The Doug Stanhope Podcast - Ep. #262: UK SwapCast with Simon Caine's 'Ask The Industry Podcast'

Episode Date: June 4, 2018

Somehow Simon got Doug to explain how to avoid all industry and build your own fan base. Recorded June 2nd, 2018 in the UK with Doug Stanhope (@DougStanhope), and Simon Caine (@thismademecool). Produced by Hennigan. Edited by Chaille (@gregchaille). This episode is sponsored by  BlueApron.com – Check out this week's menu and get your first 3 meals FREE at [BlueApron.com/stanhope](http://www.BlueApron.com/stanhope).  STANHOPE MERCH. NEW! Chad Shank T-Shirts and “Popov Vodka Presents” VHS Tapes now available at [http://www.DougStanhope.com/store](http://www.DougStanhope.com/store) LINKS: Ask The Industry podcast on iTunes - [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/ask-the-industry-podcast/id946220937](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/ask-the-industry-podcast/id946220937) Go to [http://www.dougstanhope.com/tour-dates/](http://www.dougstanhope.com/tour-dates/) for tickets to all upcoming 2018 shows in the UK / Ireland / Netherlands and North America. Chad Shank Voice Over info at [http://www.AudioShank.com](http://www.AudioShank.com) Support the Innocence Project - [http://www.innocenceproject.org](http://www.innocenceproject.org) Closing song, “Party Time", by The Mattoid. Available on iTunes - [https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/the-mattoid/6129716](https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/the-mattoid/6129716)Support the show: http://www.Patreon.com/stanhopepodcast

Good night. Good night. Good night. You're listening to the Doug Stanhope Podcast. burp on this that's we'll cut it there and start oh yeah just uh use that as a loop a loop yeah every time you want to edit just put in the belch just put in the belch to cover up any swearing or anything like that swearing um well uh so i'm gonna assume you haven't heard the show so i'll go from basically it's about it's about your career and how you built an audience and how you built sort of your fan base and what you perceive industry-wise uh where you are and what you think of it as a whole um so i figured okay excuse me if i'm a difficult interview on

this kind of stuff but i'm not trying to be i might be a cunty, but don't take it personal. I personally won't take it personally. I don't know how anyone listening might, but that's on them. I figured the best place to start would be when you started out in comedy, how long did it take you to become pro at comedy, and how did you define that? Well, pro, just like the Olympics is where you get to take off the protective headgear and the oversized gloves. But no, I mean, technically pro is when you first get paid.

So I was technically pro in my first ridiculously short amount of time in that. Do you want to move back into the shade? Yeah, I'm just trying to see the levels. Sorry, man. Oh. It's completely my fault. Hang on. Sorry, carry on.

Yeah, I think it was six or seven months before I went from my first open mic and I moved to Phoenix and got a gig as a house MC at a comedy club that was in a hotel so I was I wasn't getting paid but I was getting a free hotel room I got to live there and I would do admin stuff and then I'd be the house MC and I'd you know do comment card shit and but I was living for that was I was a fucking pro I didn't have to have a job like I was you know the cook in the kitchen would give me free food here and there and was that was that the

aim then when you started just to just to be able to live off of telling jokes or was it no the aim was the first open mic is to get laughs I wasn't a crazy person like someone who goes to karaoke and thinks their fucking rendition of little red corvette is going to be noticed by a big agent. But I just got really lucky at that time and I fell into stuff. And once I got that House MC gig, then I was working with regular touring comics, even though they were touring the shittiest circuits. touring comics even though they were touring the shittiest circuits they'd go oh you should work for david tribble and do these montana wyoming you know eastern washington gigs and now i'm getting 125 bucks a night living out of my piece of shit car and so yeah i was a pro back then as far as i was concerned i didn't so so was it i mean i wasn't good but i was going hey i'm fucking

i'm doing this for a living well that's what i was gonna ask like was it frustrating I mean, I wasn't good, but I was going, hey, I'm fucking, I'm doing this for a living. Well, that's what I was going to ask. Like, was it frustrating in a way to see pro acts come through and you almost, did you feel a little bit eclipsed or did you feel a little bit frustrated that you weren't as good and yet you were living the same life as them or you were living a certain... Well, no, I...

The fucking sirens. Here high atop the the filthy streets of London. No, I always felt, God, I almost wanted to use the word blessed. I was lucky as fuck to, yeah, I'm living out of my car, but hey, I get a free hotel when I get to Billings, Montana. Out of my car, but hey, I get a free hotel when I get to Billings, Montana. And yeah, they give me free cheese cubes at the Happy Hour Buffet. And then I get, you know. Was there, I mean, how many comedians were there around at that time?

Not nearly as many as today, which is weird because it was still kind of the end of the comedy boom. Where there were, you know, there were still network TV shows in primetime that just did stand-up. But again, memory fails you after so many years. But it seems when I started Open Mics in Vegas, which is this coffin of... it's this coffin of, like, Vegas gets either really big acts or acts that used to be really big that are now settling to roost to die in Vegas. But as far as, you know, starting in Vegas, the open mic scene was seemingly desolate.

And I think I did six open mics my second week in stand-up like there were that many rooms going and that few comics it seemed like there were maybe a dozen comics and now you go to an open mic and they'll have like 30 40 50 guys going up and you get three minutes so in many ways when you started it was kind of not it was kind of the right time in order for you to go pro quickly because there wasn't much competition so in your own admission you didn't have to be that good in vegas especially in open mics if i started in la i'm sure it would have been a lot more competitive or any other city but vegas, I didn't know any better. It was kind of the best and worst place to start because when I started, there was no interaction between a professional comedian.

Those guys were all on the strip. They don't let fucking the open micers hang out like they do at a comedy club where you can hang out in the back and watch guys. So the open mic lived in a vacuum where you didn't even know. I remember Geechee Guy coming to our open mic night when they try to make it a pro-am club and they'd get one act from the Riviera to come between shows, do a quick set as a headliner, and then they'd race him back for his next show. And he had a heckler and he was this this soft-touch version of the joke of, hey, I don't come down to where you work and unplug the Slurpee machine, which is the least caustic version of that bit. But the back of the room fell out.

Comics fell out. They'd never heard that heckler come back because they're so estranged from professional comedy. And then the next week, of course, every open mic-er had a variation that they didn't really steal because it's different. But that's how little connection that you had to professional touring comics. It wasn't until I moved to Phoenix, where I was actually working with touring comics,

that I go, oh, you should call this guy. Yeah, you'll have to drive 14 hours to the first gig and it's not going to pay that much i don't care if it pays i'm fucking i'm doing this for a living yeah yeah yeah and now you're at a stage where you can you can seemingly gig where you like because you have a big enough fan base and i suppose when you were starting out they weren't because they weren't coming for you there there's an element of freedom in that, but there's also an element of, I suppose, do you feel more accountable now to be entertaining that people are paying

to come see you specifically than when you were? Yeah, no, no, all the pressure's on you. That's where the worm turned is when people started coming to see me, and I go, oh, shit, I can't have the same act. Like, I used to, when I was just a comedian in a comedy club when people had a free ticket for comedy. So what were you doing when you were in a club?

I remember taking full advantage of that lack of putting any kind of legwork into going to, you know, you bust your ass for, you know, five days, 10 hours a day, and then you get a coupon for the thing you're going to do on Friday night. And you don't put any research into it. So I would love it when bachelorette parties would show up, someone's fucking anniversary, and they think all comedy is going to be the one guy they saw, Johnny Carson, and they see my act, and I'd relish in walkouts. Like, fuck you. You should have fucking known what you're coming to see.

You got to give me the fucking queer eye? So now you can research that by, like, going on YouTube or checking out their podcast or whatever it would be. Well, now the ticket price is enough. No one's going to fucking stumble in off the street. There's no free coupons anymore for comedy for a Doug Stanhope show. So generally, the only time you get people upset is usually seethingly quiet when they get drugged by their boyfriend or co-worker,

and it's definitely not what they wanted to see, but they're outnumbered by a fucking rabble rousing gang of yahoos do you i mean when you so when you perform for your own audience there's an element of it where i think you must feel this when you go and see comedians you like is like you kind of are primed to laugh because you know their style you know what they're going for and stuff do you ever try and perform in clubs or try and perform in rooms that maybe people don't know you in to try and get a better reaction? No, no. I know Louis C.K.

was a big proponent of that. He would go you know, a lot of those guys, most of those guys, Atel and Rogan, they go do sets at the comedy store, the comedy cellar to whoever is there in a small room to see if this is going to work

for a general audience that's not predetermined, predisposed to love them. And I don't do that. I've worked fucking hard enough to get my small slice of the pie of the fucking lunatic fringe that appreciates me. And I don't want to know that this isn't going to work in a real audience. I'm aware of it, but I don't need to be showing that on a daily basis. I'm not playing to a regular audience. I'm playing to my people, and I have enough.

I don't need to broaden my fan base. So when did you start thinking, I need to generate my own base of people? What point did you start? And also, how did you start communicating with them? What was on offer then? Well al gore invented the internet he gave me a hotmail address that was you're still on hotmail yeah someone built me a website and got a mailing list so i would hey we loved you in fucking portland and and then i'd put them in a folder for Portland and then I realized I don't have to do that shit comedy club where

it's like a TGI comedies where they look at the comment cards the next day the fucking owner wasn't even at the show but he got some bad comment cards and I don't give a fuck I realized I'm playing for shit money a small percentage

in his room but if I got just the actual fans, if I'm doing eight shows in a week for that asshole, and in every show, there's five or 10 people that are actually there to see me, I can get all those people for one night for the same money in a bar, I get the door. And we started doing that. And I'd sloppily cobble together a mailing list. I was never a good business guy, but I could put them in a Hotmail folder and go, okay, Portland, email everyone there and say you're coming to Dante's. So how did you find those people, though? Because you must have done the gigs in those cities in order to find them.

Well, they'd communicate with me. They'd send me an email and say, hey, we loved you, or hey, we saw you playing. Can't wait to see you again. So this was a time when this wasn't social media time? No, this is just straight off your contact page on your website. And how is social media now made? I assume that's made that a lot easier. Well, then MySpace is another game changer.

I fucking miss MySpace. MySpace was great. What was the plus point? Because I'm more of a Twitter fan, if I'm honest. Now I am. I still fucking loathe Facebook, but that's what everyone's on. But everyone was on... There's a lot of little things.

You could look up people by their interests by zip code. So if I'm playing Bismarck, North Dakota, put in a Bismarck, and who are the smoker, drinker, have interest in this and this, and then you could look them up and invite them to be your friend. And then they go, who wants to be my friend? Oh, it's a comic. Oh, he happens to be coming here. And it just works out easier for you. Yeah, and it was

simple. You could blog on it. I still don't know. My website now, I have a guy run it. I don't blog anymore because no one fucking reads them because of Facebook and Twitter. Is that why you moved to doing a podcast? Yeah, that was the next progression.

If we stick with Twitter and places like that at the moment, how do you deal? Because obviously, in many ways, it appears, at least from the outside, trying to keep to your bubble, keep to your audience and keep to your cocoon. But obviously, social media allows people who don't like you to tell you that. How do you deal with...

Yeah, that's why another reason I like Twitter is it's easier to deal with the shitheads. First of all, they're less likely to be on there. Facebook, what I remember, you'd post something and then you'd have a million idiots chiming in. You'd post something, and then you'd have a million idiots chiming in. And if they're shitting on you, then the thread goes off, and there's replies to the other replies, but they're no longer connected to the... It's just too confusing. Twitter, someone goes,

Hey, fuck you, you stink. I just hit retweet, and then my fans do all the fighting for me. That's a good base you have i mean they're pretty strong yeah and and and almost cult-like i've heard i've heard brian refer to to you as as two people who are just trying to build a cult and i suppose i wondered how you see your fans and how you see do you do you just look at it as they're they're they're kind of i mean because you've got quite a good relationship with them and and you're really empathetic towards towards them so what what do you view how do you view them as a base i well the self-deprecating thing but it's it's honest i don't get it i don't I think I'd really laugh at my act. Really? I know we get a lot of unwell people.

A lot of angry, suicidal. I'm sure I get more fan mail. I hate the expression, but like, hey, you kept me alive when I was going to do the bad, bad thing kind of emails that I'm sure most comics get. And I appreciate that whatever hatred I'm

selling is cathartic. And there's also ones that you go, this person just doesn't get it. They're just hearing words and they... Do you think you're a good comic, then? Do you like the compliments? Because you're quite self-deprecating,

and I imagine that none of that penetrates through that. So I wondered if it frustrates you to get a compliment or get a nice email or... I ignore the nice ones. I mean, that's kind of a comedy cliché as you focus on the person that isn't laughing. I always see that in the audience. There's one person who's there and you're just like,

I need to either make you laugh or the night is going to be shit. Yeah. I suppose we'd like... And I don't even care about making them laugh. I just hate them for being there. But I suppose the bigger the audience, the more likely that there's going to be a percentage of you who don't like you or don't know what you do.

Yeah, but the bigger the audience, the less you can see them. That's true. Which I don't like. That's why if the money were all the same, I'd play small rooms where you can control every corner and you can see every person that's there, not necessarily brightly lit, where you can control every corner and you can see every person that's there,

not necessarily brightly lit, but if I hear someone yelling shit from the back row, I can see the back row. You're in a... Like, do you play the fucking Hammersmith and some guy's trying to have a conversation with you from the balcony and he's yelling so loud that you can't tell if it's malicious

and the accent is weird and you don't know what they're saying and they might more often than not they're yelling things they think are like they're usually on my side at this point or they're yelling an old bit or just some factoid they heard on the podcast to let you know that, hey, we listen to the podcast, but you're not helping still, so just shut the fuck up. Yeah, totally. So how do you try out new material then? Do you just do it in smaller rooms to the audience?

Oh, I do. Any new material I have, it's probably going to be the first thing out of my mouth. I'll front load a set with any kind of new shit. Because you've got quite a big burn rate as well, because you, as I've heard you say before, that you get, and I get provides massively, bored of telling a joke after a certain amount of times. Yeah.

Because it's like... How can you not? Well, I've got a friend who's been doing the same set for about 20 years, and it's just because it sells and he likes his life. He just goes around the circuit doing it. I always envied those guys. I couldn't imagine doing that.

It would drive me insane. I can't imagine an audience that goes, Oh, I can't wait to hear him do that fucking joke 20 years in a row. Never gets old. I suppose it's not his. He's doing the clubs. And those are the guys that I, there's an envy to being able to be okay with that. Like a guy that can just go out, hey, I'm going to do, and here's the Jiffy Jeff, the football player character that I do.

What's the drive then for you then? Is it just to be funny now? Is it money motivated? Is it just to be funny now? Is it money motivated? Is it just to keep the fans happy? I wouldn't do this for free. I'm not one of those comedians where I go, just making an audience laugh. Or just like the guys I was talking about

that go to the comedy store to workout rooms for nothing, just to do comedy. Fucking Attell couldn't ever go to a town without doing comedy. He couldn't take a vacation. Yeah, and I i understand i struggle with that quite a bit as well generally if i'm going away for a weekend i will see if there's a club to just jump on like or do something because it's why not you know but i i just wondered what what gets you out of bed because at the moment you you've just done some new books and and you you've obviously got you're coming over here to do like european stuff as well so what's what gets you out of bed what what excites you now because i feel like at a certain stage when you have an

audience the the thought of quitting drives me if i can just get through this uk tour and then do the two markets i haven't worked in the states la new, New York, they're scheduled, and then I can just take the rest of my life off until I think, alright, that could be a bit, alright, this is, if I add that, I never recorded that, that could be an hour. Alright, we can go to some shit towns and see what we got.

Fair enough. But yeah, the idea of never having to do this again, that's a driving force. Is that why you've started or you've written books recently? Because it's kind of more insular and you just let it out into the world and you don't have to travel and do a book tour. Yeah, but there's no money in books. There's no money in books.

Yeah, I did the first one just because I was offered and could have a decent offer. Everyone wants to write a book. Yeah. a decent offer. Everyone wants to write a book, but I'm not going to do anything until I cash a check and now I'm beholden. Yeah, to the contract. I would never write a book

and then try to sell it. Yeah, once I've got a deadline, I'm much more motivated to do stuff. Yeah, I need a deadline. Yeah, totally. So is it a case of like Brian says to you, oh, by the way, you've got a show in a month and it's billed as the new show, not this one.

And then you've just got to. Oh, no, we discuss it. Right now he's on red alert for I'm not doing this anymore. I mean, this whole last, you know, international, we did Southeast Asia and then we did australia and then canada and then two days off to the uk and you know ireland and amsterdam and just just the whole process of like getting visas and then i have to drive to some fucking place and get microchipped and fucking scanned and fingerprinted just to get a visa like i come

you don't want to do it it's just a pain in the ass so so would you just retire or you would yeah i don't know there's a million things i could do i could make my podcast a lot more professional put all that time and energy that I spend fucking lunking bags across borders and, you know, hey, let's write some fucking funny shit and some fake commercials and let's make this podcast into something. We have an idea for another book we have to do together, like about our whole business model. None of them pay as well as comedy,

and they're a lot more work except for starting that new hour. Like, all right, I like this set that I have right now, and I've played it to almost every English-speaking place I could bring it, and it's going to fucking die after this. And then it's that thread of writing a new hour. It's almost easier to write a book. When you start writing a new hour. It's almost easier to write a book. When you start writing a new hour, does it start with an idea, or does it start with one joke

and then you build out from there? What's the process? Generally, after you've recorded something, you still have, like right now, I have probably 15 minutes of bullshit about stuff that's happened on these last few tours. Yeah, just didn't film the show. Well, it's in the show now because it has

to be because I get so fucking sick of the other stuff. But when I go to record it, I'll go back and do stuff I've dropped that I'm sick of. A set piece for the record. And then I'll save that. Alright. I know I'll save that. All right.

I know I can't use this in Canada and the UK because I've already used it there, but I can start over in the States. But usually you have more of that. And now I've been, because of the last book and other things that have come up in life, I've been dragging this set.

This has been cobbled together over some of it. It's probably three years old. When, I'm just going to think about how to phrase it. Because you, you strike me as someone who likes performing. But maybe it's like I've heard you say in interviews before where you write it in so it looks like it's off the cuff whereas

a lot of other performers and a big bugbearer when I'm performing is I feel sometimes I'm over rehearsed or I feel like I've gone over it too many times so I'm wondering whether you like the process of putting together bits more than going around with it. Well, I like it when it comes together on its own.

Half of it sounds like it's off the top of my head because I'm trying to remember. Like, ah, fuck, what am I missing in this? I know there's another beat to this that I like that I riffed to remember. Like, ah, fuck, what am I missing in this? I know there's another beat to this that I like, that I riffed last night. Before, Bingo used to come on the road with me all the time, and she knows my act. So every night when I'd say something new, she'd take copious notes.

Because listening to yourself is so difficult. So it was so much easier for... You said this, and it was really funny and I've never heard you say that before. All right, fucking noted, got it. I like that too. Or, no, I say that every night. What are you, fucking retarded?

You've not been listening the last 12 weeks. So do you think your memory is starting to fail you then in many ways or is it like... Well, yeah, it's just like any fucking computer. You only have so many gigabytes of... Yeah, my memory fails me, and I perform drunk. That's how I can... Mediate that.

Yeah, pull off, all right, hey, if I have four or five cocktails first, then I don't loathe these words so much and i but i won't be now i won't be staring at someone looking at their watch saying that's a sign of boredom maybe i did this bit before that that voice goes away that voice of failure and then you just sell the bits and you know come up with new tags. This is like an odd question to quantify, but how drunk do you have to be before you want to go on? Because I'm assuming there's a certain level between blackout and just tipsy or that you have to kind of get to.

Well, I've also been drinking nightly for 30 years, so what you would consider very drunk i would go all right that's a monday that's a now i'm on a i'm on a nice plane here i don't i don't get you know so isn't it like uh like lineup of drinks before you go on that you do is it like the same cocktails every time well it is roughly yeah at this point if i if I drink 15 drinks in a night, I'm still fine. But I've got to get to that place where I'm not just second-guessing everything, where I'm actually in the moment. Yeah.

Blots out all those voices in your head that you think you're hearing from someone's you know some twist of their countenance makes you think oh they hate me i don't see that anymore so it's it's for you it's uh you you have to and i understand the whole being in the moment thing because it's frustrating sometimes when like i said being over rehearsed you're not in the moment you're just remembering lines and that and that can make the job a job rather than an enjoyable performance. So is there anything else? I actually wrote about that in the last book. There's no recipe.

Sometimes you write and you write and you get all your segues perfect and you really do put that kind of effort into it, but you're not counting on the waitress dropping a tray of drinks in that couple's lap, and you're so into what you memorized that day that you can't come out of it, and when you do, you're fucked, and where was I? Because you've taken drugs before and stuff. Do you ever go on stage on another form of intoxication not anymore i i never do drug i do drugs as prescribed now like i take xanax to sleep

is it i mean is your only uh because obviously it's for social anxiety as well as as being in the moment are there any other worries about i mean obviously if you're thinking about stopping they're probably mediating now just because you're thinking well i've only got four shows left or something but in the past have you ever worried about booking a certain venue in a city you've never been to and and not selling it or or having to travel no i know i don't that's brian's job he worries about tickets i don't give a shit uh you don't mind if no one like it's not a it's obviously that's a pain in the ass and you if that happens but i'm assuming it's not happened for a while well no it's like especially in the states we do a shit town tour

a place i've never played i'll play you know a 900 seater full to the rafters, and then the next night you're playing to 85 people in some roadhouse. And, yeah, I don't mind either way. Do you feel more comfortable in sort of the quote-unquote shittier venues than sort of the big prestige? What about that? Is it just... Again, it's easier to control a small room if they are going to get out of control. I don't get...

I get hecklers that are just too drunk. Like they start drinking at 2 o'clock in the afternoon for a fucking 9 p.m. show and they just try to have conversations with you and i know i'm conversational on stage but it's a one-sided it's like a coke talk conversation i'm the coke head i'm doing all the talking you do all the listening yeah uh and then it's not it's very very rarely that it's confrontational other than listen dude you gotta shut the fuck up and you're probably gonna have to leave because you're beyond the point where i can you can't convince yourself

to not be shit-faced yeah and i can quiet you down for five minutes and you're gonna forget so why don't you just throw yourself out and that works a lot of the time i'm sure it does um in terms of like tv and and exposure that sort of stuff i mean over here one of the bigger things you did was um charlie brooker's uh screen screen great editors he's amazing yeah but i'm saying if if you saw the uncut version those rants sitting on a fucking airplane well did you did you just sit there and edit it and send it over to them and then they what was yeah they'd come over with a producer and edit it and send it over to them? Yeah, they'd come over with a producer and a cameraman and get a local

sound guy and I'd fuck that up, let's try it again. And then I'd do it. I'm not a one-take kind of guy. So what was that? Did that help your status over here? Yeah, it's huge.

Did it mean you could status over here? Yeah, yeah, it's huge. Did it mean you could tour over here? I was still touring over here, but smaller venues. And yeah, now because of it, I have a lot more people who know who I am. What made you... Did he offer... I mean, have you been offered other stuff that you've turned down in that area? Or was it like you just know Charlie and it was like, oh, I know he'll produce a good show.

I like it. What made you do just know Charlie, and it was like, oh, I know he'll produce a good show. I like it. What made you like that? Yeah, and it was easy. They came to me, a skeleton crew, and we'd sit there and drink beer on that Bisbee Airport runway, and I'd just yell for a while. I mean, we're not filling that much time,

and the BBC, it's six episodes a year or something like so yeah we knocked that out in a couple of days and then drank all night and hit it again and yeah you've you've talked a lot about bisbee and and your fondness for the area and and uh for the compound as well like how that that's that's always really interested me in in do you see it as a home like a social experiment like uh what do you how do you view no it's home and i love being there i never sit at home going fuck i need to be on the road i mean i i do get itchy feet where i i'm going somewhere but it's not to do comedy let's hit a beach let's do something let's fly around yeah it feels um as i was saying before with the whole thing that brian and i did a few years ago but it's not to do comedy. Let's hit a beach. Let's do something. Let's fly around.

Yeah, it feels, as I was saying before, the whole thing that Brian and I did a few years ago, the smallest beautiful thing where we were talking about scaling down to build up kind of thing. It feels like that's kind of what you've done with your personal life as well with that where you've sort of moved away from the hubs of comedy that are New York and LA and over there

and sort of gone, I'm just going to do what I want to do are New York and L.A. and over there and and sort of gone. I'm just going to do what I want to do rather than try and play your game. Yeah, I did some TV when I lived in L.A. and fucking hated it. And it's so much more work for such little payoff. We just spent how long to, like if I spent that, I'm a stand-up comic. We can do whatever the fuck we want.

I go on, I could go up tonight and just eat shit, try something completely fucking new, which I don't normally, but I could, and if they don't like it, fuck them. It was an hour of my night.

An hour of their life? Yeah. Have a couple of cocktails, take a Xanax, sleep it off, and do something else the next night. Try to, you know, overcompensate. But there's no one telling you what to do. TV is so fucking brutal like that. I suppose that's, and again,

that ties into social media and podcasting, where you can just put out whatever you want. And there's a freedom to that, that I suppose... I suppose, I mean, how... If you had to give a bit of advice for someone who was maybe hesitant to start their own podcast or their own social media, or do their own fan base rather than maybe chasing an agent or TV? What would you say?

Trust me, the funniest guys in this business are not in the business of it. Fuck Facebook. How are people going to know where you're playing? You've got to have some business acumen. Just, I'm against social media. Fuck Twitter. Okay, then fucking languish in obscurity. I'm not going to be able to fucking help you.

I brought a million of the funniest guys I know on the road, and almost none of them do their own legwork. Hey, can you post, i'm playing peoria will you post the uh dates on your uh thing i go okay and then i go to their social media to find out the dates to repost and they haven't posted it at all it's like what fuck you yeah it's it's uh show business it's 50 5050 you gotta put some effort I mean you did you did an infestation

and Brian brought you over for that and that's that for us over here is the be all and end all of the industry and I suppose

how was that as an experience for you like it's a terrible experience in that first of all I hate crowds and shit

and but how the industry abuses the artists there, that whole owe my soul to the company store shit where everyone loses money, but not the suits. The suits are fucking making a shitload of money there, and how come the comics aren't making it?

So I would never do that again. Because you won an award as well. They made up an award for me. An award is still someone's opinion. If you accept the award and go, hey, I'm great, you also have to accept the email that says, you suck, and go,

oh, I just lost my award because someone else disagrees. So the awards don't mean or have never meant anything to you or you it's it's nice to get but you have to understand that's just someone else's opinion totally do you do you think you're a good comedian now then i i would i if, if comics were voting on comics and no one else was involved, someone invited me to a, it was an upstart. I don't even know what it was called. Hey, you've been nominated for the, to get the George Carlin Freedom of Speech Award for some comedy, not Hall of Fame, but something like that.

And I looked him up and it was like the first year of it and they had like no web presence. You're giving away awards to people to try to make your award

worth something. Yeah, yeah. There is that in Edinburgh where you feel sometimes like the award is more trying to boost the brand, like the sponsors rather than the comedians that are doing it. Right. They're using the comedians to bring attention to their brand.

Yeah. And I mean, because there's been a real shift in the last few years of like journalists not covering comedy as much and reviewers covering it still still but it's still i feel like there's there's and it's just shifted in a weird way especially with online with everyone having a blog and everyone having a review so has has it made it matter less to you because everyone's now got an opinion and everyone's sort of well i haven't won any awards recently, so it doesn't really come into play. Yeah, I don't read press. If there's something Brian thinks I'll be excited about,

he'll show it to me, but I don't Google myself. You don't have... It's kind of nice and refreshing because you don't really seem to have an ego in the same way that I feel like some performers over here do in that they want to play the biggest venue or the or the maybe the awards isn't the main thing but they they they have uh that never ends though that's i still when i go back to la and you see people that are still they need to get to that next step to like i don't even want to do a set i just want to hang out and drink and talk about shit.

I'm working on this. I've never had a strong work ethic. Easy for me to hang on my laurels. I was going to kind of debate whether you have a strong work ethic or not, but I've heard you in other podcasts, every time someone tries to tell you you have a strong work ethic, come back at them with a negative point about your work or how it's come about. I have a work ethic for what I do. I'm not going to come back to the same city two years later doing the same material.

But that's fear-based. They deserve better than this. If I could get away with it, I probably would, but it sickens me to hear the fucking jokes that many times. But I mean, I'm not ambitious. I don't work on scripts

in my off time. I don't have a project I'm pushing. A TV show I'm pitching. Is that because you, is there an element of you that thinks, well, my audience want to see me live. They wouldn't want to see a TV script that I've made or they wouldn't want to.

No, the impetus is I want to enjoy my time. I don't, yeah, if I have a night free, I'm not working on a script. If I could hang around and watch, if I could play off hockey with my friends and get hammered, I'd rather do that. Has that always been the case, or is it a case of, as you've gotten older, you've, like,

time's more important to spend with friends and stuff? I'm sure. Everything's got something to do with getting older. But, yeah, I've always been a sloth and a drunk. It used to be just chasing pussy after a show. I don't see Last Call at bars anymore because not chasing, which was actually, when that turned

and there was no more threat of pussy after the show, it really calms you down. It calms you down. You're not getting in as much trouble, but you have less fun stories. It's usually that doing coke or chasing chicks and winding up in a strange place. That's where your fun stories come from. I have enough of those stories, and they're're not fun anymore and they hurt for too long yeah i'm pretty sure every let's say heterosexual guy has a story about trying to impress a girl that they're embarrassed about that is funny it's just the case isn't it so what do you think if

you stopped performing you'd stop drinking then or smoking? If I were to stop drinking, I would stop doing comedy. But not necessarily the other way around. That's one of the problems is when I do take months off. There's no reason to stay sober until showtime. Makes sense. Start drinking at 11 30 in the morning hey it's world cup from russia fucking games are starting at 5 a.m let's fucking go to let's go to bed at fucking nine let's reconvene here at the bar at 5 a.m and start getting shit-faced it's always drink a clock at the compound yeah and i just because because to me

it feels it feels like the two are intrinsically linked for you and and as a result if if one ended the other one would as well and so and so you might pursue other things or you might have a a different outlook if you if if that shift happened like you might go ah maybe i maybe i will work on something because i've got you've got free time i yeah i've taken uh spells off of drinking all right i fucking my booze shakes are getting too bad i'm gonna lock myself up for a couple of weeks watch netflix and not get out of bed and not see anyone we i realize there's so many situations where I... God, I fucking...

Oh, so-and-so stopping by at one o'clock in the morning. I don't have any social skills till I start drinking. I'm going to start drinking at one, and then I'm going to just keep going. You know what? You should avoid all these situations where you have to drink to be able to tolerate that situation do you do you genuinely think you don't have social skills without drinking or because if

because if they're your friends and and like family or whatever who are coming around surely they'll just be okay with who you are yeah well you have those friends and then you have other people that you know that you have to talk to. When you have friends that you can say nothing around for hours, and they're doing their own thing, and you know they don't need... Entertaining. Yeah. That's fine, but there's a handful of those, and there's a bigger handful that just stop by. of those and there's a bigger handful that just stop by when you take time off then do you ever worry that you'll lose your slice of the pie as such or your fan base or some of them will

forget you or have spent their allocation for tickets and things on someone else or no i i used to i used to worry about that, but I live within my means. Right. So, yeah, if those people drop off, I can afford the loss. How many people do you, like, because there's that thousand fans theory that a lot of people band around where they, you know, if you can just get them to give you things like $50 or whatever, then you can make a living. Like, is it a case of, in many ways, you'd like to email people and go, just you come.

Don't bring your boyfriend. Don't bring your partner. We want to keep it as small as possible. I get that a lot. I get emails. Yeah, I'm coming to see you in Charlotte. Bring in the wife. She's going to fucking hate it.

Don't bring her. How bad of a relationship are you in that you have to go everywhere together? Let her go to the fucking opera she wants to go to and you go to the comedy club? Or the other one that is, yeah, I fucking get what you do, man. I try to turn my friends on to you and they fucking hate you, but I get it. That's not really a compliment. You just told me seven people hate me for every one. Yeah, that's a bad ratio. But they's not really a compliment. You just told me seven people hate me for every one. Yeah.

That's a bad ratio. But they think it's a compliment. Okay. But do you think that's because of the base of people that you attract? There's kind of this we get it, they don't vibe. So there's kind of, in their mind, a badge of honor. It's like a Jeopardy thing. Yeah.

Hey, I knew that answer. Yeah. Tough question. I got it. But I suppose that's the double-edged sword of the way you do this. Hey, double-edged sword. Can we pause this? Yeah, sure.

Just pause it for a second. Blueapron.com. What else do we have to tell you repeatedly? They send gourmet meals right to your goddamn door, and you have to shuffle out in your slippers and pick up a gourmet meal where they tell you everything that you have to do to prepare a meal for your loved one and act like you can cook. You don't have to know how to cook.

They spell it out for you. It's simple, and it's gorgeous, and it makes you look like you're some kind of gourmet. Chaley, tell them about Blue Apron. Well, they're not really telling you what to do. You're going in this willingly. It's not like there's a crossbow at your chest. They tell you how.

Pick up the cumin. Yeah, it's an 8 1⁄2 by 11 recipe card. It's all right there. On one side, it just explains what it is, and on the other side, it gives you pictures and tells you step-by-step what to do and how to do it. Yeah, but it sounds like you're cooking something really fantastic where you're just actually reading off an 8x11 card.

Yes. I have watched Greg Shaley cook a blue apron hammered, and he just keeps squinting with his readers. He looks at the card, and he goes and does it. And it was the most amazing meal ever. And I went, he could not be a bus boy at a restaurant that serves this meal and yet he's still prepared yet i'm the one that the restaurant is built around that was fun that night i totally remember that and i'll tell you what

thank god for the fucking pictures on that thing because at some point i'm squinting and covering one eye and i'm going oh it's the blue thing with the little rippy top. Yeah, don't think you have to be able to read English to do this. They give you photographs like an Asian restaurant. And they give you 12 recipes a week, which you can pick two, three, or four, depending on your schedule. I don't know how often you eat. I don't know if you have an eating disorder. Not my business.

Not my problem. But yeah, you can get between two and four recipes a week. Depending on the plan you get. Yeah. And they'll ship it right to your door. They drop it inside my fence. But the amount of food you get, too, is more than... But it ends up that we end up having a lot of people here sometimes.

So like yesterday, I did the poblano chilies stuffed with the couscous. Yeah. And I just put the whole thing out there. And if you're hungry, grab some. Eight people all got something to eat. And they're all homeless people that are now lined up outside our door. Blue apron homeless. Blue apron homeless.

All right, Chaley, what's coming up this month? While I'm in England where they have fucking awful food and I'll be wishing for Blue Apron. I think they did this on purpose because they knew where you were going. Creamy caramelized onion burgers with apple and pickled pepper salad. Roasted chicken drumsticks and cauliflower with orzo feta cheese and olives. And spicy penne pasta with zucchini and capers. That's not a caper. It's a rat turd.

Name the movie. Do you know the answer? Home Alone. No. It was the remake, the good remake of Donald Sutherland and the pod people. Come on. Jesus. Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

He's a fucking health inspector, and they're going, that is a caper. He's like, that's a rat turd. There are no rat turds in Blue Apron. They're just capers. I can't put this in the commercial. Yes, you can.

I just said. I just made it okay. All right. Jesus. Fucking Chaley is so touchy. commercial? Yes, you can. I just said. I just made it okay. Alright. Jesus. Fucking... Chaley's so touchy. So, check out this week's menu. Get your first

three meals free at blueapron.com slash Stanhope. That's blueapron.com slash Stanhope in case I... Did I stutter or do your ears overlap? Remember that old canard?

Get your first three meals free. Blue Apron. It's a better way to cook. And we're back. Had a poor cocktail. What'd you have? Vodka soda, splash grapefruit. Nice.

Sounds cool. You don't drink, I assume? I do do i do i it's kind of weird i i used to so i used to drink when i didn't like myself and then i stopped and then i liked myself and then i started drinking again a bit and then uh and then i and then i thought i know i'll drink only on dates that are going well or badly because then you know what i mean like they're the only two situations that you either want to be a bit freer or you want to just have gone home but you can't because social whatever and now i kind of do but only when i'm like on a night like i just i don't know and also uh full disclosure i'm taking my mom out tonight for her birthday so nice i i don't want to let me drink prior that we don't have the relationship for that so uh fair enough yeah yeah but uh no no i appreciate uh that because i picked something up on the way here so it's all good um

but uh i've forgotten where we were have you seen something about a double-edged sword and deconstructing comedy yeah well yeah that's it it's a double-edged sword of you've forged a path in a way that means that people who get it come die hard. Like, they love it. And so I suppose they like... Hang on, here they come. The police are not coming to your gigs. No, no, that's one of my fans being rushed to an emergency room. He started drinking today for tomorrow's show.

That's an ambulance right there. Hang on. Do you get John Oliver a lot? John Oliver? Yes. As in, do I get his stuff? No, do you look like him? No, I don't, but thank you.

You look like an authentic, you come across as an authentic John Oliver, where John Oliver himself acts like he... Listening to that guy say the word fuck over and over again, you would never say fuck. They're forcing you to say this because you're on HBO. Fuck! You're a geek act. I tell you what, so I really like his show, but he always shows a clip and then goes, holy fuck, and you're like, let me react the way I want to react.

It's like in advertising where they always go, oh, amazing, and you're like, no, no, you just tell me what the thing is, and I'll tell you whether I like it. I don't need you to tell me how to feel, because, frankly, you have no feelings. You're in advertising. That is not your area. So I'll take that. I'll take it to the bank that's i'm gonna put that on some sort of poster what an authentic john oliver yes um but you're starting to look like uh uh uh judd nelson in the

dark backward oh i've not seen that yeah no i'll just looking in the mirror Very few people have seen that It's a really dark Repo Man style of dark weird but it's a stand up comedy movie kinda Is it like a joke movie or is it a movie about comedy? You have to see it

There's no way to explain it It's fucking weird Do you watch many movies? Are you into film? No, this is something. It was on the cult shelf back in the VHS days, and they'd have the cult movies. It would be next to Eraserhead and Repo Man,

that kind of weird, dark film. Yeah, yeah. Do you use the internet to discover new things like that, or talent, or comedy or no but I remember the days where you'd go on the internet to like find new shit and now it's just a pile of dirty dishes it's unanswered

emails and it's fucking tweets you didn't get back to and DMs and I have my one news site that I go to but I never find new shit. I find if you work hard enough you can find some good stuff, especially on YouTube.

I think YouTube is properly turning into quite a creative hub at the moment. Yeah, I watch fucking street fights and that goes into murder videos and you get kicked in the balls. Well, it depends. That's the problem. It depends on what keywords you're using. You get on something you like. That's the problem. It depends on what keywords you're using. You get on something you like.

Yeah. What's the one with the Darwin... Follow them on Twitter. The fake Darwin Awards. It's just people fucking up. It's basically Tosh.0 rapid fire.

Yeah. But then it leads you into something else. I'm not watching anything smart. I hate... People send you, hey, you should watch this 40-minute documentary. What's it called? On Netflix or something?

No, it's on YouTube. Well, I don't want to watch something on a fucking laptop for that long. I like big screens. It's a weird thing. So you mean like as in watching movies? Would you see people like on a plane watching a

movie on a cell phone? That's ridiculous. How do you fucking do that? Well, I'll do it if I have to. Like that's my sort of line on it, but to me it's sort of pissing on the... This this the thing is the internet's been great and it's leveled out all the stuff and all that plus points but my problem with it is is like so a lot of tv just goes straight on the internet afterwards and i don't feel like channels

are appreciating that we're watching that differently and we're consuming it in a way that you know i'm sat like here like next to the screen watching that whereas the tv is like on the wall and i'm you know because i don't know my mom told me never to live sit near the tv or whatever so i don't want to have square eyes but on the computer i'll never get square eyes so it's fine um that's very funny but it's it's just a weird thing that like you you don't take into account how people are consuming stuff so i i i and i and there's a lot of care that goes into stuff i mean when you make uh like your last special and stuff, and this is another thing I was talking about with Brian at the event we did,

he was talking about how it was just you and him and a skeleton crew who just recorded it, so it was authentically what you wanted, rather than when you have to produce it for Netflix or whatever, where I tell you the thing I hate about Netflix, right? Every joke lands. I've never seen a single joke die in any special ever. And it's like, really? Not one joke died.

And I hate that they film them in front of 2,000 seat audiences where I know a lot of these comics thrive in a small room. Jim Norton, who's fucking... The audience applauding at the cue of the warm-up guy that went out applauded everything and like

i can see where you're killing his timing like he's a rapid fire and you're you don't know where the punch line is so you just start clapping and it probably fucked up half his joke yeah and that like i cut out now i've learned i just cut out the, there's no, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage. I just fucking cut to whatever intro, me from a pod, right into the first bit that I have. Because I'll go out and I'll address the elephants in the room and listen, there's fucking cameras. If I fuck something up, I'll do it again, you'll pretend to laugh. And you have a funny shirt and you when there's so and so and address all the

that was so I can't remember what special it was but Louis CK did a special where he just came out from the side they weren't applauding and he just went house lights down just start we're starting I'll do all the announcements and ever since watching that I've just gone yeah why do we have to

ramp it up so much? Like, it's just someone standing there telling jokes. It's not. I get so, like, again, the short attention span that we have. Just having to listen to the audience applaud for fucking nine seconds while they do the, oh, thank you, thank you. Cut that out. I've done nothing. Like, I've not earned that.

I don't feel like it's, you know, yes. Get to the point. Get to the punchline is more to the point, man. So you wouldn't, I assume you would sell stuff to Netflix. I mean, you've obviously got some stuff on there now. I mean, do they get any creative control over stuff when you sell that to them? Or is it a case of you go, I've got this. Do you want it?

From what I hear, they're very uh mysterious they're the illuminati like hey how do you who's your contact at netflix don't have one they get a hold of someone and no one knows who's in charge fucking the bilderberg group yeah uh i don't know how they operate because i've i'm trying to get them on this for a while and like every time i talk to someone They go we don't have a content you're like, but you sold like force How did you do that then because there's no upload button like YouTube? I'll tell you that so yeah But I mean did you watch did you have a Netflix? Do you bother with it? Then is it just quite frustrating? I well I'm really bad like smash things that when they don't work bad and fucking netflix always uh it's

you're not connecting and like what the fuck and then i have to call chaley and so if i get it working i'll get on a jag if i have time off which it seems there's less and less yeah i'll go on a netflix jag but as soon as I get that screen or it starts fucking buffering or fucking rebooting itself, fuck this. Give me a goddamn DVD. They worked. Yeah. So we were talking before about your fan base and your connection to the fan base. And I suppose because you've been doing that, adding them to a mailing list and emailing them directly for so long there's that

connection but like you said also you get a lot of um i i don't want to say because of your fancy you could probably say this in a in a in a more endearingly nice way but like you said uh some people who have mental health issues and and there's there's a there's a base there and and i wonder what responsibility if any you feel for for looking after them or for caring about them. Yeah, no, it's not my responsibility. I read my emails, but I just usually folder them. If it's not something that needs to be addressed, I don't. Because the problem is, hey, I just want to say you're my favorite comic and

you got me through to once you write back hey thank you very much they think that's the beginning of a friendship right too often and hey when you i was gonna say inside that you're going to eugene oregon you should go to the fucking fucking Yuntz Festival and I, okay, thanks. And they'll just keep going. So you don't want to foster fake relationships. I read them and I let them know

on the podcast, hey, thanks for the nice emails. And occasionally I'll get into a beef when I check my emails early in the morning with a hangover. Like, fuck you. Who do you think you are? Does it wane on you though when you get because i'm imagining if you got let's say 50 emails in a day that was saying i was going to do the bad thing or whatever it was that that's got a that's got a feel a bit of pressure on you that you got them through that that there's that there's a not an accountability i suppose that's the wrong word but there's a you're providing something i know

what you're saying uh does that ever wane on you sometimes when it like when it's come to fruition where yes that person did kill themselves and yeah yeah there's a few times. And I suppose being disconnected from them in that way means that it can hurt less, or at least means that you... Well, yeah, sometimes you're closer to the people. That's not a random person. I've met that person. I've talked to them right up until the minute they actually killed themselves. themselves. And at the moment then it feels like, are you trying to

narrow down your base of fans to just the hardcore ones, or is it you would like to continue to expand it? It's not an issue. It's not something I can control. I don't go out of my way to find

new fans if you find me you find me it's a how do you feel i'm not in the public eye if you know about me someone turns you on to me you like me i'm glad to have you but uh you can you can walk down the street and no one or most of the time no no one stops you? Yeah, that's the repeating joke, is I'm only famous on the night of my show, within 100 yards of my show, for an hour before and after the show, and otherwise, that's it. I always say to people,

name-dropping only works when you know the name. Yeah, I love that, when people go, hey, gotta meet this guy, he's a famous comedian oh really you're famous well no not if you have to ask to say it no so so you don't do you mind if someone uh pirates or puts up some of your stuff online so that you know more people can discover it no i encourage stealing if it's a product i've already put out. If I've recorded a special, I don't give a shit if you steal it. Steal it. Share it.

Just don't film shit I'm doing now. Wait until I film it and put it out, and then, yeah, do whatever you want. Yeah, there'll be a commercial release. I tell you, I've got the last quickfire questions for you. Sure. Because we're just about to wrap up. So here's a quickfire for me. You answer them however you want to answer them.

What's the best show you've ever seen? See, superlatives at this point, like the best show I've ever seen. It can be like a TV thing or a stand-up special. It can be. I'm just pulling stuff out of my ass. Otto and George at the Chicago Comedy Festival just breaking himself down.

He's a puppet act. It was really filthy. He died a few years ago, but he was in front of all of industry at the Chicago Comedy Festival and the puppet is healing him. Which all these things that all of industry knows about him shut the fuck up you're not funny you're a crack addict and you don't show up for gigs you think

they're gonna fucking book you because you're having a good night here they know you fucking smoke crack you don't show up for you and i literally falling out of my seat in a theater, fucking dying laughing. But I'm sure there's a million stories like that. Brian Holtzman's fucking meltdowns. Is that because you have, I have a similar one if you do as well, like the voice in your head that does that the whole time, where they're like, then I'm going to book you again after that performance. But that's shit that I would, like, I'm on stage and i can't stop myself from saying and

even hedberg would have that he couldn't not comment on how all right that joke didn't work but i bet you win him back but when you have it coming through a fucking puppet the puppet is actually that voice in your head. It was hilarious, especially how hardcore true it was. Yeah. What do you think are the biggest... What's the biggest mistake you've ever made, and how did you overcome it? Oh, see, these are the fucking...

The worst and the best and the... The worst mistake I ever made. Fuck. I don't know if I've made one. You can think, like, they weren't mistakes because you learned from them kind of thing, if that's... Yeah, these are email questions. Okay. This is where you go, all right, and then I sit around and have a few drinks, and you go, oh, fuck.

Okay. Well, I'm going to rephrase this one then so it's not an email question, but if you could change a thing or one thing about the comedy industry, what would it be? Oh, it would be a lot. The comedy industry, comedy clubs themselves. Like in the 80s when the whole, the formula started. There's a 15-minute opener, and then there's a 30-minute middle act,

and then there's a 45-to-an-hour headliner. You go to towns where they don't have a pool of enough comics, but they'll still use this. So people will know not to show up until a headliner because there's no law that says you have to have that amount of time and that allotment.

And in the States, that's one thing I'd do is take the UK-Canada model where you have the better guy first and then put the the newest act in the middle for a shorter amount of time where we put up the fucking worst guy first okay I don't know that worries me I went to I went to New York in January and I was on opening for a lot I had no idea I thought that's going really well because over here you put the sort of solid opener and then the break and and then there's like sort of

the things there so that's uh and that's why like guys like Hedberg when he started as an MC like he's hilarious but he's not a guy who's gonna go any birthday parties here and all that shit that they do in announcements you can't have a Hedberg doing announcements. You have to have a guy that has hosting abilities. And they put too little effort into that, but that's nothing I'm involved with. Last question.

If you could go back to yourself before your first gig and give yourself one bit of advice, what would it be? I would shut the fuck up. I would not give me any advice because it was that pure innocence and lack of self-awareness

that got me to where I was. Because like everyone, I sucked shit when I started. I don't want to talk to future me because then I wouldn't spend that many years being a fucking horrible piece of shit comic just saying dumb things because I thought they'd get laughs

and have no point of view. Yeah, I would just let him go. Let the kid go. Let him grow into his own. You'd watch him and go, you're fucking awful. Yeah, I wouldn't even talk to me after a show. Well, thank you very much for coming on.

Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks. Drink your drinks and eat your eats, it's party time Laugh your laughs and eat your eats, it's party time Smile your smiles and do your blues, it's party time Dance your dance and shoe your shoes, it's party time Howl your howls and suck your socks, it's party time

Oh baby, crap your craps and fuck your fucks, it's party time Crap your craps and fuck your fucks, it's party time Everybody! Crap your craps and fuck your fucks, it's party time One more Grab your crap, Sam, fuck your fucks, it's party time Here we go Party time

Party time, party time, party time, party time, party time, party time, party time, Pasta time. Hey! Pasta time. Yeah! Pasta time. Blue Apron, eh? It's a better way to cook than that whole rat turd thing. I bet he cuts that out.