The Downside with Gianmarco Soresi - #43 The Houdini Hole with Doug Benson

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

Doug Benson shares the secrets of the Houdini Hole and why it’s vastly superior to the Houdini Museum. We also discuss the scammer that’s targeting stand-up comedians, growing up in San Diego and taking school field trips to Mork & Mindy tapings, not getting bullied in high school because your older brother is on the football team but then he graduates, getting cast as Santa instead of Jesus, smoking pot in hotels, being an extra, a stand-in, a Universal Studios tour guide, and we conclude that the best comedy special would be one where the audience members are allowed to drive over the comedian. You can watch full video of this episode HERE! Join The Downside Patreon for early ad-free episodes the Friday before they're released on Tuesday, two BONUS episodes a month (AUDIO & VIDEO), + the good feeling inside that you're helping keep my delusions alive. Follow DOUG BENSON on twitter & instagram Listen to DOUG BENSON's podcast DOUG LOVES MOVIES Find DOUG BENSON's upcoming tour dates HERE Follow GIANMARCO SORESI on twitter, instagram, tiktok, & youtube Check out GIANMARCO SORESI's special 'Shelf Life' on amazon & on spotify Subscribe to GIANMARCO SORESI's mailchimp Follow RUSSELL DANIELS on twitter & instagram E-mail the show at [e-mail] Produced by Fawn Sullivan, Paige Asachika, & Gianmarco Soresi Video edited by Spencer Sileo Special Thanks Tovah Silbermann Part of the Authentic Podcast Network Original music by Douglas Goodhart Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, welcome, welcome to The Downside with Jamarcus Arezi. I am recording from Los Angeles. I'm back here. I'm at the new Third Wheel podcast studio, which is much nicer than my little apartment studio in New York City. And it's hard coming to this place and then going back to my apartment. It feels like vacillating between being homeless and staying at the plaza. It's just a tough transition.

But now I'm in the plaza, so I'm feeling good. And I'm joined today, a very special guest, shocked, agreed to be here, Doug Benson, stand-up comedian, podcaster, everything. Doug Benson, thank you for being here. Well, you know, I'm excited that you're on my coast and to hear that this is the better place to do it, apparently. Here we go. Oh, good. There you go. You know, new studio, slight delays in the cues.

It's all good. You're listening to The Downside. The Downside. With Gianmarco Ceresi. I really, it was a Hail Mary pass. I, you know, I wrote. This has got to. Oh, there you go.

All right. Well, we're getting a discount on this one. I wrote, you know, I wrote Obama first. And then from there, I messaged you second to see if you could do it. And thank you for agreeing. I'm glad to jump in when, you know, because if I were you, I would have said, OK, Doug, let's wait a bit. See what comes up. See what happens with Obama. Give him a couple of days.

We'll let you know morning of, Doug, if we're going to have you or if Obama came through. If I if I canceled on you for Obama, like last minute, I said, Doug, sorry, Obama just came in. Would you be? I'd be so excited. I'd know where Obama's going to. Would you be? I'd be so excited. I'd know where Obama's going to be because you already gave me the address. So I'd at least get maybe a cross the street selfie where I'm in the foreground and he's just getting into a car. Those are fun.

That must be fun as a celebrity to just see people take selfies with you in the background. The distance selfie? Yeah, I don't know how much of that I get anymore because my eyesight is such that if I don't have my glasses on, I would never notice that sort of thing going on. So I guess I can imagine it's still happening all the time. Of course. If you're listening, if you see Doug Benson, you can get close with that selfie. He can't see for shit.

I won't even notice that you're doing it. Are you really that blind? I'm not rude at all. Across a room, yeah. I'm that kind of blind with my glasses off. I can see distances and I can see close up, but in both cases I have a slight I need a prescription.

Do you ever think about laser eye surgery? I did get it done. Oh shit. So didn't go crane i love it i i loved it like but it's but your eyes still degenerate as they naturally would as you get older it doesn't doesn't fix them from the the uh aging process sure so i'm still you know my now my sight's going bad like it normally would yeah but i had a really nice run there because I started wearing glasses when I was like 12 years old and never, you know, tried contacts a bunch of times throughout my life but never got the hang of it. So as soon as LASIK became a thing, when I did it, it was $2,500 an eye. And I did it at like the UCLA Eye Institute or something.

Were you like a test run? It was pretty new it was pretty new that's scary i had heard that kathy griffin and bob odenkirk had both had it done and they neither one of them told me the horror stories they just made it sound like it's you know 100 don't worry about it and it did the first time i did it didn't take completely and they had so i had to go back for like touch-ups essentially oh my god so i kept having to have them do laser shit to my eyes so that part of it i wasn't thrilled about but not having to wear glasses again for you know i went a good good long stretch of just having you know pretty decent eyesight without any kind of uh eyewear all, whenever there's an operation, I always, my mind goes to all the people

who had to, who got the bad version of it for them to figure it out. Right. Like my dad, my dad just had a surgery where they put, he got a quintuple bypass and they put veins from his leg into his heart. And all I can think about is all the human beings that they tried different veins

from different parts of the body. And then they said, oh, that didn't work. And just the – I'm sure some people were blinded as they figured out these eye surgeries. Somebody's got to be the – do they even use that expression anymore? The guinea pig still the animal of choice when you're referring to just random testing that could do any possible horrible thing to what you're testing it on? I imagine. But I also think with laser eye surgery, there's no way the guinea pig's eye is good enough. At some point you got to make the leap.

Maybe the chimpanzee or something. No, I bet you, I bet you the human eye is special. Like I bet you, you know, maybe, maybe there's some other crazy animal out there that has exactly the same eye is special like i bet you you know maybe maybe there's some other crazy animal out there that has exactly the same eye as a human but if there is i haven't heard about it i need to i'm thinking about getting lacy because i i could never do context i got context twice and they showed me how to put it in and they showed me and then i would get to my apartment the next day i would try to put it in it was one of these activities that if it took longer than five minutes, I couldn't get it to stick. And I would start rage filled with the kind of fury that I can't figure this out.

It feels weird. It's brutal. It's just some people, it's not, it's, I don't feel like it's meant to be or something. Cause I tried different types of contacts. I went the route of start off with hard contacts, then went to soft. But I guess now they're all soft. I feel like they're much better now, but still, I don't think I would be able to pull it off. When I would get one in, I just would spend the entire time thinking about how there's something on my eye. Yeah.

I could never let it go. I could never just like, all right, I'm just going to chill, start acting like this is how I'm supposed to be able to see. Because that's the other freaky part is you can see better. Yeah. So you see well, but you know there's something on your eye. It's just – I couldn't handle it. My girlfriend has the disposable ones, and she gets very loose with leaving them on the nightstand.

And so there's these little clear chips everywhere. Yeah. Well, I had shit I wanted to talk about, but I'm so excited. There's this scam going around. I want to hear about it. That affected someone we both know. So I first heard about this. Some comedian reached out to me, and they said said someone wants to hire me for a private gig

and they just want random roast jokes about random celebrities. The kind of direction that you're like, who would want that? Right. I mean, maybe for a writing packet, maybe, but for some private event, it didn't really make sense. No. And I saw someone posted what they say. They said, hey, do you do private

comedy gigs? This person said, yes, I do. I was hoping you could do a comedy video for me and my wife. Our anniversary is coming up, willing to pay $300. So not a great gig. I mean, if you're writing material for... So then if you can tell some jokes, maybe roast a few celebrities, So then if you can tell some jokes, maybe roast a few celebrities, then just tell her I love her. That should be good. You can just pick random popular celebrities. Five to ten minutes should be perfect. Her name is Martha while I'm Gilmore.

Strange typing. You know, something's a little off. and uh uh basically what this person did is uh and i so i heard the my friend who didn't fall for it is they sent the three hundred dollars in advance but sent accidentally three thousand dollars and then said to you oh fuck i put another zero and you know how that happens all the time can you send me back the 2700 difference yeah so uh renan hershberg who has done your podcast and is a big big movie buff he posted that he uh uh he'd been scammed out of 2500 they i guess there's something they sent the three thousand dollars and he thought the money was in his account because uh when the money shows up in your account it doesn't mean that it's cleared or there's some there's something there that that's what you where

you fall for it sure so uh any any comedians listening don't do a gig gig for $300 where you have to write material. Number one, that's the first mistake. Unless you have that many celebrity jokes. I feel like you probably have some celebrity jokes saved up. Yeah, I still would have. This gig would have panicked me. I would have said five to ten minutes of roast jokes where I don't know what you're driving at, like why you're asking me to do this. Yeah.

Like, are they going to chop this up and make some silly- Sure. Like make some weird video like, Doug Benson's mad at Hollywood. And then it looks like I'm just standing at home ranting about all these celebrities. I love that your version of the scam is not that you were going to get scammed for money. It's a deep, like your character will be dragged through the mud. They'll make fun of me somehow yeah yeah because it can't be scamming for money because like there's already that first step of like they sent me three grand i'd be like well that was either you know they're

either scamming me or i just made three grand yeah you know because you've you've become i'm just gonna hang back and see where this is going, you know? And then when they go, oh, we need $2,700 back, I go, I tell you what, I'm going to keep the $3,000 for a while. Yeah. And once I've had that money for a while, I'll send you back your $2,700. You know, once I've been able to, you know, maybe even buy some things with it. Invest in it. Or invest in it it once i get the returns from the stock market that's when you'll get your money a little bit and uh because you're obviously bad with money so let me hold on to it for a little bit and get it back to you safely after my 300 has uh my three

hundies cleared but yeah the the setup was too much of a, I want, so did Renan make that video? That's, you know what, I should write, Renan needs to post, you wrote these jokes. Renan doesn't do a lot of celebrity talk. I'm sure he had to dig deep, learn about some celebs. I'd love to see that video. They might not all be home runs, but he's very funny. He's a very funny dude. So just watching him attempt it

it'd be fun if it was so bad everyone's like you know what you were scamming them with these shitty jokes too i feel like you were both scamming each other not worth three hundy these britney spears jokes were old they were played out yeah you ever you ever get either scammed or like not paid for a gig hardcore i started like flashing on you know has something similar happened to me and i'm having trouble thinking of one but i also always have had sort of a every time i'm interviewed somebody goes tell us about your hell gigs i'm like uh one time seemed you know i seem to recall like it's all this stuff that's bad is more vaguely remembered yeah yeah yeah you know i kind of push that stuff away you know yeah i just remember i've had you, I'll still do some shitty gigs. And I think I headlined some club in Yonkers and I think I was supposed to be paid like 110 bucks and then

you get a hundred bucks. Right. And like the guy who ran the club wasn't the booker. The booker was my friend. It was one of those where I'm like, how you ask yourself, how far am I willing to go for these $10 I was scammed out of? And you just end up going, well, I'd like to headline there again someday, so I guess I'm fine losing $10. Yeah, and then enough people do that. That adds up to they're $100 richer after two and a half months or however many comics they did that to.

That's why sometimes the money is so little. You're like, why? Just give me the money. It's the same with all spot pay. I'm like, we're just talking 20 bucks here. 25. Yeah.

It's a, it's funny when they start counting the pennies and like right now is a tough time for it too, because you know, if you go, Hey, wasn't this supposed to be this day? They go,

we are, it's a tough time. We're like, you know, we're just trying to scrape our way back and it's like yeah i get it as are the comedians of course every time i go to la i get i get to do some great shows but but they don't pay it's kind of like you know they're doing me a favor just throwing me on as a visitor and it's like it's fine but some of these shows they're so packed that i'm like i'd love 25 bucks to go to the uber that i have to take home from this gig yeah but i'm just still in a place i'm still in a place of thank you thank you thank you yeah

there might be a casting director in that mob well that's the nice thing at least in la you feel like maybe someone's here yeah new york it's that's that is rarely unless you're at the cellar or the stand right now there's a few clubs where like industry's just coming on by yeah i don't and i they don't come out much in la either but they it does happen so there's there's always that uh that glimmer of hope yeah these trips are a bloodbath for me. Uber-wise, I don't drive. I don't know how to drive. Sure. So it's just Ubering everywhere.

I like, even to this, I was in Santa Monica for something, and I'm so fucking dumb. I was like, oh, this is on Santa Monica Boulevard. Right. Just go down the boulevard a few blocks. In my mind, I was like, oh, I'll walk there. I have an hour. And then I pull up the map map and i'm like son of a bitch you can't call it santa monica if it's where are we right now west hollywood uh no just

hollywood hollywood or even east hollywood yeah so you you grew up in san diego yeah and how what is that a plane ride from here how long is that oh it's a you know two and a half hour car ride you know because of the kind of traffic that goes between the two you could you know you can do it in two hours if there's no traffic and lots of times it's just it's it's hell like getting down there getting either direction for some reason also because mexico is just beyond san diego like tijuana so like that whole stretch uh from la down to san diego and tijuana is really a mess like on weekends and stuff like it's the traffic's really bad did you do a lot of when you were a kid did you go to mexico for trips uh-huh yeah it was

when i was a kid it was like a family vacation spot that was cheap like because we could also just do day trips you could just go to drive down there that's nice you know fuck around all day and then just drive back that same day like going to the beach or the mountains like that growing up in san diego was pretty wild in that sense that i pretty regularly visited the beach the mountains and tijuana like all three of those things uh living in temperate, beautiful, you know, 70 degrees all the time, San Diego. So it was really, uh, uh, I do think a great place to grow up and close to, you know, and

then I fell in love with the idea of being in show business. So like being that close to Los Angeles, just, I can't imagine how many people just don't even try to have careers in show business because they live too far away. It was easy for me to do. That's always been my complaint. There's not enough people that want to get into show business. Yeah. We need more of them. We need them to come from further away, take bigger chances. Because that was the thing is I could always, you know, it was, you know, I don't think I would move back home to my parents' home, but I could move back to San Diego if things didn't work out in L.A.

So it was kind of a safety net. I would have loved that. I was in Maryland, and I loved show business stuff, but I just didn't know about how it all worked. I would have loved to have. You were in studio audiences, you were seeing live tapings of shows and stuff as a kid? Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, I just, between my school,

just doing random, you know, something about being in Southern California, they just put you in a bus and take you to Disneyland and to SeaWorld and to TV show tapings. See, I went to the fucking White House, I went to see the statue of. I went to the see the statue of Lincoln. Who gives a fuck about that? I don't want to do that shit at all.

This was way more exciting and I'd always ditch the group you know like I was running around like on the Paramount lot when the group came up you know a group of kids came up in a bus to see a taping of like Mork and Mindy or something. What grade are we talking about here? Must have been like high school.

And were you guys well-behaved? Like my high school, they did a, again, this is like the boring East Coast. They went to go see a 12th night at like the Warner Theater. And I was sick that day, so I didn't get in trouble for this, but our grade was so misbehaved

that the theater banned our school from ever doing a trip there again i just can't imagine filming a tv show pretty hardcore like and and they but they also give you that because it always shocks me when i see a broadway show and you know you'll see like two or three rows of kids that are obviously all from the same school out of the same bus yeah and you think this is going to be horrible but they're all probably told over and over again about the sanctity of theater sure and then also those old ladies that are the ushers in the theater probably aren't going to put up with too much either you know yeah but you hear stories there's definitely less i remember

there was um hand to god was a play on Broadway. And there was someone there. The set was very realistic and it had plugs. And someone went on stage and plugged in their phone to charge it. Yes. And then there's a few actors like Patti LuPone. There was such a funny story. Patti LuPone, I guess someone was taking pictures. And she stopped the show and fucking reamed them out.

And it turned out they were, think with the new york times or some other publication and they were supposed to be taking sure but patty just fucking read them their rights right screamed at them patty is someone i would be scared to to piss off but i love that moment when somebody does take out their phone now with the way the usher will take their pointed flashlight and just run it on their face like they'll just run it i haven't seen they'll just wiggle it around like you know like until they notice and not stop until they put the phone away and it's like you know everybody in the theater is like oh it's like the scarlet a or something like everybody can see oh this person it's almost

like a police helicopter like you know you're the one when that light hits you and you're running down the street. Now, do you do any of the shows, do you do any of your shows, do you do the yonder pouches, the yonder pouches where they take your phone? I have done that, and I like it, but I wouldn't personally institute it. Yeah.

Like, if I owned a comedy club, I don't know if that would be a rule i would have because i know how much i don't want my phone taken away from me i know there's a lot of people that we get to hold on to it well yeah you know you could set it on vibrate so if your phone vibrates you can go have them unlock it in the lobby and then go outside yeah conversation so i do like that but just the just how how much i'm addicted to my phone and looking at it and for for everything i just just giving it up and then watching a show i'd be thinking about you know i can't wait to get my phone back yeah well that i think you find out

just how addicted you are i was at the comedy cellar and they didn't have yonder pouches they had like a fedex bag and they duct taped it shut. And the number of times I looked longingly at this bag, like I just want to look at tweets for a second. Just want to glimpse at it, make sure it's still alive. I'm a phone addict guy and I always think it's good when it's taken away. When my daddy had the surgery and it was one of these moments where I'm like, I had two and a half hours with my dad before the surgery, and I'm like, be here, Joe Marco.

So I really put the phone away. But it's sad how often I'm talking to my dad, and he's telling me how much he loves me, and all I can think is like, oh, I cannot wait to see how that tweet is doing. Oh, my God. I'm dying to see how that tweet is doing. Oh, my God. I'm dying to see it. It's probably got 100 likes by now. Or worse.

Oh, my God. When I flew here, I put up a tweet. I wasn't very confident in it, and it was bombing. And I knew it was going to bomb. And I was like, I have to delete this tweet before we get in the sky, or I'm going to have to pay for Wi-Fi just to not be embarrassed. Are you still on Twitter a lot? Yeah, I'm pretty to have to pay for Wi-Fi just to not be embarrassed. Are you still on Twitter a lot? Yeah, I'm pretty into it. I read less.

I write more and read less. And my favorite thing to do now is find out what's trending, figure out why it's trending, and make the dumbest joke I can think of that isn't problematic. that isn't problematic, which sometimes it still is, but at least it's with the other side, the so-called other side. Of course. I'm just pissing off the people that aren't going to pay much attention to me to begin with. So you're in San Diego. You have an older brother?

Yes. Yeah? How much older? Three years. And did you get along no why i mean we got along in high school just because we just didn't talk much like he had such a separate life by that point and was never home that we didn't talk much but he represented uh something that probably helped me out in my freshman year of high school because when i started freshman year he was senior year uh first string uh football player uh you know like on the defensive line or some shit i didn't know enough about football then to

know what and that mattered was doing at your school oh it was huge and also just him and his buddies were all just the biggest kids on camp you know they were all just big guys yeah you know so know what and that matter was doing at your school oh it was huge and also just him and his buddies were all just the biggest kids on camp you know they were all just big guys yeah you know so like it was just i didn't to my knowledge i didn't really experience any bullying because he was there you know of course my sophomore year then he was gone was gone, and that's when I had to develop a sense of humor. You felt a shift that once he was gone, people were like, all right, finally we get to pick on this nerd. Looking back on it, I realized that that was probably

those things happened at the same time because I really started to perform a lot. I was in all the performing arts classes, so I started like being more active in student shows where usually all the roles go to juniors and seniors but by sophomore year I was so fired up I was like kind of kind of unstoppable I'll never forget the the ego I had being a freshman getting cast in 12thth Night at my high school as a freshman. And it was like freshmen didn't get speaking parts in the plays.

And that was the last time I felt kind of good about where I was in show business. Yeah, we had an annual Christmas pageant that we do every year. And there's just like kind of a natural progression of like the kind of roles you play. there's just like kind of a natural progression of like the kind of roles you play. Like when you're a freshman, you'd probably be like kind of in the background or, you know, a shepherd, maybe, maybe one of the three wise men at best. And then the next year you, you, you, you know, you move up to one of the wise men or, you know, Joseph or something. And then, you know, when you're a're a junior you know like it just would build up to eventually you'd play jesus yeah when you're a senior like your most popular senior would probably play genius but you could jesus but you could slip in there if you were just popular with

the you know if you're just an entertaining student you know if you're like a class clown or like somebody that was yeah you know i was in lots of entertaining student you know if you're like a class clown or like somebody that was yeah you know i was in lots of shows that people would get to see instead of going to class and i would be funny so like you know i was pretty well liked but when it got to be my turn to be jesus they changed the pageant they decided to revamp it and took that scene out and replaced it with a Santa Claus scene. They cut Jesus from the Christmas pageant. Yeah. That one year.

It only happened one year, but the one year I could have been Jesus, I ended up having to settle for being Santa Claus. Settle? I feel like you'd be a good Santa Claus. It was fun enough, but- You were really bummed? You were like, no. Wait, what did Jesus?

I remember that junior year was the person that was the class clown in junior year. Uh, you, you could move your way up to, there was a chef character, uh, that had like a fat suit. And then basically they just gave me the same fat suit for Santa Claus and the next year. And so that, that's another, that was another disappointment. Like Jesus got to wear like cool robes and be the center of the fat suit. Cause the thing that was fun about Jesus is, you know, this is of course before, you know, selfies and whatnot,

but you'd still end up with a cool picture of yourself. Like, cause it was like, they'd recreate like the last supper or something. Yeah. Make it look like the Last Supper or something, make it look like the painting. But, you know, some high school seniors, Jesus in the middle of it all with a fake beard. Did they do the Last Supper with Santa that year? Just Santa in the middle? Well, that's what they changed it up. They just made it a feast that Santa was having.

It was it was it was a really it was poorly rewritten. Like they tried too hard to make Santa like they, you know, wanted Santa to have jokes, you know? And I just wasn't, I wasn't ready for it, you know, like I did the best I could, but. I wonder why, I wonder what they just trying to make it more secular to make the Jews feel a little more comfortable. I think the lady running the drama department was like enough of this Jesus

shit every year. You know, she was like, cause she was pretty cool she was pretty cool like i mean i had four years i i'd say you know everybody not everybody but people who think that a teacher inspired them that one teacher in my case was the high school drama teacher because she was same she was consistent for me because they had a drama program where you could that could be one of your classes during the day all four years of school no hardly anybody would do it like by the time i had been you know once i was in fourth year drama my class was you know three or four other people yeah you know because they don't last that long you know like a lot of people drop out of drama after the first year because they're like oh shit they kept making me get up and do things in front of the rest of the class.

Like it's so amazing how how shy everybody is in drama class. Yeah. You've signed up for drama class, you know, but they're still terrified. Most of them. And I was just any time the teacher gave us any kind of assignment, I would be want to go first. Of course. I was so, so super into, so proud of myself that I could do these things, even though sometimes she would be pretty harsh in her criticism. Yeah, some people just don't want to do it. My younger sister, back in kindergarten, she wouldn't do the, they did a Halloween recital where she was supposed to dance in character. Yeah't do the they did a halloween recital where she was supposed to dance in character yeah and like they played a whole song for her to do

it and i was watching it and they called her name and she just sat she didn't want to stand up she was so shy that they just played this music for three minutes with no one dancing in the middle and then they moved on to the next next segment and it's just such a it was just a moment of where we are totally different people i was in the audience as like a fifth grader i was like i will take this yes i would gladly dance i'll school these kindergartners they don't stand a chance um so was this a religious school were you religious no my i was i was raised method, and I couldn't tell you anything about being Methodist other than just seems like all the normal. Just Jesus wears cool robes. Like my parents took us to Sunday school every Sunday until like when my brother was like when I started high school.

You know, my brother was like, you know, 17 or 18 and i was like 14 or 15 uh maybe even younger yeah i think i think around 12 when i was 12 my brother was 15 i just said to my parents one day i don't want to go to sunday school anymore and they went oh okay we'll stop doing that like it was that easy like i just wished i I had done it so much earlier because they just take us on Sunday mornings and drop us off. And then you'd go in there and listen to somebody talk about God knows what for like two hours. And then they'd come pick us up again.

And my parents were thrilled to stop doing it because they didn't, they didn't have to get up on Sunday and take us there. And then sure. Go, you know, there's all those trips back and forth that they didn't have to do anymore my dad especially was excited because he was a golfer he'll have to golf in the mornings or watch football he didn't want to be in church yeah we went to church on christmas and sometimes easter that was our that was as a family that's how often we went to church so i was like if you're not going to church you can't make us go to sunday school sunday school is supposed to be while the parents are in church the youngest kids are just in a room you know trying to you

know they're getting them brainwashed early but oh my god it's just all so boring they don't know how to make it interesting because like bible stories are made into movies over and over and over again because shit actually happens yeah there's exciting stuff in there my friend said the bible is the most interesting stories told in the most boring way possible yeah it just i tune out immediately like when when the bible is a category in jeopardy i'm just like i not going to know it unless it's something as dumb as, you know, who put a bunch of animals in an ark. I'm not going to know the answer. Cause I just, I just have always tuned out everything biblical, even biblical movies. When I was a kid, I thought all of those were boring. So are any, are there any good Bible movies? Not to me. Cause it's our, once it's Bible,

it's already like, Oh, they're just going to look a certain way and they're just going to, you know, it's just going to be frustrating. Like, you know, like last temptation of Christ and stuff like that.

I can't even watch that. It's like, why, what he's doing, what for our sins? I just hate the, I remember there was some Bible TV series and someone said the devil looked very similar to Obama. And so I just hate the – I remember there was some Bible TV series and someone said the devil looked very similar to Obama. And so I just hate – I think it's just always – and it happens again with like abortion where all of a sudden I'm reminded there are a lot of religious people in the world.

Or just – you'll hear politicians talk about religion and you want to – you wish you could – I wish I could get them on a lie detector to be like you don't believe in this right this is just like all all the front i feel like there was a time when they also were kind of religious maybe but then you hear people i remember that uh mitt mitt romney there was some like pod basically a podcast or a radio thing where he started talking about what he believed and when he started talking about it like jesus will come back and he'll put his finger on the olive tree and you were like whoa like oh you actually yeah there's there's a lot of people you're like oh oh for for real yeah he's really into it whereas like uh you know i don't know like mike pence or somebody he's just pretending he's just like i'll just say i can't tell I don't know if Mike Pence. Ted Cruz, he must be pretending. Pence, I don't know.

I don't know if he goes and he sits down. I mean, I guess he could be that silly, I guess, to really believe all that stuff. Do you have any religious bone in your body? I just don't. I just never. My parents didn't encourage it. And then I got out of the game pretty early and never, never looked back.

I really, uh, yeah, I just don't, I'm not like, I don't walk around going, I'm an atheist. I don't say that.

Cause you know, something happened, something made all this shit, but I don't think the, the, the, you know, that one version gives us the the uh the answer are there any big weed religions any any like i don't think there's any i mean i'm sure you know somebody will tell you there is there was a guy that i followed for a little while uh his progress because he kept trying to open up churches in the Los Angeles area that were exempt from persecution for for weed or taxation on the selling of it because it was a

religious thing yeah and he just couldn't uh you know he just could get shut down every time couldn't was this before keep it aflo it afloat before medical and then now recreational. And so now there's less of a need for anybody to be like, well, I've got to create a place where you can buy and use marijuana. It was like, it's called California. That's the place now, but there's still might Allah Scientology. but there still might a la Scientology, somebody could still keep trying the idea of like a weed religion to,

in order to like, uh, sell and not be taxed. Sure. On the weed you sell, they could still pursue that angle. I don't know if Scientology, I don't know if they have a view on weed. I just,

you know, I just know Scientology's view is just to get all the money and then not pay any taxes on it because it's a religion. Being in L.A., have you interacted with a lot of Scientologists? Not very much. I cruise right past them on the sidewalk when they are pamphleting. Because also you know which buildings. That's the crazy part is how much real estate scientology owns in los angeles billions of dollars of real estate because they just like so many places you turn especially in

hollywood uh you just if you don't even really have to look at the fine print you just have to read what it says on the building and it's so much scientology everywhere i feel like if they had back in my acting days if they had mixed an acting class with Scientology, they could have gotten me. Like, that's how they would have, it would have been show business related. I mean, this is a good place to get people who need some guidance, who need some structure.

I wish I could turn to fucking something, but I. It's everybody's on their own, you know? Like, they don't go after, like, football players, you know? Anybody that's in team sports, you know, like they don't go after like football players, you know, anybody that's in team sports, you know, like basketball players aren't going to be easily talked into being Scientologists because they already have a winning team or at least the team that's paying them and it's their livelihood and it's causing all their success. actors fresh off the bus that Scientology gets. And then you're getting all these potentially future famous people that that's the whole thing is just they would love to have more famous Scientologists to show off. But even the famous ones, I feel like I I feel like they're not as public anymore because they know it's like kind of career suicide.

Keep it really quiet. But when pushed, they, they always defend it eventually, but not too many people push because that's just not where we're at as far as, I mean, we know Tom Cruise is a Scientologist. So how, how much is anybody going to get out of him by trying to get him to say something negative about Scientology or something like, you know, a couple of questions into that line of questioning and you're, he's going to shut it down one way or the other, you know, like he's either going to leave

or say, you must move on to something else. What did you think of that? Remember that rant he had during where they started filming the mission impossible and people were at the time, people were so frustrated time people were so frustrated with people not like you know wearing their mask and stuff people were like yeah tom cruise tell him and there's another part of me i don't know there's a part of me i was like well what's tom getting paid versus his crew member getting paid what are the what are the working circumstance i just think it's what should always be hesitant to rah-rah the person in power, the producer, star, and director. I don't know.

I never watched the clip. Does he have a mask on while he's yelling? It's just audio. I think he did. Okay. Because that would be really funny if he's screaming at everybody about mask wearing while having his mask off. Because that's part of it is that when he's on set playing Ethan Hunt or whatever, he gets to take his mask off. So his mask's off a lot of the time on set.

And so to yell at somebody for taking it off for a moment because they're tired of having their face wrapped in the middle. They're probably shooting in the desert or some shit. Yeah. I mean, I just, I acknowledge that wearing a mask all day must be brutal. And I feel bad for everybody that has to do it. And that's why, you know, it's been easy for me to be like, yeah, wear a mask because of how, what short period of times I have to do it for. because of what short period of times I have to do it for. And I can wear the most comfortable ones and just sort of take it off.

This whole thing, this loophole of you go places and they go, you can take it off while you're eating and drinking is hilarious because somebody will just sit with a coffee and the mask off. I am drinking. I was hanging for the longest time. You're like, well, that's cheating. I remember that's one of the first comedy clubs I did back indoors. It was a casino, and the rule was if you were eating, you could take off their mask.

And so they just gave everyone a bowl of chips just so they could take off their masks. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, you guys are about to have, is there a mandate right now? Does every business have to look at a vaccine card right now? I don't think so, but they just, they're starting to make the L.A. school district is going to start mandating. Like 16 and up, everybody has to be vaccinated. They're going to try to move those numbers down to younger, I think. I mean, they were just saying this morning, I mean, every time you turn on the TV, breaking news, you know,

like the rules just shift so much. Well, you guys are the most more intense than New York, but your numbers are also really good. I saw something recently at the lowest transmission rate. I guess, you know, I just do my own own thing which is to just not not why take any chances yeah do i not just do everything as as safely as possible or just not do things that don't seem safe you know like big i'm just not going to go to a big concert with a lot of people yeah yeah you know i'm just not gonna do that yet that also feels like that's sort of how the public feels too like it's kind of hard to sell some of these big events unless the big event is the point is we're all gonna thumb our nose at yeah masks we're getting together concert yes exactly like all these things you know you just know by what the event is it's like oh they're

going it's a political move to go and yeah not have the mask and show everybody how silly they are so so you were this theater kid in high school you you start a santa you you did were you doing a lot of shows were you the lead you were the lead by senior no not the lead because i wasn't like really a song and dance person at all in my school the teacher insisted on you know every year she'd do a play and a musical and so like the timing just had to be right so i'd you know i get roles and things but like in the musicals i'd have like a you know a character who either doesn't sing or doesn't sing yeah only sings with the group like the the guys played by like the old man's song comes out and he's like i'm kind of talk singing just just stay on the rhythm yeah exactly and i've you know

really rode that my entire uh every time i'm in a musical i'm either in the chorus or just uh have a have a sing songy you know have a song that's not really singing i would like to really take it on sometime like really actually learn how to sing, because I feel like I could learn to sing a song and hit all the notes right. I just don't think I'm a good singer. Sure, I think that's a reasonable goal, one song. Yeah, because I feel like

just doing impressions of existing songs, I can carry a tune. You know, I can whistle a tune, you know. I just don't. Just hitting all the actual notes and not being pitchy and all that sort of stuff, that I obviously would be terrible at that. And so you graduate. When did you move to L.A.?

Right out of four years of not really going to college. four years of not really going to college. Like I spent the college time going two and a half years of junior college, you know, community college. And then a year and a half of just working three jobs in San Diego, knowing that I was going to, you know, just move to LA.

You're saving up. And then see what happens sure and what kind were you acting right out the gate when you got here were you doing extra work well i was yeah i was doing extra work in movies and tv shows like immediately like i was immediately in movies that like are like known to this day yeah it's wild like because it's just you just back you know, obviously things are probably a little different now, but it's probably essentially the same game where you just find out from the other, you know, you go be an extra in one thing, you know, and you find out from the other extras. Well, here you can call this guy, you can call that guy. There used to just be lots of extra casting agencies in la then you just sign up with

all of them make sure they have your picture and all your information and then some of them would even have like a day and time that you you know like each day you call like call us at three o'clock see if there's any work the next day and then so you just it's almost like uh you know like a jury duty system or something like that where you just sort of you know just get called up when they need you yeah it moves i i only did it once uh i did extra work on wolf of wall street and i felt like really excited i was it was the non-union extra and it was it was a tough i'd done a couple acting things here and there i'd gone to theater school and you go there and they were giving us all these period haircuts it was a tough – I had done a couple acting things here and there. I had gone to theater school.

And you go there and they were giving us all these period haircuts. It was just incredible to think how much money was going into people who probably weren't even going to be on screen. And this was like one of these boardroom or stockbroker scenes. So there were like 400 men in getting these haircutscuts all of us in suits and it felt i don't know it was it was tough that you know there were some people there who like really thought they were this was the stepping stone to being they they would talk about marty and they would just talk about marty and what marty was like and the time marty said something them. And they just talked about Martin Scorsese in a way that you were like, it felt delusional.

Yeah. And especially when you were a non-union extra, I mean, the SAG extras would get to eat first. And so you're going up there to get the watermelon rinds. And it made me too sad. It made me sad. I don't know if I did it when I was too old, but I also was obeying the rules, so I didn't bring my phone. But weie-talkie down to the fourth director and said, Marty said someone walked by with a post-it that said, I have

herpes, you guys need to knock it the fuck off. And they just yelled at us. And it was like, well, of course you have 400 unsuccessful actors in a room for eight hours just watching their dreams happen like 300 feet away from them they got their hair

cut like they were gonna be on camera yeah they were gonna be it was gonna matter i i heard of someone he did a normal heart and they thought he was gonna be a featured extra and so they shaved his head and then at the end of the day they're like nah and you know he got whatever 50 dollar sure you get for shaving your head but it's not a good enough bump to make up for the the big fucking bump on your head no i was just used to like wardrobe bumps all the time they were always into you know giving you 10 bucks for bringing your own suit and i would take it gladly of course very excited i love that where sometimes you only bring you only bring the top and it's like gotta be a top and a bottom to get the bump yeah and it's also like but all of them

want like they want you to bring options to choose from like it's the duffel bags i used to travel around through it's uh you know and then and then where they want you to change you know i'm sure women can complain much more about it than i can but like still i just was always uncomfortable like just go change in this trailer with a bunch of people yeah and yeah it's uh it's a weird game but like i would i early on early on or early enough i got to be like you know have moments of being the center of attention that would just sort of encourage me and then eventually uh it didn't take me very long to start being a stand-in, which, you know, makes you feel important on the set

because they're always calling for you. They always need you. The camera's on you. You're standing by. You're standing there. Yeah, and sometimes in a lot of cases you get to go through all the motions the actor just did because they're practicing, like, a camera move while the actors are gone.

So, uh, Would you act it? Would you like, would you, would you try to like walk with the intensity? Get away with, you know, like, uh, cause they would just, you know, treat you like you were being silly. Cause it's more like just the body being in the space, you know, but, but every once in a while you you get to really have to act something out or like like there's um in the um the second uh nightmare on elm street movie freddy's revenge

the when the the scene where the gym coach gets killed i was his stand-in so uh they let him go uh early instead of paying him overtime yeah they let him go and instead of paying him overtime. Yeah. They let him go, and then all the close-ups of his hands and wrists are me, like throughout that scene, because he's like trying to open up a lock on a locker at one point. Yeah. But every time you see close-ups of his hands, it's just my hands.

And I was 20, 30 years younger than the man at the time, and they didn't care. And nobody's, I've never read anywhere somebody going, why does he have child hands? Why does this grizzled old coach have the hands of a 20-year-old, 23-year-old? See, if I had done it, I probably did it like in my later 20s. And if I had done it earlier, I think I would have been like cool with it. It just felt sad i mean it was my you know that was the thing as i went to la with uh only showbiz jobs so like i never waited tables i never bartended that's a good point but i did a lot of

grovelly snivelly shitty jobs that shitty jobs that actors have to do. Like I used to do the inviting people, standing out at the mall or wherever, inviting people to test screenings of movies. I've never heard of that. Yeah, that was a pretty decent paying job. Basically to get people to come to a research screening of like Ghostbusters without the special effects put

in yet really you know and then people fill out the cards afterwards the comment cards and yeah research screenings used to be a bigger i mean obviously the pandemics certainly cut back on that sort of thing but even prior to that i felt like it wasn't as big as it used to be like a lot of big studio movies like you know famously like fatal attraction the ending uh you know glenn close's character doesn't get her comeuppance you know she doesn't get killed yeah she just sort of continues on or whatever um and the test audience hated it so much that they you know put the money together to go in and film her getting blown away. And then, of course, everybody loved that. When the misunderstood crazy woman just gets murdered, that takes care of the problem.

Yes. So, yeah, so test audiences used to be a big thing. And so, like, that was another thing where I thought, hey, I've made it. I'm in show business because, you know, they'd have the filmmakers and the actors sometimes would be at these screenings. So I'd get to sort of... I used to go to those screenings before I started working for them. And the thing is, is you have to ask people,

are you in show business in any way? And then they say, no, you give them the tickets to the movie. But I used to just go to them all the time. I used to just lie and say, no, I'm not an actor or whatever and they think you're gonna you're gonna lie it's like they're related to you know someone who plays the barista they look like their notes are going to be like give that barista a bigger part they should they should bring that barista for the ending to save the day i think i don't know how much they read the uh comment cards at the end of those i

used to just write and write and write everything I thought they would need to change. As if they're going to look at your card and be like, who is this guy? Yeah. We need to get him in the room. This guy's got some great ideas. He's got some great ideas. He is really going to turn this movie around. Yeah, you get that diluted.

It's like you ever just scroll down and read the user reviews on imdb like for a movie like because they just allow i guess you have to sort of sign up or something but once you're in the system you can just anybody can just write a review yeah and the writing is so terrible but then also so shitty to the movie they're writing about like they're trying to be shitty to this movie and then it's poorly their review is poorly written and i just want to scream because there's no there's no response area you know so i try not to read those because they're so aggravating i always whenever you get those kind of reviews i always i'm always like or you know mean comments on something i'm like well who's the person that

would go out of their way to write this it It's not a person I would like. Yeah. It's not a person I would normally speak to because they'd be too shy or too disinterested to even come up to me in a public setting. You know, they just lash out at you because it's been made so easy. It's just so easy

to write a shitty thing to somebody and go back to your day. Yeah. You know. Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play.

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I am so dreading groceries this week. Why? That MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. My neighbor's nightly saxophone practices. Uh, nope. You're on your own there. Could have skipped it. Should have skipped it. Skip to the good part and get groceries, meals, and more delivered right to your door on Skip. So then you, so you're, you're barking, you're getting these reviews, you're writing intense screen notes. I was a tour guide at Universal Studios for a little bit. Was that fun? Yes. I think I did that when i was like a kid like is this where what do you go past like what do you show them

on the tour oh back then it was the whole thing like you did the tour would be three or four hours long depending on uh if the tram broke down or not because uh especially on hot days they had these big old stupid trams full of people that would break down and you're sitting in the front with a you know a microphone uh you know a mic and you would have to wherever it broke down you'd have to talk about whatever's around like you'd have to look over and be like well this is where john ford made many of his westerns including blah blah blah and you'd have to just fill the time until somebody either comes out and fixes the tram or pulls up another one for everybody to climb into.

But the idea was never to be like, hey, we've broken down. Let's just wait for help. You always had to act like the tour is just supposed to stop here and I'm supposed to talk for 40 minutes. Let me list the crew members in alphabetical order. Oh, it would get so ridiculous because we just learn all these facts without really having any interest in them or sharing them, you know? So now I've gone on the, you know, the tour a couple of times just as a regular person and not the tour guide. And whoever I'm

with, I drive crazy with, oh,, every time I would say this or that. Because also, you learn from the other tour guides what good jokes you can make. Yeah. And my favorite was always telling everybody to put their seatbelts on when they first got in the tram because it didn't have any seatbelts. But people would look for way longer than...

It would take forever for some people to realize they were being te teased oh so well there's the fun in it i thought to see people really struggle yeah but now when you were doing that were you like were you were you doing that seatbelt joke and you're like i think i really nailed that this was before you were doing stand-up right it was uh it was fairly uh like concurrent like i all it took was a few months of living in la and all the people i knew were just constantly telling me you should do stand-up so i just went to the comedy store were you ever using those tours to maybe slip in a joke

or were you at the comedy club like um remember to put on your seat belts and i was like what the fuck are you talking about everything i did was i i was always you know collecting funny things to do and say and then repeating them in the moments where they apply you know so like anytime i'm on a microphone and i might be able to trick people into thinking they're seat belts i'd probably say that it's just in my you know it's just baked in now but like some of them some of the things were really fun but other times like you know you'd be joking around all day and never get any laughs from anybody because there's oftentimes there's they don't speak english sure or they're just entirely disinterested in, you know, being there. Like there's just so many faces.

You just see them just, they either don't care at all or they have resting, I don't care at all face, you know, and they just don't know that they look miserable. Yeah. You know, so I didn't last very long at that, but I, you know, there were a lot of a lot of fun things like there's a part where you get a little kid from the audience and they're they're gonna sit on uh the bike with et in front of a green screen and then they make it they show the audience look at how it looks like he's in the movie and they you know show him flying with uh on the bike and um but there's like a moment like where the kid's sitting there and something else is happening on the bike. And, um, but there's like a moment like where the kid's sitting there and something else is happening on the stage.

And, you know, you just have a moment with the kid where you can say something to them. So I would say, when I ask you what your favorite movie is, say citizen Kane. And it's like a six or seven year old, you know?

Yeah. And most of the time they would do it. Like every once in a while, they just get confused by why is this guy asking me to do this? But most of the time they would do it like every once in a while they just get confused by why is this guy asking me to do this but most of the time they would do it maybe they were like 12 but anyway um so then you'd just be like what's your name tammy oh what's your favorite movie citizen kane like and then the audience would roar it was just like such an easy laugh that's every every time but i just heard it from somebody else you know it's like how vaudeville used to be yes like just comics just doing jokes they heard That's a good bit. I could have gone darker. I think I tried every once in a while a different movie, but Citizen Kane was so perfectly, like, just a,

even if you don't know what Citizen Kane is, you know it's not for children. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know it's highfalutin, you know? I am thinking about a five-year-old saying it. It would be, it would be amusing. Yeah. I don't know if we weren't that young, but,

but, you know, you also had, like, there's a whole demonstration how folio artists work yeah so like you at one point you take a brick and throw it through a piece of glass to show like that you know that they just literally do that to make the sound of glass breaking but then they have a foam brick sitting there and so you pick that one up and throw it into the crowd so everybody just fucking i was just shocked that nobody ever gets a like has a heart attack in that moment where they think a brick is being thrown at them but you know what i mean it's weird that heart attacks aren't brought on more by like a jump scare like somebody jumping out at somebody and then they just

go oh shit and then having a heart attack like i'm surprised because like especially little kids love jumping i love jumping out of the closet at my grandmother. And no one would ever take me aside and go, stop doing that to your grandmother. Did they like your grandma? Maybe they were like, keep doing it. We're going to help. We're going to help you make this. Let's get you a mask. She was a very nice grandmother.

Did she like it? Because I love a good scare. But I don't know if I'd like it. No, she would always, you know if i'd like it no she would always you know kind of walk it off pretty well you know like not act upset about it for very long but still in the moment it's just like you're just scaring an old pr like it's just something a child doesn't think about a movie a drama about where someone lives you know their life has gone to and you find out flashback when they were five they jump scared their grandma and she died and it just shook up their whole life forever and they

were just trying to be funny but just the filmmakers that have made so many movies where like there's some directors that's all they do is just set up the next jump scare you know they're proud if someone dies about it do they think about how many people they've killed? If I made someone laugh so hard they choked and died, there is a part in me that would go like, that was a good joke. Yeah, and you'd have a new Twitter bio. Yeah. Robin Williams, I always remember Robin Williams,

I guess when he did Inside the Actor's Studio. Not a notoriously hilarious show, but made it so funny someone in the front row laughed so hard they got a hernia and i thought like that's the kind of laughs that guy got like just people just lost their minds whoever got it it wasn't like the healthiest dude in the world who got a they were hernia prone not to discredit his accomplishment. But that happens sometimes. Like you ever like people say it all the time and I believe them when they say it. But like when it happens to me, I find it very surprising when you enjoy something so much that your face hurts afterwards.

It does happen to me, but it's pretty been pretty rare. You know, it's usually like a more like a Broadway show will do that to me, where afterwards I'll be like, God damn it, I was smiling that whole fucking time. What was the last Broadway show you saw and loved? Well, that is a great question. Aladdin just got shut down, so they're reopening. And Aladdin, I guess, opened.

All these Broadway actors, they've been out of work. They fucking got back in shape. They did their show. I think it was they had two breakthrough cases and now they have to shut down for another 10 days or something. And I just I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine getting back into Broadway shape for that show. Very athletic show. And just immediately having to pause again um that's terrible like i

i i'm trying to remember like what oh like it was probably like uh maybe jagged little pill oh yes yeah because when we were watching the uh tony's the other night me and my girlfriend were like in the musical category we'd seen Jagged Little Pill and Moulin Rouge but we hadn't seen Tina Turner and was there another musical that came up a lot it was basically a three musical

yeah yeah yeah it was between three things all night Moulin Rouge and the other one we saw it was a truncated season. There were several shows, lots of shows that were about to open when the pandemic started. Wasn't the best actor just one nominee? It was Aaron Devait, and he won.

And he won, but they made a serious announcement before he came out that the Academy rules stipulate that he had to get 60% of people to mark his name, even though he was the only option. They do that sometimes with the Pulitzer Awards where they'll have a short list, but no one wins. that he had to get 60% of people to mark his name even though he was the only option. They do that sometimes with the Pulitzer Awards where they'll have a short list, but no one wins. And I'm like, what the fuck? Just give it. You got to give it to someone. You don't got to be a dick. No one's even worthy of this.

But I think they just brought that up just to create false suspense and cut to him in the audience because he's sitting there and they call off his name. And he had his speech, obviously. Can you imagine how humiliating it would be? You're on TV, you made it to Broadway, and they're like, you were the only nominee, but you still didn't win. You still lost.

Before we got to this, I've got to stop. I wanted to ask you, you know, because whenever I go to la it feels like uh weed culture is like it in new york it was just legalized i think and i always think of la like oh it's going to be kind of like this in new york soon we'll have the mad men's i'm sure they're just dying to open and and uh unfortunately it attacks the hell out of it of course what since this is the downside you know you've been you've smoked weed from before it was legal did you ever think it would be this legal in your lifetime yeah oh yeah yeah because it's just always been marching towards it like it's always like the amount of resistance i've gotten

in my life for being an advocate and you know clearly being high a lot of the time has, you know, shown me that, you know, everybody can be cool with it. Yeah. It just needs to, you know, so many, you know, they just. Where was it? Somewhere just just overturned, like expunged, like 60,000 marijuana related cases. But now I forget which state that's good. And that feels like it should be. But that's just like such a small amount. But sounds like a huge amount 60 000 you know so it's

like there's still so much work left to go no one should be able to make money off no one should be able to make money off this shit well i mean that i kind of have a career built off of it is yeah you know it's shameful that uh some people are in jail for the same thing that I've been able to use to, you know, to thrive. I think John Mulaney in one special, he was something about people were cheering about being legalized and he said, white people calm down. It's always been legal for us. Yeah.

Just the kind of trouble you could get in was just such so much less. Yeah. But I was still had that paranoia. I still had to deal with all that you know my whole life and still to a little degree but not so much now it's mostly like you know hotel rooms and stuff they're really they're really still crazy about yeah you know there's no hotels going hey smoke all you want you know it's just weed what do we care you know they just have signs now they're just like no not even cannabis or vaping when they say no smoking like they're and i you know i it's weird because as much as i love smoking i also love not smelling cigarette smoke sure anymore

you know like when i does when i do come across it it's actually kind of shocking how pungent it is and how unpleasant it is because they just never smell it anymore. Everywhere you go is no smoking. But then they got to twist it in. They got to add, especially when they go no vaping. It's like, well, now you're getting into a weird area because a lot of vapes smell delightful. Of course. People's colognes smell worse than vapes like what you know yeah why are you drawing the line on that no x body spray yeah they should really expand this this absolutely um yeah i would love to get to a place i mean i like to smoke i still struggle i go every time i smoke i go through a

mini existential crisis in in my road to like enjoying it and i still haven't like smoothed that out whenever i'm whenever i get stoned to the degree that i want i know i'm about to have fun because for a moment i go like i'm gonna die someday i think about like bodies i get very like existential and it's it's a dark place yeah and i still haven't maybe i need to smoke more often i'll move past it but it's a dark place. Yeah. And I still haven't – maybe I need to smoke more often. I'll move past it. But it's like I still have this existential dip and it prevents me from – I want to smoke more. Right.

But I hate that dip. Do you ever have a dark place you go to? I think that – I feel like that can happen because it's just any kind of random thought you have when you're really high could end up going very deep when you aren't necessarily ready for it. Yeah, my ability to just feel it goes deeper. I've been in cars where someone's driving and all I can think is I start thinking, oh, if I got in a car accident. My mind, i can't control it it goes through the and i would go through the window and it would do this and i would feel this and then i'd be gone yeah it's tough yeah it can get intense like that and uh you know but i always

you know for the most part write it off as like well i'm just high right now because it does uh yeah it does bring the bad thoughts and the paranoia you know you start to i was in a hotel room recently where you know i used to on occasion put like something over the uh smoke detector in a hotel room then eventually i stopped because you know vape and and cannabis all that stuff doesn't really affect hotel smoke alarms. Yeah. They tend not to go off. Sure.

That stuff. It really has to be like something's on fire or you're smoking a cigarette, blowing it right into it. So I generally just don't worry about those, you know, try to open a window or something if I can. I'd open a window or something if I can. But I was just in a hotel room there where the room was completely sealed up, but checked into the room and there is a baggie, like a plastic bag you wear in the shower, a shower cap, over the smoke detector, which is like an old trick. Like you just take the, because sometimes a lot of hotels have a shower cap next to the shower yeah you just take that put it over the thing and that and then that way you know you probably won't set it off if you smoke but it was there when we checked in

and i was like so and of course i forgot to ask you know because i knew other people staying in the hotel because there was other comedians in the same hotel. I forgot to ask anybody, but I just spent the whole time wondering, like, was that the guest before us did that so they could smoke in the room or the hotel does that because. Or the staff, maybe the staff, someone was cleaning and, you know, they want to get high. I don't know. Yeah, that's the thing. I don't know why, how it got there. And if we were supposed to leave it there or like when we checked out, if the person that comes in and cleans the room goes, why'd they put that up there? Like, you know, but if I'd taken it off, would they go, why'd he take it off? Like, you know, I just, so I didn't, ultimately I didn't mess with it and I haven't heard anything about it. So I'm sure it's fine. But, but being high and having that sort of thing happening of thing happening, I already have a tendency to fixate on things.

But being high amps that up. So that's why I was so focused on it but then ultimately let it go. Like now looking back on it, I'm like, oh, I really should have followed up more. But I'm glad I didn't because it means that i was able to move on and not be too obsessed with it now is there any is there any downside does it feel different does it feel ever less fun that it's all legal now or that everyone's getting into it or you've it's all been good no because it's still you know you still can't just light up a joint outside of a school or something sure you know without maybe somebody yelling at you i'm amazed i just amazed walking in new york and seeing people smoking bongs out in the open

yeah it's still i mean i just remember being scared i remember my dad telling my dad always my dad's biggest fear was i wouldn't smoke but a friend would be like hey hold this joint for a second i need to tie my shoe yeah and that's when the cops would fucking bust me he told me that story a million times and uh i i i didn't touch it but that's how they are like i i a couple of times in new york i got i've been like had cops like really you know sweating me hard enough so i think is this gonna really lead to like an arrest or something but then they you know found something else to go do there's so much bigger fish to fry. Yeah, there's so much else. It just has to take a minute, but they still like to sweat you and make you think you're

in huge trouble just for smoking a joint out on the street. But again, being white has really been helpful. That's why they stopped. They said, oh, wait, you have pot, but there's a black guy over there with pot. We're going to go to that. There's a black guy over there doing nothing. Doing nothing. You have pot, but oh, there's a black guy.

Let's go see what he might be up to. All right, well, let's go to our This Has Got to Stop. This has got to stop. This has got to stop. I normally have a co-host, and he wanted to pass along one. I'm going to do his. Oh, okay. I'll do mine quick.

He just wanted to. There's been a lot of talk with this new James Bond movie where people are like, who's going to be the new James Bond? And there seems to be a James Bond, this hope like, oh, make it someone. Make it a woman. Make it a black guy, make it someone not the James Bond and my co-host Russell. And I agree with him. There's this thing of like, why would you want James Bond to be the representation of any community? This is like a murderer, a chauvinistic murderous spy. And I think it's not exactly the role of like you you want a community to be a

president to maybe be the speaker at a thing but like james bond is not a good person so it's a there's a strange kind of desire to like use i guess a cultural icon to to like i don't know rectify or make progress and it's like like, well, this guy's not great. So that was his, this has got to stop. Is this wanting James Bond to like represent progress? Well, maybe the solution is stop making the progress, stop making the movement forward in the villain character. They have all sorts of exotic villains in James Bond movies.

It's rarely just a white guy. You know, it's always they're always up to something there, at least by or something, you know, something's going on. So, yeah. But then, of course. I don't know. It is weird that they want they basically want to make James Bond a better person at the same time because they don't want the whatever culture he represents. Like because Daniel Craig's already pushing the bar of like, you know, Pierce Brosnan before him. You know, each guy who came along made James Bond a little less sexist.

Yeah. You know, as they move forward. So now they can move into one that's not sexist at all and the best way to do that is if it's you know a woman or i just love this idea that like that the whole audience of james bond is gonna like yeah sure change change james bond to a woman and then my dad will become a feminist like he's gonna see it and be like oh i guess a woman can be a spy. I am no longer a misogynistic 67-year-old man. You got to make people mad. Like, you know, like the Lady Ghostbusters made people mad.

You know, like that's what you got to do now is not just make something about women hunting ghosts. It had to be like, we're're gonna take these beloved men and replace them with women like as soon as you're saying we're taking this beloved thing and replacing it with something that's not the same yeah then you're like causing so much attention on this thing why not just why not just create original things well you know why because they get a big they need the name they need that the name james bond is gonna sell tickets and if you just you know change anything about his name you could change everything else but it's still got

to be james bond and that's where i'm like well look it's it's on the human being's fault we're so easily you could make you know whoopi goldberg is the new james bond and it still would like sell a certain number of tickets. I might see that one. Yeah, as long as it's still James Bond. But Whoopi Goldberg is a spy who acts like James Bond. You're not even going to get financing to make that. Exactly. And it's not fair because it could be an excellent script and a great idea could be well executed, but the money wants to remain safe and patriarchal.

Well, that's what's so... Whoever, Barbara Broccoli, she runs the whole James Bond... Yeah, Cubby Broccoli passed away. Was that his name? Albert Cubby Broccoli. His nickname was Cubby, and I believe he might have even had it in his name in the credits. Might have said Albert Cubby Broccoli. I want to know the history, because that's Italian, I guess.

Maybe it says R Broccoli, now that I think about it. But yeah, very Italian, just had the rights to this thing and kept it as sexist as he could for as long as he could. He did a good job he did a really good job he really held on he did a really good job of keeping you know keeping james bond to his roots uh you know that very first movie where he sleeps with a woman and slaps her around and then doesn't care when she gets murdered which one which is that just all of them that's the first one dr no had that in it. Like he got less abusive. You know, obviously there's Sean Connery was the first.

He abuses women throughout. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. First one. Well, there was somebody before him that did some movie that, you know, that didn't really spark the, the series that we know now. And there was also like a, I think it was on TV and it was called,

they made a version of Casino Royale. Ah, I think that's been made like three times now, that one. Anyway. And did you ever discuss? I'm a movie nerd who grew up on James Bond and loved James Bond and now has to reevaluate every second of it. I was just into the gadgets. I made my dad, we made a suitcase with a false bottom

and like that was the kind of stuff. I wasn't like as a kid being like slapping women around and then pushing them on the playground like I don't care about you anymore. Yeah. Well, because they would – they'd be double crossers generally. Like they kind of deserved it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. They'd set up the story and they're like, well, she obviously is with the other side.

So that makes her somebody that should just be murdered like that's the hilarious thing about the premise of 007 james bond is his license to kill he's just one of like a handful of agents in the secret service in england that just can kill a person for any reason. Yeah. And there's no consequences. Did you have a... They just go, Bond. Now, now, Bond. They give him a slap on the wrist.

They're always like, you know, shaking their heads like, maybe we shouldn't have given this guy a license to kill. Yeah, yeah. They're like, we're going to have to lie to a lot of families right now that have lost their loved ones. That's why their names are like M and Q. They don't want anybody to know who they really are. Did you ever, this has got to stop? You bring one?

Oh, yes. I know it's not supposed to be an information source. I know it's not supposed to be like an information source. I know it's not Google, but sometimes I want to just get people's opinion about something via social media. So I'll ask a question on Twitter and it's the comedy answers to a sincere question has to stop. It's just too much.

It's well too much. It's got to be tough for you. I mean, you can ask what's like a sincere question you wanted to know. Like if I'm like, I'm going to be in Poughkeepsie, like where's a good place to get a drink?

My mom's butthole. Yeah. I don't know why I went to that one. Or the unhelpful is always, the helpfully unhelpful, where, you know, hey, I'm doing a show in Chicago. Hope to see you there. And then the response, I'm not in Chicago.

I'd come to your show if I was. You know, it's like, OK, why are we having this exchange? You know, but people want to be heard and I'm hearing them. So you want a sincere social media. When called for, like, you know, if I make a joke, people can make their jokes. But like I love on Twitter that you can just some jokes. I'm just like, I don't want to read what people think the tag for this joke should be. So I just put, you know, nobody can comment. Yeah.

And, you know, it might hurt the overall numbers for that tweet you know because interaction is so important yeah but i just love it i just love being because it's like the same thing in a comedy club if you say a joke and somebody in the audience decides that they've they're going to add something to it you can just talk louder than them or make fun of them or whatever what you know, whatever. But it's just that freedom that they have to do it on Twitter. And that's what hurts the most about it. That's why I wanted to stop is because a lot of times it's well intended. Of course. They're not trying to be a dick, but they don't know that that question I just asked that 50 people just responded with the same joke answer. I like a comedian's in Poughkeepsie and cannot find the best place to get a pizza because

no one will give him a sincere answer. Because they won't really give you a sincere answer. Or on the other hand, see, that's the thing is there's so much to complain about with social media. Because on the other hand, when I say I'm in a town, I don't need to know everything that I need to do while I'm there. Yeah. I have a show to do, a hotel to check out.

Like if you know things specifically about my room, like if the faucet's tricky in the bathroom and you know how to turn it on. But I don't need, you have to get the sandwich at this place that's 10 miles from where you are. You have to go on this date and ask for this person and do this thing because also if you follow through on all that a lot of times it's going to be a dead end like they're going to go what are you talking about yeah you get there this restaurant's been closed for 10 years you don't even you've wasted what you're talking about um yeah they'll like people that have like a lot of advice, but I bring that on myself because I like movies and, and restaurants and stuff.

And so in talking about that stuff in my travels, people will be, you know, they're trying to be helpful, but a lot of times it's in response to a specific question. Where do I go for pizza and Poughkeepsie? I don't know, but if you like lamb be sure to if you get on the turnpike you know i'm just like i'm just like a comedian who wants to walk across the street to you know i want something that's like you know i'm downtown what's downtown yeah like i just want it to be as easy and peasy as possible. But other comics are very ambitious about checking out certain things when they go to a town. I like to do one museum.

I like to get one museum in there. A museum in every town you visit? Yeah. I'm still new to it. Have you been to Appleton, Wisconsin? I was. I did Skyline Comedy Club this year. Did you go to the Houdini Museum?

It was fucking closed. What? It was fucking closed. No. I wanted to go to it for sure. I was so excited. That was the number one thing I was going to do. It's a good museum.

I couldn't tell you. I just remember walking through it going, I can't believe that they have the nerve to call this a museum. Oh, it's like a- I mean, you've got to really be into Houdini. And also, you're not going to see cool Houdini shit. You're just going to see, that's where his bed was. I don't even know.

I don't even remember if the space where the museum is is where he lived or it's just his stuff brought to a place. I don't even remember. I just remember going because somebody else wanted to go and just having regret the whole time. But I like your spirit of like going to museums. Yeah. But museums are like the number one, like I got to really be in a super special place and probably need to go alone. You got to love the person. Because you never have the same, you don't agree on should we look at this painting for 10 minutes or for two seconds?

Like it's hard to agree with another person. Yeah. I've been to those about a person where like with the Houdini, it's like here's the the receipt for the handcuffs he bought once they do that with danger field all the time like day i will see danger field exhibits places and it's like this is the napkin this is this is it's it's whatever they can do to fill this it's like it's like a comic with five minutes doing an hour a museum version of that but houdini was closed because of the pandemic? I think it was. I hope it reopens so that people can go and learn all about him.

You really made it seem like it's not worth anyone's time. Well, because just that it's there is amazing to me, you know, and I feel bad that they might have closed because of the pandemic. They need to close on their own terms, which is that it's not a good museum. They need to reopen and let some people come through and show them

the error of their ways. Maybe I should give it another try. It's been a long time. They just added a napkin he used for breakfast once at a neighboring town i i don't remember the napkin or anything i couldn't tell you any anything about the houdini museum other than i was uh you know underwhelmed and but on the other hand the paramount theater in austin texas if

i'm there with anybody i've ever you know i even strangers if i'm next to someone i'm in that theater i feel compelled i always have to tell people that there's a hole in the ceiling it's got like a beautiful ceiling that's painted you know uh but there's a little hole that you can see from any seat on the floor that was put there by Houdini for one of his bits when he performed at that theater. So there's just this permanent hole in the ceiling. I don't even know what the bit was or if it's even true. But I just tell everybody that that's the Houdini hole. That's worth more than the entire Houdini Museum. So much more interesting that that happened,

that he left a hole somewhere that's just there forever, than some of his shit, his napkins. Though now that I've heard that, if I ever own a shitty theater that has holes in the ceiling, I'm going to be like, you know what these holes are from. Right. I think that might be, the Paramount Theater might just be somebody who was smart enough

to come up with a good story for that hole the houdini hole and it's just made up the houdini didn't do shit to that hole um all right well let's so let's wrap this up let's go to uh this is now uh the you better count your blessings. But she still is helping me out with so many of these fucking rides. She's taking care of me. And I can't imagine what these trips would be like without having my mommy here. It is a real blessing to have her. And she's still down to do these spots, see these shows.

And thank you, Mom. How'd she end? Is she from L.A.? la no she was in uh maryland uh her and my stepdad uh got got divorced and uh she was in dc maryland area for a bit and then my sister's out here she's a dancer katie she's a dancer another sister does fashion sales and my mom just made the big big leap big leap for you know huge, you know, huge. And we didn't know if it would stick, but now she's got a boyfriend.

She lives in the Palisades, and she's an L.A. gal now. I mean, that's perfect for you because, you know, you're remaining an East Coaster. Yep. But in show business and have plenty of reasons to come to L.A. And now mom's always here. Her boyfriend had a cat. My my girlfriend's definitely allergic so last time we couldn't stay with them but uh another blessing the cat died oh and so now my girlfriend and i can stay there and my mom is not gonna let him get another cat so oh man doesn't doesn't the doesn't he dying to

get another cat isn't't that what people do? Listen, it's the cat or my mom. So we'll see which pussy he chooses. I mean, especially when he's mourning the old cat. Seems like a rough time to be told you can't get a new cat. Listen, my mind. I guess he knew what he was getting into. He knew what he was getting into.

The old cat was like days were numbered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like no one was see if there's that cat has eight more lives it was natural causes though my mom did not do anything she just she just let time time do it it's a beautiful story do its crime thank you do you have a blessing to close this out uh yeah i you know, these kind of questions are, you always worry that you're not in the right zone. I felt like you wanted something more specific than what I want to say, but I have a specific example to go with why I feel this way. And so my blessing is to music. And so my blessing is to music. I've just been thinking about music a lot lately and how I like it to be around most of the time.

And that, you know, it makes most things better. You can cheat and make something better through music. Like these people that are TikTok stars are just using other people's really catchy music. And that's so much of the like and just commercials and movies. Like sometimes you just get a great you like feel great in a moment watching a movie. And it's just because of the song they threw on that they didn't create at all the makers of that movie. They just got to pick it and pay for it and put it in there. And it really raises you up. But that's coming out of the pandemic.

Like, I didn't listen to that much music at home. You know, I mostly watched TV and movies. And, you know, if I'd listen to something, it was talk stuff. So I didn't have a lot of music during the pandemic so now that we're out and about again even though a lot of it is like you know you roll your eyes like why are they playing this song in this place it's still just uh just having music around is just it's nice and i decided the only time that i don't want to hear music is when I'm trying to parallel park a car. Sure.

That's the only time. Listen, I agree. I think you appreciate music even more when you hear bad music because I do like workout videos on YouTube. And like they can't, they don't want to pay for the rights to like real music. They want to keep all the money. So they play like bad, like kind of. And when you hear that for an hour, you're like, oh, music is so important to the experience of anything. So I think that's a beautiful blessing.

Oh, good. I wanted to say real quick, I want to give a shout out before we go. My friend Jay Nogg, he's a stand-up comedian. He has a new special out. I told him I'd give him a shout out. It's called Something From Nothing. It's out on Comedy Dynamics right now. He filmed it.

He was doing a lot of the drive-in shows during the pandemic. Sure. So he filmed an hour. I think that'll be a fun watch. I think that these kind of things that people came up with to do stand-up outdoors, like rooftops and drive-ins, I want to see more specials done that way to not only capture what happened, but also it's just another way to open up stand-up more instead of just somebody standing in front of a fucking curtain i think about it a lot like what would what would take me to like seek out a stand-up special like what's you know something that makes it a little what's different about it is are the people do they have their car engines on and they can drive over the performer if they don't like it i'd watch that because it'd be exciting like you know every once in a while you see somebody's car inch forward a little bit like they're thinking about it.

The setup's taking a little long. You're like. Little polite flash of the lights. I'm coming for you. I used to say when I would do those drive-in shows that it was like being a person that was just traveling through the Radiator Springs from Pixar's Cars. Uh-huh, you know, like you just a comedian performing for cars, the,

the, the, uh, the cars that came to life. You're just standing on stage going. So, uh, what factory are you from?

Um, well, on that note, then I'll plug, uh, fuck. I, I,

I shot an outdoor special last year, shelf life on Amazon. Uh, check that one out after you check plug, fuck, I shot an outdoor special last year, Shelf Life on Amazon. Check that one out after you check out Jay Noggs, Something from Nothing. Anything you wanted to plug? I have done nothing outdoors my entire life. But Doug Loves Movies is actually, we've performed at a couple of festivals outside, so I guess that would count. Comedy festivals have been like, do Douglas movies outside.

I'm like, that's a terrible idea. And then, you know, and then we do it. But, uh, douglovesmovies.com is where you can go for all of my podcasts and,

stand up road dates. And, um, of course I've already extended an invitation to you to be on Douglas movies. And that, that I'm hoping that that will happen real soon. And if, if you know, on Douglas movies. And that, with that, I'm hoping that that will happen real soon.

And if, if you know, we're not in Hirshberg, uh, hire him for something. He just lost $2,500. Give him a good gig. He just sent them that money.

Like, well, that's the part. I just don't get why you just didn't just take a beat. Like, don't do it. You know, like,

do you just send it right back to him, or did he really wait a second and think about what was happening? You got to call a friend and say, hey, does this sound weird? Yeah, just like, you know, and also just embrace that you could have kept the whole three grand. Like, why wasn't that the impulse? Well, that's the lesson from today's episode of The downside, Renan Hirschberg and everyone out there. Just keep the three grand. Just keep it.

And then if it's really their money, they're going to get it. They're going to keep coming after you for it if it's really their money. But instead, it's money that was never there to begin with. Never there. So if he'd have done nothing, nothing would have happened. You got two options in life. You're either the scammer or the scammy this is the downside