The Digression Sessions - Ep. 72 - Rob Farley!

Episode Date: May 6, 2013

-Foam Party- Hola DigHeads! This week we have the very funny and interesting stand-up comedian Rob Farley! Don’t let Rob’s beard, tattoos, and having worked at the City Paper fool you, Rob is no hipster, as he makes clear in this ep! In just a year of doing stand-up, Rob has risen from the vacant depths of just being a funny guy to featuring at local shows and even opening for Doug Stanhope! This may be one of our sharpest and honest episodes yet, as Rob’s comedic and conversational energy blends seamlessly with Josh and Mike’s. On this week’s show we talk with Rob about high school, being an Army brat, bad performances gone silent, good intentions, gone awkward and more! I think we even get more Stephan King this week. Find Rob on the Twittaz @bmorecomical. Wow, bold enough to not put his own name in his twitter handle!  Follow us! @BetterRobotJosh @MichaelMoran10 @DigSeshpod DigressionSessions.com Give us a rating and a comment on the ol iTunes, if you're nasty.

Welcome to the Digression Sessions Podcast. Hey everybody, I'm Josh Koderna. And I'm Mike Moran. And you're listening to the Digression Sessions Podcast, a Baltimore-based comedy talk show hosted by two young, handsome stand-up comedians slash improvisers join us every week as we journey through the world of comedy and the bizarreness of existence as we interview local and non-local comedians writers musicians and anyone else we find creative and interesting

yes who's the guest this week comedian rob farley is our guest on this week's program. And he's on Twitter at BmoreComical. That's letter B-M-O-R-E-C-O-M-I-C-A-L. And we had a really good time talking to Mr. Rob Farley, Mike Moran and I. We talked about music, fondling in daycare, and early childhood masturbation, traveling the world as an army brat,

his disdain for Jurassic Park as a 10-year-old, and, of course, comedy and bombing and how that hurts, but how you learn from it. And, yeah, it was a super fun conversation. We talked for almost two hours, which was, uh, which was really cool. I was happy to have him over and he was nice enough to bring Mike and I some coffee and beer and the beer that he brought over would not stop foaming for some reason. So, but it was, uh, it was a plus cause we just had a foam party, everybody. That's right. When God gives you lemons we just had a foam party, everybody.

That's right. When God gives you lemons, you make a foam party. Wah, wah. Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. And Rob will be appearing at Sully's in Virginia on May 31st. So if you're in that area, go see him. That's a really fun show. It's hosted by John Yeager and Matt Miro. And I've done that show before and it's a lot of fun and I love those

guys. So go out and support him. And even closer than that, if you're in the Baltimore area, go see Rob feature for the very funny Tommy Simbazo this Wednesday, May 8th at the Red House Tavern for a free comedy show. So go see him. And speaking of John Yeager on this episode, Rob brings up the fact that John and I had quite the spirited match of words with friends where we just decided to post awful words. And it started with wives, and then it went to rape wives, gay rape wives, bush, tit, other words, bras, oils. Which they did not think suited that list there. Oils. I thought that was a part of it. Oils, gels, sexual things, whatever.

Fuck you guys. fuck you guys fuck you guys see if you agree with me dickheads let me know please please let me know let me know on twitter at better robot josh i'd appreciate that and if you need more of uh your favorite pair of earbuds in your life me josh kad, I will be at the Golden West third comedy night. I was going to say third annual, but this is just the third one ever. And it's going to be a lot of fun. It is at Golden West on the Avenue in Baltimore. It starts at 10 o'clock, 10 PM, and it only costs two bones. And I think you get a free comb or something, but it's a really good

lineup headlining is Tim Heckle then you have Randy Syphax our friend Umar Khan Adrian Rodney Mary Beth Mareski and it's going to be hosted by the very funny Mickey Freeland and I think his brother Chris Freeland so yeah come to that please come. If you're listening, it's going to be show on May 17th at the Strand Theater on Charles Street in Baltimore. And I'll be there as well. It's a really fun show. We have improv and stand-up collide where a stand-up will go up and do about five to seven minutes of their act. And then we do improv based off of that, based off of their act. it's it's a lot of fun and we're gonna have comedian stavros halkias mickey freeland the aforementioned hilarious mickey freeland dorian gray and michael johnson doing stand-up and then a bunch of troops from big will be

performing including mike's troops and my troop and mr mike moran's online as well. He's a writer. Did you know that? He's a bit of a writer, that Mike Moran. He can be found at northbaltimore.patch.com, where he has his monthly column, Baltimorean, and this week he takes on the Catholic Church, but in a different way. Mike argues that sexual abuse in the Catholic Church

is no more prevalent than other institutions. Sounds like somebody doth protest too much. Am I right, people? Hello? Hello? So yeah, let's get into the episode. That's all the plugs. Come see us live.

Tell a friend about the show if you really like it. Give us a comment. Rate us on iTunes. We really appreciate any and everything you guys do. Thank you so much for listening. And let's get in the episode with Rob Farley. Rob Farley. did you guys hear uh one half of chris ross died 30 times on Facebook. Oh, really? It's a big deal? And every singer, every single comedian at the same time, like, I must post joke to Twitter. Really?

Yeah. I didn't know it was that widespread. Oh, really? Well, you know the guy from Slayer. Are we, like, should I get close to it? Yeah, the lead singer slash bassist from Slayer, right? Isn't that the guy? Tom Araya?

No. Jeff Henneman? Henneman? The lead singer. Is he dead? Is that where we're getting to? Whichever guy. I believe he was a guitarist.

Okay. Really? When did that happen? Today. Wow. How it happened? No idea. Right.

So all the people would be like, bad stuff happens in threes, man. Wait for the next celebrity to die. Happens in threes. Wait for the next celebrity to die. Happens in threes. Wait for the next obscure musician. I hate that stuff, too. It's like, no, you just started counting and stopped counting arbitrarily. It's like people die. And why would, what would make three?

I mean, couldn't bad stuff happen in like sevens, too, you know? Hey, I wish it were that way, but it just seems how it is. That's God's rule, apparently, Mike. Yeah, it's a magic number. Those beers are foaming. i know foaming foaming like a rest i think see what i was gonna do and then just ask for a towel at the end but right totally so i'm sorry you've blown up my spot now yes rob is the the first guest to to bring over uh libations for us. That was quite nice. I even popped two, see, before we started.

I didn't want the sound to interfere. That's true. Yeah, we do have some sound problems now and again. But let's see, we're going to get you some real good. But they are sound problems. Starvation, that is not a sound problem. I'm sure Older Shot would have brought you guys something if he was thoughtful. Right.

He was doing ecstasy. He was doing a lot of ecstasy the night before. He was just being very selfish. Yeah. He's a horrible human. He's too busy dancing with an invisible ball. Riding on E. You know what I'm saying? Riding on E. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Thank you. All right. Mike Moran, how the hell are you? I am relatively well. Okay. Good, good. Very busy. Weekends are getting a little crazy for me these days.

Yeah? Why? Because both the performance world and the world of waiting tables call me to duty on weekends. Call you to duty? it's fiction you like like it's wartime like god damn it for improv you put your black shirt on like they're calling me back i gotta get back off to mob town tomorrow the strand theater on charles street's calling me am i times i wake up screaming thinking about that theater. Screaming yes, I ever leave shit. I play freeze tag in my sleep.

How often do you get to go out and do improv? Is that pretty regular? Probably three times a month, something like that. We practice once a week, which gets canceled often. I would say of all the projects I'm taking on, improv is probably the least time consuming. It's just like a couple hours of practice a week, a few shows a month. Don't you play bass too? Like Slav of the Bass?

Yeah. Yeah. I do a little bit of that. It actually just came from band practice. But yeah, I probably perform music once every month, two months. Hopefully that'll pick up more. All right. Yeah, yeah. With Polaroid pick up more. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, with Polaroid Rage, right?

Yeah, yeah, we got Polaroid Rage going. The cover band is moving along. Did you have a Polaroid Rage show coming up? We do on the something. I'll have to look at my schedule. It's in a couple weeks. On the something at somewhere. The sidebar somewhere.

I mean, sometime. Okay. I'll get it later. Okay. How are you, Josh? Yeah, I'm well as well. Same thing, just working a lot and then doing shows and staying busy. But it's a good busy. Right.

It can't get exhausting. I mostly don't mind being busy as long as it's stuff that I'm into doing, that I'm happy about doing. If I had to be busy with some shitty job that I hated all the time, I don't think I'd be happy. That's what I have. I got that going on. You don't hate your job, though, do you? Pretty close.

Really? You don't strike me. I never really get that from you. Yeah. I just really, really don't enjoy it. I mean, there are parts when it is enjoyable, but just being in a cubicle surrounded by people that kind of drink in mediocrity a little bit they're nice people but right yeah and just sitting in a cubicle yeah you're around normal people all day long right right and like you know uh you're i'm sure you're this way too robo you're used to hang out with

comics and you can there's nothing that's really out of bounds you know what i mean like hey let's make an AIDS diarrhea joke but but it'd be like, wow, geez. Somebody's just like, Hey, guess who's getting some Lido's tonight. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. That's how I have to be with customers constantly. But, uh, you know, I don't know. I've learned to just kind of,

uh, I don't know. There's a way to, I have allies, you know, I have coworkers that I can go to and, and myself and make fun of the way that I act when I'm interacting with the public. You've got a little bit of an oasis there and a reprieve.

Right. You wait at Paper Moon, right? Yes. At least I would assume – I haven't been there in years, but I would assume you work with like-minded people, at least some of them probably. For the most part. I'm pretty – I get along with the with with the crew for the most part that's pretty cool i uh i actually i haven't been there in years funny story here we go because uh god like oh oh eight something like that um had a birthday

party upstairs at the auto bar uh-huh like maybe 20 people no what am i talking about maybe eight people came but uh afterwards maybe six of us went over there to get food and uh we weren't drunk or anything but it was the place was packed and everybody's waiting outside so so are we obviously but then like people are getting seated before us and it's we're out there forever and eventually one of us said something to the guy like in a nice enough way you know like hey uh they were here after us they were here after us they were here after us and i don't remember exactly what the guy said because it's been so many years but he just some snarky shitty thing to say right i think it was the uh the gentleman whose head is in the clouds

oh yes um that's my old roommate so i think it was him but i couldn't be sure but uh so he said something snarky so we're like ah fuck this place we'll never come back and then icing on the cake he goes yeah whatever we'll see you tomorrow so i was like now out of spite right i can never go back right which so he no longer works out yeah really i figured yeah i was like how long do people and they had a lovely lovely hummus platter and i used to love breakfast there the hamden omelet was a favorite of mine ham and onions yes indeed most people are cool like i you know whenever i don't know um i i found it to be the the most uh i don't work with any total assholes for the most part you know what i mean usually when you work in a restaurant there's one or two managers that you just despise and

hate working with it is weird how like in the restaurant industry industry people who get like just a tiny little bit of authority yeah like come Like, come on, guys. Become egomaniacs. That's the only authority they've ever been given. Time to lean. Time to clean. Let's go. Have you noticed that? There's always one or two people that become total narcissists.

Yeah, once they get that little bit of power. It's like, because I said so, all right. Just do it. Right. Not to be devil's advocate. I would think that probably happens in every profession. I mean, we're all kind of like that. You know what I mean?

At least I know I am kind of. Like, give me an inch and I'm going to kind of take a mile. You know, like when I used to work at City Paper, sometimes when my manager would leave and I'd be kind of like, not even officially running things, but just kind of like, you know, I'd be a little bit like, hey, guys, can we bring it in? Can we maybe? Come on. Yeah, no, it's work. I'm that guy. I'm that guy often. But, you know, just the person who very clearly enjoys being dominant over other people and getting away with being a dick to people. I love getting away with being a dick to people.

I did have a lovely conversation at Paper Moon once with a guy who worked there about Black Flag because we both found out that we hated henry rollins and only liked early black flag and that's like rare that i meet people like that right which guy was that i don't know so long ago i think he had brown hair oh he was he was tending to a giant like ice box of salad at the time oh okay i remember that yeah did they ever run out of fries there and just serve people cold McDonald's fries? I swear to God one time. They were just like, they were like shoestring. They were like exactly McDonald's fries and cold. Like, I'm like, did they just run up the street?

I mean, if a restaurant, think about that, that would not be cost effective at all if you ran out of fries. That's true. I came up with a lot of conspiracy theories. I came up with a lot of conspiracy theories. We had mashed potatoes and onion rings. I came up with a lot of conspiracy theories when I was dining there. It was typically drunk, you know?

Yeah. I like the opposite side. We probably ran out of fries and then had to go buy some. They're like, oh, fucking McDonald's, these motherfuckers. That's how they make their money, huh?

Sometimes I would talk to bands I was into after shows at the auto bar and I'd be like, Paper Moon's a really good place to eat. You guys should go there. And then we'd go there to see if they came. I remember once there was this band Static Asia from Vermont. They're like, nobody really. But they came while

we were eating there and we were like, oh my god, do you think they'll stay with us and we can all hang out? And they didn't. And I was crushed. I bet the guy from Queens of the Stone Age The red-haired guy? No, the shaved head. Oh, he went nuts. Yeah. Did you hear about that?

I believe I did. He borderline kidnapped a girl, like wouldn't let her leave his house. Really? I didn't know he went that far. The SWAT team had to show up and remove her. Yeah. He did spend a lot of time in the bathroom when he was at the moon. That makes sense.

Yeah, he's not in the band anymore either. So I'm thinking there was like a drug problem. Yeah. He was in like some new band at the auto bar he was really nice left a good tip was really friendly got me on the list and everything nice that's cool i this is how like um shallow i guess is the word i i can be or am really is uh queens of the stone age never cared for him here's the reason why the red red-haired lead singer was fucking Brody Dale. Used to be Tim Armstrong's wife. I was a big Red Dead fan and I thought she was

super hot on top. So just... And what was her band? The Distillers? The Distillers. Yeah. I remember seeing... I wasn't a fan

of the Distillers. I was a fan of wanting to have sex with her. Right. I still don't think I've ever heard the Distillers. No, I think I've heard them once. One time.

I think I liked them. They had an album called Sing Sing Death House that I either enjoyed or told myself I enjoyed back when it was probably like a little. Just because she was hot. You're like, no, it's good. It's good. It's good music. Yeah, that is like a human thing.

We just like people that are attractive. It's easier to get into music. Oh, yeah. Like punky tattoo chicks are like. Yeah, she was like your boilerplate punk chick, too. Like, had, like, the tattoo... I don't know. It was, like, skull and crossbones on the arms

and, like, the mohawk. Yeah, women that are, like, almost lesbians. Like, almost like the hipster... You know, kind of like the young hipster lesbian? Yeah. You mean, like, the haircut where it's longer on one side? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tattoos, tank tops, some muscles.

Boots. Yeah. That does it for me. Really ugly outfits that don't coordinate. But like bodies, you know? Uh-huh. I like a fit girl. There has to be some part of the head shape, too.

Uh-huh. You remember the Spock rock? That was like, for a while, like every girl I dated had. That was huge. Or maybe it's not called the Spock rock That was like For a while Like every girl I dated That was huge What Or maybe it's not called The Spock rock I don't know It's like the

Or maybe I think it's called The pixie cut fuck of vino Oh okay It's where it's like Kind of spiked out in the back And like longer in the front Maybe sideways a little bit Oh yeah

Kind of almost like Kate from Kate and Nate Plus Kate and John Equals eight Whatever the Do you know what I'm saying Yes yeah What's Kate plus eight

Something John and Kate plus eight. I heard... Minus two as of last week. Just kidding. I heard the... I love a good dick joke, and I heard one on the internet today that made me so mad I didn't think of it.

It was something akin to like, his dick is like John and Kate because it's plus eight. I was like, fuck. I enjoy that. Wow. That is good. That's smart. That's smart. That's where I'm coming from, fellas. For dick jokes.

I'm into them. Indeed. Perhaps we should introduce our guest. Well, I'm going to introduce him in the intro so they'll have already heard it. See, I was confused at first. I was trying to be quiet, you know? But then you cued me in. What about you, guy?

You like a cubicle? Yeah. Into a cubicle? We're talking to Rob Farley. I think people will know that. Okay. Hello, listeners. I always think, like, in podcasts, too, when you download the episode, you can see who the guest is. Yeah, that's true.

And there's a lot of podcasts that are like, and our guest is. That's true. Right. This guy. Yeah, I knew that. Like on Stitcher and stuff, you know, I'll just, like, I'll tap my favorite one without looking. Oh, that's true. Sometimes, yeah, you can't see it. Oh, yeah. We never advertise that we're On Stitcher and stuff, I'll tap my favorite one without looking.

Oh, that's true. Sometimes you can't see it. Oh, yeah. We never advertise that we're on Stitcher. Right. We're on Stitcher. Hey, guys. We're on Stitcher.

So thanks if you're listening on Stitcher. Appreciate it. Make your life richer. Find us on Stitcher. Two points. Swish. I know. Yeah. I worked at Paper Moon for a while as well,

and I always liked when bands would come in from Autobar, and you'd be like, oh, my God. You came in while you were working. The band that I was most excited about was Russian Circles. Do you know who they are? Never heard of them. They're an instrumental metal band, and when they came in, I was like,

that looks like the drummer from Russian Circles because he had really long brown hair. I was like, oh, it's him, it's him. And then when they were going to bring the food out, I was like, no, no, no, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it. It's like, hey, guys, here we go, here we go. And the drummer, he was reading the city paper or something, he had his head down and uh and i put the food on the table he's like oh thanks didn't really make eye contact and i was like i i hate

to do this but are you guys from russian circles and he's like yeah man and when he looked up he had a lazy eye that i had no idea oh so he just looks up he's like yeah man i was like like in my mind but i was just trying to hide it. I was like, oh, cool, cool, cool. All right, enjoy your food. I got it. But they were really, they were really. Some,

some comic, like, like a big comic in like the later 90s, it might've been Louis C.K. or David Cross or something. Somebody had a bit about like going to, he was fucking David Tell. Anyway,

a bit about like going to shake hands with a guy who had a goofy hand or whatever. That happened to me once on the first day of a job at City Paper, actually. They were taking me around, introducing me to everybody. I put out my hand to this one lady, and she put out her other hand and put it in my hand. And I was like, what? Am I supposed to kiss her palm? What the hell? It was so awkward for me.

And then later I realized it was actually just really awkward for her. So, yeah, but imagine having a deformed right hand, because that has to happen to you daily, probably. Right. You know, and then you make the other person feel like an idiot. Why are we still shaking hands? Anybody else think that's weird? Yeah, let's just go right to hugs and kisses.

I agree. Let's just not touch each other. Let's just kiss. Yeah, there's disease there and stuff, but I mean, like... It's not even that. It's just a weird ritual. Like, I feel like we're just too advanced. We have too much perspective as a human

species to go along with meaningless human rituals, cultural rituals that are just kind of silly. I'll do you one better. What about the hug? Why are we hugging? For one, it's like two straight men never hug. Maybe like father and son, but two straight men never hug.

You always hug in opposite sex, right? As I get a little older, I'm more into the male on never hug. Maybe father and son, but two straight men never hug. You always hug in opposite sex, right? As I get a little older, I'm more into male-on-male. I found myself more... Full-on, though? Or is it kind of from the side? I wouldn't say full-on. Are we talking Christian side hug?

Because Jesus never hugged like that. You know, apparently that entire thing was a self-deprecating farce. Oh, good. What, Jesus? No, guys, we were just poking fun at ourselves. There wasn't really a Messiah. You know the Christian side hug meme?

Oh, well, I know. No, actually. I know, like, the whole dance with Jesus in the middle type thing or whatever. Right, right. Yeah, it's along those lines. There is just some internet video of a Christian rap group performing at some super church doing a song about how

you should hug from the side. It was like this hardcore gangster rap song. It's like that Christian side hug. That Christian side hug. The more you try to push that stuff away the more crazy shit happens later i read a study like fuck if i know the citations off the top of my head so this could be bullshit we'll just say medical journal i read a thing once and uh it said that japan like culturally or per capita or what have you consumes like the most depraved pornography

and not just like hentai but like real shit right but they also have like the least amount of rape like anywhere you know i guess it's just because they're fucking putting it all out there i don't know like you know you know the more the more um what repressed you are i've heard that the reason why their pornography is so depraved is because they censor genitalia yeah when you when you download japanese porn you can't see yeah it's all it's all blurred out. It's the bush, right? Is it like you're not allowed to show bush? No, you're just not allowed to show insertion either. Yeah, you can't see that. You can't show insertion.

Yeah, look up some Japanese porn. Why are they still making Japanese porn then? Because with the internet, everybody in Japan can just watch non-Japanese porn and get some fucking penetration. Yeah. Maybe it's illegal to download it there too. Yeah, but then in Japan, you also have the crazy stuff where you can buy soiled panties in a vending machine is that an urban legend i remember hearing i feel like that's true like also their game shows are insane yeah that's the fact like they're we've seen the one right where the guy thinks everybody in the room has gotten shot

except him did i show you that i've heard i think i have seen that it's so good it's yeah it's a guy he's like hanging out and like uh how do you not get the pantsuit off you i guess well i don't know yeah maybe he signed something before and like they tricked him or something i don't know but yeah he's just sitting in like a boardroom or like open kind of office area and all of a sudden shots just come in from the windows and like he's like oh like really like really fucking scared because everybody in the room just got murdered and then it cuts to people laughing like, what a dummy.

The guy's scared for his life. They're like, what an asshole. I could never do something like that. Their entertainment and their pornography, I guess, is all kind of pretty extreme. God bless them. They're a wonderful people. Yeah.

It is weird that they censor pornography because apparently they're very open about nudity uh really yeah like you like uh like playboy type magazines are are available for everyone that's what brad warner said really yeah about oh yeah because he was there for a while yeah yeah it was like hey six year old playboy boom that's how they are. It doesn't occur to them that children shouldn't see nudity. Yeah, Amanda and I were just talking about that. Like, why the fuck not?

I think you're going to have a way better society if it's not repressed. That's where a lot of the problems come from, where they're like, oh, that's dirty. That's bad. Yeah, well, I mean, there does. Yeah, I don't know. And, like, we have abstinence teaching. Like, I was taught abstinence in my sex ed class. Well, that's been largely proven to be.

Right. But it still happens. You know what I mean? Just because of that. Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, this country is a little. Yeah.

Like, I lived in Germany for five years growing up. And they had, like, nudity is no big deal there. And even, like, you know, when I went to, like I said earlier, I went to, like, London, like, 04 or whatever. I remember watching TV in a bar that was showing like it was kind of like wacky surgery like plastic surgeries and they were showing like anal bleaching like on television like a basic channel in a bar it was fucking awesome like they just they're so cash they're cash totes cash totes cash bro it's the queen getting a bum bleach take a look at that there we are falls into the bin of things that no longer need to be taboo at all, but are for some reason people are just scared of change.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. This is another point that's been made a million times before we're talking about it. But still, I think the one bad thing would be if women are allowed to just be topless fucking willy-nilly, tits wouldn't be as cool. You know what I mean? I agree. But it still shouldn't be written into law for that reason oh yeah no no agreed sir decided that

tits just wouldn't be as cool all those that oppose like like some frat like president i don't know bro i'm working on a bit along those lines of like how it's just so weird that homosexuality is a political issue uh-huh you know like politicians deciding that like you know who can have sex right it's nice that like yeah like a first world country that's like so popular we're still talking about like basic human rights yeah yeah in uh in new york did you know that women could walk around topless really yeah new york city uh some people do Really? In the summer, you'll see boobs out? Yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah. As a lady, I don't think I would exercise that, right? I feel like it'd be awkward. Would you walk around with your dong out if you could? Yeah. Really? Really? Depends on what the weather's like.

If I'm having a good dong day, you know what I mean? You get some leather before you leave the house, too. You work it out. Hopefully, what I mean? Well, see, here's the thing. You get some leather before you leave the house, too. I wouldn't walk around. You work it out. And hopefully this doesn't sound homophobic, but I would not want to walk around a bunch of gay men

naked, necessarily. Because they'd rape you like the girls they are. Women would probably feel the same way. Not even that. It's just because, you know, I just...

You don't want to be turning on the wrong person? What are we saying? What are we talking about? All right, yeah. No, I mean, as un-homophobic as I am, there is a thing about... Those animals wouldn't be able to control themselves. Older gay dudes, you know, that feel licensed to get kind of creepy.

Younger guys. Hmm. I don't know. There's a lot of just older creepy dudes in general. Yeah. Older creepy dudes. I'm looking forward to being one. I'm yeah i think yeah i would like to take full advantage of being old and getting away with shit too just like driving through red lights all the time steal stuff right yeah i'm old getting

a check from the government oh that'd be you can just put your hands on people and they won't you know what i mean like oh you're a pretty young lady and just touch her you know what i mean casual racism yeah oh yeah that'll be good too that's the slopes for you hand me the cigarettes taking forever to do anything and everything yeah and like you know in like 70 years or so we're gonna have a bunch of like there's gonna be a bunch of 20 year olds that are really embarrassed that their grandpa and grandma are using words like faggot you know what i mean like that'll be what is it good i think i've considered making a bit about this but i think it may have already been done what what is going to offend us when we are old that the young people are going to like it i think it might have to be

to the to what we're talking about like full-on nudity all the time because it really does seem like pop culture is always pushing the envelope of like what's acceptable like when elvis shook his hips on tv they're like oh my god you heathen and now it's like we have i don't know uh the world's biggest loser or whatever where like men have like their man titties on at like 7 30 at night it's weird that that's your example i thought you're gonna go to like gangster rap or something well that too i mean but like labby male breasts on tv yeah like fat people people are the worst. Yeah. They're just gross. But I mean, as far as like what's on TV, like they would never have that back of the day. Like, hey, look at this 800 pound guy losing weight or beyond that.

I don't know. They wouldn't even show Christina Aguilera or fucking Nicki Minaj. Like, yeah, of course. Yeah. As far as like nudity. But there was also a big gap. There was, like, a bell curve with the sexual revolution. Like, I think there isn't as big a gap between, like, our parents and their parents as there is between us and our parents.

I would wager, like, when we're old, like, we'll really bother us or whatever. We'll probably be, like, trying to police, like, kids' sexuality. Because, you know, like, kids are always getting freakier younger and losing their virginity younger? I don't know, man. They're humping on each other on the dance floor younger and younger. Well, maybe relative to the 50s, but people used to marry 12-year-olds and shit.

Yeah, but that's when they thought they were going to die at 24 and shit, though. Yeah, but it's not... I mean, I would say as a whole, procreation is delayed more and more, at least among the first world. I don't know. I think that people are getting finger banged at a younger age every decade. Rob's done some research, too. Yeah, a little bit. He says he's read a paper.

He's done some field research. If I were to ever have kids, I think that'd be something. I'm not ever going to have kids, but if I were, that'd be something that freaked me out a little bit yeah that's freaking me out too kids are just getting so fucking nasty right away too yeah they're 12 i mean and the dudes were in hamden like look there's so much young white trash walking around here with yeah i guarantee you there was a higher rate of teen pregnancy at any previous decade than maybe now i'm at least at least among the first world well let's hope huh i have seen studies that where the most like abstinence teaching and stuff that happens like

they have the highest teen pregnancy yeah so i think it's like alabama or something like that like they're like number one in the country yeah yeah i mean there's yeah yeah so which is yeah completely insane but i think that is a vestige of our parents' generation. Stuff like, ah, just don't have sex. That's how you avoid an STD. It's like, how the fuck are you going to tell kids with these raging hormones, like, all they want to do is have sex? You're like, well, don't.

Like, what? That's what you say? Yeah, they didn't even talk about masturbation in my sex ed class. Really? They didn't mind either. They didn't mind either. They don't really have to though, right? You figure it out.

You might not figure it out the right way. I didn't find out proper technique for a long time. Pulls out a dildo and like, alright boys, masturbation today. Time to learn. Thompson, front and center. Sex ed is a joke anyway because they just do their homework. They just show you

these horrible drawings that are just scary looking. I know. It's like, what? I thought we were going to talk about fucking and you're showing me, like, the innards of some lady's uterus. Yeah, like the classic, like, I mean, sure, yeah, don't make it sexy, whatever. But, like, the classic, like, goat head looking, you know, with the fallopian tubes and stuff. And they don't, you know. It's like the head-on shot.

It's like the Danzig symbol. And it's just, they just talk about, like, the biology of it, really, at least in my class. They didn't talk about. Yeah. And they talked about, like, the dangers of STDs, but they didn't really. Right. That was pretty much it. Yeah, it was more just like, ugh, this could lead to horrible things.

When I was. Don't do that. When I was in, like, middle school, one day I came home from school, and on my nightstand, there was a book my mom had got from the library about like boys going through puberty or whatever. Right. That was the extent of like a talk I had with my parents was they left me a book, which is like my buddy Ben Sorrow came over and I was like, look at these fucking pictures. Yeah. Funny thing was I've been talking about sex with my friends since like third grade. Yeah. Before. And I like I like I like accidentally discovered like self-pleasure like before I could even fucking come. Like when I was super young.

Oh, me too. I used to do it through my pants and it would chafe my pants. And I still kind of have a scar from like... Oh yeah, you told me about that. I'm a listener. I talked about that.

You talked about that on one of the ones I listened to. I think you talked about it. You guys are, yeah. You talked about that one on one of the ones I listened to. I think you talked about, yeah. That was the one where you... You guys are going to have to do like a greatest hits and put together some good clips. That'll have to be one of them, bro. I think that's when you talked about the tiny bag of... Whole three minutes of... Yeah.

The tiny bag of spaghetti that you had in your testicles. Right. I still have it. It's not in my testicle. It's in my sack. Well, in your scrotum. Excuse me. Excuse me. Right. No, I... Yeah, I remember when I was at daycare, I'd have it. It's not in my testicle, my sack. Well, in your scrotum. Excuse me. Excuse me.

Right. No, I, yeah, I remember when I was at daycare, I would masturbate when we would sleep on the cots. We'd have nap time. How old? Ugh, I don't know. 22. Like, yeah, it had to be, what was it, 2012?

Would you calm at that age? I, there was nothing coming out, but I remember like a really good feeling. Yeah, I would just... It was basically pressure. I thought I was early. It was pressure on my dick and then my stomach on the cot because I was sleeping. And then I remember I got a bone and I was like, well, that feels pretty good. Did you say this was in daycare? Yeah.

I'm honestly so glad this came up organically because it reminds me of a story that I never think about and almost never tell anybody. My wife knows it, though, and some of my best friends. So I think it's okay to share with the world. Fortunately, they're our only listeners. Share it with our dozens of listeners, Rob. When I was at daycare, like four years old, I guess, right? It's nap time. There's a girl sleeping next to me or whatever, and she's like, hey. I don't remember exactly how she words it, but she's like, hey, why don't I pull down my pants and you pull down your pants and you get on top of me?

And I didn't know it was sex. Apparently this girl must have walked in on her parents and they tried to explain more or less what happened. Or she was being molested. Shit. Don't. Fuck you, Mike. Yeah. I was going to say that too.

That was on. I never even thought of that. Yeah. Fuck. Well, at any rate, now that the story has began. Right. So I don't even know what's going on. I don't know anything about sex or whatever.

I'm just like, that's weird. I like get up my guts and I'm like, I'll tell you what, I'm going to go pee. I'll be right back. And then we'll. So I. You're looking in the mirror like, Rob, you can do this. Yeah. Yeah, dude.

So I came back. Take a hit of a Capri Sun. I came back and that's what we did. She pulled down her pants like to her knees. I pulled down my pants like to my knees and I just laid on top of her and that was it. And it was the first time I'd ever seen a vagina. And to me, I literally just thought she had a wrinkle. It looked like a fucking wrinkle.

And so I'm just laying on top of her. We're not fucking doing anything. And we got caught. Yeah. I was about to say, where's the adult supervision? Yeah. And then when my mom came to pick me up later, they told her. Your mom high-fives you.

I literally don't remember her talking to me about it or getting punished anyway i think it was just kind of too awkward right but that that was a thing that happened it's probably good that you didn't get punished i would probably give you a real weird sexual hang i didn't even know every time a girl gets naked like no no mommy no yeah i mean i think it's relative it's fairly natural for kids to do stuff like that i remember like showing the peter to people and like i remember one time this girl like saw my wiener hanging out of my shorts and she told me that she saw it really yeah look out i remember i jumped up and i was like so humiliated but and i was like no you didn't see it but but it was in a weird like that was like

my hand my first i guess like uh masoch masochistic or masochistic feeling of sexuality. Were you like excited that she saw it? Kind of. Yeah. I was like embarrassed, but it was in like a weird, like stimulating way. Some voyeurism going on a little bit. Especially because you were wearing like men's capris too. You're like, yeah, girl, it's fucking huge.

Well done, sir. Hey now. Yeah. Huge. Well done, sir. Hey, now. Yeah, the hypersexual little kids, it's usually a sign of trouble at home. Yeah, well, you guys fucking ruined that for me. I feel so weird now. Because, yeah, it makes sense. Dr. Drew explained on Loveline, because that's all I did for a while, was listen to old Loveline episodes, especially in college.

But as their home is falling apart, especially kids from broken homes, they go inward. That's why they're masturbating early or showing their genitals. You're saying that that type of thing is not necessarily molestation?

Yeah. It's just a sign of early trauma, basically, of some sort. But not necessarily sexual trauma. No, it doesn't have to be. I mean, I guess maybe that girl was. Maybe Rob's girl was.

What if, like, right now I just had a breakthrough and started crying? That'd be good. Oh, my God. That'd be great pod. Talk about greatest hits. And Rob molested a girl. That's when it hit him. So, Rob, you said you worked at City Paper?

Yeah, for a while. Actually, when I... He says as he changes subject from childhood molestation. Yes, exactly. I just noticed there's like the 7-Eleven or whatever on the corner of Falls and... The Avenue. The Avenue. And one of my old co-workers is on that big billboard

selling houses. She's done good. Yeah. Joy. She's been there for a while. She's got the streaks. That's the emotion you're feeling when you see her? Yeah. I don't know. We were really good friends at work. And then she started to lose a bunch of weight and get really hot too, so that was good for her.

Now she makes a bunch of money selling houses. She's just doing her thing. she's on a goddamn billboard yeah it's good for her yeah i worked there for a few years nothing like glamorous i wasn't writing i was a an assistant in the classified department okay and then i like did work on the website and stuff too uh-huh just lame shit nice is that what you went to school for yeah i went to school uh i went to towson and i got a go tigers indeed i went to school uh i went to towson and i got a go tigers indeed i went to towson i got an english writing degree and uh yeah i always i wanted to be like a basically like i always wanted to be like a humor writer uh-huh uh for the longest time like when i

was in elementary school i was like super into like dave barry and irma bomb back books yeah i remember i remember dave barry one of, I think it was my sixth grade English teacher would read us stuff from his books. It was like, oh, he's so funny. He's so wry. Yeah, like late 80s. Yeah, I think my mom had like an Irma Bombeck book once from the library, and she was like,

oh, you might like this. And I just, I ate it up, and I fucking read everything she wrote. And I'm sure if I read it now, I'd be like, this is dog shit. This is for... It's for normal people. It's for average, probably 40, 50-year-old...

It's for the people that Josh works with. Midwestern. It's middle-of-the-road kind of humor. I got really into this. I read a lot. I think I mentioned earlier, when I was younger, I lived in Germany. No TV, because it's fucking German. There's kids in the neighborhood.

You're required to take German classes when you live there. I went on base. I'm learning German. It's full immersion, but still, I'm not the shit at it. I didn't play with a lot of German kids, at least not that often. I couldn't watch TV or anything. Basically, it was just go to the library and read books and rely on a family that lived in America to send us

videotapes of like fucking MacGyver and shit you know what I mean so that was like it I read pretty much everything by like Stephen King and Michael Crichton like while I was in elementary school and I remember being fucking insanely pissed when Jurassic Park came out because I thought it was dog shit compared

to the book like I was like 10 do you understand I was like 10 and I was one of those people who was like the book is better yeah you were the only 10 year old in the movie theater like what the fuck is this dude I lost my mind me who you know never read a book I was like this is the best thing oh I don't like I don't read it anymore so sweet yeah yeah i remember i saw it the the last day of sixth grade my best friend was spending the night and my dad took us to see jurassic park and it was the greatest day of my life oh man one of the things i could never get past was in the book like the uh the young boy is like kind of like the uh the super smart helpful one with the computers and everything and the girl is like a dumbass but in the movie it's the

opposite right and i remember like as a young boy being mad, I was like, what, a young boy can't be awesome in a movie? This is fucking stupid. I thought it was like... He had that New York accent in Germany. Oh, Michael Craig! Every time I do an impersonation of my mother, too, I always do an old Jewy.

Yeah, that's what we do as well. Yeah, I don't do the appropriate impersonation. Robin, have you seen Jurassic Park? Yeah, oh, I think you'll like it, honey. It's got Velociraptors and Numans in it. You remember Numans. Hold on to your butts. There we go.

I think I was in high school when Sphere finally came out with Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone. That sucked dick too. That was my favorite book. It was pretty lame too, from what I remember. What was it? Congo. Oh yeah, that was horrible too. They were all bad, actually. But Sphere was my favorite book. It was pretty lame too, from what I remember. What was it? Congo. Oh, yeah, that was horrible too. They were all bad, actually, but Sphere was my favorite book. I read it like three times.

Do you like Jurassic Park the film any better? I haven't seen it since elementary school. No way. No way. It's good. You should see it. It was re-released in 3D. Yeah, I know.

They added an extra dimension. Oh. Interesting. Good for them. Time. America beat time. Isn't everything, like, isn't every movie already in three dimensions, even though it skips the third one already?

Because it has the fourth dimension to it. It has one, two, it skips three, and then it has four again, right? What? What's the fourth? It's like the Halloween series with Michael Myers where they skipped three. Uh-huh. Then Rob Zombie remade it. The fourth is time, right?

Yeah, the fourth dimension is time. That is correct. So unless you're watching a movie. So a movie poster would be in 2D. Uh-huh. But a movie would be in 3D, right? Yeah. A regular movie.

And then a 3D movie would be all 4Ds. Well, what are we talking about, though? Because the soleno would be in 3D, right? Yeah. Yes. A regular movie. And then a 3D movie would be all 4Ds. Well, what are we talking about, though? Because the celluloid is like 2D, right? I don't know. I mean, how deep do you want to go here? Yeah, I'm a little lost here. I'm not even sure what the three dimensions are. No time is involved.

It's like, aren't the three dimensions like width, height, and fucking the other one? I don't know. Aren't we talking about just like volume? Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, the first dimension is like a line and then the second dimension is a square or like a flat picture and then the one would be like a cube yeah exactly yeah and then the fourth is a series of cubes ah but which i think is the same as saying like yeah like width and height and then like volume whatever the third one is i didn't spend a long time since math fellas yeah i thought this was a podcast what's going on here

can we talk dicks volume and width of dicks jesus yeah i tapped out of pre-calculate college no i was terrible i was that's the only thing i know about math that is bad even in college yeah that might be physics when I was trying really hard. Yeah, I did too. I had to tap out of pre-calculus in community college. I never got that far. I got to calculus in high school. I don't even know what calculus is, honestly.

It gets really crazy with derivatives, which I don't really understand. But basically, it's more... Getting crazy with derivatives? You wouldn't understand derivatives because you're such an original comic. Exactly. I said, yeah, withdraw. Speaking of squares, that's what that class was full of. Thank you.

Ha ha. I'll cube that emotion. Ice cube, right? Are we there yet? The star of Are We There Yet? Ice cube? By the way, so these beers that I brought is like a gesture of goodwill.

The faultiest pieces of shit ever. I just opened one that's been sitting still for like a half hour. I'm getting beer all over Josh's furniture. It's like some kid snuck into the liquor store and put some Alka-Seltzer tablets in each one of those. This is just a metaphor for my life though

because I try to be like, hey, I'm going to do something good, and people are going to like me, and it just fucking blows up in my face, basically. Maybe they're trick beers, like trick candles. I don't know. I was like, I'm going to get fancy ones. Josh is going to think I'm so

cool. Son of a bitch. The trick beers, they just keep refilling with beer. God damn it. The trick beers they just keep refilling with beer Like god damn it Like the trick candle it won't you know always stays lit You're like no I got it I got it pal How's that coffee working out for you I poisoned it

It's working out good though Why just vine these foaming beers When you say poison I mean that can be a whole range of things Like I'm going to be on the crapper all night or I'm going to be dead. Or anything in between. Yeah. You'll be fine. Or dreaming of Bret Michaels all night.

Right. Handsome man. He's got a nice head of hair underneath that bandana. I don't know if that's actually true. What? Is that factually accurate? Yeah. He's got a big old thing of hair. Right. Yep. Definitely not a wig. So that's actually true. What? Is that factually accurate? Yeah. He's got a big old thing of hair.

Right. Yep. Definitely not a wig. So that's that. That's that. Sure is. That's dead. What about when you say that

in like mafia movies? That's dead. That's dead. Not this guy. What's what? So does that do you really feel like that happens to you?

You got sticky hands? I do. My hands are a little sticky. Mine are a little sticky too. But what? Do you feel like that happens to you? You got sticky hands. I do. My hands are a little sticky. Mine are a little sticky too. But what? Do you feel like that does happen often that you try to do the right thing and then like accidentally just fuck it up or make it awkward? I like to think that, but I don't know.

I think actually more often than not, I just don't do the right thing well or do the right thing right. Or I think it's the right thing, but at most it's like kind of like The adequate thing that's probably more accurate. Okay. Yeah, you know baby steps at least you're trying. Yeah most of the time Yeah, not even I do. I do think there's kind of a phenomenon with Like pessimism like everybody screws up, you know, everybody does social things that they're kind of embarrassed about yeah but i think pessimistic people like me remember those things and forget all the decent things that happen oh yeah and optimistic people just don't worry about it they think of all the good things yeah it's way easier to focus on the negative yeah it's like oh god

damn it yeah and that's that's what people tend to do little awkward things it could be your yeah i mean it could be your boss or your significant other. It could be another comic who sees you have a shitty set. It could be anything. Yeah, anything. Of all the thousands of people I wait on a year, 99.9% are perfectly nice, but that 0.01% are the ones that I'm going to obsess over for years from now. And they're the ones who are more likely to say something to your manager, too.

How often do people ever say, like, hey, you know, I just want somebody to know you're doing a great job. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The other day I was jogging with my dog and we passed Dorian Gray. He was just walking down the sidewalk and I was just like, hey, what's up, Dorian? And just kept moving. I was like, I could have

stopped and talked to Dorian, but I was just like, no, I need to keep jogging. You had a good sweat going, bro. I had a good heart rate it was up there but it's that type of little thing where I'm like yeah I mean it's adequate to be like hey how are you but you know it wouldn't kill me to be like where are you coming from? What's up? What are you doing later? Yeah.

And I talked to him about it later and he's like I don't give a shit. Yeah I'm like that too. I'll apologize for things and the person's like what the hell are you talking about? Yeah like I don't even really remember. Yeah. Yeah when I got home I messaged him on Facebook. I was like, oh, you should go to this open mic at Mugshots. I should have said something. Next time I see you, I'll stop.

He's like, yeah, I was on my way. I was like, oh, well. I saw him walking later that day, actually. Two Mugshots. So we're talking like an hour apart, maybe. On my way here, I saw America's Chris LaMartino walking down the avenue. Yeah.

He lives right around there. How about that? He's either done or almost done Call Girl of Cthulhu. I talked to him last week and they were almost finished, I think. Yeah. Does anybody know what's happening with the open space? Did you hear about that? That huge fire?

Yeah. I witnessed a lot of it. Yeah. It was like a block from my house. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, my ex-girlfriend used to live there. Russell, from our show, lives there. He has a pig, too.

Yeah, I talked to him. Is he okay? He had the pig. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, at that point, around seven or so was when everybody came outside. And he said that it hasn't hadn't touched his area but they were still putting it out like two hours later so i don't know so yeah so for those listening the open space is a bunch of um practice spaces and illegal apartments above a

mechanic shop in baltimore and now did open space catch fire or did the like mechanic shop underneath catch fire? I believe it was open space. Damn. Some fucking hipster didn't put his doobie out. Exactly. Jesus fucking Christ. And then all those like fucking nasty unwashed clothes.

Uh huh. Like a fucking. And those hacky sacks probably like oily racks. Oh, hacky sacks. Confusing hipsters. Yeah. They put the hip in hipster. The hip in hippie.

You know what I'm talking about. The irony just burns so quickly. These are fire puns. Pretentiousness is very flammable. Your wit is so hot. Yeah. So it's not like completely burned out because the way people were talking about it was a huge fire it must have been it didn't appear to be i thought it

was just something small and they would get it right out you know they had like a crane and they're spraying on i i mean but it was still going several hours later i was i could see like bits of the building collapsing falling apart yeah nobody was anybody really like i thought it was just confined to like like, a couple rooms. Okay. Apparently not, though. Was anybody hurt? Yeah.

Do we know? Is everybody okay? I would think not, because it appeared to be fairly contained, at least in the beginning when they evacuated everybody. And more importantly, if nobody's hurt, we can joke about it. Yeah. Woo. Yeah, but that really sucks for them, too, because there's no recourse on, like, insurance-wise of claiming anything because they're living there illegally, you know?

Yeah. So, yeah, good times. Next stop, copycat. Look out. Right? Apparently Charmington's was very helpful and gave everyone free coffee and let them hang out there. Oh, that's nice. That's nice.

Like, hey, you lost all your possessions, huh? Free small cup of coffee. Get on in there. Your apartment's not the only thing that's slow-roasted. Oh! There's a great white plane here or something? All right. Yeah.

So, yeah, let's get back to City Paper. Oh, I got nothing really to tell about. I worked there, there like three years uh making shit money like yeah doesn't seem like there's a lot of money well it was i started working there like right before the whole oh the economy's collapsed and and nobody's advertising anymore and all these papers are shuttering so um wages got frozen but i kept working there because i was like i work at focus city paper Paper. Like, literally, I used to, not to, like, people I knew on the reg, but sometimes I would tell people I worked there before I started working there if I thought maybe, like, it made me look cool at a bar. Like, that's fucking lame.

Give you some street cred. Give you some street cred. Yeah, we're all the same way. Yeah, so I worked there, like, three years, which is, like, two years longer than I should have, really. But, I mean, it was, like, people, everybody there is cool. Yeah. But it's just like three years, which is like two years longer than I should have really. But I mean, it was like people, everybody there is cool. Yeah. But it's just, you know, no money and no advancement really.

There's nothing you can do in life that doesn't suck that will pay you well. Pretty much. So I stayed there so long that I actually ended up getting laid off. Like I never quit. I actually ended up getting laid off. I never quit. I just ended up getting laid off. And then I was unemployed for a while, especially because it was while we were planning my wedding and stuff. And then I got a job where I'm still working at a place where I edit medical journals,

which is pretty cool. I get to work from home some of the time. It's a European-owned company, so benefits are fucking insane. Three weeks of vacation holy shit like a vacation yeah that's awesome so it's pretty sweet so i'm hoping to ride that out for a long time actually yeah like that sounds pretty good mike finazzo and i were talking like uh theoretical in-game type talk the other day at fish head like oh you know like what do you kind of want to right do or whatever and i i'm not entirely certain but i think kind of like it'd be really great if i could sell my house transfer to like the la office of my work uh and then like we could live in la and then i could

just like do mics out there and try to like see what happens or whatever right ingratiate yourself in the scene yeah at the very least like like i was telling him and he kind of agreed to an extent. One of the things I want to do the most with comedy is not necessarily be super successful or super rich or super good as much as just become friends with all my favorite comedians.

Do you know what I mean? Just hang out with everybody who I listen to on podcasts and shit like we're bros. That's the biggest perk about comedy like hang out with everybody who I listen to on podcasts and shit. Like we're bros. You know what I mean? Like that's like the old thing. No, that's the biggest perk about comedy is hanging out with funny people. Yeah. Oh, dude. I fucking love it.

It's the best. That's been arguably my favorite or at least top three favorite things about doing comedy for the last year. And my wife loves it too. That's why she comes to so many shows. She thinks everybody's awesome. Like everybody's great. Yeah, that's really cool.

Yeah. My girlfriend, she said, she's i've i've never met so many nicer people than your comedy friends it's like wow that's actually really cool so yeah pretty much everybody in this scene is like really nice there is like some snarky stuff that happens but for the most part that's just like you're run of the mill everybody talks about everybody and i think but for the most part everybody's really nice yeah yeah i've only ever met like one person who was like slightly kind of rude to me and i don't even think they were really that rude to me as much as they were probably just kind of socially awkward or shy you know what i mean like everybody seems pretty cool yeah yeah so how long

have you been doing stand-up uh it'll be what's today martin's May 2nd. It'll be a year on May 31st. Damn, so you're moving along pretty well for only doing it a year. Sometimes I really think so. Other times, you know, it's like ups and downs. I'm really meticulous about keeping track of everything. So I've done, I did a show Monday at Fish Head. That was show number 60. So I've done 60 shows in just under a year.

And I don't know. It's been going. Honestly, I don't think I could expect it to be going any better probably. I'd like it to go better, but I don't think I could expect it to go better. But you're already featuring and stuff. I see you on a lot of Dave Schoffer's flyers and stuff like that, which is pretty rad. I've been lucky enough to close two shows. And yeah, I've done some feature spots.

I'm featuring at the end of this month down in Virginia with Danny... Well, you're going to do plugs later or whatever. No, you can say it. Well, I'm featuring on the 31st at Sully's in Virginia, I think. Me and Danny Charnley or Charnley? Yeah, he's great. He's really nice. We're both featuring for Tommy Simbazo. Nice.

Yeah, I did Sully's. It was a fun room. Was it with John Yeager? Yeah, Yeager's the best. Yeah. I haven't met Matt Mira or Myra. Matt Myra helps host the Nerdist. Right.

But he will be there in Chantilly. Or is it Mero? It's Mero, right? Okay, I haven't met this cat either. Yeah, nice fella. John Yeager's the best. He's a super nice guy. Yeah. I think he might cheat in words

with friends. You guys had the most epic game. Josh and John. You should be telling the fucking story. Josh and John had an amazing game where it was just bra, poop, turd, fart, jizz. It started with he threw down wife's, which is not a word.

Not a word. F-E-S? Without an apostrophe, that's not a word not a word not a word f-e-s f-e-s yeah without an apostrophe that's not a word that's not a word shit shenanigans so it's so i try to put up this word that's uh how i feel about that you know how i feel as a player right put up rape right on top of wife's so we have rape wives and then from there there, we add stuff like oil and dick. Oil? Yeah, like oils. And then, you know, for sex.

That kind of seems a little out of place. Yeah, I was going to say that's not the best example. Sexual oils? No. Sexual oils? Lubricants? Yes. That doesn't work?

You call them oils? That was arguably the worst example out of that entire game because I saw the screenshot. Wow. It was phenomenal. Like the oils that come from your skin when you have sex? Yeah, like lubricants. What is with you guys?

Do you call lubricant oil? Yes, I oil myself. Fucking the tin man? Where is this picture? Oh, I don't have it. Fucking the tin man. You guys turned into like... Fuck you guys.

Oils is good. Post on our message board, guys, so that you agree with me. Are you guys from Maryland originally? I thought everybody around here said like oil or whatever. I don't even know how to do it. I can't do that accent. I say oil. That shit sucks.

I have my own bad accent. Where are you from? Originally Illinois, but I've moved around so much because I'm like an army brat. So I don't really know where my accent comes from. I lived in Illinois, then Colorado, then Germany, then back to Illinois, and then Maryland. But my, I don't even know, I guess it's not even really an accent. It's a speech impediment. There's certain words like I can't, I just can't pronounce.

And I'm not talking about really hard words. I'm trying to give you an example because I try to avoid actually saying the word. There's certain words I can't say on stage because I know I'll say them wrong. Like a 750 milliliter bottle of liquor. Right? What do you typically refer to that as?

A handle? No, I don't know. It's like Eminem says he just drank one of Vodka, dare him to drive. You remember that? Just drank a fifth. Yeah, I can't fucking pronounce that word. Give it a try. Here we go.

If I concentrate really hard, I can do it. Well, you're not allowed to do that. Just say it. I say it like this, fifth. Fifth? Fifth? Fifth. Like I add extra at the end, fifth.

Well, that's not very noticeable. I get called on it all the time. Fifth. Like I add like extra, like at the end, fifth. Well, that's not very noticeable. I get called on it all the time. Fifth. I think I have, I think I kind of have things like that. Really though, I think it's my anxiety that causes me to say words funny. There was a lot of words I used to just pronounce wrong, not because of like kind of a speech impediment, but just because I was an idiot that I had to retrain myself. I used to say Al Blum instead of

Album. I used to say Onion. And I used to say Massachusetts. Dude, I don't think I knew that crayons were not crowns until probably like 12th grade. I heard you say nuclear earlier as well. Yeah, I still don't know that one at all. Yeah, that's nuclear.

Nuclear. Someone was making fun of me for that the other day. And sure bit. How it all began. What did I say that you were busting my balls for? Was it porter potty? But it's porta potty.

Hey, porter. That's my Johnny Cash, you guys. Oh, nailed it. I thought he was in the room. Well done. What was that like being an Army brat, like moving around all the time? Well, okay. So it's hard to like, you're obviously not going to have like a friend forever.

Do you know what I mean? You're not going to have like, oh, we've been friends since fourth grade or whatever. Yeah. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think it's amazing to like be able able to see so much of the world. When I lived in Germany, we traveled to Europe all the time. You know what I mean? And I meet so many people who have never left Baltimore, basically,

or never left Maryland. I've had a passport since I was five, which doesn't... I'm not saying I think I'm better than them, but I think everybody should... Everybody needs to go see shit. It's going to enrich your life to have that experience. And realize that it's bigger than just this. You know what I mean? Perspective. Yeah, exactly. Which doesn't, I'm not saying I think I'm better than them, but I think everybody should, everybody needs to go like see shit. It's going to enrich your life to have that experience. And realize that it's like bigger than just this.

You know what I mean? Perspective. Yeah, exactly. Perspective. Like there's other cultures. There's other ways of thinking. There's other food. There's other, there's other ways people can look sexy.

I mean, just. Right. I don't know. I love it. So. I don't know. I think a neck tattoo is the best way. I don't think traveling to Europe is going to change what I find attractive.

That is one issue I'm not willing to. Neck tattoo is... I think we can all agree to that. And if you're carting your kid around, that's pretty hot too. I'm not going to apologize for that, Rob. No need, sir. Please.

There's a lot of that going on here in Hamden. That's my favorite thing about Hamden and it's probably the only thing I have about Hamden maybe that I like. Maybe. Especially in this section. That's my favorite thing about Hamden and it's probably the only thing I have about Hamden maybe that I like. Maybe. I don't know. Wow.

Sitting right here. Love hate relationship with the neighborhood. No, but it's like the old guard and the new guard. There's the indigenous Hamden folk,

the white trash. People that are shopping. And then there's the newer hipsters that keep moving in. Oh, my bad. More and more. And it's hard to tell

who's shopping at the Goodwill, ironically, and who's doing it out of necessity. Yeah, and bad. More and more. And it's hard to tell who's shopping at the Goodwill, ironically. Right. And who's doing it out of necessity. Yeah. And now this Macklemore character. Now we've got like a whole third thing in there. You know, now there's just.

What's that? I just found out the other day. He has a song about the Goodwill. And he has a song in a Microsoft Outlook commercial. Yeah. And you know what? They're both not bad. I'm going to say it on record right now.

Oh, yeah. The Thrift Shop song's fun. Yeah. It's a good video, too. How's it go. I'm going to say it on record right now. Oh, yeah. The Thrift Shop song's fun. Yeah. It's a good video, too. How's it go? I'm going to pop some tags. Only got $20 in my pocket. This sounds horrible.

He says, one of the best hooks, he's like, I think it's the other guy, but he's like, I wear your granddad's clothes. I look incredible. Right. But he says it in that cool black way where it rhymes. But he's a white guy. Oh, shit. You mean like rhyming? He's a white guy from San Diego. Well, in that cool black way where it rhymes but he's a white guy he's a white guy from Seattle you know how rappers do

well clothes and incredible those aren't even in rhymes those aren't even near rhymes he's tricking our brains to make it seem like he's rhyming you guys remember Juvenile had that song Ha where he ended every line with the word Ha because he didn't really know how to rhyme

that guy 400 degrees Even I had that song, Ha, where he ended every line with the word ha because he didn't really know how to rhyme. So funny. That guy. So funny. 400 degrees. So fucking funny. I love that song. It's like, you think you're good, huh? You don't switch from Nikes to Reeboks, huh?

That was the best line. I was like, I thought Nikes were better. I guess I'm just so not hood. I don't know. You switch from Reebok to Fila. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Were you guys into sneakers in elementary school? I remember being a big status symbol thing. I really wanted LA lights. Remember that? Lights in your shoes? Yeah. I thought there were LA gear that weren't lit up? Yeah.

Oh, well, fuck the kids who own those. LA gear was the parent company of LA lights. Yeah, and then there was BK lights. No, it was British Knights. BK. British Knights. Oh, well, fuck the kids who own those. LA here was the parent company of LA Lights. Yeah, and then there was BK Lights. No, it was British Knights. Yeah, British Knights. Oh, okay. So maybe LA Lights. But yeah, those.

Oh, God. I thought those were so fucking cool. I had little lights in the back of my ear. Oh, yeah. The Reebok pump with the basketball. I finally got to get a pair of them maybe like a year or two after they were popular because they were like really cheap at Payless or something. Maybe it was like fourth grade. I got like the ones that had like. You remember they had like a little window in them they were popular because they were like really cheap at Payless or something. Maybe it was like fourth grade I got like the ones

that had like, you remember they had like a little window in them? Like it was clear in like the sole? You could like see inside. You could see inside. It was fucking deep and I never even got that until just now. You could see inside your own sole, bro. Whoa. Shit. So you could see like, so what? It was like hollow in there and there'd be like a little plastic.

Like an air socket type of thing. Yeah. It's like plastic. I remember air sockets being all the rage. I was never into sneakers. Never really ever been too big into fashion. I made some bad mistakes. I didn't have like the super baggy JNCOs when I was in high school. I had like the JNCO wide well

corduroys. Pretty much though it was just panty shirts. Yeah I did that too but yeah I definitely am guilty of having some pretty big pants. I didn't have the straight up JNCOs, though. I had some big pants. They were made by JNCO, but they weren't the huge pants. At least I didn't think so at the time.

There was kind of an arms war for baggy clothing in the 90s. In 10th or 11th grade, I didn't wear jeans for a whole year because I thought jeans were too mainstream. You know what I mean? I'm so old. Yeah, I was like, man, everybody wears jeans. I only wore corduroy. I only wore corduroys and khakis to school for a whole year.

I was like, I don't wear jeans. Y'all wear jeans. Y'all are sheep. Yeah. It's fucking dumb. I remember thinking corduroys were so cool, too. It's so fun to just look back at all the fucking horrible mistakes. Yeah, it's like, man, if I knew then.

That's how I try to look at things in my life today when I start worrying about what other people think about me or people, me not fitting in in certain ways. Or it's like, why not just think about this the same way I think about high school? Why did I give a shit? Why not just be myself, believe what I believe, do what I do? Awesome, man. Where's the wisdom? Yeah, I'm like a big believer in, like, having no regrets. But, like, I definitely, at the same time, like, I do because I regret, like, worrying so much about, like, what other people thought.

Or worrying so much about doing the opposite of whatever else was doing. Like I wanted to be like, I want, you know, like just, I just, why not just be myself instead of trying to either fit in or trying to not fit in.

So that it was weird. And everyone was weird too. Cause like, I never really, like in high school, I never really hardly hung out with people. I didn't hang out with a lot of people, at least who were a lot like me.

You know what I mean? Like I ended up hanging out with a lot of people who were way different, like, like, uh, like fucking like Yo Kids and people who like smoked pot and shit. I didn't hang out

with a lot of guys who played guitar and wore band t-shirts. It was, I don't know, weird times. I don't know, crazy. Yeah, high school was weird. Were you in the same

high school throughout? Yeah. I moved to Maryland in 96. I've been here since 96. And I graduated high school 2000. So 96 through 2000 was high school.

That was Hartford County. I went to Beller High. Okay. I've been here since 96 and I graduated high school 2000. So 96 through 2000 was high school. That was Hartford County. I went to Beller High. Okay. Right on. Yeah. And then, um, two years off and on at like Harvard community college.

And then like two years, like straight through at Towson, eventually I graduated high school of 2000. Didn't graduate with a bachelor's until like, Oh six or seven. Yeah. Like I was just off and on dicking around, like working, trying to figure out this and that. Yeah. thousand didn't graduate with a bachelor's until like oh six or seven yeah like i just off and on dicking around like working trying to figure out this and that yeah it is yeah it's tough to you know ladies you know right guys i hear you on that one majoring in pussy smoking

some buzz yo can't live without them all right oh jesus yeah pussies. Iron and wine, that's all my wife does. That doesn't fit in, but that's good. I like that, though. That's good. You know how the ladies can get. Now I kind of want that guy in Iron and Wine to be like a misogynist, and that's why he named the band

that or whatever. That's all women should be doing. If you listen to the last track of every album, there's dead silence for 10 minutes and then it's just like a rant. He's reading from his manifesto or whatever. That'd be lovely. It is weird

when you find out that people in media have completely opposite beliefs of what you would think. Like, remember Kennedy from Alternative Nation? I do. You know she's like a massive right-wing Republican. Really?

I think she's more of a libertarian. Oh, you're talking about MTV VJ Kennedy? Yeah. Really? Curly hair, glasses. Yeah. Yeah, she appears on Fox Business pretty frequently. Well, at least Matt Pinfield's still fucking solid.

Is he? That dude's straight. Also, another right-wing person that I wouldn't have thought of is that woman from SNL in the early 90s. Victoria Jackson? She's mega nuts. She's insane. Mega, mega, mega nuts. Yeah, mega nuts.

You're thinking of Dave Mustaine. Hello, me. Why couldn't Dave Mustaine have died today, right? Right, Slayer fans? Jesus. That was another thing. In high school, I was really big into... I really liked Megadeth and Metallica.

And then I was like, wait, I can't like both. So I was like, fuck Metallica. So that was a thing. You made the right choice. I felt like everybody else was over those bands by the late 90s and i was i was the weirdo yeah i uh i don't know i i've never been like super i've never been like super into a band at the appropriate time basically um like we're not doing it all for the nookie in 1999 no i wasn't uh like i got i got really really really into like the clash and like uh late 70s punk um you know and like now that i was alive in the late 70s but i got really

big into that like early 2000s and then like um maybe early to mid 2000s then i was like hey these guys the smiths are really good instead like i've just i've never been yeah I got more into kind of the punk rock world post high school yeah I had I remember I bought like the self-titled at like Sam Goody or some shit at the mall and I remember originally being like god you know like the only like the songs that Mick Jones sings I don't know about this Joe Strummer guy and like I just I have a Joe Strummer tattoo on my leg now you know know what I mean? I became a fucking huge Clash fan. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time,

we drove to Delaware just to see The Future is Unwritten, the Joe Strummer doc, because it was showing at theaters up there before it came to the Charles and stuff. Obsessed with the Clash, basically. Damn. But it took a while. And I was into like... I was a suburban kid, so no fault of my own with The Clash, basically. Damn. But it took a while, you know? And I was into, like... You know, I was a suburban kid,

so no fault of my own, really, but I was into Blink-182 before I was into The Clash. Do you understand what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was relatively mainstream my whole life

until my early 20s, really. Yeah, there's still some Blink-182 songs that I can get to know. Also, I'm over the hump of being in my 20s where I have to not like stuff that I liked as a teenager to appear

cool. What do you mean? Well, I think through a lot of my 20s, I wouldn't allow myself to admit that I like some Blink-182 songs. They're like, fuck it. No, I like that. I'll still throw on their first couple albums for sure. I mean, I don't, but I would. Like Newfound Glory, I'd still rock this shit.

I'd still listen to them on my iPod. Oh, man, New Found Glory. I was going to say in high school, pop punk, like when that wave hit. New Found Glory's self-titled album. Oh, dude, I've met them so many times. All I used to do was go to shows and wait for bands afterwards. I have so many different sets of photos of me with those guys. I've seen them over ten times.

I was huge into them. I remember we saw them like five times in two years dude i would go i would see them in philly and dc do you know what i'm saying like i would go to like two shows they were on every tour they toured with further seems forever for a while they're on warp tour basically like every year which was great then they would do their own tours what was their hit song did they have one uh never i don't know if they had like a huge hit they had like hit or miss hit or miss if you heard it, you'd probably recognize it. Yeah, My Friend's Over You, Head on Collision. Oh, yeah, I know.

My Friend's Over You. My Friend's Over You. Yeah. I was, yeah, that was, yeah, what was it? That was like about 2000, 2001. It was like. Yeah. Around that time, yeah, there was a lot of like pop punk.

And Emo, too, was like kind of breaking. Like I was into Saves the Day a lot. Get Up Kids. Get Up Kids. Taking Back Sunday and Brand New I love. Yeah. Brand New's second album and their first one. I still love those.

Actually, Brand New still makes great records. Like, what is it? The Devil. The Devil. You and the Devil are raging inside me. See, I didn't like that one. Really? I was like, I just got over it.

I liked their first two. Their first one was poppy. Their second one was kind of more like, he's been listening to a lot of Morrissey. No, he's been listening to a lot of Conor Oberst. It was very bright eyes. But, you know, I loved their first two. I loved Taking Back Sunday's first album. When I was like Taking Back Sunday's first album, it's like 2001,

and I'm like having a bad breakup with a girl. I'm like all of these songs fucking get me, man. It's like they were inside my brain When they wrote them bro You're speaking for me And then learning about the brand new Taking Back Sunday feud I saw them together

They played together at Fletcher's It was the first time It's since been quashed Or squashed Each one of their debut albums They have a song about the other lead singer. They had this big thing. One of them fucked a girl the other one liked.

There's two lead singers in the band and they had a feud with each other. No, two separate bands. He's saying the lead singer from each band. Brand New. The name of the band, Brand New and then Taking Back Sunday. It was more the guitar player from Taking Back Sunday and then the singer for Brand New had Falling Out.

You've been listening to Do You Remember 2000's Emo? Yeah. Brand New had shirts that said Mike Surfer singing that swing. Because the guy from Taking Back Sunday, his whole thing was that he'd like throw the mic around and like twist it all up. But, you know, he was so fucking pretty. Fuck, I could do it every once. Adam Lazara. God. Gorgeous man. I remember know, he was so fucking pretty. Fuck, I could do whatever he wants. Adam Lazara. God.

Gorgeous man. I remember heckling him at 930 Club because he was, there was such a good band but he was so annoying. He came out and he was wearing

a half shirt. Oh no. It said, I am the scene on it. Oh yeah, I was at that tour but I don't remember being a half shirt

but I remember that shirt. It was like a girl's shirt. It was very tight. It's like a youth large. Back then, I was skinny. I wore youth large as shit. Everybody wore tight shirts.

I went to Hellfest 2K3. Dude, that's all everybody did. Everybody was tattooed and had tight shirts and bandanas. Because I got really into hardcore, too. The bandana thing, yeah. Dude, I've just been a musical tourist. The last time I saw a band play was probably the Hold Hold Steady, like at least six, eight months ago. At least.

Like I just, I don't really go to shows anymore. I don't actively seek out music like I used to. Like nowadays, I'm more like, I'll just put on, and you know, when you're a kid, you're like, oh, fucking, I hate the radio. I think it's on the radio sucks. Nowadays, basically, I'm just like, I put on Team D like absentmindedly while I'm washing the dishes or in the car. And maybe occasionally I hear a song I like and I'll Shazam it or whatever. And I'll be like, oh.

But I still don't even go home and actively download it. I'm just so lazy. I haven't done that since. I have not explored music actively since high school. In high school, countless hours spent on Napster. Countless. And then Soul Seek and all that shit. And then when I found out about Pirate Bay, I was like, oh, this will be sweet.

But I just use it for movies and shit. Even if I know a song is good, it takes me a few listens to really be able to go along. I like that, though. Some of my favorite records are stuff that I didn't like at first. Like Pennywise's Full Circle. I remember I got that. I was like, I hated this. And then I was like, oh, it's genius.

Yeah, I loved it. Yeah. That was one of the first bands, speaking of suburban kids not knowing about music. It's like, oh, let me try this. Well, see, I love accessible, radio-friendly MTV pop punk for that reason. I'll never shit on Blink-182, Green Day, whatever, any of that stuff. Because if a kid is into that, they're going to end up seeking out the clash. Well, that's what I was going to say. Because you were like, oh, I like Blink like blink 182 don't hold it against me it's like no that's great that

that opens that door up for you to discover the clash and other bands like that that's that's rad well uh spotify has really helped even though it doesn't fucking work on my computer it's such a sham uh spotify i i downloaded it and it's like hey there's new software that you need to get so i downloaded it and they're like oh this isn there's new software that you need to get. So I downloaded it and they're like, oh, this isn't compatible with your computer. And now it won't fucking open. It drives me fucking nuts. I've never used it. I just like.

No, Spotify. I was going to say it's a good way to discover like new bands too. Because they'll be like, hey, if you like this, here's 19 other bands that kind of sound like this or are influenced by that band. And it's free. It's a combination of laziness and getting to, I guess I'm already kind of getting to that age where I'm like, new music's crap or whatever. Yeah. But I think it's, I don't know, maybe it's free it's a combination of laziness and getting to i guess i'm already kind of getting that age where i'm like new music's crap or whatever yeah but i think it's i don't know maybe it's just mostly laziness i want to look at seek it out i wanted to bring that up earlier like what's it going to be for us when we're older like really what is this i don't get the only thing that's happened to me so far is um fucking um like skrillex what is that music

called dubstep don't get it i don't enjoy it even quite know what it is i don't know if i've ever is fucking like Skrillex. What is that music called? Dubstep. Don't get it. Don't enjoy it. I don't even quite know what it is yet. I don't know if I've ever really heard official real dubstep because I'm pretty sure there are people who are even like, I don't know if Skrillex is dubstep. And I've never even heard that I know. I've never even, I don't know that I've ever heard Skrillex. It sounds like techno just like way slowed down with like a slower

beat so kind of like dreamier techno no but it's like and it sounds like all these like it's basically it sounds like computers malfunctioning but with like a slower like almost hip-hop beat to it i've been led to believe through word of mouth and whatnot that that dubstep just is basically like has noises like yeah it's like but i don't even know like are the songs mainly structured into like traditional song structures like verse chorus i think i think it's just no it's more like i think what it is it's like the 2000 version of like what kids went to raves to hear like back when yeah people our age were like well or back when like everybody we knew was going to raves i mean like when everybody was going to

raves you know what i mean with glow sticks and all that shit. I think it's just the natural progression of that music. It's just like dance-y shit, I think. It's sort of, yeah. I don't think there's really words. Everybody focuses on, yeah, it's all instrumental. Everybody focuses on the drop. So it's like when the beat slows down.

Everybody goes crazy, which I can understand. I used to be into hardcore. Everybody waits for the breakdown, and then we all windmill and shit, you know? Yeah, I could never get into hardcore. Never really liked it like you boys there was a time like some what do we mean by hardcore we talking like early 80s or like the yeah but like some stuff like brains and stuff I'm talking about like I was into

hardcore and like early 2000 so I'm talking about like what was popular then. Like, Hatebreed. You know Hatebreed? Yeah. Stuff like that. I remember. Kind of like punk metal type stuff. Sort. Well, it wasn't like... Hardcore hardcore is basically just really aggressive punk. Really? There's metal and metalcore and stuff like that

where there's more like... I think of Black Flag. There's soloing and riffs and stuff, but hardcore is basically just aggressive, angry aggressive angry angsty punk it's just kind of like i don't know it's kind of like a natural progression of punk right i guess you know like like black flag and and all that stuff was like kind of like that's what it all came from i guess i don't fucking somebody is fucking listening to this and they're like this fucking rob guy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about somebody's listening yeah don't worry

nobody's listening at this point. It's great to talk on a podcast about things that as I'm talking about them I'm realizing I probably am not the authority on this. As you're saying stuff into microphones. I'm glad this is being recorded, this thing that I know 10% about. Let me tell you all about dubstep. Somebody may be listening to this

10,000 years from now. I just now thought about that. Somebody in the future could discover this. What's even weirder is somebody in another country is going to listen to this. We get downloads in other countries on like every episode now. Like on the reg, like from the same spot? Yeah. Like there's always like a little town in like Brussels?

There's always... Brussels is a city. You know what I mean? Shit. Brussels, you know what I... You like Brussels so much, they should be a country. No, like in England, we always have a couple downloads. Sometimes in Japan.

Really? Yeah, the dick jokes that we make in this office travel across the pond. Wow. Sweet. Hell yeah, bros. Hell yeah. Rob will let you get out of here, but you said that you hated Henry Rollins, and I want to know why. Oh, I just, well, for one, I just preferred Black Flag before he was in them.

And for two, it's just personal petty shit. Well, I'll start with I never liked his whole spoken word slash stand-up or whatever. Not a fan. And I always felt like he was very, I know you're a fan. We've talked about this before. It's like the first time I met him or something. Oh, okay. Mike.

And I always just thought he was kind of like pretentious or whatever. And although he's fucking got, certainly got more of a right to be than me. Yeah. But at any rate, there used to be a thing called Tax Low at Sonar. This is like 05, 04, 06. I said those years in the wrong order. But this was like the cool kid dance party Friday nights. It was the height of my space.

Like hipsters and tattooed kids who want to fuck each other. They go there. They dance to like indie and 80s. And I used to go all the time with a bunch of friends. And one night we're walking in. Apparently Henry Rollins had done a spoken word before Tax Low. So he's standing outside by a bus. And there's like these kids like worshiping and literally going like, we're not worthy, we're not worthy. And he's standing outside by a bus. And there's these kids worshiping and

literally going, we're not worthy, we're not worthy. And he's just eating it up. I'm like, oh, this fucking guy. But I had a good friend at the time named Kyle. Kyle loves Henry Rollins. So, and I realize now this was my bad, but I call Kyle and I'm like, bro, Henry Rollins is like two feet

away from me. And then I'm like, excuse me, Mr. Rollins, would you like to, could you maybe, my friend's a really big fan, could you say hi? I realize this is my bad, but regardless, I'm like, bro, Henry Rollins is like two feet away from me. And then I'm like, excuse me, Mr. Rollins, would you like to, could you maybe, my friend's a really big fan. Could you say hi? I realize this is my bad, but regardless, I'm like, hey, he's like, yeah, I'll do it. So I hand him the phone and Kyle goes, hi, hi, Henry. How's it going? And he just goes, I'm busy and just hands the phone back to me.

And as he's handing the phone back to me, I can hear Kyle on the speaker be like, I understand. It's just, it's a real pleasure to talk to you, but like, it's already over. Do you know what I mean? Right. And, uh, no, I realized that was like a dick thing for me to go do to him, understand it's just it's a real pleasure to talk to you but like it's already over do you know what i mean right and uh no i realized that was like a dick thing for me to go do to him but it's just pettiness on my like i'm just like so and i was already drunk because we were pre-partying before we go to tax so that's what we did that makes sense when sparks was a thing oh yeah sparks yes like everybody was it was beer with caffeine in it yeah it makes your uppers and your downers dude make some nothing them. Nothing bad could ever happen. Pre-Fort Loco. Yeah.

We didn't know. So, I'm drunk and I just, Henry Rollins has like a Misfits of Loco tattoo on like his left forearm. Yeah. And he's old and shitty, so it looks all old and shitty. And I'm just, I'm just drunk and I'm not right next to him. Don't get me wrong. I'm like 10 feet away, but I just start being like

the fucking Misfits are better than you ever were. You shouldn't even have that fucking tattoo. And my buddy Rob King is much bigger than me. He just grabs me, takes me in, but I'm like 10 feet away, but I just start being like, the fucking misfits are better than you ever were. You shouldn't even have that fucking tattoo. And my buddy Rob King is much bigger than me. He just grabs me, takes me in. But I'm like, you know Rob King? Or knew Rob King? He was like in punk bands. Towson back in the day, right?

Yeah, I don't know if he was ever in a band. Maybe he probably was. He was like a Towson punk guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you ever do like TSSB nights and stuff like that? No. I think I knew him like when I was like 18. He had like a faux hawk goatee.

Yeah. Denim jacket. Yeah, cool guy. Now he's like married and sober and stuff. So he's like much different now. But anyway, he kind of like made sure I didn't get beat up that night. He was a straight edge guy. No, not at all.

No, he was a super drunk, honestly. I definitely remember that. Or he had an alcohol problem. Was that post high school, though? I think I knew him in like 12th grade. Oh, no, I see. I only knew him. I might not be picturing the right guy, but I definitely remember knowing a Rob King in that scene.

And I'm pretty sure he sang for a punk band at one point. He may have. He very well may have. See, Chris Larmatino I know knows him. That's how I... There was this whole kind of crew, TSSB nights they used to have. It was stuff like talk shit, spit blood.

And there's this whole crew of people who hung out and partied and did things. Yeah. And that's how I met Lamartino the first time. He was a projectionist at Heritage Cinemas, I think it was called, which doesn't even exist anymore. But they were doing like a...

He got like an original reel or whatever of Mother's Day, like the shitty 80s horror movie. Yeah. And a bunch of us went there to see it. And we're just, you know, drinking in the theater and smoking cigarettes and being assholes. Good times. Yeah. Great times.

I've known Lamartino a long time, but I've never known him well. And we went to college together, but like didn't take any class together. Yeah. Like the entirety of like the eight years or nine years that we've known who each other are we've probably spoken less than like 50 sentences to each other yeah just kind of always on your each other's periphery friends of friends yeah that is weird how you can know somebody for that long and not really ever talk to them yeah like you're friendly with those people i bring them up because i always see now like he like he like knows you and Umar Khan.

I always see these little... It's like ships passing by. I'm like, I kind of know Mike Moran. I kind of know Chris Amartina. That's a thing. There you go. Now you're here. I don't like Henry Rollins, but basically

for no good reason. It doesn't take much for me to have a bad opinion of somebody, really. At least not, okay, not like what I would deem real people. Like, people I work with, people I see on, people I, like, I interact with. But, like, when it comes to, like, maybe celebrity or what have you, or, like, just a complete stranger, you see, like, dump his ashtray out in the parking lot in the driveway. Do you know what I mean? Like, that type of thing.

Oh, yeah. I'm, like, I'm so quick to just hate somebody for no reason oh yeah people that litter I wish they had a quick time I actually I try to pride myself on like giving like being like liking every comic and like trying to give every comic like the benefit of the doubt because like you know like I can it's so easy to have a bad set or it's starting out it's so fucking hard it really yeah there's so much pressure in the beginning to to do something original or to do newer stuff. If you're doing it consistently, that's all that matters in the beginning, if you ask me. There have been a few times where I haven't been able to control myself and I have laughed at how bad a joke was or how flat it's fallen.

But only a few. And I always turn around and cover my mouth and I feel like shit afterwards. I don't want to be that guy. It's going. But only a few. And I always turn around and cover my mouth. And I feel like shit afterwards. I don't want to be that guy. And I've had people laugh when my jokes suck. For a while. Okay. This will be funny. Maybe.

Stavros Hakios. I like him. And he likes me as far as I know. Whatever. But one time at Ellicott City, I told a really fucking horrible joke. And no one laughed. And then I heard him distinctly laugh At the fact it got no laugh

So for like a month afterwards every time I saw him at a show I was nervous He'd make me feel uncomfortable Because I was like oh he laughed at me shucking Right right That's the thing about Umar's laugh too It's normally the kiss of death Once you hear the

That means your joke didn't do well. Unless you hear it immediately. If you hear it late, if there's a break, there's a break to pause. There is also an art to acknowledging when your own jokes get crickets. It might be laughing with you for that reason.

A little bit. I know who Martin is. For the most part, it's something we always joke about. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where you just have to have brass balls. You're going to get shit on. You've got to. If you can't handle public humiliation, then you can't do stand-up.

Yeah. Not that you have to be immune to it, but you have to be willing to face it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Just to be completely honest, I was surprised I got asked to this because I literally don't think you've ever been in a room when I've had a good set with Moran. Yeah, I don't think I have. Yeah, there you go. But I think I've only seen you in your first few months. I don't think I've seen you lately.

Well, okay. Literally the worst that I ever had, in my opinion, was like a month ago at Bowen's. And you were there, but I don't think maybe you were watching. Really? At a Color Me Funny show? Yeah, see, okay, here's the thing, right? It was mostly hubris. Oh, no, I don't recall that being all that. I mean, I think it was kind of crickets for everybody that night, wasn't it?

Do you mind if I have another beer, by the way, Rob? Please, dude, that's what they're here for. So, okay, so December 18th, I closed Bowling's. It's the first time I've ever been asked to close. Turpin was like that cool. He was like, yeah, dude, I believe in you. You can fucking do it. And I felt like it went fucking great.

And I videotaped it and I watched it back. And I still felt like it went great. And I was like on top of the world. And I was like, I fucking did so good at Bowling's. Not like Daylon Morrison good. Not like Tommy Sim simbazo but good but good for me or whatever you know what i'm saying yeah you're so yeah i was very satisfied so then this is like what last month maybe the month before something like that uh it's it's like the next time that i'm at bowling since i closed and i'm like for one i'm like oh dude i did so good last time whatever and for i

got this shit in the bag i think think I know how to handle the shock. So I didn't really prepare because I'm like, I'm still green enough that I like to prepare beforehand. You know what I mean? I have to. Do you too? Okay, good. I wish I didn't.

Yeah, no, I do. What do you mean prepare beforehand? I like to decide what I'm going to say before I go, and I like to run through it a few times. Oh, fucking A, yeah. Okay, well, I feel like a lot of people don't have to do that. Well, a lot of comedians don't have to do that because they've done their bits 800,000 times. Yeah.

And even if they're not doing them in any particular order, they still can jump right to them. But, I mean, for me, it's pretty... I can't imagine I'll ever get to a point where I can go up there completely. Oh, no. For me, I'm still...

I mean, I've only been doing stand-up semi-steadily since December, but still, like, even before, like, hours before, I'm still I mean, I've only been doing stand up some semi steadily since December, but still like even before like hours before I'm like, right. I'm like, oh, maybe I should do this. Like, dude, I'm over it. And I pay attention to stuff in the room for like hours beforehand. Like maybe I could talk about that. Oh, I love to be like I love to be like, oh, maybe this will maybe here's something I could say. And it'll look like it'll look like a riff off the top of my head.

But I have I thought of it like as soon as I fucking got here. Even with your old bits, the vast majority of people there probably haven't seen you unless you're at some little open mic. I think there is an art to the acting aspect of it all where even though the audience knows that you've prepared this stuff, they still want to see you be a good actor. I've talked about it on this podcast before but i think the biggest some of the biggest um criticisms that i've i've gotten have been like hey you got to sell your jokes and like i hate that but it's

true yeah but it happens because you have told these bits you know i mean for a few months material right so you don't seem excited to say it, then nobody gives a shit. Exactly, yeah. If you're not interested. So you have to like, I retire things and then I bring it back in a few months when I'm like kind of

excited to tell them again. Hopefully by then I'll have thought of more tags and shit. Right. But so this bowling show though, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I'm like, I'm too confident. I don't prepare. And then when I get there, I'm talking with like some of the other people and we're all kind of like Some of the other comics?

Yeah, some of the other comics. And a few of us are kind of like i wanted to be kind of funny if we just did shitty on purpose for reasons i won't get into because i don't want to like disparage people but there was a there was a there was a kind of an idea between a few people like maybe it'd be funny if we did bad on purpose uh-huh so i was just kind of like yeah maybe i will uh but then i did i will eat it so here's the thing though right so here's the thing so i'm thinking like who gives it the place was kind of dead anyway at least it was before showtime right and i'm just kind of like yeah maybe i have a pair fucking spolans i'll do great and whatever and then fucking um mike stork and jim meyer get there

right now oh boy i like i really want to like do well in front of those guys like mike stork and Jim Meyer get there, right? Oh, boy. I really want to do well in front of those guys. Mike Stork and I have hung out. We've gone to dinner together and stuff. But I really fucking value his... Well, Mike's an OG, real comics in the country. He was mentioned on You Made It Weird recently. The Hampton episode? Oh, yeah, yeah.

And then Jim Meyer's there, too. This dude's been doing it a long time. He was one of the dudes who did the Stanhope show with me. And he told me I had a really good set afterwards. And I was like, oh, so I really want to make him think that I didn't just have one good set. I can have two. I've got at least two in me, Jim. Watch me now before I drop my mic in the casket.

I'm feeling super blasé. And then right before it's my time to go on, like fucking Stork and Meyer walk in. And then I'm like fucking butterflies. I'm like, oh, shit. So i go up and i start trying to do good and it wasn't fucking working so then i'm just like what the fuck and i just like i i was just fucking off the top of my head basically almost the whole set like i did like maybe two bits and the rest was just like literally just filler it was terrible it was like the worst fucking set i've ever had like i wanted to fucking die afterwards yeah i don't

recall it was i think i was kind of obsessing over my own stuff at the time so i might not have been paying that great of attention but i don't recall it being like a noticeable i mean i feel like everybody kind of you know there just wasn't much of an audience and dude i was like okay here's the thing i was like i tried to fool myself and be like maybe it's the crowd which we all try to it's a lie we all know it but we all do it is most of the maybe it's the crowd, which we all try to. It's a lie. We all know it, but we all don't. It is most of the time. It's not a good excuse, but sometimes it is. It's not a good excuse.

I don't like to use it. Right. Yeah. You can't rely. You can't have a crutch. You can't have a crutch. That is a crutch. Fucking audience.

But anyway, afterwards, I'm like, well, maybe everybody will suck. And I think directly after me was Nick Mullen, who had the best set of the night. Nick Mullen was fucking hilarious, and I'd never seen him before. So I didn't know what to expect. That dude was fucking hilarious. Nice. And it just made me feel even worse. I was like, fuck.

That is tough. Yeah. Like you don't want to begrudge his set, but it just makes it worse. Yeah. I'm so glad he had a good set. I'm so glad I didn't ruin it for him by draining the pan. Yeah. But I was just like, fuck. Yeah.

Bummer. Yeah. It is tough because it's like one of those things where, you know, you're not making money from it, at least in the beginning, really. You're not really getting anything out of it, all your hard work and bravery for public speaking, except for applause and laughter. Like, that's it. And when you don't get that, it's like, what the fuck am I doing with my life? The only thing that helped me get out of that hole that night was Wendy Towson and I were sitting next to each other. And she and I were making each other laugh so much towards the end of the show and towards the end of the night. And that was the only thing that made me not want to just hang myself, basically.

Right, that's good, yeah. Worst set I've ever had, easily. Yeah, I mean, I think it's important really for for you know really the three of us you know i think we've all done relatively well for as many times as we've done it you know um when uh when you're on stage and it's not going well or just in general are you the type like for me it's like when i acknowledge that it's going bad it's really hard for me to mentally jump out of that hole. Like, oh, fuck. Like, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks, this sucks.

Like, is that how it was for you on stage? That night, yeah. That night I couldn't get out of it, basically. Like, I tried doing some silly things, like some stuff that wasn't even my jokes. I mean, not that they were other people's jokes, but they weren't, like, jokes. They were just dumb things I had thought of.

Like, I was like, hey, do you want to hear my impression of, of like a bashful scorpion and i was like get over here and like that's not you know what i mean i was just trying dumb shit because i was just like who knows what'll work right let me just scrape the barrel and try to get out of here the only part of that entire set that went well was like my first five seconds up there basically because there was a fat guy with a fedora and when i got yeah when i hit the mic i was like shit you know you're a fucking popular comic when blues traveler comes to see you yeah yeah i remember that and that that that went over well and just after that it was just bad bad and like it was i it was one of the only times in my life i've ever seen somebody be

like like frantic kind of with the like Turpin was like trying to get my attention basically. Do you know what I mean? Like, like lots of times, not lots of times, sometimes I do like a show for show and it's going well and he lets me like go along. Like, like, you know, like he's like, it's supposed to be six or seven. And then like, I, and then I get, I end up going 10 or 11 and I don't, I'm not missing light. Like Monday I was, I even, I was like, did I miss light?

And he was like, you're good. Finish strong. And I did like 10 nice but so you know that's really that is such a high when that happens when like somebody's like fucking keep going you're awesome absolutely and when but when you see somebody trying to like get your attention with the light it's the worst and that condescending like adult kind of way like hello hey buddy trying to get your attention okay we've had our fun but you know what? I couldn't wait to fucking get off.

I couldn't wait to fucking get off. Yeah, sometimes the light is... That was one of only two times... One of only two times that I couldn't wait to get off. Right. Yeah, it was terrible. Jesus Christ. But no, I mean, for only doing it like a year, you're doing pretty fucking good, man.

Horrible nights in stand-up are just something you have to face oh yeah oh you gotta take your bumps you gotta take your lumps right you gotta take your lumps and it makes you better yeah it makes you better and it's it was a learning experience you know like so you're like i need to prepare like i'll probably reaffirm that for you like the uh dude like the best show i ever had was opening for stanhope there were like 400 people there and like i did really well and like i had dozens of people afterwards who i didn't know coming up being like you're really good and i got like a bunch of new like not a but i got like fucking maybe 10 but i got like a bunch of new twitter followers that i

didn't i didn't even ever meet or whatever and i was like this is but i've been kind of chasing that dragon because like dude that was like a turn of 400 people like when the fuck are you ever gonna get to perform for that many people yeah How did that work that you got booked to open for Doug Stanhope? Okay, this is exactly how it worked. Craig Borman is one of the co-owners of the Auto Bar. Craig Borman... Did we have him on the show? You have not. No, we had

Mike Bowen. Mike Bowen, yeah. Okay. Craig Borman knows Mike Quinlan and I, and Craig Borman reached out to us and was like, would you guys like to do it and we were like fuck yeah so yeah whoever's mad at me for whatever I didn't fucking pay my dues I got lucky

that's how that shit worked I'm not gonna lie no I'm serious every time somebody asks I tell them the truth I'm not gonna fucking lie but that's exactly it I got fucking lucky I got lucky and you know what I was so fucking nervous here's the thing. They were like, Borman was like, get 12 minutes ready.

And I was like, solid. I can do that. And then we got there, and it was something like, it was ludicrous. It was something like, I need you to do 20. And then we were like, Quinlan and I were both like, what? We have that much. We're not ready. We're not prepared.

Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then it was like, do eight. And we were like, what? So you're trying. We're not ready. We're not prepared. Do you know what I'm saying? And then it was like, do eight. And we were like, what? So you're trying to figure out what the fuck you're going to say. And eventually it was settled on ten. And I did ten and I... Fuck. Can you hear me still?

Yeah, yeah. I did ten and it wasn't the best that I've ever had, but it was probably the best that I've ever had up to that point. Nice. And it felt amazing. Hell yeah. And just fucking... After I got off, I made a joke. I made like, I riffed actually about like having a knuckle in my dick. Uh-huh. I don't remember why, but it was just something like I riffed between two jokes or something.

And then when Meyer, when Jim Meyer went up after me, he got everybody to chant knuckle dick. Nice. Right? Like knuckle dick. And I was like, oh my God, they're cheering for me. I said that. Now they're saying it. It was just an amazing night. Like knuckle dick. And I was like, oh my God, they're cheering for me. I said that. Now they're saying it.

It was just an amazing night. Like hanging out with them afterwards and just feeling like for one night, just feeling like you're the shit basically. Yeah. That Rudy night. Yeah. It was my Rudy night, dude. Totally. That's great.

Like, yeah, I don't think anybody should begrudge you that. Like you got it. No, I think people will. Maybe they should. But fuck it. That's the deal. If you're a bad comedian you wouldn't have gotten it yeah well yeah if i if i sucked a dick that night then i wouldn't mind what anybody said it went well right it went really well exactly that's what i'm saying so

i mean it's if you get those opportunities and then you do well with them like who the fuck is anybody else to judge like oh he hasn't been doing it for long enough yeah that's stupid to me the sean boland show is the only show I ever did really bad at that like, you know, there was a flyer, like it was a show, it wasn't an open mic or whatever. Do you know what I mean? It's like the only time where I ever was like bummed badly. Do you know

what I mean? At like a real show, not like an open mic or something. Yeah. Yeah, even that kind of sucks too. I mean, it is kind of, for me, if I really prepared and put in my homework and I suck at one of those shows, I'm not going to feel too bad because it's like, what else can I do other than, you know, just try to be my funniest and have everything prepared and not show up unprepared.

Right. Um, but, uh, you know, if I'm on a real show and and i and i don't remember my set and i have to look at my notes and i'm not confident and i've you know yeah didn't exercise that day and so i feel like shit yeah that really does help me too actually yeah yeah it's huge for me i mean like i definitely have a routine down where like you know veggie shakes exercise a few hours before try to have my whole set remember yeah Yeah, just because I'm so depressed. My depression is so bad that I have to force myself to be in the best possible mood when I go on stage. So exercise, veggie shakes,

usually drink a cup of coffee 20 minutes before, maybe get some sugar in me, but not eat too much. I usually don't drink all day until I get my first drink right before I go on because I kind of like to sometimes have a prop to rely on if need be right or for like if there's like a long if i'm expecting fucking look at me if i'm expecting a long laugh or whatever i can like have a sip or whatever you know yeah um so usually i don't like drink until like then uh and i i there's i have like certain like shirts that i think are lucky for no good reason except they have a pocket and i like to

put my recorder in my chest pocket. I think it is important to try to just be in that get the stress out of the way before as much as you possibly can. The relaxation starts while you're on stage. Even me, I'm weird about that. I have the boxer mentality of keeping that chi inside of me.

They don't have sex for a week. Really? Sometimes I'll have a nice J.O. right beforehand just to get more relaxed. Really? I'm the opposite. With me, that, like,

depletes me a little bit. Really? Yeah. It is, like, I think as far as happiness, you're supposed to, like, get one out, you know, fairly frequently.

Yeah. No, I'm with that. Like, yeah. I feel that, too. Like, I'm with that. Like, yeah. I feel that too. Like, the more, the higher my sexual energy is, it's just regular energy. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. But it's probably because I've over-masturbated so much. Let's get back to normal. Yeah. Right. Right. The, uh,

oh, shit, I lost it. I don't remember what I was going to say. I'm sorry. That's a good podcast. That's a good podcast. What a good podcast What was it I was I forgot what I was going to say I will admit something that like I don't like to admit to people

But if you guys have seen the If you guys watched like All of a Sudden Philadelphia Or did you when it was like Kind of arguably I haven't seen the last season There was one years ago When like Sweet D was doing a stand-up

and she gets so nervous, she'd go like, like I used to do that. I used to do that before shows. Like I've never... Like dry heave? Like a little bit, yeah. Really?

Or like sometimes I'll, sometimes I used to burp a lot. I still do sometimes like burp a lot, I guess just out of nerves. But it's like, and everybody says the same thing. It's like once you get up there, you're so fucking pumped to be up there.

You know what I mean? I was so nervous before the standup show. I almost like threw up. As soon as I hit the stage, it was gold. I got dizzy at the Michael Ian Black show. That's right. You opened for him at the auto bar, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I was, you know, and that sucks so bad because I wasn't there and I've seen him and I've seen him and, uh, the other Michael show Walter. I've seen them do auto bar twice, but I didn't, but this was just black, right? Yeah. Yeah. See, I didn't go to that. That sucks. It's too bad. I missed twice. But this was just black, right? Yeah. Yeah, see, I didn't go there. That sucks. It's too bad that I missed it. That was my high point. You crushed that show. I was in New York that week.

How long did they ask you to do? They gave me about 15 minutes. It was great. Yeah, I definitely, you know, I went through my set twice a day for like a month. That was like everything that I had worked on for like two years, just condensed into 50.

Yeah. It's online too. I would say if you're, if you're still listening at this point and God bless you, you probably will check out this video, but just search Michael Moran, uh, Michael Ian Black,

Autobar. I opened another beer guys. And they're still doing that for, Oh, I know it's on my pants. I don't want it to get on your floor. Somebody getting um yeah yeah no yeah for the the stand-up show and the two shows i closed i was uh just rehearsing non-stop i was so nervous right they're like well yeah that's so nervous to screw up because if you screw up and you're supposed to do like 25

right i'm like oh what if i can't do myself out of the hole oh god what if i just eat a dick you know and i run away crying and i never do stand-up again right and that's the thing too is is with uh with anxiety and nervousness i just i forget like everything you know i have to go over it a million times right i just completely forget what i'm doing and uh and also i i think that it helps with the anxiety as well to memorize because sorry man because if you are eating a dick it's way better to eat a dick like but keeping yourself consistent and confident and just accepting your tiny little laughs and quickly moving on to the next thing you know yeah it's uh yeah i did autobar or not i'm sorry i did sidebar on monday just doing that open mic and there were 26 comics there

and tim heckle who hosts the show he's like i'm just gonna plow through all this shit everybody gets four minutes i'm not gonna come up in between everybody i'm gonna have a little timer when the timer goes off you're done just get off stage so it's like i was like and the energy in the room was really weird it's like i can't just do jokes that i already kind of have like it was the room was mostly comics too so it's like it always feels weird to do your regular bits gonna be like oh yeah right hey here's this thing they're like fuck you i know what you're yeah yeah it is weird but you got to remember like open mics are for you not for yeah

so i feel like it's diminishing returns like i used to in like in the summer of 2012 i went to the sidebar almost every monday i literally haven't been to the sidebar once since september or october October because every time I went, there were maybe three people who weren't comics. And I felt like it was diminishing returns because comics, not everybody, but if I may generalize, I feel like comics aren't that forthcoming with laughs. And they certainly won't be if they've fucking heard it before. So I feel like, so I just, you know, and it sucks.

You should do it when you're new, when you're struggling, when you're trying to get good, you should do every mic you fucking can, no exceptions, and I understand that, and I'm a hypocrite, but I haven't been to Sidebar in months because of that. No, I definitely understand your viewpoint, and that's kind of what I was saying too, is that it was just very hard. I mean, I think being on stage too,

you get very in tune to vibes in the room. You know what I mean? Like performing for 400 people is almost kind of like not necessarily easier. But I bet when you were in the pocket, you were like, oh, this is great. Because I think it is easier. It is. Oh, yeah, it is. It is.

Because laughter is contagious. And when there's that many fucking people, dude. Yes. It is. I will fully admit it was easier. If a fourth of a tiny crowd laughs, you're dead. Right. A fourth of a tiny crowd laughs, you're dead. Right. A fourth of a huge crowd laughs.

But once you get that going and they're like, okay, I can kind of ride this wave. And so you feel much more comfortable. But at sidebar, I always kind of compare doing jokes in front of other comedians to a magician doing stuff in front of other magicians. Yeah. Yeah, I get it, asshole. I know where the fucking card was. There's advantages and disadvantages but i know it's talking to you do get a big laugh at cyber you're like holy shit that joke is

amazing exactly that's what i was just gonna say i was gonna tim heckle basically says that too that he's like i look at it that way that's like it's kind of like running with like a parachute on so like if you can make these assholes laugh even like a little bit you know that it's gonna work at like a real show like that's like a solid bit right so know that it's going to work at like a real show. Like that's like a solid bit. Right. So there is that kind of weird part of like running with the parachute on or like weights or whatever. But yeah. So I did like my four minutes and I just had ideas that I wanted to talk about.

And I just didn't really flesh them out. And I was just kind of like stammering. And it's like and then like the timer went off. It's like, all right. And that's my time. I'm out of here. And that still stings a little bit. But it's like, you know, at least I did some new stuff. Yeah.

Stage time, stage time. Yeah. The last two times I've gone up has been new stuff. Go ahead. No, I was just saying, like, I feel like the biggest hurdle that you'll ever come over as a comic or any performer is just the anxiety of public speaking. Right. Yeah. Looking comfortable on the stage is huge.

It's interesting that you say that because I think that is true for most people. For some reason, I've never really been scared of public speaking. I guess maybe because I'm an only child. I don't know what. I've always wanted to be the center of attention. I've never been scared of public speaking. When I get nervous before, it's like I'm nervous that I'm just going to suck or they won't think I'm funny. But I've never been nervous.

I've always been comfortable public speaking. I've always liked attention. I don't really like attention. Yeah, attention is the best. been comfortable public speaking like i've always liked attention uh-huh so i like attention yeah oh yeah attention but it is yeah yeah i mean for people who aren't afraid of public speaking it's not but the vast majority of people oh i agree completely i'm just saying like it's just it's i have like a whole mess of other things that freak me out but for some reason that's not one right yeah it's stupid that it took me i didn't start doing stand-up until 29, and it's fucking ridiculous. I was so into it. I got into it, like, maybe 14.

I wrote, like, my first bid on, like, Windows 95 on, like, the home computer when I was, like, 16, and I didn't fucking try it until 29 because you know why? The main reason was I had a friend in high school who tried it, and he said, like, he quit after just a little while, and he was like, I didn't have, like, a unique unique viewpoint there was no reason for me to be doing it i didn't have anything to contribute just and i was like i was just kind of like oh man well i guess i don't have a unique viewpoint either whatever and then eventually yeah like i don't know it was a it was

a weird combination of things it was a pretty unique maelstrom like i had a really shitty year and then finally i was just like fuck it i'm to do whatever I want. And starting in 2011, I was like, or 2012, I was like, I'm going to learn how to play the banjo and I'm going to try standup. And then I fucking just started doing standup so much and spending so much at bars doing standup and shit. I was like, I guess I'm not going to buy a banjo. So here I am. Damn.

I was trying to picture you like super depressed playing this happy banjo. Damn. Yeah. you like super depressed playing this happy band show like damn yeah i'm uh i feel the same way like just starting it at 26 and then like you talk to fucking nick older shows yeah i'm 19 and he's so fucking funny dude i mean like i'm friends with him but that is completely legit he's so funny oh he's great yeah he's he's hilarious man and like that's that's i couldn't imagine being able to have that type of worldview at that age. Yeah, he's great, man. That's fucking great. Well, yeah, it's been an hour and 45 minutes.

Oh, shit. Well, you can edit out all the crap about how much we like emo and whatnot. You can trim it down to a nice and healthy hour or whatever you need to do. Just saying, emo sucks. You should cut out every time I talk about spilling the beer so you can just leave in the part where I'm like, it's all over my pants. My hands are sticky. No, I don't need

anything. I'm okay. This is why I come to podcasts. I want people to like me. Yeah, man. Thanks so much for coming by. Do you live in the city? I live in northeast Baltimore. Okay. Yeah, man. You gotta definitely come back. I'd love to.

I gotta, one last thing real quick before I go is, I don't know if any other comics are this self-obsessed, but sometimes when I'm driving home alone from a show, I'll pretend I'm getting interviewed

on a podcast. Wow. That's a little game I play in the car. And I'm like, ooh, ask me about my influences and stuff like that. Do you know what I mean?

I don't know. I'm probably the only one who does that. Most people probably aren't that into themselves. It's a little thing I do. the car. And I'm like, ooh, ask me about my influences and stuff like that. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. I'm probably the only one who does that. Most people probably aren't that into themselves. It's a little thing I do. So this has been like a really big pleasure for me. Seriously, thank you guys. Hey, but before you go, Rob, who are your influences? We could be here for like another 10 minutes.

No, real quick. I'll say it real quick. I was into, like I said, it started with like the books, like Dave Barry and Urban Bombeck, right? Around 14, like my cousin marcy showed me a george carlin stand-up i was like what this is fucking awesome yeah um george carlin is probably who made me want to do stand-up originally like high school wise at least nowadays though uh paul tom because it's my favorite currently performing comic um other comics are big influences on me for different reasons like they're like work ethic and shit like t.j miller and amy schumer went to towson university and now

she's got a fucking show on comedy center so that's a big like influence for me or like uh motivation i should say yeah or even like rory scoville and people like that rory was big he was from dc right i didn't know i wasn't he was in the dc scene i think he's from north carolina south carolina but yeah like took improv classes like i've done improv with people that have done improv with rory and it's like it's fucking awesome to see that guy he was in like a nissan commercial yeah exactly like a national nissan commercial and he's hilarious he's fucking hilarious do you guys listen to clap your hands together no it's a stand-up podcast it's like the only stand-up podcast really he was on one a while ago and he was clearly just like trying new shit and riffing.

Yeah. It's all gold. Like, he's so good. Yeah, and I think that's where his improv background comes into. He's fucking, oh, he's amazing. And I love Paul F. Tompkins. Oh, that's another thing. I was in a stand-up troupe that was like met after school and high school for like a year.

It's the only time I've ever done improv, though, because I was really big into like the British. Who's line is it anyway? Because it used to be on Comedy Central after I came home from high school. Yep. Yep. I'm glad you like Tompkins, though. Oh, fuck. He's my favorite. Oh, he's he's he's so goddamn quick. Like one of those people like I don't know. Speaking of listen to podcasts like I'll listen to podcasts and hear people talking to me like, oh, I would have said that or like this or that. Like the stuff that Paul F. Tompkins comes up with and like, how the fuck do you think of that? Like, how did you get?

What is he? He's a lot of comedy. Bang, bang. He does a lot of Douglas movies. He does Thrilling Adventure. Super Ego. Yeah. He has his own podcast, but it's like once a month at most.

And it's a little weird. It's called the Pod F Tompkast. Yeah. He has his own podcast, but it's like once a month at most. And it's a little weird. It's called the Pod F TomCast. Yeah. But he'll even do characters or be people like Werner Herzog. Yeah. Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cake Boss. Yeah. Like as Werner Herzog, which is so funny.

It's like, as in nature, which I hate with passion. You know, like it's. His first two CDs, Impersonal and Freak wharf are like um they're so i met him i i went i drove to philly to see him perform in like summer of last year and i met him afterwards yeah he was probably one of the nicest people ever to me in my entire life let alone like comedy like right so kind uh-huh and like i was like yeah i'm like it's true i'm like a baltimore open mic right shit but you know and i was like how long have you how long were you doing in philly before you moved to la and he was like oh like eight years and i was like oh fuck yeah but yeah yeah he was in a duo

for a while and then when i left he like after we said our goodbyes and i left i'm like eight feet away my back's to him i'm walking away and he goes hey rob and i'll turn around he goes hey man like i still walk to you or Or whatever. Something like that. I'm just like, oh, yeah. Best of luck to me. Thanks. Thanks, PFT. He's great and I love him. Alright, man. Well, thanks so much for coming

by, Rob. You are on the Twitters at BeMoreComical. That is correct. My man. So, yeah, everybody follow Rob. Thanks so much for listening. And to all of our British listeners, guten tag. you