is putting effort into it, you know, and he might bomb, he might kill.

But it doesn't matter because he's actually trying. Yeah. You know, and and that's one of the things that I mean, I respect it more. But I'd also I feel like those are the comics that I over the years that I see that succeed. You know, absolutely. Like Gaffigan, you know, like I mean, when I was living in New York, you know, like he would do a spot. Right. And he has he would he recorded it, you know, like he would go up and he's got his thing. And it's like he's not there to fucking socialize he's not there to he's there to work rank he's there to fucking work you know and that's that's one of the other things it's like

there's comics who they're hobbyists you know they show up they hang out they drink they're outside smoking then they're back in they might go up and do a set, but they're hobbyists. They're not really in it. Right, right, right. And it's like, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not trying to shit on them, but I don't view them as the same peer group. Right, right. You know? Like, yeah, they're here, and they go up.

Yeah, I mean, some people just do it for fun. Some people just do it for themselves. And that's fine but like you know if those comics are like well how do i get the gigs and how do i it's like you're not you're not you don't want it oh yeah that's another thing too it's like that doesn't it's not even applicable to you because you're not in this realm yeah you're on the outside looking in a little bit what do you think think about, like, I have trouble, like, when I do improv, I can improvise just fine, you know? But when I do stand-up and I'm doing, you know, scripted things, I can't seem to get into that improv zone. I can't seem to do both simultaneously, you know?

What's your, do you have any thoughts on that? I don't know. Like, I'll improv in my stand-up,-up when I did the thing about the New Orleans. Yeah, can you tell that? The room that we were doing the show at UMBC, it was all done up like it was Mardi Gras. The name of it is Flat Tuesdays, so it's supposed to be like that. You had to perform there before. Right, right.

Yeah, they got the balcony with the beach. For the people listening, yeah, exactly. It's supposed to be like. You had to perform there before. Right, right. Yeah, they got the balcony with the beach. For the people listening. Yeah, exactly. It's supposed to look like Mardi Gras. Yeah. New Orleans. People were wearing the Mardi Gras masks, the mannequin, you know. And so it's all done up like it's Mardi Gras.

And I'm like, I said something like, oh, you know, I thought we were at the Bayou or something, you know. And I was like, yeah, I guess this is what it looks like during Mardi Gras. There's mannequins having dinner at a table, you know. Yeah. And I was like, what they ought to do is just get some watery mud and just paint a line about four feet up all the way around. Wow. And then Mike added this excellent detail.

He's like, put some red x's on the doors yeah it was it was so goddamn funny but that was just something that popped into my head and i was like i'd go with it and so i said it do you think it's something where as the anxiety of being on stage uh starts to dissipate you get you're more free to get ideas i was talking um i think it was stavros we were talking about like hammering out like your eight minute set or something or maybe it was dory i can't remember like uh what i said was okay like get your get your killer eight minutes like if, Mike, the booker for fucking Ferguson is in the back of the room. He wants to see eight-minute sets.

Right. Four comics. You're one of them. You've got to go up and do eight minutes. Do your best killer eight minutes. Blow his fucking socks off if you get on Ferguson. Do you know what you're going to doon do you know what you're gonna do do you know what i mean do you have to look at a set list do you have what am i gonna

should do this you know you should know okay boom put me up just let me know when i'm up you shouldn't even have to think about it you should know what your killer eight minute set is bulletproof if every joke is gonna get a laugh you don't even have to think about it you know the order this bit follows into this bit segues right into that bit goes into the closer and I'm done right everything's gonna work like I know like if I do the Honda Civic bit it's going to work I've done it enough times it's mapped out it's burned into my head I don't have to think about it right it. It's just automatic.

Right. So there's a couple bonuses for doing that. One is that if that situation were to come up, boom, you can knock it out of the park where the other comics are maybe freaking out or trying to, you know, whatever. The other thing is that if you now have like a solid bulletproof eight minute set okay then you work on the next six or seven minutes you get your 15 minutes you know when you know that you have this material it works it's solid it's dependable you don't have to question it right it's going to get a laugh nothing can go wrong like i have this bulletproof set i have this material that if i decide to talk about the canon printer or the guitar or the guy over here drinking a

hot chocolate or something and it and it and it doesn't go anywhere or it bombs you can jump back to your exactly right it does not matter i i have no fear because i know i'll just segue right into my donkey kong bit and win him right back right so knowing that you have that like emergency anxiety and the yeah because it's like you have nothing to fear because you know you can get them back you know so having having you know nailed down like a solid set like when i started doing like 30 minute sets regularly like featuring and stuff and then you're So having nailed down a solid set, like when I started doing 30-minute sets regularly, like featuring and stuff,

and then you're doing set after set after set after set, and you cut out the fat, and this bit's just not working reliably enough, pull it and put something else. And I know I can do 30 minutes, and if anything, I'm going to run long. So if I decide to wing it, I don't even think about it.

The fear goes away. The anxiety goes away. But I think that comes from just doing a lot of sets right you know um and doing like different types of sets that's one of the things that i think some comics they'll only do one room you know they'll only do one type of audience right yeah and you're never going to be a well-rounded comedian if you do that yeah no and it's like you know you can't um it's like it's like performing in a bubble in your mom's basement. You know what I mean?

It's like, well, my Aunt Susie thinks I'm funny. Yeah. Well, is Aunt Susie going to buy 200 tickets? She said she would. At the comedy club in Tampa? You know what I mean? That's the thing. It's like, I don't know, I think people get too,

like there are scenes like that in every city where it's like this sort of insulated safe zone or whatever. But I think having that, knowing that you have that gun in your pocket of solid material. Everybody start laughing or I'm shooting this thing. Don't be a hero. Think of your family. Just let out the laughs. There's a two-item minimum. I've only seen you get mozzarella sticks.

Get something else. Move it along. Two-item minimum or Uncle Dave's not happy. You don't want to make him mad especially if you're a woman but that's the thing like uh um you know it i like i told you i probably told you guys this story about when i bombed on purpose in florida yeah yeah just to get it out of the way yeah just to see i'm gonna try to see how bad i can eat it yeah like on purpose just fucking eat it. I want it to be awkward. I want people to feel uncomfortable.

And I did it. And I did it with authority. Yeah, it didn't... I bombed with authority. Authority was performing that night? Jimmy Authority Higgins? Yeah, from the Def Jam series. Coming to the stage,

authority! And then some surly teenager's like, I don't like this guy. Some punk rockers. Call me crazy, but I just never liked Authority. Nothing they've done. Yeah, didn't you, you said you got the host to bring you up and say it's your first time.

Yeah, well, he thought it was my first time. Oh, that's great. And I picked the most congested path to the stage. You know, like people have to move their chairs. You came out of the women's bathroom. I shook his hand with the wrong hand. I mean, it was just everything. I fumbled with the mic.

You talked into the wrong end of the mic. Yeah. Like I had it. You're facing the wall behind you. I unhooked the cords. Get loose. Come on, guys. Right.

What am I talking to a wall? What is this? At one point, I actually went, oh, God. When are they going to send out Sandman to get me off the stage? Right. But after doing that, like it's like silence didn't freak me out. Because I basically ripped my shirt open and embraced the silence. Like, take it in the chest kind of thing. Right, right.

And so after that, because you get a lot of comics that it's like everybody's running from that silence. Right. You know? Yeah. God, they're not laughing. Keep talking. Like Batman. Huh?

You have to face your fears like Batman. Yeah. No, really. That's the thing. Are you talking about another Def Jam comedian? Batman? Yeah. Coming to stage.

Dark as hell. That is weird. The Dark Knight, y'all. When people nickname themselves Batman. I haven't run into those people. That's a popular nickname. I swear to God. Batman. Yeah. That's a popular nickname. Batman? There's a guy in high school.

Moran and I have had this conversation before. He just brought it up real like everybody's been through. I think we all can relate to that. I don't know a single Batman. There's Batman out there. Bad men?

Well, yeah, but that's not what I said. There's bad mitten players out there. Believe you me. But yeah. So when did you get into stand-up? How old were you? I don't remember. Really?

It's been a while. Three. In an unrelated story, I fell on my head after flying 43 feet. This just in. Are you the doctor? Can I have a new bottle, please? Exterminate. Except for, like, the drinks that are not spelled the same. Exterminate. same so yeah when you're performing could you perform all over the country and in Canada I

mean what is what's your goal now like do you wanna because you I mean what because I know you performed it like like HBO like when they'd had their comedy festival and stuff. And you said there were like TV people there. And I don't know, you've been doing it for a while. And I think you've seen enough people go down different avenues. Like, what do you want? What have you taken from other comedians you've seen? Maybe assholes that do well or good people that didn't try enough or anything.

I think. I was worried you were going to yawn there. Oh, my career. Boring. I'll tell you one second. Sorry about the ceiling. That should be your new CD. Sorry about the ceiling.

I think my goal... I'm not... You see some comics, they go into straight up acting just, like, straight-up acting. I don't really know that that's, I mean, I enjoy doing stand-up. I enjoy, like, the actual doing of it. And, you know, like I was saying before, the comics that focus on, well, how do I get this and how do I get that? All they focus on is the ladder climbing

like it's like almost like they don't enjoy just the actual act of doing stand-up right it's just a stepping stone to get to that other thing right like i i have a friend like from from high school that was uh like he's a he's a great guitar player plays guitar plays bass sure i think he plays other musical instruments too but like he's phenomenal like he's like literally phenomenal and the thing is is back in high school when everybody else was out like drinking or chasing chicks or like you know getting stoned or whatever like he was literally at home just playing because that's what he he actually enjoyed it yeah and that's part of the reason why he's great at it is because he actually yeah it seems like the the greats always are obsessed with what they do yeah like stephen

king just can't stop writing yeah you know like john frusciante has to play guitar 12 hours a day right and that's why he has seven solo albums plus red chili pepper albums and that's just all he does yeah and that's that's why like you know j Jimi Hendrix was, he was going to be great because that's what he did for fun. He learned how to play guitar upside down, for Christ's sake, because he was left-handed. That's fucking insane. You know? And that's the thing. It's like a con.

But he switched the strings up, didn't he? Yeah. No. Really? I think it was all, it was upside down. Like, that's how he learned. Why didn't someone tell him he can just string it differently? Because you can't.

Because the gauge isn't there. Oh, really? Yeah, you can't do that. I mean, unless you buy. Can't you, like, open it up and flip the thing around, though? Well, I mean, it would take a lot to replace it. Like, you'd have to have replaced the whole, what's that piece there? Torque converter?

The bridge right there. You'd have to take that out And move that all around And then on the neck too At the bolts right there Like everything is Gauge for the strings Certain sizes But

So Either way I mean he eventually got a left handed guitar But still he fucking Played it upside down And you know Playing every minute of his life basically Or whenever he could

And that's what I think that's what makes somebody great at it You know Sure So I That's why seinfeld like seinfeld still does stand up you know what i mean it's like you see that in the uh the dvd comedian when he's just like even though he's rich and like probably worth like hundreds of millions of dollars he's still like hey can i get on the set or yeah go to caroline's after i just did the cellar and

try to grow i was at the cellar with a friend of mine we're sitting there and and like this really hot chick walks in and i was like holy fuck i mean like smoking hot and uh i'm busy looking at her and my friend like like elbows oh my god you see who just came in i was like who is she is she like a fucking model or something no the god seinfeld and i look and the hot chick was with seinfeld and i was like oh shit i wonder if he's gonna go up you know and he did and it's like he was working out new shit like he had pieces of paper and he's you know throwing it out and it's like you know dude like does not need to do this no he wants to do it he has to do it.

Right. So is that kind of where you're at? You're like, I'm just going to keep doing stand-up wherever it goes. I'll always keep doing stand-up because, like I said, like, I enjoy it. Like, the people, it's kind of like a weird thing. It's like I think the people who truly love to do it wind up getting good at it because they love to do it. Sure. getting good at it because they love to do it sure but then if they become successful or they become like actors or whatever it's like they still do stand-up because that's what got the fact that they love doing it yeah is what made them really good at it and that doesn't go away

so they're still going to want to keep doing right at their core their stand-up jay leno still does stand-up you know he's got a tv show he makes gazillions of dollars, but he still does stand-up. Yeah, but he's probably been doing the same hour for 20... That's why he won't release an album. Right. Because all he does is corporate gigs where he makes probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. He doesn't spend any of his Tonight Show money, I've heard.

Yeah, that's what he said. Yeah, because he gets so much money from doing these corporate things and stuff. Which is fucking crazy. How much money do you think he's sitting on? he gets what like what's his plan though what's he gonna do with it you know buy cars and stuff but that's one of those guys that's just yeah obsessed with having that high number in the bank yeah and i like that too when uh like they fired some of the tonight show staff and then they're like jay leno took a drastic pay cut from 35 million to 21 million

to save jobs like what about all that fucking tonight show money he's sitting on that he can't save 15 jobs like mr i never cash a goddamn check like you could like your salary could provide for probably like 60 people on the staff you could give him each a million right you're like look sorry about the job you know sorry you got fired but uh here's a million right you're like look sorry about the chop you know sorry you got five but uh here's a million dollars what are you gonna do hey yeah truckload of doritos right yeah i just like wow what a hero he took a 14 million dollar cut and now he still makes 21 million dollars i think i think he probably does it because he's still paranoid you know i think he's like not paranoid but like just that sort of like you know if you've been struggling and poor yeah and like like

scratching and clawing yeah that was him too he actually really did live very poor in the beginning i think when he moved to california he just slept behind the comedy store right like he got picked up for vagrancy a few times and the cop would have to be like well where are you going he's like i don't have a house like well you got to get in the car and drive around with me because i can't just have you on the streets so he'd ride around with a cop really yeah exactly and then go back and then eventually like started staying somewhere with a friend but right that's that's fucking commitment like i'll just sleep behind the comedy store right and then and then meanwhile you go to like high tops or sidebar like some other like open mic and yeah hey you going up yeah i'm just drinking it's like

you know fucking jay leno slept behind a dumpster right and you're being offered you you could go up and do five if you want it and you're not yeah and it might not be good but then you'll know it's not good and you can try other stuff or maybe it is good you know what i mean that'll build so yeah i hear you all right so you're gonna keep keep keep touring yeah i don't know as far as yeah like end game i don't know um you know it's like i'm open i'm staying open to other shit you know it's like you know just i mean I'm up for whatever. Like, you know, I've done like stuff, like movie stuff with my brother and like, you know, like podcasts and, you know. Yeah, just whatever pops up.

Yeah. And so like writing, like that's the whole Ocean City thing. I kind of got off on a tangent. But like the reason I went to the bookstore was because I wanted to read some of these motorcycle magazines some of the smaller ones just to get a feel for the writing style because i was like i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna submit some stuff i'm a comic i could probably write halfway decent so make it a little funny i i know motorcycles i ride motorcycles maybe i could combine the two write some you know whatever know whatever the weird part of the story is that I was sitting in the bookstore

and I like turned to look at something and I felt something wet and I was like what the fuck and I look up because I thought maybe the roof was leaking and I don't see anything and I touch my neck and I go to smell it and I was like oh it's blood

so was it leaking out of your ear my neck and i go to smell it and i was like oh it's blood so it was leaking out of your ear my neck i had like some some like a bump or something and like my shirt collar had like must have ripped it or something and my whole fucking neck was just like covered in blood like a lot like i went like this and it's like running down my arm, and I'm like, holy shit. Nobody said anything. Hey, you're bleeding. That's because you're in a bookstore. You're the most badass guy to ever be in a bookstore. You went and got a small motorcycle magazine, and you're just reading it intently.

Just blood. Just blood. Just blood. It was like, he'll kill us. Stay away from him. That guy's bleeding. Right. But meanwhile, you're like, oh, I'm going to blog about this. He's crazy. Stay away from him. That guy's bleeding. But meanwhile, you're like, oh, I'm going to blog about this.

He's crazy. Stay away from him. Bleeding guy reading motorcycle magazines. Right. But yeah, once I realized, oh, Jesus. Fortunately, I was wearing a red Millennium Falcon shirt. So the blood wasn't that obvious. That's the only time that sentence ever has been spoken

yeah fortunately i had my red shirt so the blood wasn't but i wasn't embarrassed in the bookstore so i closed the magazine with my other hand so i didn't get blood all over it and uh that be funny? Like a bloody motorcycle magazine in the rack? That's the most badass I've ever watched a bit behind you. No one will know. And then I walked out and I had a washcloth

sitting in my passenger seat and I just went like that and it was just fucking saturated with blood. Going down the escalator at the mall with your hand. Oh, fuck. Alright, Mike. Well, you've been more than generous with your time, so I think we're going to wrap it up here.

So thanks for joining us on the podcast. Thank you, Mike. This was a lot of fun, as always. Yeah. Hail Satan. Yes. Yep, hail Satan. Hail Satan.

So, yeah, let's just say goodbye here. We had a hail Satan storm yesterday. It was a big one. Anything of direction? Well, that's one of the other things about comedy. I just want to throw that out. The show is over, Mike. I don't know where you get off.

It would be funny if you did. I would like to thank the Great Dark Overlord for helping me in my career. Right, that's the key to success. You don't need your soul. And he's all a attempt to sell our souls and see what happens. Not a lot of successful Christian comics, I'm just saying. Robert Johnson can do it.

Take that, Dave Coulier. Is he a Christian? Probably. That's his middle name. Christian Coulier? David Christian Coulier? No, I'm a Christian is his middle name. David, I'm a Christian Goulet. Goulet.

All right. Well, thanks for everybody. Goulet. Hi, Harman. Goulet. DigressionSessions.com. MikeStork.com. And yeah, thanks for listening, everybody.

Thank you, everybody. We love you. Love you. everybody. We love you. Love you. you you you you you you you you