The Joe Rogan Experience - #1334 - Fahim Anwar

Episode Date: August 13, 2019

Fahim Anwar is an actor and stand up comedian. Check out his special on Amazon called "Fahim Anwar: There's No Business Like Show Business".

One, two, three. What's up, brother? What's up, man? How are you? Good. Good to see you. Outside the store. I know.

Isn't it weird when you run into a comedian that you don't normally hang out with outside the store? I mean, I would recognize you, but sometimes you'll meet someone that you met at a meeting and then it's like at a Ralph's and you can't place the context. That's bad. Especially if it's like an executive and they really like you to remember them. Are you good at faking it? Nope.

Terrible. What's your tell? I just say I don't know i'm sorry do you do the thing where you go it's good seeing you instead of nice meeting you nope i've done nice meeting you and they've go we've met five times i go shit i don't think people understand the volume of people that comedians especially at your level like come across every day yeah like how many shows we do people come on come to you afterwards and being like a great set blah blah and how many meetings and generals are you aware of uh dunbar's number oh is that like how many number of people you it's like 100 or something you can keep in your head i think it's some i don't think it's an exact science but i think they think it's somewhere around 150 i believe it you got about 150 people in your head and after that you fucked yeah yeah it's tough it makes sense right there's no way you can keep them all in there no that doesn't make any

sense yeah it's cool outside the store you know having a chat yes yeah it's like you feel the most camaraderie with other comedians outside the store when you run into them at an airport i was just thinking about that every time i go to lax i'll bump into like someone joe coy or last time it was burt kreischer and like jesus trejo we're going to do i think utah it's just like a hub for all of us yes so you'll see so many because we're all just transients we're here for the middle of the week and then when the weekends come for the clubs we're all going somewhere yeah like people that want to come to the store tuesday is like probably the best night and people don't understand why like it's so stacked like why is it you why is it burr why is it kreischer why is it joey diaz yeah like well we're just

biding time until the weekend right and practicing yeah yeah it's the one of the weird art forms that you can't practice you can't practice alone you have to use an audience yeah don't you think oh for sure and even like i'll be telling the same joke and i won't really change the words but it'll be like an inflection it's almost like i don't know when a jazz musician or something like plays a note just a little differently you know you ever notice like a joke won't work maybe because i'm i'm like making a meal out of this word but if i kind of just like throw it away yeah and oh now that fixes it it's interesting to do it long enough where you realize it's like it's not the words sometimes you there's like a performance

nuance to it to fix the joke yeah like it's on paper it's the same joke you know what's really weird is that none of this shit is written anywhere like what we're talking about you know what the worst is like i did um like jfl they're doing a taping out there for tv and they're like send us your transcript so that means you have to sit at a computer and like it takes it takes the magic like whatever your seven minutes you want to do for the taping they want you to sit on like on a mac and open up word and be like how you guys doing or whatever just like type it all out you need a better manager no but the thing like i thing, like I refused, I didn't do it. Good for you. I just dodged it. I asked Aaliyah, because I used to do it in the past,

and I was like, yo, they're asking me to write this out. It's taking all the fun and organic. Like I feel it would really hurt my performance if I literally wrote a transcript, and I'm like a robot up there. And he was like, just don't do it. And I go, what happens? He's like, nothing, nothing happens.

He's like, I've nothing happens. He's like, I've done it a million times. Just keep, just be dodgy. It's some pencil pusher. That doesn't make any sense. I think they get, you know,

well, they have power over people that don't have a name yet. I think they have people above them breathing down their neck and then, you know, shit rolls downhill. So then they keep on asking like, where is it? Where is it?

Just change your number. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's why I had like the reps kind of be a buffer and I was very aloof and like he's very busy.

Did they contact you at all? Was it direct to you? The thing is I would see them throughout the fest and they're lovely people. I love these people but like And they would say

where's the transcript? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'd be like ah, I'm no, I play the game a little better. I go, I'm not there yet. I'm not in your mother's

pussy level yet. I still gotta be like I'm gonna go back to the hotel room say it's a funny thing in your mother's pussy yeah where's the transcript you didn't check your mother's pussy i swore that i i fagged your mother your mother has a fax machine i faxed it to her it should be in there yeah you should go check check around the corner yeah so it's the worst having to type it out it's also like just for laughs is a weird situation it's evolved right it used well yes it's a weird way of looking at it it used to be very valuable for comedians yeah now it's very valuable for just for laughs because they have this enormous platform and you go there and everybody knows that all these great comedians

going to be there and they make an enormous amount of money off the comedians it used to be the comedians would go there because the end because the industry would go there and the whole key to the whole thing was development deals for sitcoms and they tossed out so much money i always hear about the gold rush and the heyday of jfl and how deals are getting thrown out left and right and like lives were made i don't know that jfl but fake lives were made too like they they've ruined it like because i have a theory about people who aren't comedians like they think they see people laughing at stuff and they see something's fun they think it's funny but a comedian can go this is is just tricks. Yeah. Yeah. Well, cause the amount,

the volume of comedy that we watch on a regular basis is so much. So we can discern like Ian Edwards and I will talk about this. And I was like, we watch, we're students of comedy. We watch a lot of comedy. People can get like a huge pop out of the room, but like Ian can cut through the bullshit and know that like,

oh, that's a parlor trick or yeah. So it's a different type of thing but i think a lot of times you know suits and everything they just hear decibels or right place right time and they believe this um lightning rod moment or whatever this great set is an is indicative of their entire comedic being instead of like a lucky roll yeah do you ever what is that guy's name was his name chicken is that what i always hear that as an example like i heard you blew the roof he was the guy that ended it all like literally because i think they gave him a half a million dollars or

something crazy like that i kind of want to see this chicken set like what was the set that just blew everyone's mind he was a handsome fella and and he was young, and he was very energetic, and they thought he was going to be the next Jim Carrey. Did you see him around? Was he an L.A. guy? No, I don't know where he was from, but I saw him at Just for Laughs. I saw him quite a few times. And he was a nice guy, but he was terrible.

I mean, in a way that, like, it was just a bunch of blah, but there was no substance to it. There was no thought to it. So they tried to put it together. They tried to make like a development deal and he did a little touring, but it all went south and it fell apart. He eventually committed suicide. Do you know how many years he was doing that? He hung himself in front of a school.

A school? Yeah. Like, that's what I had heard. Like, he hung himself on a tree in front of a school jeez this is his last piece of performance art i don't know if that's true see the thing is like i shouldn't even say it on a podcast and millions of people can listen to him but i did but the hanging part is right right yes he definitely committed suicide it's one of those things man where like if it didn't work out and he didn't develop it didn't he didn't he never became

like a legit comedian everybody thing all right over there jamie yeah i think if like if that had happened and he actually had i don't know the equity of a stand-up comedian and been doing it for a long enough yes that would be like a bump in the road but you can come back from that oh yeah if that's just sort of like your lotto ticket then that's why it was so drastic i think well some people are just not they're great comics but they're not really into acting they're not the best at acting and they got kind of forced into acting yeah i love mitch hedberg's joke where he's like he's a great stand-up you know and he's like you know they'll come up to me and they'll be like can you act he's like that's like going up to a chef and being like can you farm yeah that's true i mean i'm butchering it but yeah they're

such different things but it's uh you have an agent right and the agent wants to make money so it's an avenue for cash yeah and you know you look at seinfeld and tim allen and rosanne and brett butler and there was all these comedians in the 90s that made a ass load of money yeah doing sitcoms well that's the quicker payoff too. I even noticed it with my own career. Like when I was a younger comedian out here in my early 20s

when I moved from Seattle, like when I first got reps and stuff, I was going out on these auditions for like CW shows or just whatever. They just throw you

against the wall. You're an actor. Comedy is this thing you do at night. They don't even really give a shit that you do stand up. They probably don't even

think you're funny. You know? It's just a cute thing you do. It's like a kid really give a shit that you do stand up they probably don't even think you're funny you know it's just a cute thing you do it's like a kid like a dance recital or something like they don't care as long as you're going to these auditions

in the daytime so they just hope that you hit on like a series regular and then that's some cash flow for the biz but luckily I mean

I don't know I think your successes are carved by your failures so I'm kind of fortunate that I would get some acting things here and there, but never anything substantial enough to take me away from stand-up. Well, never anything substantial. The worst is when they tell you to stop doing stand-up

because it's messing with your acting role. Like that's what they did to Tim Allen. Oh, really? Because his acting, he was on Home Improvement. It was a gigantic hit. They were making gazillions of dollars. But he was a... I don't want to say he was a blue comedian, but some of it was a little risque.

So how did Saget deal with it? He stopped doing stand-up. Oh, okay. So he stopped. Dude, Saget stopped doing stand-up forever. Forever. He really didn't start doing it again until after that show was done what the fuck was that show again uh full house yeah yeah he stopped doing it for a long time and then kind of drifted

his way back in and now he does it regularly yeah yeah i think that's you know maybe they did that at the time but it's almost detrimental to let go because stand-up is your car like it's your business you're in control over it and the tv stuff it's like one hand washes the other if you let that go you're letting go of this revenue stream so that when the acting gig is over you're kind of fucked because this wasn't like building along with it you it also was a point of confidence where you understand what's funny and what isn't like you know how to be funny because you're funny in front of a live audience and all the time yeah you're at the store you have to be to be funny because you're funny in front of a live audience all the time. All the time, yeah.

When you're at the store, you have to be there all the time. You're there so much. Like, you're there more than someone at your level, you would expect someone at your level to be at. You have to be there.

You can't slack off. Everyone knows those really famous guys that slacked off and started to suck. And the good thing is, nowadays, the cycle of comedy,

we all do a special basically every two years. Pretty much all of us. Burr, Kreischer, Segura, Ari, everybody kind all do a special basically every two years pretty much all of us burr kreischer segura ari kind of everybody kind of does a special tries to do a special somewhere around every two years so every two years you throw it all out and you're a beginner again yeah you have no fucking act you're terrified you have to come up with new premises and scramble and that requires a lot of performing yeah i like how burrows on here talking about it was cool to hear a guy like him even talk about just the dilution of specials

where he's like they're not special anymore it's just like a flyer or like a brochure a brochure that i'm still around yes that's all it is a little bit yeah yeah i mean obviously there's different degrees of polish with some of the specials and how great some of them are but there's so many now it's a weird name special yeah well just leftover from yesteryear it's like why are albums a certain length because of the yeah but at least an album is like a collection of music that is all in one thing that you get that's kind of been consistent forever a special it's like what is it anymore what is it i guess 45 minutes to an hour of jokes strung together. Yeah.

Yeah. To let everybody know. But it's also like an album. Like if you go to see Fleetwood Mac, I don't know why the fuck I came up with Fleetwood Mac right now. Yeah, I like Fleetwood Mac. I do too. But you're expecting the hits,

whereas a comic, you're expecting the shit that's not on the special. You're expecting all new stuff. Yeah. Yeah, that is interesting. Sometimes you'll get them where they're like do the that's a very rare type of that's like gaffigan gets that for sure because he's got some classic bits and i think that also happens with um russell peters i think he gets some requests for classic bits do you ever get that no they do i don't know how to do

them anymore oh i know i purge them like i know Yeah, someone was yelling out bruce jenner the other day. I was like, I can't do that bit I don't know how to do it. I'll fuck it up. Yeah Like you don't want it. You don't want me to do a sad version Obviously what you could remember or forget the taglines. Oh, let me do it again. Let me start again Yeah, redo guys fucked up guys. Remember how much fun you were having? Yeah, let's go back to one So you are one of the rare comedians that doesn't smoke pot. Yeah, I guess so. We talked about that.

And it's kind of interesting, especially being in this industry, not taking advantage of that. Because it's all, especially the store. Like, you'll do a show, and they're like, hey, do you want these three bags, these three pillowcases of weed and CBD oil? And you're like, nah. You don't take the CBD oil either? I haven't done, like, is it good? No, it's great for you. What would would i use it for it's great for anxiety it's great for it reduces inflammation it's great for a lot of people use it for uh sleep it's like it's just good for you it's like

it's a it's a nutrient you know it's like it's healthy for you yeah it's hot right now it's very hot oh if i was in the biz and be like get cbd on the phone love cbd i love what cbd is doing love it bd how you doing canola's out cbd yeah canola is bullshit that stuff's bad for you can you cook with cbd um that's a good question i bet you can't i would imagine it has a low flash point like it would burn quickly. I don't know. Let's find out. I think it's usually mixed with coconut oil.

I think the people – Coconut oil has a high flashpoint. Wait. Doesn't grapeseed oil have a low – Grapeseed oil, I think, has a high flashpoint, too. I think it's good to cook with. Oh, yeah. Okay.

So it takes longer for it to – Yeah. Okay. It's a high-temperature – high before it smokes. Some people said they've cooked with it. Yeah. Fucking burn burnouts Stoners Bunch of losers I bet they stink

There's some people that do everything with weed And they need to just stop Where's the hemp people? I feel like you don't hear from them as much anymore Yeah they're in weight Was hemp like the They're laying in wait Yeah was that like the back door

Like since hemp is cool Like what about Well CBD is for grandma. That's how you get people to vote for it because grandma and grandpa use it and it helps their joints. Right. And they're like,

well, I'll tell you what, this CBD, I mean, it's not doing anything for my brain. I'm not getting high, but my joints never felt better. I feel amazed at the CBD and I'm going to vote for it and I really want to get a hold of Trump

and let him know. That's not bad CBD is It really what is the region from there's a guy? It's random random old guy from the middle of nowhere CBD Nutrition and really affected my life in a very positive way. I think people use a little South, maybe Maryland, maybe somewhere outskirts of Baltimore. People don't know you have that gear or you forget.

You do voices really well. I don't have that many, though. I can only do a few. Are you the type, though, where if you're doing a bit and you need this person to talk or whatever, you'll figure it out? Yeah, I can get a few. There's a few voices I can get out.

Yeah, because you're Alex Jones. I've known Alex so well. I've known Alex for like more than 20 years so that's just easy yeah i've hung out with that guy we've been hammered together so many times it's like it's that is the most misunderstood guy on the planet he just needs somebody next to him that's what he needs somebody to go alex let's slow down like you you had a really good point there but you just need a manager who's always with them. He even agreed with me. We talked about it.

I said, you just need a rational journalist who's next to you. He goes, you're right. You're right. You're right. I do need that. I go, you need someone who just balances it out. Look, he was right about all this Jeffrey Epstein shit. That is a fucking fact.

Alex Jones called this years ago. Years ago. He was saying that they take a lot of famous people to this island and they have all these young girls that this guy hooks them up with. He was talking about this years ago. Now it is mainstream news. And this human hybrid

experiments going on. Which sounded like a complete joke. When he brought it up we were like, what? Now it's fucking mainstream news. This sounded like a complete joke. When he brought it up, we were like, what? Now it's fucking mainstream news. This is a fact, man. People want to write that guy off because he'll tell you he's crazy. He'll let you know he's crazy. I mean, on my show,

there was one of the funniest things he ever said. He's like, look, I want to be honest with you. I'm kind of retarded. I fell to the ground. But that's who he really is, man. People just have him lumped in. It's like some people, they don't represent the best aspects of themselves right to people. And then other people try to define them.

People try to define you. One of the things that's really kind of weird about the more famous you get, the more people try to define you in a way that's detrimental or a way that's dismissive and limiting. Like I've noticed that after this Bernie Sanders thing that I did. So anybody listening to this, if you're saying this, I am not right wing at all. So stop saying that. It's silly.

It's foolish. I've interviewed right wing people. I am 100% left wing. The only thing that stops me from the only things that i disagree with about left-wing people is support for the military support for police and the second amendment that's probably it everything else across the board i lean way left in terms of like bernie sanders made a ton of sense to me and i would 100 vote for him tulsi gabbard is my favorite.

I mean, I'm not a right-wing person, so this nonsense. So many people were saying that Bernie Sanders spent this time on a right-wing podcast. What are you saying? Sure, and don't you think he weighed the pros and cons? It was an opportunity for him, and I think everyone thought it was a win as well. I don't think he had any idea who I was. Really? Yeah, I think it was one of his young staff members who's friends with Kyle Kalinsky, who is a really good left-wing progressive talk show guy on YouTube.

And Kyle hooked it all up. And this idea that it's bad for someone to talk to people, it's foolish. There's a weird thing that's going on right now. I thought it was a great platform for him to get his ideas out there and to be heard in something other than just sound bites. Yes. That could be taken out of context. It's a great platform, I think, for anyone who's running for anything to have a long-form conversation. And it's good for us, too, because we get to find out who they really are.

You really can't hide in a long conversation. Oh, yeah, three hours? Yeah. You can't talk important. I only did an hour and ten with Bernie That's all he had He's legit running for president He could be president There's some people that are running for president

They're like, alright bro What is that guy, Zoltan? What is his name? He was the guy who was running The transhumanist platform Ishtvan How do you say his last name? Very nice guy He was the guy who was running the transhumanist platform. Ishtvan. How do you say his last name?

Very nice guy. Sorry, I forgot his name. Is that this for this coming up? No, it was the last one. It was 2016 and we had him on. But, you know, it was like one of those guys where I'm like, all right. Like Ben Glebe. You're like, all right, good luck. You don't think Ben's going to win?

Oh, I do. Okay. Oh, yeah. But you got to respect the swing. That's what's great about this country, you know? The swing? The swing. What are you talking about? You could run for president no no not that swing just like anybody could run for president yeah yeah and it sounds far-fetched like yeah okay but i mean you gotta be crazy enough to think you can be well look anything can and will happen

when it comes to being president. People get assassinated. People get exposed as being a criminal. Look, do you remember when Michael Avenatti was the hero of the left? The Democratic Party was like, he's the guy that's going to run against Donald Trump. And he's going to take him down because he's tough and he's this and he's that. And Michael Avenatti, Michael Avenatti. I mean, there's a compilation of left-wing pundits talking about the hero that is michael avanadi you don't hear a fucking word from that guy anymore so you were

in a time capsule right a year ago when everyone was michael avanadi crazy and they just and then they woke you up for him it's 12 months later and you'd be like looking at the news hey um where's where's our guy avanadi i mean i was that happens on both mean, I was... That happens on both sides. They'll have their champion and then this other shit, you know? Yes. D or R, there's always,

they ascend and then there's some like dark shit from the past and then you don't see them anymore. But then there's guys that you know, like one of the things that I was getting at

during the Trump campaign when he's running for president the first time was like, this guy's not going away. Like this is not going away. He knows what he's doing. He knows how to fuck with people. When did you know?

Like how, how like early in the campaign did you realize? I don't know, man. Also, do you feel like you had a better read on it just doing stand-up across the country? Because I feel like you could be in a bubble. You could be in New York and LA and just be like, Oh, it's never going to happen. This is ridiculous.

But doing stand-up in some red states, you're with the people. You're doing jokes. And you get the temperature of an audience more so than someone who just has a desk job. For sure, but also I have a lot of right-wing friends,

a lot of right-wing friends, especially from the hunting world. I have a lot of friends that live in like, I have friends that live in Iowa and Oregon and they have a lot of right-wing friends too

and there's a whole part of the country that the big cities, New York and Los Angeles and the big democratic-leaning cities, they were all dismissing. The Democrats thought that Hillary was the most experienced and Trump was a buffoon and that grab her by the pussy tape, that was it. We got it. It's in the bag. They all believed that.

But the middle of the country did not believe in her. They didn't trust her they thought she was some sleazy politician who's been involved in the business forever and she licks her finger and figures out which way the wind's blowing and that's what she says and that they they thought that trump was a straight shooter and he's going to drain that swamp and he's going to do this and bring jobs back and he's talking about clean coal yeah it's almost like i think he's just so outside of the system like uh that it seemed that like he could have done anything just like we want someone to throw a wrench into it yes that's it there's a lot of people that just wanted a wrench thrown into it and he definitely threw a wrench into it and i think ultimately that's going to be good for the left as well because they're going to realize that you can't just

get away with that same stupid, old school politician style of doing it anymore. I think he's just blown up the playbook. Even Bernie calling Trump, was it stupid or an idiot in a post or something? Amazing. This is a new paradigm. Yes. They're adopting, they're taking pages out of what worked for Trump.

Look, we've got to take some bully tactics. And then even the Moscow Mitch, I'm like, oh, they get it. Nicknames are the only thing that stick. Yeah. Yelling at the rally, like, Moscow Mitch. Like, this is part of the playbook now. Sleepy Joe Biden. Yeah.

That's my favorite. As it's evolved, do you like to think that we get, as adults, when it comes to politics, it goes back to grade school. The only thing that seems to be effective is yelling Moscow Mitch or Sleepy Joe Biden or Pocahontas. Yep. These are like stand-up rules. It's like Rickles just – yeah, it's so interesting. And my favorite about the Pocahontas one was when people were saying that he's racist for calling Elizabeth Warren Pocahontas. It's a Disney movie.

You can't go that far. Yeah, if someone called me Aladdin, I'd be juiced. Aladdin's cool. He has a pet monkey. He eats apples. Yes. Did you see the most recent one? I did.

It was pretty good. It got bad reviews. I didn't understand it. What were they expecting? What I read was that Will Smith modernized it too much. What does that mean? I don't know. I prefer a classic genie.

Oh. He used modern urban vernacular. Yeah. They just weren't uncomfortable with that. You remember how you know the first photos came out of Will Smith as a genie? I love how little it takes to whip this nation into a frenzy. I'll wake up and open up Twitter and then the Will Smith genie

everyone is freaking out over that. And it crazy how how we put them on the same pedestal like some sort of Trump scandal or like Petafile Island and then the Blue Genie or Sonic looks weird, right? Sonic the Hedgehog right the chance both both take on the same amount of fervor on yeah same amount of psychic energy Yeah, yeah one of my I think one of the biggest gaffes, biggest mistakes ever was Ben Affleck thinking he could be Batman. If Ben Affleck never ran for Batman, he would have 50% less hate. You think? Yes!

Aren't there some people who liked? Or no? There's no one who liked Ben Affleck as Batman. Even Ben Affleck didn't like himself as Batman. When was the last time you heard anybody talk about Ben Affleck as Batman? Ready? Go. Yeah. No one. Christian Bale's Batman, motherfucker.

Even Michael Keaton's Batman, but he's old. That's so hard, though. You know you're not going to hit a home run with Batman every time. But everybody who does it and fails their career hits a ditch. Who do you think? All right. Do you think? Okay, Kilmer.

Leveled up or no from Batman? Well, Kilmer did it once, and he a good job But then he decided to get fat He's like, fuck this business What about He went crazy Is he in the Top Gun movie? The new one? I hope so

I hope so too That'd be great The lady's not in it The girlfriend The really hot blonde What was her name? Kelly something or another McGillis

McGillis? Is that it? Yeah, she was beautiful back in the day I think she might have Gone the Val Kilmer route If you know what I'm saying. What about Clooney? Look at that.

Clooney. Clooney. He's fine. He's selling Nespresso and tequila. Nespresso. His was like a comedic take. Arnold Schwarzenegger made way more money than George Clooney in that movie. Oh, me and my buddies

we have a thing we just say cool party. Like we just say it to each other no matter what party we're at. What is that Alicia Silverstone?

She was in that? And Chris O'Donnell? What? Why did I forget about that? He was Robin now he's on a TV show with LL Cool J. What is that one?

Is that like a NCIS or something? That is something that the same people who talk like that guy I was making fun of, that's what they DVR that. Oh.

That's a wonderful show. Once you get to certain parts of the country, isn't it interesting to find out what their favorite shows are? Yeah. That's where all those NCIS shows, that's where they get all their millions of views. For sure.

That's a wonderful show. Chris does a great job and he just pairs well with LL Cool J. He's a little aggressive to me I mean he's alright he's a good fella

I guess but I really love Chris I wish we'd get more work we should bring him back to the movies I think he'd be an excellent Captain Kirk

he could be Captain Kirk also I go to my aunt's house and that's just playing all the time like Burn Notice I mean that's just playing all the time like Burn Notice I mean that's not even on anymore but like these USA shows

yeah Jag remember Jag oh my god Jag reruns of Jag my brother oh my show's on Jag

love it and the thing is like we can laugh about these shows but they're like 20 seasons Jag was on for 20 seasons well we were just going over Survivor the other day

Survivor was on when Fear Factor debuted. It was already on the air. And that Fear Factor came out in 2001 or 2002, somewhere around right after September 11th. I remember that. Because I remember being asked questions like, was it appropriate to have a show about fear after September 11th? Oh, my God.

Some guy asked me that. I literally wanted to climb through the phone and strangle him. I'm like, you fucking bitch. What was your answer, though? That's nonsense. What if you walked it back? That's game show stupid. You're like, I'm sorry.

I didn't know that fear would play such a factor for you. So Survivor's been on, what did we say it was? 28,000 seasons? On the 39th, I believe. 39th season. It's still going? Yes. You didn't even know.

No. I think The Amazing Race is still going, too. Do you remember that show? Yeah. Yeah. CBS is killing it. Yes. That one won the award every year for the Emmy's best show or best game show or whatever reality.

I don't know what it is, but yeah. Wow. 12 times in a row or something. Crazy. Yeah. Did you like Fear Factor more than, because I remember I loved News Radio. That was one of my favorite shows. So did you enjoy that more, Fear Factor?

Are there different things? There are definitely different things. I enjoyed The Paycheck from Fear Factor far more. I liked working with actors, but I loved news radio way more. News radio is just a far better show. It was a really good show. Well, they're different things. They're very different animals.

It ruined me. It's like going from the comedy store to uncle fuck sticks chuckle hut and on a monday night you know it's like every other sitcom that i looked at every other sitcom that i read for or that i got scripts for rather i was like this is just not good stuff isn't it interesting when you get sides like just sides or just like one scene or two scenes for a show and you could tell it's good just from that. Oh, yeah. That's so rare.

It is rare. Yeah. Yeah. When someone's a good writer. Good sitcom writing is hard to do, man. That is a really hard gig. I mean, there's a, but then some people have bad sitcom writing, but they know how to make a bad successful sitcom.

Like, there's bad successful sitcoms that last forever. They're just unoffensive enough to stay on the air and keep you watching with your mouth slack yeah i mean formulas exist for a reason those big bang kids they're so they're so clever with their writing that's what keeps me tuned in i'm waiting for the vocabulary does this guy ever shut off cbs just keep it on the whole time i tried fox but they're too hostile. Did you know that your TV has other channels, sir? What?

Yeah, there's other channels, other programming you could watch. Well, when they took Bill O'Reilly off the air, I said, CBS is my channel. That's my channel now. Yeah. You ever been in an audition and it's terrible, but everyone goes through the motions where everyone's just cracking up like it's the greatest show on earth like it's Def Jam because the writers

and the directors are in the room and it's like the fake laugh to get everybody excited yeah they have to because I think they need this rocket fuel

to get this project off the ground and they need to give the writer confidence they have to give the director confidence they have to give the studio people confidence

that it's all good it's a fake moment the fake laugh it's gross and the thing is though like it's also not only is it gross but it's all good. It's a fake moment. The fake laugh. It's gross. And the thing is though, like, it's also not only is it gross though,

but it's the 30th time. There's just, there's 30 people in the waiting room and they're laughing like it's the first time. They're faking it left and right.

Up and down. And we know fake laughs. Oh, we do know fake laughs. It's offensive. Someone's fake laughing at you, it's almost worse than not laughing. It is worse than not laughing at all

If you say a joke And they're like Ha ha ha Oh you're like Get him out of here Get You get out of here You bad person

Yeah You you you you you It's the quickest way to heckle though Right just like Ha Ha Like no one can say anything Well I'm laughing

Yeah It's like the Fredo thing No I thought your name was Fredo That Fredo Fredo thing Dude I was talking to my buddy I thought that you were Fredo Did you see that Yeah of course Did you see it James Fredo thing. No, I thought your name was Fredo. That Fredo thing. I was talking to my buddy. I thought you were Fredo.

Did you see that? Yeah, of course. Did you see it, Jamie? That Chris Cuomo guy. Donald Trump had the best line today. Donald Trump won the internet today with this. He said, should we red flag Chris Cuomo because he seemed unhinged. He was using terrible language. Should not have a gun.

He basically exposed those red flag laws. He was like, you see a guy like that, he's irrational. That guy's irrational. He goes, I'll wreck your shit. I'll throw you down a flight of stairs.

I like the stairs comment. That was, I enjoyed that. Like, what is he talking about? Because the guy called you Fredo and he was saying that Fredo is the same thing as the N word.

I didn't know Fredo was derogatory or maybe I'm new to it. I just, not that I would ever try to call someone Fredo. Sometimes, you know. It's not. It's a fucking character in a movie it's like aladdin is it like uh there's no like i don't know cultural context i'm italian there's no cultural context for fredo where people like what the fuck did you say it doesn't exist it does not exist right well

you could say it for someone who's a traitor, but that doesn't even make sense with Chris Cuomo. It's just a loser in a movie. Well, I guess you know what he's trying to do. I mean, obviously, he's trying to insult him. Yes. Even if there is no history of this word existing for, you know, I'm ignorant. I don't know if it does exist or not, but like, you know, this guy's trying to take

shots. It's certainly not a compliment. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's a loser in a movie it's a brother that always fell short and he turned it turned on his own brother who was the godfather what if he wanted to be the godfather what if he explained this insult to chris cuomo that would be great he goes fredo was a weak italian in in the movie and i'm referencing your character yes you are the son of a great man because you

know he's mario cuomo's son and you probably you know, he's Mario Cuomo son and you probably You know, let's let's be honest about why you're here. Yeah, you know, the name is familiar and you know It helps. Yeah, but it's it's that Italian energy that Like and again, this is my people. Yeah are my full italian no three quarters though but these people that that react that way are common it's like what what the fuck did you say to me i'll fucking wreck your shit yeah but you're not supposed to be a respected political pundit

and behave like that that is nonsense yeah that's nonsense that's That's nonsense. It's a silly way to behave. It's silly. That guy needs to work out more. He's got to be extra. But he works out a lot. It's tough. It's tough when- He might be on too much testosterone,

so we need to take him to- Tell your doctor, just pare you down a little bit. Take whatever you're at, just drop it by half. Settle down, bro. Or just work out really hard before you go outside. Uh-huh.

Do some yoga. Meditate. I like when those- Because LA's a pretty passive town, for the most part. You'll get some of those- You'll get an East Coast guy. Or just work out really hard Before you go outside Uh huh Do some yoga Meditate I like when those Because LA's pretty passive town For the most part You'll get some of those You'll get like an east coast guy

You're like oh shit Who's this guy You know what I mean Long Island Yeah yeah yeah Like visiting from out of town Like whoa Hey Fredo

Yeah we don't actually fight here We just Go get my shine box Yeah It's um It was a very embarrassing moment But I think It's a very important moment

Look at him First of all He is Fredo for life now. I hope he understands that. He's Fredo for life. Unless you want to get tossed down a flight of stairs. He ain't tossing anybody down a flight of stairs. That's nonsense. He doesn't want to get sued.

He's not going to do that. He's not going to touch somebody. He'll hire someone. He's not going to do that. He's not doing shit. Not doing a goddamn thing. That's one of the reasons why it's so funny he's not doing nothing this that is fredo you'll never get away from that now better embrace that

shit better start selling fredo t-shirts with your face on it listen cnn's probably gonna fire him i would imagine no i think they're standing behind him get the fuck out of here yeah are they really for now i think they felt like he was attacked or unprovoked and yeah by someone calling him fredo yeah man those are fighting words dude someone called me fredo i'm not even italian i would snap i go how dare you he he's a silly man that's what's what exposes him is that he's a silly man it wasn't like someone was being equally aggressive to him and he was defending himself. Sometimes, like, if you're in a situation where someone's very aggressive to you, you almost have to be aggressive back just to let them know, hey, I'll go there with you. We could go to a dark place right now and, you know, I'm not going to let you hit me.

I'm not going to let you do something to me. If you think that I'm a pushover, you know, I'm here to defend myself. But that wasn't that way. Like, someone was mocking him and he turned violent. I think it was a little bit of a honeypot situation where he just wanted to get a rise, and he was recording from down low. They wanted him to do something. Chris Cuomo, this is CNN.

CNN's lost their fucking mind. Chris Cuomo defended himself when he was verbally attacked with the use of an ethnic slur in an orchestrated setup, the spokesperson said. We completely support him. For now. Listen to me. This is not done. We completely support him. For now. Listen to me. This is not done. This is not done.

This is just beginning to take on a form of its own. You can't say that's an ethnic slur. That is a fucking character in a movie. Yeah, it was news to me. I was like, oh, fuck. It's not an ethnic slur. And him saying that's like calling it the N-word, that is so preposterous.

That is so offensively stupid. Do you ever get that? Like people trying to take shots or get you to slip or something? Most people are nice. Yeah, for the most part. I've had guys say goofy shit to me and I try to say goofy shit back to them. Like at shows or just on the street or what? In both things.

But I'm not a hostile person. Yeah. I look hostile. Yeah. But I'm not hostile. Like I'm nice for the most part. I've had people get dicky with me. And then what do you do?

How do you handle it? Get dicky back. Just like, you see, I'll throw you down a flight of stairs. I don't say that. It's just, it's not, it never escalates to that. It's like some people get weird. You know what gets weird? The fucking autograph people at the airport.

How do they know, man? How do they, like, would you be surprised sometimes? Somebody tells somebody off. Somebody pays somebody off. What do you do? Do you sign or do you just keep walking? I tell them I'll sign one. I'll sign one.

They get mad at me. I go, I'm not working for you. I'm not working for you. There's people that charge people. They'll go to those conventions and they'll sit at a booth and they'll charge someone X amount of dollars. It's like 20 bucks or more for an autographed photo. I don't do that. I'm not going to do that ever.

So I don't even want you selling my picture i don't want it to be sold yeah i don't want my autograph to be valuable but if if i felt if i thought someone was a really a fan and they wanted me to sign something that's different yes i would sign something for him he'd be happy to instead of like a four-year-old guy with a ponytail you have a stack of fucking photos of me in various you're selling those yeah i know you're selling those so some got one guy got mad at me he was like following me around lax i was like dude i'm not signing anymore it's like next time i see you okay i'm like i'm not signing but you know by signing one of them you're making it very valuable if you sign the whole stack that's fine i'm not gonna be rude i'm not gonna be rude

so i'm just trying to like look i'll sign one and i tell them that like i got a bunch of them in portland this weekend they were there was like 10 people met me at the airport so i'll sign one i think one is good but i ran into a guy in phil weekend. There was like 10 people met me at the airport. I said, I'll sign one. I think one is good. But I ran into a guy in Philadelphia that got mad. He tried to get me to sign another one. I go, I'm not signing that. And he goes, you fucking forget your fans. I go, you're not a fan.

I go, you're selling these. He goes, but you think they're worth a lot? I go, why do you hear that? This is like some weird mental gymnastics. You think you bet it? He goes, your fucking autograph's worth about $6.35. I go, and you're a mooch. I go, you're over here trying to get me to work for you.

I go, go get a job. And so we had this weird conversation. I'm like, what are you saying? You want me to sign these so you can sell them, but you're saying they're not worth anything, so I'm a loser. But you're meeting me at the airport to try to get me to sell things. You looked up my flight. It's so silly. It's so silly.

But I just don't like the idea of it because primarily I don't like the idea that there's some weird loophole where someone can get you to work for them. They're just showing up and you're signing these real quick and I'm going to sell them. Because you're asking someone to work for you, even if it only takes five minutes. Or they're taking something from you. One guy had 30 pictures. He had 30. I go, how many you got there? He goes, 30.

I go, are you out of your fucking mind? How funny would it be if you just like- How long is it going to take? If you sat at a Starbucks And you just did them all You're like hold on family I'm just gonna get through these The UFC makes fighters do that They sit down

But they give them out to fans And they do stuff with them They're promotional material It's not one guy Exactly And everybody signs them Like all the fighters in the card Sign them

And you know They're valuable to fans As a fan Like I have I have a signed poster out there From Efren Reyes that I purchased. And Efren Reyes is like the world's greatest pool player. I love pool.

And he's this Filipino wizard. They call him the wizard. He's an amazing pool player. So I bought it. It was signed by Efren Reyes. I got so excited. But I would never ask Efren to sign something and then sell it. You're not going to track him down to the airport?

Yeah. Someone at the promotion for the tournament, they probably got him to sign a bunch of them and they sold them. And it probably helped offset the costs and things along those lines. But the autograph collector is a different animal than the autograph seller. So if you're a person that is just like, I love Fahim's comedy, he's really funny, I want to go to the comic store and see if I get him to sign something for me. That's a fan. For sure. But if you have 30 of them, you to go to the comic store and see if I get him to sign something for me. That's a fan.

For sure. But if you have 30 of them, you're going to go on eBay and you're going to try to make 50 bucks. That's what you're doing. Well, you're not going to make 50 bucks. I'm just going to tell you right now. They might. If they hold on to it.

If they sit on. You're a funny guy. Well, that's nice. You have a lot of talent. What have you seen? I'm always surprised because like I came to the store. I always see you at the store, you know, and you're like, oh man, your videos are funny. And like, I don't know what you watch.

You're just like on this other level. I don't think it even reaches you. No, oh man, your videos are funny. And like, I don't know what you watch. You're just like on this other level. So I don't think it even reaches you. No, that's nonsense. That other level thing is a complete total illusion. I'm here to tell everybody. Yes and no. Because you are a rarity, I think, of the comedians at the store who have gotten to a certain point where you kind of have a relationship with everyone at the comedy store. From the door guy to the waitresses to like, you know, stand-ups like me or like Santino or Ian. Like, you have a relationship with everyone. You come through. You spend time at the comedy store from the door guy to the waitresses to like you know stand-ups like me or like santino or ian like you know you have a relationship with everyone you come through you

spend time at the store you have you're being pulled by a lot of things like you see the family and all the stuff the podcast but you will hang at the store well that's a community it's very important to me that that community means it means a lot it means a lot um and i like i like supporting the up-and-coming people i think it's very important i think um all the door people it means a lot it means a lot and I like I like supporting the up and coming people I think it's very important I think all the door people

the guys worked a lot those guys are all we're all gonna work together someday you know it's very possible they'll be you know I'll be at one theater

they'll be at another theater you know I'll be at a club over here they'll be at a club over there we're all the same it's just an illusion it's just time and I think it comes from martial arts because in martial arts everybody trains together you know i'm a

black belt in jujitsu but i'm as friendly to the white belts as i am to other black belts we we shake hands we hug if i roll i'll roll with a guy who's new just start now i'll give him tips i'll help him out you know we're all in it together and i feel like that's the approach that i take with comedy the same approach i don't believe in this elitist shit i think it's stupid i think it's it's bad for everybody it's bad for the person who becomes elite even more so than it's bad for the the up and coming because the undercomers if you don't if you dismiss up and comers and you treat them like shit like you treat them like you're better than them you're above them you don't need to like talk to them you don't make eye contact with them you ignore them when they're trying to talk to you and i've seen that from comics and um i think it's bad

for you for them it just makes them angry at you they can't wait till and i have been in that position before where someone's dismissed me and been shitty to me and then i surpassed them fame wise and then passed by and then they become friendly and weird with you and you never forget and you kind of remember yeah it's very strange

when you see the 180 and you'll be in comedy long enough to see plenty of 180s and it's not I mean you'll I'll give you some names after the show

oh really oh I would love that yeah yeah some good names some juicy names and then you you act however the relationship is

now at this point in time yeah but that's always in the back of your mind you're like I remember when is now at this point in time yeah but that's always in the back of your mind you're like i remember when it was not this but there's there's also i want to give someone an opportunity for redemption like i want to believe that they've changed yeah so i've it's hard i don't want to be that mean person who's like that fuck that guy for life for sure for sure but i do like hopefully that they grow that maybe they've grown as a person yeah and maybe been humbled because the career kind of skid and came to an abrupt halt and they're trying to rebuild.

They used to be someone that thought that they could. There was a time, mostly pre-internet, where comics looked forward to doing a couple things. One thing they looked forward to was bumping people. And doing a lot of time? Yeah, but the bumping people was the big part it wasn't just doing time so like the doing time thing if you if like dave chappelle calls up and says i want to do a half an hour nobody cares like he's really good about it too he'll wait till everyone's gone up and then he'll go out at the end of the night he's a beautiful person i love that guy to death he's he's the exception to the superstar rule because he's a sweetheart of a guy.

But there are some that wanted that spot of the bumper where they could just show up. Oh, my God, Mike's here. Mike's here for him. I'm sorry. Mike's going up. Mike has to go up. And Mike looks at you like, I'm going up. You know, like there's a few of those guys.

Like that fed them. Yeah, feeds them. It feeds them to let you know that you're not on their level. Yeah. I've heard of like i've heard like that happens way less now oh yeah yeah yeah yeah well first of all because people like us talk about it on podcasts like if there's one guy that was like a super dick to you and you're like let me tell you something joe there's a fucking guy you know it's we're all comics man just like when you go

to a jujitsu school you take a class or two classes you're a fucking martial artist you know you might suck yeah but you're a martial artist if you're you're up on that goddamn stage you're a comic in in my eyes you're just like me i'm just i've been doing it for 30 years and you've been doing it for less yeah yeah that's what it is that's that that's the only difference it's just a time in. And if you get 30 years down and what you get out of those 30 years is that you're better than everybody and that you can act like you're better than everybody and you're aloof and you're dismissive, you've missed everything. The beauty, like when I come to the store, I like that I get hugs.

Yeah, yeah. I was surprised because when you first started coming back, I would just think like I'd be on the wall or whatever, but you yo what's up what's up behemoth like give me a hug you know and like we hadn't really like talked a ton but that something as little as that goes so far well that's nice yeah i i hope it does go far i want i want comics to feel good about the community that we have yeah i remember because when i got past the store it was the dark ages like i know the stores had various dark ages bobby talks about like the 90s and stuff but you were at the ice house so like you weren't even really part of the story you're still just like going there a lot yeah yeah so it was very cool for you to come back and adam take

over and then it just kind of evolved into what it is now it's crazy because i remember when it was not that and there was kind of a beauty in it, though. I'm pretty fortunate in hindsight that I got past then. What year was this? I think I got past in 2010. Yeah, that was three years into the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages started in 2007. Yeah, it's also crazy to know that,

the history and see the video, and then, oh, I exist on this timeline now. The store was just, when I'm living in Seattle, it's this faraway place. Even Hollywood and entertainment and all all that it's just this place that exists on a box it's not real it isn't it isn't right this isn't a real thing and then you move to la and i'm hanging at the improv i'm a ghost you know people are walking through me you know when you first come to town yeah i swear to god like i'm literally i'm like guys i do comedy and they're walking through me and i'm just like my hands aren't and i would just hang out and that's part

of the deal you just have you realize leaving your apartment yeah is a win in itself like you may not be getting up as much as you want to but even just like being out it's a win yeah because someone'll be like oh you should do my you know it's out of sight out of mind yep so i would just loiter at the improv i was nobody and then I was like it was like Sandler and someone and like maybe Kevin James I think Sandler

Kevin James and that was like I'm sure that's very standard I mean I've been here so long it's very standard now you see a million people

like I very I don't get starstruck at all but it's kind of like oh fuck those are people in a box those are people in the box that I watch

right and they just walked in yeah so that was kind of like a little mind fucking adjustment you know well when I was in Boston in 1988 when I started Mecca was the store man that was where prior performed and Sam Kinison and Hicks started out there and Hicks used to do stats it was a doorman there and you know Letterman was there Robin Williams

was there it was just it was Me, and Robin Williams was there. It was just, it was Mecca. And I thought, when I first started doing comedy, when I realized, like, okay, this is what I want to do. Like, after the first set I ever did, I was like, okay, this is what I'm doing. I'm doing this now. I'm all in. You know, it took me a while to get funny. But, I mean, I had it in my head that I was going to get to the comedy store. Oh, yeah. And then when I finally got there I remember thinking how surreal it was cuz I was like, I guess I was 26 25 no 25 or 26

I think the first time I stepped foot in the store and I were sitting in the back of the room going. Holy shit I can't fucking believe I'm here. Isn't it odd? It's it's just a place. Yeah, but it isn't it's not it's not just a place i know but like when you i guess the manifestation of the place like okay it's a stage there's chairs there's a table you ever see in the daytime you're like all right this is this is just a space it's odd it feels like it's waiting yeah like it's waiting but it doesn't come alive until nighttime yeah it's like a bedded animal like a hibernating bear yeah and at nighttime man the drinks start clinking and you know the the comedy starts flowing and jeff starts playing the piano it's an interesting room too when you first started doing it was it difficult

because it's not a net it's not um it's not an easy room the or is not an easy yeah the or i consider the or the comedy store yes people will come through and be like oh yeah i've been to the store i go i go what what room they're like let oh yeah, I've been to the store. I go, what room? They're like, let's go to the main room. Okay, cool. Main room is cool, but it's not the heart and soul

of the comedy store. The OR is intimate. Nothing gets lost. Right. The main room, you kind of have to be, it's so big and there's that second tier,

you know how the step goes up, to like be able to have that laugh wave hit that back row. Yeah. You're really working. You're're performing and the stage is so big you have to be more theatrical to kind of do a serviceable job in that room but in the or it's like literally you're just watching a man gather his thought or woman you know just like you can be real you can be you don't have to be like right you don't have to project as much. Yeah.

Well, there's different kinds of comedy, right? What's the largest crowd you've ever done? I've been watching your stories and stuff and that's fucking insane. Like even when you're in the green room and you just hear these murmurs, it sounds like, you know, like an angry mob is going to kill you or something. It's crazy. But they're all just like filtering into this giant theater. Maybe 3,000 or 4,000. 3,000, that's big. And that was a trip for something. It's crazy. But they're all just like filtering into this giant theater. Maybe 3,000 or 4,000. 3,000.

And that was a trip for me. That's big. But you notice when you do 3,000 or 4,000 that there's like, you have to give them more pause. Oh, yeah. Yeah. More time for the joke, the punchline to settle, the laughs to settle before you move on to another.

But what's great about doing it so long is stand up is this conversation with the audience so you know to wait yeah like you have inherent timing yeah another comic would just kind of know the timing of the club and it's like plow into the next joke while they're still getting laughs from a theater yeah you can't do that but i took i was talking about this yesterday with tom papa that one of the reasons one of the best lessons that I ever had was actually sitting in the audience at one of Richard not Richard, Louis Black's not Richard Lewis, I don't know why I confused it

I mean, I would confuse it, yeah the word Louis, a Louis Black show in New Jersey he was there the night before me and Joey Diaz and I sat in the audience and he would hit a punchline and people would laugh and then he would hit the tag and I couldn't hear the tag because all the other people were laughing around us.

And I was like, oh. You've got to be a little more selective. You can't just hammer them. Like in the story, at the OR, you can hammer them. Punchline, punchline, punchline, punchline. And you could beat the fucking shit out of them that way, and it's a different kind of comedy. If you have that style of comedy,

you might struggle a little bit with a theater and you'll definitely struggle in an arena. Arenas and amphitheaters are another animal. I feel like just having no ceiling. How does that work? Is that good? I did it Saturday night in San Francisco. That's more for music, huh?

I had a great time. We had a great time. Allie Makovsky killed. She had a great time. Ian killed. It was fun. It was fun, Ally Makovsky killed. She had a great time. Ian killed. It was fun. It was fun, but it's definitely different.

I think, yeah, I think it's different because I think there's such fans and obviously, they're going to be tuned in. Yeah, that helps.

It's different when you're like, I'll do some festivals sometimes or I mean, back in the day, you would do a college or something and it's just outside and if they don't know who the fuck you are

and it's daytime and it's outside, you flew to pick up a check all you all you got to do is not lose your mind on stage and you can collect your check if you're like shut the fuck up like then you're not getting your money well it's a matter of whether or not you're having fun if you're having fun and you enjoy performing and you your material is good so you know it's good you can have fun sure and whoever's tuning in can have a good time and the absurdity of the situation is funny um but obviously it's not going to be like a regular

club set or something yeah dude i'll take you if you want to come i'll take you i'll take you one of the crazy i don't i mean that just seems like such a mind trip that would be like a stand-up float tank well you know ally's only 22 yeah she's so young yeah she's great and i i've been taking her with me her and ian came this weekend and the first arena she ever did well here's ally right she's done clubs with me she does improv with me all the time she has a store with me and she's the she works the door at the store that's the beauty of the system of the store it's like one of the last places like that where there's a system in place and yeah yeah she works the door of the store and she

performed in front of 10,000 people. And then went back to checking IDs? Yes. That's the mind fuck of being a young comic is you'll do these crazy things and then you're back at your job. But she's wild and hungry. Yeah.

I don't worry about Ally. She's fine. She's great. She's really talented too. But, you know, so the first big show she had done before that was the Mirage in Vegas.

I love that club. I love that club. I love that club. I started doing that club, and then I went to bigger arenas, and I came back to that club because it was so much fun. Because most of the time when I do Vegas, I do it the night before a UFC, like on Friday night. And I was doing these big giant places like the Ka Theater, which is like 100-foot tall – more than 100 feet tall ceiling. It's a Cirque du Soleil place. But it was too weird.

It wasn't the right setup for comedy. And the Mirage is so perfect. Is that the Terry Fedor Theater? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I went back to that.

So that was the first time she'd ever done anything big. And she walked out there like she fucking owned the place. She's like, she owned it. She's like, She had the best set I ever saw her have there. And then I said, okay, you want to do arenas? She's like, ah!

So we did this crazy place in Portland. Portland was insane, man. God damn, it was off the charts. Almost too big. Almost too powerful. Not almost too big, but almost too powerful.

Did they do concerts in there normally? Yeah. Or what is that space?'s what the blazers play yeah for real yeah whoa you don't be great if like you just have a t-shirt cannon before your set you're like yeah i had a my buddy cam haynes who lives in eugene which is real close to there was in that same place a couple weeks before that for a game and he's like dude i can't fucking believe you're coming here to do comedy. Like, what is this?

Yeah. It was nuts. You'd almost think as like a consumer of comedy, what is that experience like? And is it still, like the beats have got to be so different than like a club,

like the OR? It was fun, man. I was watching Ian on stage and he was murdering and I was laughing my ass off. It was great. It's all in the acoustics of the building

and the Moda Center in Portland is a really new theater or a new arena. It's really well made. So the acoustics are excellent. So nothing is lost. Because that's my worry. In a space that big that no one can hear what you're saying. And it's muddled.

I've done some big places where it's not the best. I've done some big places where you hear a little echo. And you're like, ooh, this could be a problem. So you have to be a little clearer with what you say. Like you almost got to take some of the spice out of your joke, you know, a spice out of your delivery because it's a little echoey. The best, though, the best is the ice house or the store or the improv. Like 200 people, 300 people, bam, bam, bam.

Well, that's why comedy clubs are a certain size. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's also because that's all they could see. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to sell. You should have like Joe Rogan comedy clubs and they're all like 20,000 seats. They're like, yeah, I mean, it's also not when Joe comes around, but we're having a tough time getting people to come out.

I mean, there's not that many people that are doing those places. Like Kevin Hart, Dave. Oh, that's so crazy, too. Like you guys teaming up to do a tour. If you're a comedy fan, how great is that? Dude, we did 25,000 people in Tacoma. We broke the all-time attendance record. Oh, you got my brother in. He hit up Ian.

I think I was in London, so I was sleeping when the time was off. So then he just DM'd Ian, and he was like, Hey, I'm your in London, so I was sleeping, like the time was off. So then he just DM'd Ian, and he was like, hey, I'm thinking, brother, can I come to the show? The Dave things are crazy though, because he brings a DJ,

and Don L. Rollins gets out there, and gets everybody hyped up, and it's the fucking DJs in between the sets. It's like he's getting everybody hyped. That's next level, yeah. Oh, it's so next level. It's like a concert. Yeah.

Plus, it's just, you feel crazy, like, is this really happening? Like, even Dave, he was like, this is fucking crazy, man. Like, we were's like a concert. Yeah. Plus, it's just, you feel crazy. Like, is this really happening? Like, even Dave, he was like, this is fucking crazy, man. Like, we were all like, this is crazy. To get him to say this is crazy? Yeah. We were all like, this was crazy.

We all realized this was something. Because people were so pumped that we're doing it together. Yeah. It was mad. It's like the Watch the Throne tour. Kanye and Jay-Z. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to do more.

We're trying to figure out where and how, but we had a great fucking time. Yeah, why not? It's just so rock star shit. They show up at places and have IVs ready. They do intravenous vitamin infusions with glutathione and get B12 shots. How did you feel after? Like I could run through a fucking wall. Yeah, I could pull a tree out of its roots.

How did you feel before and then after? Were you just like out of it? I was a little tired. You know, we're traveling and we're up late the night before and then you get juiced up

with vitamins and you just... You're like, where's that tree? Yeah, you feel fucking excellent. This, I guess,

you know, they don't, rock stars know what they're doing. Yeah. And I'm sure you're only doing a fraction of what

they do. They're doing coke. Yeah, we're doing coke Yeah. And I'm sure you're only doing a fraction of what they do. They're doing coke. Yeah, we're doing coke. And they have something different than IV. They probably have some other bag we don't even know about. Probably, yeah. It's probably some illegal shit.

Yeah, like, they're probably doing NAD. They're probably doing a lot of different things. Yeah. Yeah, this looks insane. At the end of the day, though, back to the grind. Like, tonight, I'm doing the belly room.

You know? That's so funny. You're just back in the belly. Yeah, back in the belly room. Doing the belly room. And I'm doing the improv. I got a though, back to the grind. Like tonight, I'm doing the belly room. That's so funny. You're just back in the belly. Yeah, back in the belly room. Doing the belly room. And I'm doing the improv. I got a 1030 at the improv. Oh dang, double dip?

Yes, always. You don't do factory really, huh? I don't do the factory. You don't do the factory. Is that because they tape? Yes. Okay. Yeah, they taped me.

They tape everybody. They put your shit online. But like- They say we're not going to do it anymore, but they still have the camera up. Do you just not trust them? Because like they'll send it to me with the clips and I'll be like, I like, it's not ready, or I don't want to put it out there. And then they respect it.

That's what Bill Burr said. And then I found this shit online. I'm like, yeah, look at that. He's like, what the fuck? I was like, yeah, man. There's somebody working there that's not listening to this. And maybe they don't do that anymore, and I hope they don't. But why chance it?

It just doesn't feel good. It's just that the way it was handled was very poor. The way it was handled was like you should be happy that we're putting it online. It was not good. I'll tell you all about it later. Okay. But it's just there's plenty of room at the improv and the store. I don't need to go there.

I don't wish it. I mean, I hope it does well. It's a great club. It's fun to work at. Sure. I know what you mean, though. It's like I'm in Tarzana now and like

someone will be like hey do you want to do this show in Irvine and that's just like saying my show's on Mars Irvine at 8 o'clock you might as well leave your house yesterday

yeah like Burr can you chopper me to yeah to Irvine have you been in a chopper with Burr no you gotta go

but when I was working at Boeing I had a co-worker who was learning well he had his hours up and everything, so he flew choppers and during our lunch break, he's like,

do you want to go in the chopper? Jesus. I was like, sure. So then he's like, let's take the doors off. What? This guy's trying to kill you.

No, but it was fine. It was crazy. I figured, when else am I going to go in a chopper? That's true. So for my lunch break, I went in a chopper

with this guy. I recorded it. Wow. And then my mom saw it and she just like flipped out. She was like, what are you doing? I love you. Don't die. It was fun.

Yeah. If I had a son and I was a woman and my little boy was in a plane flying around with the doors off. Yeah. Maybe you shouldn't have told her that it was my coworker. Yeah. Yeah. You should have said it was like a super experienced fighter pilot.

He's a military guy. He's had 20 years experience. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird when you go up in a bird with someone you know so well. I did it first in high school. When I was in high school, my friend Mike, Mike Warbell, he was taking small plane lessons. And we flew around this little small plane.

He was like fucking, he was my age. Maybe he was older than me, like one year. I think I was 16, he was 17 maybe, maybe, but no more than that.

You just got to trust him. And he was flying in a fucking plane. He had a co-pilot who was like an instructor. Oh, that's better then. Yeah, he was taking lessons. Instead of just you and him. But that was the first time

I was ever in a little tiny ass plane. I was in high school. You ever want to do that? I have no desire desire to do that it seems like a rough way to die i just don't like even with all the training and all that just like i'll leave it i'll leave it to the pros like if jfk couldn't do it well i think the jfk story was more complicated i think he was involved with uh i think that that flight was like no visibility i think you ran into fog and like a more experienced pilot would have known the weather conditions aren't the best to be going up yes and also you you have to understand how to read the gauges because you got to know what

altitude you're at and the gauges have to be 100 functional and i don't know what the whole story was with his death but I believe Google whether or not JFK's body had cocaine in it Google that No, RFK What's his name? JFK Jr. JFK Jr.

Not RFK JFK Jr.'s body had cocaine in it Because I think there was some cocaine involved If I'm not mistaken It's like Fuck, I can fly in the clouds I'm in the clouds, bitch He doesn't even have any lessons

He's just like It's getting a plane I think he knew how to fly and i think he was i think he was unprepared for no it's you know how it is like he was off the cape right it wasn't somewhere near massachusetts that fucking those clouds get thick bro i mean you don't see jack shit so you're flying around in that. You imagine just flying, right? You're going 500 miles an hour, and right in front of you is white. That's all you see. 500 miles an hour, through the white. And just knowing.

Kind of just knowing this isn't a good situation. Yeah, you're fucked. And you kind of know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when I lived in Colorado, I remember there was a time that I was driving up this hill. We were pretty high up. We were about 8,000 feet above sea levels.

3,000 feet above Boulder. And as we're driving through the hills up to the house, the fucking clouds were so thick, you couldn't see five feet in front of the car. So you're driving on a mountain road that sometimes has no railings to the left or to the right. And it's just death to the left. And you're driving up this mountain road, you can't see jack shit. So you literally have to turn the fog lights on. So the regular headlights are no good. You've got to shut those off, and you have to have fog lights on, because fog lights just kind of light the ground.

And that's why they exist. Yeah. People don't even think what a fog light is, because most of the time, you don't really have to deal with fog. Fog light is a little light down below. So you can see a little bit. Yeah.

Instead of blinding it. Yeah, otherwise you just see bright white. I didn't see anything about that, but they were... You've got to check Infowars.com. Yeah, you're going to the wrong source, dude. Did you could see a little bit instead of blinding it. Yeah, otherwise you'd just see bright white. I didn't see anything about that, but they were You gotta check Infowars.com Yeah, you're going to the wrong source, dude. Did you use Google? Bing it. Bing it, Jamie. 8.39 at night and they were flying over water that had no features.

So they were over water. It was dark and foggy. So it was basically pitch black. And he didn't have a flight plan either and he told an instructor that offered to go with him. He wanted to do it alone. Oh, but he didn't have a flight plan either, and he told an instructor that offered to go with him. He wanted to do it alone. Oh. But you didn't find anything about cocaine? I Googled that, and nothing popped up.

Something popped up that they might have had a past of that, but nothing said that. Can you put a drug test and autopsy? Nothing said that. Okay. Maybe I made it up. It's possible. Let's put it in the Wikipedia page.

My memory varies so wildly. It's confusing, and I'm wondering if it's old age or if it's just a just an overwhelming amount of data in my brain and my hard drive is just completely run out of space maybe there's some overlap like a similar story for sure there is because i'll have conversations with someone sometimes and uh they'll ask me we'll be talking about something i go well that's not exactly how it happened this is what happened and because of this. Because as they evolve, they develop the ability to do this and that. And I'm like, I just know this.

I'm like, why do I know? And somebody goes, what are you, a fucking biologist? I'm like, no, I'm an idiot. Yeah, you retain a lot. I just remember things. But I don't retain some things. Sometimes I forget who I was talking to or who said what or where this idea came from. It's weird.

It's not selective. It's not that good. But it helps when I'm taking nootropics, which I didn't today. Today I didn't take any alpha brain. Why don't we have any here? How come we don't have any here? Oh, give me that. Oh.

Thank you. Oh, man. How does this work? Well, your brain's going to grow. I hope your head can. Really? Your head's flexible. Just like the headphones break.

You swell from the head a lot. You used to use... Should I throw this in here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It going to grow. I hope your head's flexible. Just like the headphones break. You swell from the head a lot. You used to use... Should I throw this in here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Used to work at Boeing. Is this like an Elon Musk moment, guys? No.

Am I going to be a mural? I know, right? Isn't that crazy? Yeah. A mural. Crazy for me, too, man. I mean... I didn't even think twice about giving him weed.

Really? You didn't think like, oh, this will be a moment? It was just... No. I thought we were just hanging out, me and my buddy Elon. Yeah. Smoking a little weed,

like normal. The stockholders were like, no! All the time. Did you see the Ross Baines painting in the green room where in the cloud it says 6%? Oh, no.

Yeah, go look at the smoke cloud again because he lost 6% of the stock. Jeez. But he got it back. It was up to 9% the next day. It went up three percent but his street cred went fucking through the roof dude bitch i drove his car here that guy deserves everything he gets that car is a goddamn time machine i'm still a mazda 3 2007 man

myself oh nice i'm a yeah i'm a purist nice sometimes i'll get a brochure in the mail like get the 2019 mazda 3 like i'm gonna put a bull in my head if i get two mazda threes in a row don't get a mazda 3 but get in a miata a miata dope those are dope isn't that like a punch line i don't give a fuck who's making that joke they don't know what they're talking about all right i'm gonna do it i'm gonna get a miata everyone's making fun of me no bullshit dude miata is a fucking fantastic car i'm not bullshitting it has very low horsepower but it's super likely this will be my defense when people make fun of me.

They have a lot of horsepower. It's really lightweight. It doesn't have a lot of horsepower. It's very low. I think it's less than 200 horsepower. 181. Yeah. But Miatas are amazing cars.

But as a comedian, how many times do you hear it's a punchline? Those are hacks. Those comedians are hacks. Isn't that funny? There's certain words that are just like go-to,

like Chipotle's a great punchline word. They still make them in standard with a standard transmission. I just want to say thank you, or you're welcome, Mazda. It's a fucking great car, man. I'm not kidding. They're really fun to drive. They handle really well. I like mine.

I like my Mazda 3. They're very tactile. But a Mazda 3 is different than a Miata, right? How much different is it? I mean, probably pretty different. What is that one right there? 2019 Mazda MX-5? MX-5 Miata?

What about the RX-8? You see that red one? That cool red color? Yeah, but the one above that, please? Look at that with the removable roof. Ooh, that's like a Targa. I could be on the beach with that. That is a dope car.

People are crazy. They just want it. They want higher horsepower. If that was instead of a Miata, if that was a Tesla, if Tesla made an electric Miata that goes zero to 60 in one second. Get on it. Everybody would want that car. Yeah.

Dude, it's a great car. Yeah. Drive one. All right. You know, I'm going to do that after this. I'm going to test drive a Mazda Miata. Go to, and it's cheap. How much is a Miata?

It's like 28 grand. Dude. Come on. Come on, man. That's it. I'm not to test drive a Mazda Miata. It's cheap. How much is a Miata? It's like $28,000. Dude. Come on. Come on, man. That's it. I'm not bullshitting. For $28,000, you get a great car. I'm not kidding.

I would drive a fucking Miata. I believe you. I just would never think that you would have this much passion about the Mazda Miata, and it's really refreshing. I am an automobile enthusiast. I love cars. I saw the cars here. I love engineering.

I'm a fan. I used to do that. I know you. Oh, yeah. I love mechanical things things i love how people design things and what they've done with the miata is they've made a car that it always has a loyal fan base that continues to buy them because they don't break the bank it's not something that you pull up to the club everybody thinks you're like some super baller but it's a fun car to drive they're a really fun car to drive they're super lightweight they're very agile they handle great they still make them with a manual transmission yeah mine stick yeah

they're fine man it's a fun car to drive don't be hating on me honest all right how do you feel about the three i want the same love for the monster three it's not that good god what the fuck kind of boring it's like you might as well get a Prius. Yeah. You're in the Prius category. You know, what's happened with Tesla, it's interesting, because when you, for a while, you could be driving a Prius and no one knew if you were rich or poor. It was the great equalizer. Still to this day, Larry David drives a fucking Prius. Sure, sure.

But Tesla came along and they were like, yo, now you can stunt and save the earth. Now people know you're rich and pious. Before, you didn't know if this guy's poor or dicaprio yeah but now it's like so all the poor guys who want to go green are kind of fucked but prius is different because it's a hybrid yeah like that was the only option back in the day that was the only option mercedes has a an s-class uh mercedes top of the food chain mercedes that's also a plug-in hybrid. It's just the new one that they just released.

Jeremy Clarkson was raving about it. It's supposed to be this incredible car. So Mercedes is actually making plug-in hybrids for their top of the food chain vehicles. That's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. It seems like that's new. It is. It is new, but it's also a little bit of a step back because it has gasoline.

It is. It is nude, but it's also, it's like a little bit of a step back because it has gasoline. But the step up is going to be a car that charges and it charges in a normal amount of time, like an hour or two. How long does yours take? Forever. Oh, how long? We have a supercharger here. We have a supercharger installed here and it still takes, I don't know, probably like

five hours. Five hours? If it's dead, it'll probably take five hours maybe six you know but like if i come here and like full charge is what does it get 390 fucking 90 miles or something like that somewhere around that range are you not really are you having to be a little better with your planning? Like, alright, I'm going to put it in here. I'm not going anywhere with it. I go to LA.

I go to the comedy store. This weekend I'm in Anaheim for the UFC. I'm not driving that fucking thing. Are you crazy? I'm not getting stranded. What happens if you get stranded? Does anybody have a battery? Does anybody have electricity I can siphon? Anybody can sit here with me for eight hours.

There's not a goddamn thing you can do. You have to call a tow truck and they have to bring it to a charging station, and then you have to sit there like an asshole. Yeah, it's for six hours. But the technology, if you get... You can't... Look, obviously, I'm kidding, in some way, because it's super simple. You've seen one on the inside, right?

The giant screen? I've only seen from the outside. Bro, there's one right here. Go sit in it. Because the comedy store has turned into a Tesla dealership that's kind of how you know it's Cali

that's how you know the store is in a renaissance where it's like so many Tesla's coming in and out of that place not just Tesla

it's like Russell Peters pulls up in a Ferrari SUV and like a Bentley too he's got a Bentley a Ferrari

no a Lamborghini Lamborghini SUV. Dude, like now must be the most trying time to be a lot guy at the comedy store. Just imagine the bullets. They sweat. Oh, God. Yeah. Having to move because that parking lot in the comedy store is like Tetris.

Yeah. There's a finite amount of space and they've got to fit all the paid regulars cars in there. And the price tag on all these are insane now. The problem is they're letting these promoters park there. Oh, aren't they being better about it, about saying, like, you can't park in the lot? They should detonate their cars. Like, instead of a tow truck, it's just, like, a stick of dynamite? Just a giant, like, Kevlar tarp that they throw over those cars and just detonate them.

Just during your set, you just hear, like, oh, promoter. Because there's so many people that park back there like you're not even a comic like what are you doing not only that though like the back bar

and then also the back patio area they get weird because that's like our home that's kind of where we hang out before we have to

go on stage and we want to see guys like you or Santino and just like chop it up before we have to go on stage

and then it's like who's this and they talk to you and they interrupt conversations and not in a snooty way but it is a bit of it's like a dug then it's like, who's this? And they talk to you and they interrupt conversations. And not in a snooty way, but it is a bit of a, an Adderall way.

It's like a dugout. It's like a baseball dugout. Adderall people go back there. Oh, yeah. They talk too much to you. Yeah. You don't need that in your life. Right.

But they have more confidence than me back there. I'm like, shit. They have Adderall confidence. I've never done Adderall. Good for you. Have you done it?

Isn't it big now? Like every student has taken it? A lot of people are taking it.'s a big thing amongst journalists journalists and writers because they get more work done because you're on speed like there was a guy that i had in here that was a writing book on he wrote that book on hunter s thompson uh what is that uh what is it what is what is his book something gonzo something anyway um he was talking about how he needs it to write he can't write what is his book? Something, Gonzo, something. Anyway, he was talking about how he needs it to write

and he can't write without it. Is it just the deadlines and the workload is insane and that's a way to kind of cope with it? You don't need it to write. Can you move your fingers? Sure.

Yes. But there's a mental, there's a mental fatigue. Yes. Take a break, go for a walk. Yeah. That's the natural thing to do,

but some people want the quick fix. Well, it's not necessarily the quick fix. It's like can get a timothy denevy yeah isn't there very nice like a mental debt if you keep on taking it what's the name of the book yeah mental debt yeah it's called you become a crackhead freaking freak kingdom yeah you become someone who is on stimulants all the time and i know several people that have an issue I know one guy is completely lost his fucking mind thinks everybody's against him thinks that everyone's done him wrong and he's just out there cracked out in the middle of nowhere on fucking Adderall every day and

Making YouTube videos, and there's a lot of people like that man. There's a lot of people like that. It is a Meth like drug it's very very very very similar to meth yeah it's just a different release in terms of like the how quickly your body processes it's crazy how widespread it is for something like that then it's fucking stimulants man it gets people if you can effectively do your job but you don't commit any crimes and uh they can sell you that stuff and make a profit and then you actually are more profitable when you're on that stuff than not then fucking have at it that's how people look at things and like that look when i was uh when pop was sort of legal when it was medically legal i had a bullshit prescription your back hurt oh yeah everything bro yeah what was your excuse did you actually i used a bunch of different ones

did you go to the hot doctor you know like you'd see on sunset boulevard it's like this like persian chick who's like, I would describe you. No, I went to a black dude with dreadlocks. He was awesome. This is how he looked at me when I went in there. I feel like that's the best weed doctor. Just the black guy.

Like, oh, this guy's good. The best. He had a, do you remember those vaporizers? They're a bag. They're called a volcano. Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember when I stayed with Ari Shaffir in New York and he had those. And I had never seen that before.

It just seemed like such an odd contraption. Some of the early podcasts, we vaporized with that bag. And they're the dumbest conversations because we had no idea what we're talking about. I would correct myself halfway into a sentence because I forgot what I was saying. And then I would forget what the original correction was. And then I'm like, no, that's not what I'm saying. What am I saying? I was so fucked up and

it would take like an hour into the podcast before like the fog would settle so was that just the medical marijuana delivery system well no it's just a delivery system it's not met you can use it right now you don't have to i feel like a lot of people use it that way yes oh really people vaporize what's what's the i don't know, upside of that? No smoke. You're not, you're just getting mist. You're basically getting the THC crystals, it's turning into mist. When you vaporize, you're not getting

the burnt plant material. It's almost like coffee connoisseurs. Yes. There's a million ways to get what you need. Yeah, or wine dorks.

Yeah. Or cigar dorks. It's like real similar. But anyway, I walk into this guy's office and he's just the fucking coolest. I wish I kept in touch with this dude.

It was somewhere in Hollywood. I forget where it was. But the dude looked at me. He goes, you look sick. You look sick. He goes, you need some medicine. You need some medicine. And he had this big smile on his face.

I said, thank you, sir. I feel sick. And I feel like I need some medicine. He goes, what are you here for, brother? And I said, it helps you sleep. He goes, what are you here for, brother? And I said, it helps you sleep. He goes, good enough for me. And he runs. He's writing a prescription.

He gives me a prescription. Then he pulls out the biggest bag. He had a custom vaporizer bag for the volcano. And I'm telling you, I'm not exaggerating. It was four feet long. It's his four feet long bag. He puts it on this. It pumps up like a kid's bouncing house.

Fills up with weed. He does it there yeah we were blasted we got blasted at his place um at the doctor's office was connected to a grow up right so we we smoke we smoke we vaporized right and then we go into the back where they're growing the wheat and we're barbecued right i'm barely in this dimension and i go in there and i see all these plants and i get a feeling from these things like they're alive like they're conscious it felt so weird to this day i miss that feeling i go up maybe what was that was i so high i was hallucinating is it or is it possible that if you get really high on pot and then you go around the pot leaves you pick up their frequency and you understand that they're a living organism. And that's one of the reasons why they make you feel so good when you get high.

One of the reasons why you're interacting with whatever they are, with the molecules, the THC and the cannabinoids. You're interacting with it. And then when you go around the actual potted plants, and they're all super healthy because they've got this crazy hydroponic setup. And they're all the right nutrients. plants and they're all super healthy because they got this crazy hydroponic set up and they're all the right nutrients and these lush green plants in this perfect environment for growing because you know they're experts yeah and i'm like these things are alive man these things like they're they know you're there they're like hi so it was a successful trip oh yeah man i was i i took me hours before i knew what I was doing afterwards.

It's like hours later trying to figure it out. I just love how he took the onus of an excuse off of you. Oh, yeah. You look sick. That's the moment I walked in. You look sick. You need some medicine. And crazy dreadlocks and circular glasses.

He was amazing. God, I wish I kept in touch with that guy. He's a good doctor. He was a great doctor. I've had a bunch of good weed doctors. I had one of them, though. I had to stop going. He went crazy 9-11 on me.

What does that mean? He was trying to tell me that the towers were brought down by Tesla technology. And I was like, what? He's like, concrete doesn't vaporize that way. I was like, what do you mean vaporize? I used to try to do a bit about how you you know, you hear about white privilege and everything. I go, one of the things about white privilege people don't really think about that much is you're allowed to have any conspiracy theory you want. I can't be like, 9-11 was an inside job.

You know? Like, jet fuel can't melt steel beams. They're like, whatever, Ahmed. Sure thing, Aladdin. No, you don't understand. Right. Dead's different. Yeah.

If you looked at the pie chart of people that are really into conspiracies and looked at race, white would be overwhelming. What would it be, the pie chart of conspiracy theorists? Yeah, I don't know. Like three-quarters of the pie chart, white people. Yeah, it would sound absurd coming from me. I don't believe that. But imagine if I'm like 9-11. I was a brown guy.

They're like, sure thing. You're not getting off that easy. Yeah. Inside job. Yeah. You worked for Boeing. Is that easy Yeah Inside job Yeah Yeah it's You worked for Boeing Is that what you did Yeah

What did you do over there I was an aerospace engineer In Long Beach Were you involved at all In 9-11 Did you have anything This is a hatchet job I'm out of here

You can tell us You were lulling me Into a false sense of security With like the comedy And the comedy store Three years I've been your friend Anyways You were involved in 9-11

Right Did you train those pilots You gave me Yeah What did you do What did you do at boeing i did stress analysis for the floor beam it's very unglamorous the thing was kind of cool though i guess so um means you're bona fide smart yeah i mean i'm able to jump through hoops with a goal in mind like i have a high threshold for academic pain so i took a lot of math i took lot of, it wasn't that hard for me. It was like, I mean, it's difficult to get the degree,

but all right, they do these steps. You get this number. There's this formula. You have the tools. They show you how to do it. Monkey see, monkey do. Interesting way of describing it. You have a high threshold for academic pain

because it is like a little painful, right? I think just, it seems so daunting to the average person and they just don't want to be bothered with that to even get over the hump of learning something like that. They're just like, I could never. That's for brainiacs. But the thing is, engineering was a means to an end for me to do stand-up comedy.

My parents were going to pay for my college, but only certain degrees. So at first, because I knew I wanted to do stand-up when I was like 17. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How'd you know? I think two things happened. So I didn't grow to do stand-up when I was like 17. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did you know? I think two things happened.

So I didn't grow up with stand-up. I didn't really know it was a thing. It wasn't on my radar. I grew up with The Simpsons, SNL, and like Conan, late night Conan. Those were my jams. I feel like that's my comedy DNA.

But then I was 17. Like on my 17th birthday, we rented Delirious. So we watched Delirious, Eddie Murphy's Delirious, you know? It was like the greatest thing in the world. And that just planted the seed of comedy. So that coupled with my love for SNL. And I'm like, I don't know if Google was around even.

Or maybe, I don't know. I just researched how do people get on SNL. Maybe Google was around. So I saw they came from two camps. They were either stand-ups saw they came from two camps. They were either standups or they came from improv. So like Second City, UCB,

Groundlings. This was like the pedigree. These are the schools they picked from. And then I researched those schools. They were in Chicago, LA, New York.

You had to pay money to take these classes. You may not pass. You have to go back to 101 or whatever. So it's like a school. And standup is just you it's just you out there

with a sword you know so I like I'm like oh I could do that and there's comedy clubs in Seattle I can count on me

like I don't have to rely on other people to like zip zap zoop with each other improv is a great thing you know I'm not like knocking or anything

it's just it's such a different you have to dedicate your life to like one or the other I think it's very hard to be great at both and there's not a lot of career paths for improv it's like that's the thing dude a certain spot and that's it like there's some people who are very very talented in groundlings in like UCB and then how do they

monetize that if they book a commercial they're still beholden to a lot of other people they have to be the right guy or girl the the right look. There are so many variables that are outside of your control as a talented improv performer. But as a stand-up, you could do a weekend. We can always make money. Yeah.

Once you get to a certain level. Famous, like in terms of going on the road as an improv guy? I guess, whose line is it anyway, guys? Yeah, but you'll have to, maybe they'll start doing stand-up because they've built some, you'll see that, right?

They'll build some credibility, like a notoriety, and they come from the improv background. But if they want to start making some money on the road, they start doing standup. But they're no better off than someone like a 22-year-old doing standup now because you got to put the hours in.

Just because you're good at this other thing, you still have to start over. Right. It's like the farm. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah exactly you got it you can't um the beauty of stand-up is you can't skip steps it's so when you see a comic on stage it's like when you cut a tree open and you see all the rings you can just tell like oh this guy's been doing it 20 years yes you can't fake that yeah so i chose to do

stand-up because it was just me out there and i could rely on me and i could do it while i do engineering school so i chose engineering because like i knew i wanted to do this stuff so i thought i needed a theater degree so i was like can i do theater and my dad was like no you can't do theater and then i kept getting more and more watered down i was like can i do like directing like no you can't do directing i told you what you can and can't do. Yeah, and I love it. In hindsight, I'm so grateful that they told me. Dude, if I had a theater degree right now, I'd be fucked. If anyone's watching and you have a theater degree, or you're thinking about getting a theater degree, don't do it. You don't need it.

You're not going to be Jude Law because you have a theater degree. You could do it on the side. Think of how many people have come to LA or New York. It's a different thing, okay? If you're at Juilliard and you're this instrument or whatever, and it's like a top, top, top theater school and it's a feeder to like that world.

Okay. Or if you're the son of like a huge actor or daughter. Sure. But if you're like in, I don't know, Ohio and you're going to theater school, you're just lighting your parents' money on fire. That's all you're doing.

They're letting you go in a 20-year-old jungle gym for four years. The thing is, you see sometimes an actor, or rather an athlete or someone, will be an actor in a movie, and they'll do a fucking amazing job. Like Oprah. Here's an example. The color purple. The highest paid actor is The Rock. What theater school did Dwayne The Rock Johnson go to?

The Theater of Hard Knocks. Thank you. So you might as well do wrestling as opposed to... So it doesn't... Theater degree does not equal acting job. Right, but that's a different kind of acting than say like Jake Gyllenhaal or... Sure. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Do you think you're learning that at all like here's the other thing too that I always thought was so interesting because I did acting class for like two months when I was here in LA you know just to try it out and stuff it wasn't for me and what's funny is like they'll be teaching these techniques and like Meisner and tapping in and blah blah and then at the end of the class they'll be like all right does anybody have any sides they want any auditions they want to go over and it's all just csi interrogation jobs like i don't know the guy so you're like you're teaching shakespeare in class and anything

anyone's ever going out for is like i used to come around here like two times a week like how is iambic pentameter helping you with that's that's what you're right and you're chomping at the bit to get this law and order csi delivery guy number two why are you learning meisner right and i know there are no bit parts only bit actors and all that was it true no that's what actor that's what um acting teachers love to tell you when you complain about getting a bit part they go they go there are no bit parts only bit actors and then you go i want to be a bit actor i'm go, there are no bit parts. Only bit actors. And then you go, I want to be a bit actor.

I'm happy to be a tree. Well, there's certain comics that will tell you there are no bad crowds. Those people are assholes. Sure. I think we've been,

the thing is, if you're a younger comic and you're like, that crowd sucked. You don't have the bandwidth to know what's good and bad yet. Not yet. So, not yet.

So you can say that. I can say that. We've all seen bad crowds. Sure, yeah. And we can chalk it up for what it is. But if you're a year in or two years in,

it was probably you not audibling or just adjusting on the fly. Or you're not very good. Yeah, maybe that too. Sure, sure sure that's a there's a weird thing about comics where there's certain comics where you know there's no way they're gonna figure it out i don't know though because i mean as a whole yes but there are i i

hear there's anomalies to that like because i would hear stories about sebastian which is so crazy because i wasn't there for that timeline of one but he's killing it he's so funny you know and he's like the guy now. Well, he was never terrible. Okay, so you're talking about like... No, I remember Sebastian in the beginning. He was never terrible. He was learning.

I see. But he showed up all the time. He was always a nice guy, and he's like, he wasn't terrible. He just didn't do great in the beginning. I think people just take liberties with that story then and they make it sound like yeah no he was never offensively unfunny right certain people that are offensively unfunny where you're like there's not a chance you're missing the dna

like you just can't you're colorblind you're missing it whatever it is you you don't have it yeah i mean that's the beauty i would hear mitzi stories of her just telling people like you're terrible you never met her huh no i got there when tommy was around and it was kind of so she was still she was like sick you know and he would say mitzi saw your tape and i don't know she i know i know i know yeah yeah so he would always just like have this buffer between yeah like mitzi and myself and i just pretend Mitzi was, she became like, what's the guy's name from Psycho? Norman Bates. Just like up in the house.

His mom was in the fucking shower, but it was really him. You know? Yeah. Like his mom's dead and he would put the wig on. That was Tommy. Tommy put the Mitzi wig on. And then he would always like do her voice and stuff. And like when giving.

Fame. Yeah, man. Dude, like, because he would expunge wisdom and because i remember i would drive up from boeing that was my so i was working in long beach so oh yeah so i got the engineering degree right and then i just applied to jobs i did mechanical engineering because my best friend was doing mechanical and i was like i don't care what engineering i do i just i'll be close by to my friend and you were just doing that so you could have a job just to support myself It was such a long con.

It's like, all right, I knew I wanted to do stand-up. In the meantime, I got to go to college. Right? I've got to be able to support so I can get good in Seattle. That's really funny, man. I guess people don't do that. Life's a long time if you're lucky, you know? And it's okay to have to plan this far out.

It sounds far-fetched maybe if i told it to someone at the time but in hindsight it was the most beautifully executed plan so great yeah so i did stand up while i was going to college my life was just um school by day stand up at night it would actually be stand up on the weekends because i was living at home and it's 40 minutes of the club so i would just do a lot of time on friday and saturday did your parents know yeah they knew and it was bad it was like i was doing heroin like they were against it just because i feel now um my mom has i took her to the premiere i did i had a small role in whiskey tango foxwrath this tina fey movie so i took her to the premiere in new york and so she got to be on the red carpet and like take pictures with tina fey and like

and so she she was in she was in after that and she keeps on asking she's to be on the red carpet and like take pictures with Tina Fey. And like, and so she, she was in, she was in after that. And she keeps on asking me, she's like, when's the next premiere? I'm available. When's the next premiere?

That is a hilarious thing to ask. Cause there was an after party and everyone's milling about. And then my mom's like, there's Tina, Tina's at the, like introduce me. I'm like, yeah,

okay. Okay. Cause I'm like, my mom's a sweetheart, but I'm, I'm still caught in this showbiz thing like I'm what number 15 on the call sheet or I'm very down yeah I don't even know if she remembers me even though I'm in the movie you know so I'm like I gotta pick my spot and then she just kind of like nudges me like a linebacker she's like pushes me into Tina like oh but it was great to have the out of my mom be like my mom is such a huge fan and she's like oh yeah of course and she was'm like, oh. But it was great to have the out of my mom. Be like, my mom is such a huge fan. And she's like, oh, yeah, of course.

And she was a sweetheart. So now she's in. She's in. She's like, you made it. You're actually successful. Yeah, or she could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Like, okay. What about your dad?

My dad is kind of more nuts and bolts. He doesn't get fooled by the glitz and the glam or anything like that. He just understands money and things. Like, I've had a nice car. That Mazda 3. If I had a Mazda Miata, I mean, he'd be fucking sold.

He'd be like, you did okay. But no. Get a Tesla. Yeah, I guess so. I think what has softened him a little bit

because I just got this place in Tarzana, like a house, and that's like real adult shit. So, I didn't realize that would kind of soften him a bit

because- How old are you now? 35. So, you're like, wow, he's a real adult. I guess so. Yeah. Do you have a girlfriend? No.

So when you get married- I don't know if he cares about that. I think it's more- Oh, sure. That's what an adult does. I think my dad cares more about the security, like a real career, income, and a house and stability. And comedy was never- And then also aside from just

those things you know they're from afghanistan so it's a low in my dad's opinion it's kind of a low thing comedy is like a low thing for someone to be doing like low yeah like low like um subhuman because he would always say because like you had like a giant sold-out theater i don't know maybe yeah who knows but big line of people waiting to see you i guess i don't know what that thing will be but he would he would always say because we would you know be in shouting matches when we were younger oh yeah when we were both younger yeah i mean look i love my parents and i know what it was grounded in i think they just they didn't want me to be eating out of a dumpster so they were just they were there i mean most of my dad his frustration and lashing out or just like and not like physical

or anything just like you know like you're throwing your life away blah blah blah was because he wanted that security for me yeah i understand it for what it is when i was like 17 or 18 yeah you don't get me right like it just feels so now that I'm older I get it I get where he's coming from right yeah so I don't know what the point was but I think now that I have a little more stability

when did they accept you oh yeah he would always say he's like you're out there every night with the pimps and the prostitutes I don't think my dad

ever been to a comedy club I've never seen a pimp yeah what's the last thing you've seen a pimp at the comedy store yeah I might have seen

one or two prostitutes over the last 20 years you're out there every night with the pimps and the prostitutes that was his line dude

you should talk about this on stage I did it like my last special I tell that story I talk about this story with my dad and he would always

trot that out there. Oh my God, that's so funny. The pimps in the closet. I mean, he's not half wrong. He's half wrong. He's half wrong.

I've seen a couple of prostitutes. He's like, as long as there's no pimps. 30 years, I've seen maybe two or three prostitutes. He did the whole front row

just like fur coats and like pimp canes. Oh, pimp canes. Oh, pimp canes. Oh, greased hair. Oh, big diamond rings. But he would say, people should be entertaining you. That would be the thing. Like, I should be the one entertained.

Oh. Not being the entertainer. Because you're intelligent. I guess so. You're a serious person. Yeah. Like, I've just found, like, if you want to make broad strokes I think in the Middle Eastern community it's

they love art but their kids shouldn't be doing it they should be consumers of art but what interesting

but what if you were a famous painter classical painter I guess no one no parent really thinks best case scenario

for their kid like what if a bunch of people buy his art it's always like it's a pipe dream what are the odds blah blah yes you're throwing your life away and i guess there is some because statistically sure oh yeah sure but i think like what i would do different when i have kids or whatever i would i would explain the realities of how you know the whole theater degree thing i'm so glad they made me do a degree with teeth because

that allowed me to have a legitimate job to get me out here like i'm not a trust fund kid how else would i be close to where i needed to be i needed to be here they're in seattle oh so they're still up there they're still there yeah yeah so so i would have some practicality i'd be like i'll pay for your college get a get a legitimate degree where there's an actual job outlook at the end like i'm not paying you to find yourself when did you quit the job? Like 2010, 2010, 2009. So right when you came to the store. Right around.

So some things happened. Like I was working at Boeing for three and a half years. And I would just work by day and I would drive up to Hollywood in like the valley by night. I was burning the candle at both ends. You must have been tired all the time. I was. Well, especially at first because I didn't know the lay of the comedy land.

I was just going, I thought everything was worth my time. Or you don't know until you do it. So I would do some shitty open mic, drive all the way to Van Nuys. Did you do any backyard shows? That wasn't a thing. Really? That wasn't a thing yet. As of late, you know what's so funny is the progression of the alt scene is that first

it was in weird spots, like washing or like a laundromat and then it was like a meltdown and then living rooms were a big thing living room shows and then backyards were hot that's what the next room shows oh yeah i want to do a sketch people in a living room or it's like the hot show it's called crawl space well everyone's just on their belly you do really funny one-on-one sketches that you do like you play more than one role oh thanks on your instagram like are you just super bored during the day and you like i always wanted to ask you this oh why i do them and stuff yeah all right so it's almost just some of the stuff i do is just a byproduct of

i don't know being creatively backlogged so i love stand-up and i love sketch those come to me naturally sometimes people be like do you have a movie script? Or like, you know, what's your sitcom? And that's just more work. There's a scaffolding there that if I was teamed up with someone who understands that world, maybe it'd be a little more easy. But I don't want to bang my head against a wall to understand a format where stand-up and sketch

just like come to me. So that's why I lean into that. So stand-up has been a thing I've been doing for like 17 years. I feel like I've developed like I'm good at that. Sketch, I started doing. I did it, I think, eighth. I grew up through it.

I would do funny videos in school, like video productions. Back in the day when you had two VCRs. This is before Avid. So you'd jog shuttle. You'd have two tapes, your mixed-down tape and your raw tape. So you would actually make sketches on a VHS cassette. So I was always into that because I loved SNL, you know? So, and then, you know, you stop doing it.

I'm doing standup and then I moved to LA and I'm not getting on stage that much because it's so saturated here. It's so, it's the biggest market here and New York. Although I think it's easier to get on stage as a standup in New York. Here you have to deal with actors and there's a real bottleneck.

So I wasn't getting up a lot. But I'm a creative guy. I have all these ideas, and I had this idea for this video. I'm like, how to attend an Afghan wedding or whatever. And I was trying to get people to help me out and shoot it. And then you're a runt. No one really gives a fuck.

If you can't do anything for anybody when you first come out here, it's just sort of like, and not in a mean way, it's just the nature of the wilderness like why am i gonna you're not a proven thing there's really no upside so you get a lot of like yeah i'll help you and then flake so i rewrote it to just do it all in my apartment so i just filmed this video this youtube video i wasn't even on youtube yet though it was um i did this video called how to attend an afghan wedding or something which is called afghan wedding i put it on myspace

and it kind of does well. It kind of takes off a little bit. And then my brother was like, oh, you should put it on YouTube. Like it wasn't ubiquitous to put stuff on YouTube yet. I was like, oh yeah, okay, I'll put it on YouTube too. Put it on YouTube. It kind of makes it around on there too. And that was just kind of like the nudge I needed.

Like, oh, I'm good. I could do this. And I could do this while i'm waiting to get stage time so this was another avenue for me i do stand-up and then i do sketches and this was in the heyday of youtube when there was an appetite for youtube sketch like indie youtube sketch just funny guys and there's different sketch groups and everything you don't think there's an appetite for that now not anymore no why not it's become bite-sized no one wants to watch sketch on you like stand up people want to watch makeup blogs they want to watch pranks how do you know i know because like how do you know because i've uploaded you see the downturn there was a time

is it because now it's instagram because everything's more bite-sized so so i'm a sketch guy i love fully formed sketch and really taking my time like and me and my buddy aristotle like he's really talented filmmaker and director i think i just left boeing and i had this idea for this american history x type sketch it's domino it's called dominoes and he and i did it and we put it out there and it was beautiful like it's just one of my favorite sketches we've done and so i just kept on doing sketch and there was an appetite for it and then it started to drop off like there wasn't a lot of viewership. Now YouTube sketch will only work if it was on TV the night before.

Like if it's a Key & Peele sketch that made it or like an Inside Amy or like a Tonight Show sketch or the only way it'll make the rounds is if the sketch was on TV and then it has the potential to do well on the internet. Just a born and bred sketch on the internet doesn't take off anymore. Instagram does.

So I just have all these ideas and I always write them down on my phone and Instagram, those like little one-on-ones is a way to get those ideas out in a very not precious way. And it's just idea driven and people respond to it, you know? So it's just more of like, well,

let me get this idea out of my head. So when you write, do you sit down and force yourself in front of a notepad or a computer? Back in the day, when I was first doing stand-up, I had two methods. I would have the jokes that would just come to me, and then I would sit down and try to manufacture jokes. You know, like, all right, brain, what's funny? What's funny about the world? Right.

And I would come up with some stuff, but I always found the things that always worked the best were the stuff that just came out of the ether. It just came to me. And then eventually I got to the point where I would get enough of those ideas where I didn't have to sit down and write. So all I had to do was just be good about capturing what I'm receiving. So I have my phone with me all the time. Back in the day, I had a marble notebook and all that, but phones have advanced so much. I've ever known.

Me too. Yeah. So whenever I get an idea, regardless of what the proper medium for it is like i'll get an instagram video idea i'll get a fully fully formed sketch idea where i need like production value a sitcom idea or a stand-up idea i have different notes for each of them and i've just trained myself my brain is wired a certain way where i just catch the butterflies or just put the bucket under the faucet. So you don't sit down? No. I just,

I'll get the idea. I'll jot down as many words as I need to capture it. Maybe, I don't know, say something happens. We go to,

I don't know, I don't know, we go to the lake or something and then like, or we go hunting. I get three ideas about hunting.

This many words to capture this thought, this many words to capture it, like separate it by commas. So I have it. Do you record your sets?

Yeah, I'll record them. Do you listen to the recordings? I do. Well, it depends. Like if I'm doing a hot night at the store, that's kind of like the hits and I'm not going to learn a lot from the hits. When I want to work on stuff,

I'll tell Adam at the store, when I call in my avails, I go up late on Tuesday or Wednesday. Whichever one I get, I specifically ask to go late so that there's no pressure. There's like 10 people trying to sober up. I'm on my phone and it's not

like this. Because when it's a packed OR, it's kind of like a, what do you got? Like I paid this much money, I got a hot date with me, blah, blah, blah. It's a different show. Joey Diaz started getting angry about it. About what? You can't practice. Oh, well, you can.

You just have to choose different time slots or choose different shows to do it on. There's new material nights. I love those. Like Neil Brennan has one at Westside. That's one of my favorite shows to do. J.F. Harris has one. So you have those new material shows. But if you choose to do a later time slot, it might be different for you because you're such a draw.

But I'm nobody. I'm a cusper right now. So I can just just do late night but i just think you just sandwich those new bits in between old bits you can but if you just want the total mental freedom of just like throw spaghetti against the wall right and not and in a professional way because if if i'm doing a hot show i'm trying to do a sandwich it could still put the brakes a little bit oh yeah and yeah i don't need that i'm'm not Joe Rogan yet. Yeah, but that's where it's at. That's how you find your way out of it

by putting, when it hits the brakes, you panic, and then you find a way out. And sometimes that's where you find a punchline. Sometimes not. You have to deal with the five out of 10. Five out of 10 are going to eat shit.

Five out of 10 are going to make it through. It's almost like being a baseball manager. I have my A string, my B string. So if I'm doing like a hot show and I want to work on a B, so there's different levels of bits that I can polish.

I'm not going to throw a D, a D in there. It's prime time, baby. Yeah, right. D is for 1 a.m. D is for 1.40 a.m. Right, right, right. D's got no pressure.

D's got a lot of potential. Do you do Jeremiah's show? I love that show, yeah. Yeah. You're doing that tonight. Dude, that's the best I love shows where the audience

knows the expectation is like you're flying on the wall in the process yeah and there's no pre-recorded or pre-planned material

yeah there's so much goodwill yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah because you don't get that when it's just like a show show I've come up with

four or five legitimate bits that have wound up on specials because of Jeremiah's show yeah it's almost like a it's like a stand-up float tank yeah it's a great little With four or five legitimate bits that have wound up on specials because of Jeremiah's show. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like a stand-up float tank.

Yeah. It's a great little workshop. You're just like, all right, what's this idea? What's that? And it's also because everybody knows that you're doing that, so it's kind of more fun. And also, if you hit a dead end, that's funny. Right. Because they know the theme of the show.

Yeah. I just wish he would do it more often. He's only doing it like once a month. Yeah. Do it once a week, man. I don't know maybe they know their what their sweet spot is yeah i don't think they do i think the sweet spots once a week yeah yeah i think it's totally possible to do that show once a week yeah yeah i love those shows when was it the first time your parents saw you on stage um oh you know what this is so funny this is kind of so this is like the last bit on my

special i talk about it like they see me once once ever yeah yeah really yeah did you bomb oh yeah oh in the word in the biggest way oh my god oh yeah i mean do you want to hear the story fuck yeah i do okay so this is the rehash of like the last thing so the last thing i said i'm i closed my special with this so i'm like 17 i'm like 17 or 18. I'm at college. There's a bulletin board and it says like Apollo amateur night on tour. Right. So there's a flyer like the Apollo is going on tour and you can audition. And I have the Apollo theater.

Yeah. The Apollo theater. Yeah. Yeah. So they're going to all these major cities. Right. So I'm like, interesting, especially I'm just getting, I'm maybe a year in or a few months

into stand-up. This is gonna be a great opportunity. Isn't it funny the level of delusion you have as a young comic? Yeah.

Yeah. Where you're like, I'm ready. Yeah. They gotta hear what I got to say. I've been doing this for a few months.

So, I take the, you know, take the little tab, I have it. I get all the info. I go there. It's in Seattle. So, I go there to audition. have it. I get all the info. I go there. It's in Seattle.

So I go there to audition. I forget where they're holding the audition. It's this like theater or whatever. So I'm sitting, there's 342 people just like wait. It's like American Idol pretty much. And there's like a bunch of like older black ladies singing. I believe I can fly under their breath.

Like just cause they're mostly singers. So you just hear like, they're up singers. So you're like, and I'm just standing there waiting to do my jokes later. And everyone's like do-re-mi-ing. So finally it's my time to go. So I go out there. I do my stand-up set.

And it does well. It does genuinely well. It wasn't like a, oh fuck, let's feed them to the sharks. I did well. I made them laugh. So I find out I get selected. I think I'm one of 11.

One of 11 who get selected. So I'm like, sweet. And then I invite everyone. I'm like, mom, dad, everyone from school and shit. Oh, yeah, yeah, everyone. It's at the Paramount Theater in Seattle. Have you been there? Yeah.

What is that, 4,000? It's a big place. 4,000, 5,000 people, something like that? Something like that. Maybe 3,000, whatever. Big place. It's in the thousands,000? It's a big place. 4,000, 5,000 people, something like that? Something like that. Maybe 3,000, whatever. Big place. It's in the thousands, people. It's a big place.

Yeah, it's one of our nicest theaters. Beautiful. Yeah, so I invite everyone. It's packed. Oh, it's packed. Oh. Come on. Oh my God.

So I do the dress rehearsal. I do the dress rehearsal of the blog of emotions. Lady comes up to me, she's like, oh, the producer, this is great. The producer of the show

thinks like, you should do this bit before, instead of your hip hop stuff, like do this bit first. And it was like, this bit where I was talking about being Afghan or something.

You know? So, okay, whatever. Like I'm so new. I just trust the producer. I'm like, I guess they know. So I rearranged my set

just based on the producer's request. Come to show everyone's there blah blah it's my time to like they introduced me well you know please welcome to him where i come out i'm like hey guys i'm like man my name is fahim this is it's like an afghan or like middle eastern afghan to be exact and he's like i'm not out there for maybe 20 seconds they just start it's such a interesting sensation to be booed by that many people so just like it starts cascading like and i've seen apollo i know how it works and you hear the like the i'm like all right i don't need to get swept off like i know how this works so i get booed off you get booed off just from talking about being Afghan?

Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it just really sucked. Maybe it was because it was like close to 9-11 and I talked about being Afghan. Whatever. I get booed, you know? I mean, I'm sure it sucked balls too. Whatever I was about to say was going to like be so bad.

So I was going to get booed regardless. But I lasted maybe 15 seconds, 15, 20 seconds. So I'm just like shell shocked. And then I'm just chilling in the hallway. There was a desk. There was like, you know, like an old school student desk where it's like l-shape and they have the basket it's just in the stairwell for some reason so I just sit I just sit in that chair I felt like I was in a video game or something because that's not a human experience really that

many people get to go through so I'm just trying to make sense of what happened and the world and my life moving forward. It's a lot going on. It's a lot going on, you know? And then, you know, I get up, I gather myself,

I go up the stairwell, I get my things from, you know, I have to see everyone else in the green, the worst, see everyone in the green room area, get my shit. I get my car and I think I drive home.

My parents, they take a separate car right and then i hear the rest of the story from my brother so they're all in the dodge caravan my cousin nilo my brother my dad my mom is just silent on the car ride home like no one's talking because i mean you know they saw what they saw so no one's saying anything and then obviously my dad my dad's like was never thrilled about me doing standup to begin with. Right. So he, he breaks the silence. He goes,

well, there's no business like show business. And in hindsight, like, I think that's why when I want them to come out, I want it to be like such a polar opposite experience. And obviously I've come a long way from then, but I'm almost

grateful that it did happen because you know when comics trade bomb stories i fucking win every time and to me for me to be so young like 17 and come back from that that means like there's really something like a fire in me or like i was meant to do this or i really love stand-up because that's not a pleasurable experience to potentially think that could happen again you know now they've seen you on television did they watch your special yeah they think your special was good yeah i think so i never know like my mom will tell me but i never know what my dad catches and when was the last time you worked in seattle um did you do the parlor is that yeah we do when did it go under like a few months ago i think fucking a yeah so the pool hall part's gone too i think so.

Fuck. Yeah. You like to play there? Yeah. It was a great gig. Yeah. You play pool and do comedy. Oh, yeah. At the same time for me?

That's your jam. Oh, my God. It's like you designed the club. Yeah. That's how I would design a club. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, so it's weird.

I mean, I could have them come out to another show. What do they have there now? What's the club? I don't know. I think it's mostly theater. No, they have Giggles or whatever in the University District. i think it's mostly uh no they have um giggles or whatever in the university district or maybe it's called laughs it's called laughs it's where giggles used to be so they only have like one comedy club and all they have to coma they have to coma you

know that's crazy spokane but these aren't seattle fuck man seattle used to be a scene yeah that fucking parlor live was a great club how did it go under yeah probably brian callan you think yeah no just throw it i don't know what if that became true it's like the man who broke the parlor you fucking ruined it bro yeah yeah so when your parents come to see you will they come to see you in la or they come i don't know i haven't you haven't decided i've put on the back burner for i mean i guess guess if I do the Tonight Show. I mean, I've done two late nights already. Dude, it's almost 20 years later. I know.

They've got to come see you live. Oh, yeah, yeah. What should I do? I don't know. Invite them to a show. Yeah. I don't know what show. And then pretend they're at the first show and then bring them to the second show.

Yeah, just to mentally prepare. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You obviously have a little bit of a block if you're thinking about it. Yeah. Not a block, but it's a thing. Oh, for sure. Yeah. They saw you eat shit.

Yeah. And especially when they were so anti that. Yes. But you were right and they were wrong. This is how it works. I mean, my parents never yelled at me that I can't do comedy or I was wasting my life or that I'd be there with pimps and prostitutes. I mean, I love my parents.

We have a great relationship. This was just kind of like one thing that was incongruent in the relationship. Almost no parents think their child is going to make it as a comedian. Sure. It is the most impossible to imagine success business that you could ever think your kid's going to go into. There's no, like we're talking about stand-up,

that none of this is written down. We're talking about the principles of stand-up. There's no course you can take. It doesn't exist. Any class is usually taken by someone who's not very successful at stand-up, none of this is written down right talking about the principles stand up there's no course you can take it doesn't exist any class is usually taken by someone who's not very successful at stand-up for the most part yeah i don't know of any successful it can give you the confidence to like jump off the cliff yes but outside of that you're not going to learn but but here's the thing all these principles that we're talking about. I mean, think about, look, comedy is obviously a viable art form in a large-scale venue. I mean, I just got done doing two arenas this weekend, right?

So we're talking about something that is right up there with music or even with sports. I mean, it's large-scale, enormous people. Yet there's no real pathway that's written down. There's no real principles of it that are universally assumed by all people who participate in the art form. Yeah. Whereas almost, like if you learn music, you learn chords and chord progression. You learn how to use your diaphragm. You learn how to sing and learn how to play instruments and you learn how to make a chorus.

There's none of that for us. I think it was just such a foreign foreign i can understand where they're coming from because it's such a foreign concept if you get an engineering degree or a doctor you do a b you get c there's a blueprint for it yeah stand-up is just so nebulous or just like the arts in general it's just sort of like you can't tell someone what like your path to success is going to be different than ian's path to mine sure and you kind of learned that as a comic as well early on because i think there's a little bit of imposter syndrome like oh like somebody else gets something you feel like it's an attack on you but you do it long enough you realize like oh everyone's journey is so different well not in a hippy dippy way yeah but like your relationships are different than mine they're different so everyone hits at different times yep and it's not right or wrong it's just life and nature you know yeah you're you're different than everybody else you

just got to concentrate on doing your best and figure out yeah what you can learn from other people's success and failures but don't think of it as your own success or failure yeah and eyes on your own paper yeah i wouldn't want my kids to do comedy if my kids look it would be hilariously hypocritical if one of my kids was like, I want to be a comedian. I'm like, listen, you're not going to be a fucking comedian. Stop. Yeah. I think where I differ with me and my parents is if they want to do something in the arts, I'd be like, have at it.

Like, I support you. I want it to work out. Yeah. But kind of have a foundation. Work on that. I don't want to send you to do communications for four years. Yeah. Like, but there's no school for it.

Yeah. Stand up school. Here's the school. Have a shitty childhood. That's the best school But the thing is I had a good childhood I was well adjusted Maybe that's why it hurt so much

Maybe Like I gave him everything Yes He still did it Yeah That's funny You might be one of the rare guys No I think

I think there's a new breed Where there's people Obviously There is that Two more What just well adjusted Yeah I don't know

Pete Holmes Even level headed guys What about Nick Kroll Do you? Yeah. I don't know. Is Pete Holmes even level-headed? What about Nick Kroll? Do you know him well? I don't know. The fuck out of here. Well-adjusted. Everyone is fucked up to some degree.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That's why they're comics. Sure. Yeah. But no matter who, anybody you pluck off of Earth is fucked up. Yeah.

Yes. So this is a universal truth. But usually some kind of fucked up childhood is a prerequisite. It helps. It's like the whole. It's fucked up. Yeah. Yes. So this is a universal truth. But usually some kind of fucked up childhood is a prerequisite. It helps. It's like the whole. It's fuel. It's fuel. It's like there's fighters that come from good childhoods too.

Yeah. You know, I would have this, it's a dumb thought, but I would have it as a kid trying to do stand up and not have to face this wall of, I don't know, you know, my parents not wanting me to do it. I'm like, oh oh man i kind of wish i had like a like a worse childhood or like not middle class because then it wouldn't it wouldn't be questioned it would just be like yeah of course what else you gonna do well i was really healthy when i was young because i was a martial artist i was competing all the time and i always

worked out and i always thought man if i was a drug addict i'd probably be funnier i really used to think that way because like the guys who did drugs, like Kennison and Pryor, they had drug problems. Yeah. They were so funny. I feel like, I mean, you've been doing it for a long time, so maybe you have a better perspective on this. I think back in the day with doing drugs and all that, part of that, did that help? Was it image?

In terms of just seeing the comedy for what it is, was it part, it being new, rock star stuff, drugs, so you didn't have to be as tight as say like nowadays because there's so many more comedians no or was it still airtight there's wildness to it there's wildness to it like i think the funniest guy of all time is joey diaz and one of the reasons why he's the funniest guy of all time is the wildness like he's truly wild yeah like in you know it's great watching him like in the or especially in 2019 yes the climate we're in yeah yeah he don't you can't tell he doesn't know it's like he came out of a time machine he's like casino man i know they just thought him out and they just threw him on the or people, they're horrified and so happy at the same time.

Yes. I think even the wokest people, when they're watching Joey and there's just this energy and people are laughing so hard, like your altruism can't break through that. You can't deny what's happening right now. Right. So it kind of makes you, I guess, reassess what you're supposed to, like, I shouldn't be laughing at this. It's a weird time for

comedy but in that weird time you're gonna get some of the best stuff because it's like super charged yeah and it's like as it was it when it does get through if you can cover all the bases and make your argument soundly and logically and also have it be funny i'll see birdie that all the time too and like joey's just such a force of nature yeah it's you don't have time to like think about is this woke or is this knee jerk you're just rolling burr will kind of just like throw out this crazy premise that no one no sane person would be on board with like especially guys on dates like you just hear you know some of these arguments or whatever yeah he'll just throw it out there and he won't steamroll over it he'll just let it simmer and that's my favorite

because like he's methodically surgically taking his time to proving the point of this argument well a lot of these arguments i would suspect that he's having at home with his wife his wife's powerful woman yeah and she's feminist i mean what a cool woman too you know what i mean just like yeah so he has to formulate really well thought out arguments i would imagine i mean maybe he would but you know he's obviously thinking these through yeah like this is not this is not flippant about these points of view yeah these perspectives yeah yeah so i just i just love how i just throw like a piece of bologna on the kitchen table. When he nails it, man, it's like so much more satisfying even than in the past. Because it's like you're making your way through the rockiest stretch of the river.

And I think those are the most rewarding bits as comedians the longer you've been doing it. Like I could be silly and get a joke and sure that's fun. the longer you've been doing it like i could be silly and get a joke and sure that's fun but it's it's not that rewarding as if you have an argument like burr or something where it's just countered countered culture and you can thoughtfully it's like going through the laser field that's way more rewarding than just walking down the hallway right like mission impossible when all those lasers are protecting the diamond yeah like yes limbo through these yeah what kind of movie is that if he just walks up has an apple goals right exactly in the credits yeah it's a it's an interesting time to get these ideas out there but you see by the reaction at the

comedy store that people are looking forward to it because i think they feel the same way like god damn it everything's going so far and so many people are so goddamn sensitive about so many different things it's not about intent they're just looking at magic words and and buzz words and topics that are off limits there's no such thing as context anymore or intention yeah and you get that at the comedy store and i think it's the last place people are talking uh this freely yes because i used to think all right we've been in a bit of a resurgence with stand-up and like all the specials and all that. I'm like, when's it going to burst? I'm like, oh, cool. I'm going to get to miss two comedy bubbles.

Sweet. I don't think so. Yeah, but then it's proven wrong. It's getting bigger and bigger. Yeah. It's good. That's why. It was a bubble when it sucked.

Let me tell you about the bubble of the 1980s. There was a bunch of people that had a kind of way of talking about things. So I got a cat in my room and the mouse was like wild kingdom in my house it was a way of talking there was a comedy way of talking that these guys did there were some guys that just were not insightful and they just did comedy in a way that they had heard people do comedy so they kind of just like mimic the sounds it's like you ever heard a band that sounds exactly like maybe Stone Temple Pilots or something like that but they're not really like they're close but like what's so weird they sound so much like

so I don't know if you remember Gorilla Black no he sounded exactly like Notorious B.I.G. no way yeah it was insane who the fuck is that? Gorilla Black. Yeah. Really? Like when I heard it I'm like are we doing this? This is so crazy. Oh yeah. It was insane.

Yeah. I watched a comic one night in 1993 or something like that on stage in Montreal at Just for Laughs

and he was basically doing a Richard Pryor impression and I was like what in the fuck am I seeing? It's like this guy in Montreal at Just for Laughs. And he was basically doing a Richard Pryor impression. And I was like, what in the fuck am I seeing? It's like this guy was doing Pryor. I mean, everything about his set, he was doing Pryor. I'm like, this is so strange to see that people do that.

Well, that was a part of the bubble. In the bubble, there was these guys who would wear the clothes they thought a comedian would wear and say the things and there was so much work and there was so many there were so many clubs and there were so many uh evening at the improvs and all these different little shows anyone could get a piece yeah people just mimic the part dude there was a lot of people back then that were arrogant that were uh working and they were headliners and they were arrogant they were fucking terrible and i really enjoyed watching them fall off the face of the earth you know and i'll tell you some names afterwards but the other names i was going to tell you but these these people were doing comedy

in a they weren't participating in an art form they were mimicking they were mimicking the people that were participating in the art form like love him or hate him jerry seinfeld's an artist oh i love seinfeld yeah i do too but he's an artist his style whether you i've heard criticisms that he's not deep enough he doesn't talk about sex or anything dangerous whatever he likes what he likes he likes to talk about certain he likes a certain style of comedy and he's an as a master at that style but he spawned so many babies what patrice o'neill would call babies like patrice o'neill like would say uh like hey man you got a lot of babies out there there's a lot of people that are imitating you

you got babies then there's a lot of like david tell the perfect oh yeah got a shitload of babies there's a lot of dane had a lot of babies yes dane had a mitch hedberg i remember mitch had a lot of babies yes he had a ton of babies, there's a few people that mimic. But during the 80s, there was a few innovative people and a lot of babies. It was like there was 10 babies to every one innovator. And you had these like fake headliners. And they would show up in town. But they had those premises that everybody had. They had those beats that everybody had.

They talked in the same way. They didn't take any chances. They were shooting straight down the middle and that was the bubble and that all went away that all went away and when that went away those guys died off and there was people that were left over the people that were left over were the actual comics the actual people that were good enough where people would repeatedly go to see them at clubs they wrote a lot they they practiced they were they were interested in the actual art form itself and i was really fortunate that i started out in boston where boston had um a very high standard due to barry crimmins really in particular that documentary was great he's a brilliant he was a brilliant guy rest in peace barry um i love that guy. But he, that guy,

he was one of those guys when he was nice to me as I got older and, you know, I was terrified of him. Terrified of him. Like him seeing me when I sucked.

Oh, really? Because I knew it was terrible. Just because he meant so much to you? Well, I knew what a high standard he had for comedy and he was

one of the main reasons why there was no hacks that were tolerated in boston and that that you want everybody had to be original everybody had to do good material and everybody sort of policed each other you know and when um when you have a community like that you you get to see the art form flourish in a very good way and we we had a lot of like different people they were different but they were all like really high level. So we would get these guys that would come in from out of town, road guys that were babies.

They were Seinfeld babies or different. And you would see how poor they looked when they were surrounded by these original murderers. So you'd have like guys like Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clark would go on stage and then one of these babies would go up after them and just eat plates of shit. Why are they going after? They had a terrible system in Boston that was really mean, and it was designed to make national headliners bomb. Really?

Yes, yes. They would pay them a lot of money to book them at a club, and they would book them on a show with three local headliners. Just killers. And these local headliners would just fucking straight up murder. And they would do all this local Boston stuff that made everybody excited. And then they would have one of these guys who was used to going to Cleveland. Hey, I was just in Indianapolis.

Had a great time. Did a little comedy. That's what I do. I'm a comedian. And they would go up there and just eat plates of shit. And get booed off the stage. And people would leave. And they would go up there and just eat plates of shit and get booed off the stage and people would leave and they were

they would do it on purpose just to teach them a lesson or something no they were just mean like those guys never first of all those comics

never left Boston okay and they would murder almost every night and they were all animals they were doing coke and they were drinking they were fucking savages

they'd pay them in coke really no bullshit yeah Nick's Comedy Stop used to pay people in coke. They'd pay them in coke. Really? No bullshit. Yeah. Next comedy stop used to pay people in coke. Yes. Didn't pay me in coke. I never did coke.

Right. But I knew the whole deal. Everybody knew the deal. And so when these guys would come in from out of town, they would be angry at these guys. And they're like, who is this fucking guy? He's got evening at the improv. I don't have that show. He's on a fucking movie with Billy Crystal.

Fuck him. And they would go on in front of those guys and light them on fire. Light them on fire. So who's dictating this line at the club or the comics? Club.

They're all on coke. Everyone's on coke. So it was just fun for them? It was just fun. Light them up. And they would do it on purpose. Kind of cool. But some guys would survive.

I saw Dom Herrera in that environment. But Dom murdered. That was the thing dom murdered so he would go there and he would talk about how strong the lineup was you know he's amazing this is great but he would go up and murder because he was a real comic so dom was there pre-bubble during the bubble post-bubble he's a comic i mean those are the best guys yes funny guys who take funny guys on the road with them yes because not everyone does that but yeah you know like people panic yeah they want they want like the best comics are like i

want someone funny too yes i want a great show you know the reason why i take ian or santino or i always took joey diaz before he got too big you know joey diaz is selling out the chicago theater he's fucking murdering it but all those guys a Ari and Duncan, I want to have fun. I want to be with comics. I want the show to be great. I don't want to be the only one that's funny. That's gross. Right.

And I think it's a way to discover new comics as well. Because I was opening for Neil for a bit for his tour for most of the dates. And it was so fun for me because I got a headline and stuff. But I'm not a draw yet. So I need to have a walk-up for whatever club I'm doing. They need to have a comedy on States. great you know in massachusetts they have walk up they just have a trust with the community they all just come to shows no matter what yeah it's great or like comedy works in denver i've never done comedy on state i heard it's great yeah it's

really good um there's a theater right next door you'd probably be doing that like it's such a great comedy town yeah the theater last time i was there there's actually a poster for that theater in the bathroom out here so it's fun to do that when they have a walk-up audience like the comedy works like you said yeah yeah yeah

but if it's some rando club like I'm not a draw yet I'm like in purgatory but the Neil thing was cool because they're all coming for Neil

their theaters I'm just doing 20 minutes which is like I'm I can shit that out it's nothing you know right because I'm like

headlining so there's no pressure they're there for Neil I have a great set and you're like yo you know? Right. Because I'm like headlining. So there's no pressure. They're there for Neil. I have a great set. And they're like, yo, you were funny. So you get like fans from his fans too. Yes.

It's the best. And it's a great show as a whole. Yeah. And it's like we compliment each other. Yeah. And he gets to introduce people to a funny comic. Yeah. And I'm so grateful that he gets to do that, like pull a guy up and sort of take a little

credit for like, I don't know. Yeah. No, it's great. That's where it's at, you know? But I don't think this bubble's popping it's too fun yeah it's too good i mean there's too many good people as long as the art form is good the bubble only exists and pops when it's a fake thing like it's a ponzi scheme that's not really the case right now yeah there's so many good comedians right and everybody's working hard yeah you know everybody realizes that there's a lot of pressure on you so they're all like,

that's like you were saying, like how many sets I do. That's why I do so many sets. Yeah. That's the only way to do it. I do two sets a night, three sets a night, all the time. And there's so many outlets now, too, which is kind of what's helping it not pop is Netflix. You have these new streaming like HBO Max. Amazon.

Amazon and Apple. Gap begins on here in a couple days, and he's got his Amazon special. Yeah, and so does Alonzo Bowden. His Amazon special's coming out soon. And then there's a bunch of other people that have Amazon specials. I'm seeing people advertise them on their Instagram.

So Amazon is putting together a bunch of specials now, which to me is very, very exciting because they have The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which is one of my favorite shows. So I'm just psyched that there's a lot of new venues and then there's new streaming things. Like, who knows? Maybe Hulu will get into stand-up.

Maybe some of these other streaming services will get into stand-up. It's great for everybody, man. It really is. There's plenty. Or there's guys like Andrew Schultz. He just went straight to YouTube. As a performer

and another comedian and I think everyone has varying degrees of I think angst that he had coming up and I kind of felt that way as well like people have

varying degrees of how much the industry fucks with you sometimes I feel in sometimes I don't I don't feel in I do for certain things and that was just

really refreshing just to take the power back and even seeing it happen with I have so many peers in the game like i've known theo forever yeah we've been puttering around town and doing shows and just you know obscurity and then doing the podcast and and just seeing him take his own fan base and power back and everyone wanted to fuck with him now and and like they weren And they weren't launching that guy. You kind of learn, too, that it's just monkeys picking stocks. Well, in all fairness, Theo turned a corner like two years ago.

Uh-huh. Where I remember watching him before. And I'm like, this guy's kind of funny. He's unique. But then two years ago, me and Adam were in the back of the room like, this motherfucker's turned a corner. Like, he was just killing it. Yeah. He was just really funny.

But like a funny in a new way. he had hit some yeah like some of the words he uses to describe it but he hit that gear and then everything took off from there it was a lot of it was just hard work yeah persistence hard work and just eventually it really clicked I think it was like a one-two punch I think it was turning that corner. And then also just the word to the people, democratically just his podcast and reaching people. And him doing other people's podcasts too. For sure. Because he's really good on podcasts. He's just fucking silly and funny.

And then his own podcast where he just looks right at the camera and rants and talks about shit. And you realize how his fucking unusual brain works. Isn't it funny sometimes you just want to figure out what this algorithm is or what he's doing? you go no that's just him you ain't figuring i can't yeah no you're never gonna figure that out how would you think to call it that never yeah he's got theo comedy for sure but it's like what we're talking about earlier where no one can really teach you how to do comedy like you're you gotta figure it out and no one no classically

trained comedian if there ever really was one, would ever teach you to do theater. It would be terrible to a classically trained comedian. It would be like those babies. Yeah. It would be like those guys that are like fake Seinfelds or fake Gaffigans or whatever the fuck they are. Yeah. The Schultz thing was really cool to see because he just did it on his own. Yep.

But here's the thing, and I wanted to bring this up with you, Jamie. Is he shadow banned on Instagram? Tell me what you think is going on. Because I texted him when that happened because I looked it up and his name showed up

right at the top of my list. But he said other people were getting it. Yeah, he said you didn't show up on mine. Really? Yes. I think they changed

the algorithm because I've noticed views. Hold on, hold on. It could be what? It could be, but you'll have to take it like a case-by-case scenario. Was the person that first sent it to him, are they already following him?

Do they search his name a lot? Did they block anything he's ever done? People have told him, hey, man, I'm having a hard time finding your Instagram page. And so he asked me about it. And I said, what do you mean? And I go, I see you right now. You're on my feed.

And he goes, no, no. If you go to search me. So I go, okay, let me search you. I go, whoa. I searched Andrew Schultz. Nothing. I mean, a bunch of other people, but not him. And he's got a lot of followers.

Like, let's do it right now. Put it up on screen. Put it up on the screen. Let's just do it in real time. Well, that's part of what I was saying is I follow him. So if you're not already following him, it might show up in a different way. But I do follow him. Look at this for him.

Hi. Now, just write Andrew and give him some space. Write space. I haven't gotten to Andrew yet. Space. It should have shown up already. Right, but just space and then type in his name. I am.

See, it's not coming up. Right. That's so weird. Now hit search. I don't think you can't search on the web. Oh, on the web. But look, it's not coming up. Right. Oh, that's so weird. Now hit search. I don't think you can search on the web. Oh, on the web. But look, it's not showing up. You see Andrew Scholl's fans.

Even when I typed in his actual account name, it didn't show up. Hold on a second. What is that Andrew Scholl's fans? What is that? Click on that. Right there. Below it. Below it.

Below it. Below it. Keep going. Keep going. Are you blind? It's an account. There it is. That's right.

Click on that. I know, but it's not. So it's his fans. It's just a fan account Keep going. Are you blind? Does that count? There it is. That's right. Click on it. I know, but it's not. So it's his fans. It's just a fan account. Oh, 165 followers. Yes, I am. That's crazy. Right. No, I know it's not him. I'm just trying to figure out what it is. So just in that search, it's not showing up. And it wouldn't show up for me on my phone either. Now, it doesn't make any

sense, because what does he have? Like a half a million followers? How many followers does he have? Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Like like he thinks he's being shadow banned what's the are they trying to like get some money out of no 282 000 282 000 people and he can't find his his page on instagram is it schultz with a t or no just no no ulz but it's not showing But it's not showing up. It's not showing up on mine either. Now, we might be being paranoid here, and it might be just something in the search algorithm that for whatever reason his thing isn't showing up. And he used to say Andrew Hezzy Schultz.

I don't know why Hezzy. What does that mean? It's the nickname of his. I don't know. Okay. And maybe he thought that Hezzy was fucking him up, so he took Hezzy out of his name on his Instagram page. So it just says Andrew Schultz now.

But even though, still, you can't find it. Yeah, that's weird. You have to type in Andrew Schultz all together with no space, and then you'll find him. That's what I just did, and it didn't come up. With no space? Yeah, that's what I was just doing in front while you were asking me to type stuff. Oh, so you did it with space and no space? Yeah, that's what I was just doing in front while you were asking me to type stuff. Oh, so you did it with space and no space? Yeah, that's when I did it to him.

I was like, if you're typing in no space, that's where the issue is. If I type in all the way, it's showing up right away. And he said, well, I'm seeing that from people both ways. So I go, well, if that's what you're seeing, then I'll go out on a limb and sort of say someone is manipulating that search result because you can manipulate search results. Well, here's the thing. They do shadow ban people on certain social media platforms. This has been revealed through hidden camera conversations with people who are whatever moderators or engineers or people that work behind the scenes on Twitter or Facebook. And they do manipulate algorithms, manipulate searches, and shadow ban people. And there's a lot of people, particularly conservative people,

which he's not conservative, but what he is is, you know, he's a raunchy comedian, and he might have done something that someone felt was not woke or what have you, and they want to slow down the broadcasting of his signal. That's entirely possible. I don't know if it's true, though. I would love to have a logical explanation that... As to why he's not showing up.

Yes. But he's complaining about it, that it's a shadow ban. Anyway, go follow Andrew. Andrew Schultz. Yeah. S-H-U-L-Z. Yep. S-H-U-L-Z.

Go follow him. Yeah, i saw him in montreal just to tell instagram shadow bands we can get around you bitch he's a marketing genius it's just great to hear him talk about you know what he's doing and like how to get around it and it's exciting because you you forget as an artist that you have a lot of power like you're everything you're you're the product and sometimes uh especially the old models you just kind of waited to be anointed. Well, he's got millions and millions of views on his special on YouTube. And if you stop and think about if that was on Comedy Central,

which Comedy Central did want to give him a special, he probably would get like, maybe a million people would watch it when it came out and that would be the end of it. I have a special and I don't think people are watching it. It's just YouTube is accessible. It can be in comedy jail. You can do a great special and that would be the end of it. I have a special and I don't think people are watching it. Just YouTube is accessible. You can be in comedy jail. You can do a great special and no one can find it.

Right. Yeah. And everyone has YouTube. Everyone can click on the link. Everyone has YouTube. And this was his logic. He was like, you know what? I'm just going to release the whole thing on YouTube.

And look, he went straight from not selling out clubs to selling out theaters like that. And now he sells out everywhere internationally and it's amazing from afar to watch the industry change because you just realize because i think early on you so much of your self-worth is is put in these people and you you don't realize till later that oh they're just heat-seeking missiles yep yeah they don't you know a majority of them don't have taste. Taste is just revenue. Whatever's hot.

Yeah. Whatever's hot. Can I get a pie of whatever this is? Yeah, I mean, including hacks. I mean, there's a long history of them

supporting hacks and thieves. It's just a thing where what they're trying to do is make money. You know, if you're an agent or a producer,

I mean, there's no benefit in you supporting an artist that is not going to be commercially viable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to find out

who's going to pop. Who's going to be the next movie star? Who's going to be commercially viable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to find out, like, who's going to pop? Who's going to be the next movie star? Who's going to be in the movies? You know, you have to figure that person out. What was it like when, you know, let me see, a thing went down. What was the climate like for you, say, professionally after that went down? Because he was at a different level at that time, right? Yeah.

Yeah. He was more popular than me with comedy, for sure. You know, I was doing Fear Factor back then then and i wasn't really working on the road that much i really couldn't you know i was doing you know 30 episodes a year plus so 30 weeks a year of work and i wasn't really enthusiastic about traveling when i was doing that yeah i just wanted to i was exhausted um and then i was doing the store too So I was mostly just working on my act and just doing stand-up. And they supported him because he was the one who was making the money. I mean, in fact, I left my agency because they wanted me to apologize to him.

And then Louis wound up leaving them and Attell wound up leaving them and Swartzen wound up leaving them. Everybody left them right after that because they found out that they wanted me to apologize to them. Everybody in the industry knew what was going on, but they wanted to turn a blind eye and make money. So did it hurt my career? Well, I stopped going to the store, but that didn't hurt me as much as it hurt them.

It hurt the store, because I told everybody. And then that place was a ghost town. I mean, it went from being packed when I was there, because I would let them put my name up on the marquee and I was working for free. That's how fucking stupid Tommy was. That fucking dummy. But then when he got fired and I came back, it made it all worth it. The whole thing was – it was interesting because it could show you that if there was someone who was doing what Mencia was doing, you can get away with it and even with someone

who was successful like me like i got another agent like that i mean but but i let my agent literally said i was gonna have to apologize to him i'm like you're out of your fucking mind i go listen i'm not only am i not doing this we're never going to work this out i'll never work with you again because you're asking me to apologize to someone who is literally a vampire someone who's stealing from the work of other artists it's all he does and you guys know it and you guys are profiting off of this like this is you're making a giant mistake and i turned out it was correct but it was interesting because even though it didn't hurt me financially i got to see that they were trying to because you know he wanted them he

wanted an apology yeah and i was like you're out of your fucking mind i'm not apologizing to you and as he kept getting people became more and more aware other people started finding other bits that he had like the real thing that sunk him was cosby was really funny now when you think about it now but he had this like such obvious theft of a cosby bit i mean he stole all the inflections and he switched it around a little bit but people who work with him trying to tell him to stop doing that bit because it was a giant famous cosby bit and he just insisted that he's going to do it and uh when that bit got on youtube that and mexican folks finding out he wasn't really mexican that was a fucking knife in the heart when they were like, what?

Like, what? When they found out what his real name was, they're like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. There was so much going on then, though. It was, you know, he was really popular. Oh, yeah.

He went from selling out these giant places and, you know, kicking ass all over the country. And people knew him from the television show and they thought he was hilarious. I guess what's kind of cool about stand-up is that of all the art forms, stand- him from the television show and they thought he was hilarious. I guess what's kind of

cool about stand-up is that of all the art forms, stand-up has the most justice in it. Now it does. Now it does, I guess. There's a lot of people who made it through the net

back in the day that were just criminals. I guess it was harder to know back then. There was no internet. It was just sort of like word of mouth or you would hear stories.

Look, we all know that there's parallel thinking and there's even cases where you forget you heard something. I've done it. Usually we hash it out like a comic or something and be like, okay, yeah, you can have it. We're all pals and it's bound to happen.

It's going to happen. You just have the conversation. If you're a pro, you're like, all right, I don't need that bit. It's okay. Yeah, exactly. And then there's also people that are like, you said that word and that's the word that I say in my bit. And you're like, what? Some people are delusional.

Some people get delusional. I talk about being in a relationship so oh yeah you could stop doing that i really appreciate it that's hilarious i broke up with my girlfriend recently too so yeah i own that well especially things that are current events right if they're like something like i can't believe you're talking about trump you know i do that whole trump bit yeah like what are crazy? I've seen these conversations before. I have a Fredo bit. Yeah. Can you please not? That guy's never going to live that down. I'm telling you. Yeah.

This is just brewing. This is just starting. He's never living that down. That's one. You know, I'll wreck your shit. I'll wreck your shit. I'll throw you down a flight of stairs. Yeah.

Was there stairs nearby or would they have to go up them? They have to go find some stairs. You're not gonna Like trip down That's a weird thing To say to someone Throw you down a flight of stairs It's like you wanna hurt them

But you want the gravity To do all the work Yeah that's true So it's not that tough It's lazy He has all that potential energy Once he gets up there Yeah

And you just knock him over Right That's funny You're looking at it Like an engineer Yeah I've gotta use it somehow My dad's so proud

That I pulled that out of the bag do you use your engineer training at all in your stand up is there anything that you say no I think one quality

I can take away from all the engineering schooling like I'm not doing formulas and equations and all that but I think it's just a manner of which

I approach things and time management I'm wired a certain way where I can be studious on my own I don't I'm not like smoking weed on the couch and like i'm a muse or i'm a vessel like i'm okay what do i what's what i want to do what are my goals for this year let's say how many tests do i have what i'm working on for

this set so i'm just a little industrious it's taught me and also when it comes to bits like i see them in a certain way like um the way i the bits is very organic, and that's what I like about it, is that it's not clinical or anything. It's just magical how I think of something, and I'm grateful for that. Do you give yourself time to think? Do you specifically do things like go on walks or anything where you can think? Not specifically, but what I found is one of my favorite things to do is to go to a diner, sit in a booth, have

breakfast, have coffee, and then you keep on refilling it. And I'm on my phone and I'm on Twitter and Instagram and my mind's just kind of, and I'm listening to music. I love music. So I'm just scouring Spotify and Hype Machine just for new music. Hype Machine. I don't know what that is. So I love, so that's how I find music like Hype Machine and also Spotify. Hype Machine is this blog aggregate so there's music blogs right there's one called like

Acid Stag that I like a lot so you can follow a blog and they'll post songs every day maybe they'll post six songs a day this website you can follow

different blogs and it's like following someone on Instagram or something so you look at your your feed and you get to hear all the songs

your favorite blogs have posted within the website. And there's an app on your phone too. And these are kind of underground songs. These aren't top 40. So it's a way to hear great music that you wouldn't hear on the radio. And they're not any less great. There's this whole subculture and genre of music that is magnificent, but it's not on top 40.

So people don't really know about it. So Hype Machine is a great way to get some cool tracks off the beaten path with Spotify that's cool I've never heard of that before that's interesting Hype Machine

so music plays a big part with my comedy there it is yeah yeah Hype Machine what's popular now? Paco Versace this is like their top 40

so even this is a little poppy for me I'll have certain blogs that's poppy? I like finding yeah it's like Munya, Dove that's poppy?

I mean for this type of music yeah whatever makes whatever makes the popular list Durante? hold on stop I'll have certain blogs. That's Poppy? I like finding... Yeah, it's like... Moonya, Dove. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's Poppy? I mean, for this type of music, yeah. Whatever makes the popular list. Durante? Hold on, stop. Yeah, you're not going to know. Scroll back up, please. Durante, Maya. That's Poppy?

Who the fuck knows any of this music? Oh, there's Childish Gambino. I know who that guy is. If you're like a teen or early 20s, you'll know this stuff. Really? Yeah. So I just love listening to music, drinking coffee on on my phone and i'll just get these ideas but also just living life i'll be walking around and i'll get an idea jot it down well you don't have a day job which helps no that's that really helps

collect material believe it or not yeah i think comics have to be amused and you have to be experiencing just life life if you're working all the time like it was harder when i was working at boeing because i had that mental fatigue of just working on parts and all that and computational stuff. So I'm not thinking about bits when I'm calculating.

Sitcoms suck it out of you too. I can see that. Believe it or not. Because you think that, oh, it's just like, you know, I didn't really work on my act that much during the day anyway.

Now I have a job doing acting. I'll probably get just as much material. Uh-uh no no you won't you're gonna be wrapped up in whatever the fuck you're doing and then when you go to do stand-up you'll be like oh yeah time to do stand-up now i'll think about it yeah but you really need that time to be just free to think yeah it's kind of crucial to the creative process i didn't think

about that but that's true because those other jobs you you have mental focus that you're not dedicating to uh right yeah where i'm at a diner and yeah my mind's just floating around it seems like you're not working like someone on the outside would be like you're not even working i might come up with a gem that might be my next closing bit yeah that is work just randomly yeah because you gave yourself that time yeah like you just are watering the grass and a mushroom pops up even with me i think there's a big breakthrough in just accepting that I'm an artist because, you know, my parents didn't want me to do it for so long and it was this dirty thing and it was always pimps and prostitutes go to the club. So stand up and comedy was like a vampire feeding.

It was just this thing that I do over here and I want to do it, but it was always different than what I'm supposed to be doing. It was always on the side. It was like a hobby type or I would, there was a division within my mind. But once I left Boeing and I was doing it full time. What was the impetus? Like what, how'd you make the decision? Ideally, I always had this pie in the sky scenario that would happen for me to leave

Boeing. I would think, all right, if I got to the point where i'm doing engineering and stand up i want to get to a point where it's glaringly obvious that engineering is holding me back from this other path and i have to make the jump so i needed that to happen and then i think enough things happened where i kind of had that situation i had i booked this acting thing i booked a role role on Chuck, NBC's Chuck. I was still working at Boeing. It was like this huge guest star. I forgot about Chuck.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would do these things towards the end of my tenure at Boeing. I had a manager and I would get auditions. So I would duck out for lunch. And I'm in Long Beach and I would drive up to Hollywood and do an audition. Wow. How long would you be gone for? That one, I would do a combo.

I'd take lunch and doctor's appointment and then i would do or i would take off i would come in early and leave early if i had an audition but i had to be very strategic about what audition i can't be because i have a day job so this one i went out for chuck and then i auditioned and then i got it there's this huge guest star and i'm still working at boeing and they need me for eight days i have have a day job. So I said, I had a family emergency in Seattle. I have to go back home. And they're like, oh, okay. But I was just in Burbank shooting Chuck. So I'm just shooting. And then I go back to work. And people see you on TV. No, luckily there was enough of a lead time where that wasn't coming out for a long time.

So you quit? No, not yet. So I just thought like just thought like okay cool like i still keep on i can keep on being an engineer and then a couple things happened did anybody notice you on chalk one eye but the thing is that happened when i left boeing so so it aired after i had left oh how much lead time was there quite a quite a bit maybe like six months or it was towards the end um and so no one knew i did stand up And the beauty of it was when I entered the workforce of engineering, everyone was substantially older than me. They were like in their 30s.

They don't know about Hype Machine. Yeah, they don't know about Hype Machine. So it wasn't second nature to be like, what's your MySpace? Because Jake would have been up immediately. So social media was not second nature with coworkers. So there was a big enough generational gap. So I was able for three years, just no one know anything. So I do the Chuck thing.

And then I also, I got really far in standup. And NBC has this standup for diversity initiative every year. You do like a standup competition thing from different cities and then they have a final showcase. So I got like second on that. So I got some college gigs out of it. I got quite a few college gigs

and then i booked this show on mtv called disaster date which was like boiling points for dating they had a cast and i was one of the cast members and you would just go on dates with friends would set up their friends with dates and they would be like this is the things that she hates and you would just be the worst date ever and you see how long it lasts on the date so they needed me for eight months or no uh three months fuck what do i do yeah yeah three months so this was kind of that situation where i'm like fuck all right all right i just did chuck i have some college gigs lined up this mtv show needs me for three months i gotta i gotta do this oh i didn't do that yet i tried to take a leave of absence because i planned on coming back i was like like, can I, I need, something came up, can I be gone for three months?

And then I'll, and they're like, no, you can't do that. And I'm like, um, are you sure? I just kept on trying to finesse it and they wouldn't let me. And then I was reading about unemployment and stuff. And I read that you couldn't quit. You had to get fired. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, all right, here's what I'm gonna do. So I wrote on my last day there, I wrote an email just like,

hey guys, I'll be gone for three months. I plan on returning on this day. And then I just went incommunicado. Like I didn't, I didn't pick up any phone calls.

If I was going to get fired, I wanted to get fired by them. Right. Because I didn't want them, I didn't want to be on the books that I quit. Right. For some reason,

my engineering brain is like, this is great. I'll get them on a technicality. They'll fire me and I'll get my unemployment if I need to. So I leave Boeing. I'm shooting the show for three months and and I'll get my unemployment if I need to so I leave Boeing I'm shooting the show

for three months and then eventually I get like a termination letter in the mail from Boeing and I'm like yes yes but then it turns out

I mean I could have collected unemployment from the MTV show so I didn't even have to go out that way oh really yeah I mean it was fine like it wasn't

Ari used to collect unemployment for dude he was he was like my guiding light in that regard Cause early on Especially when I left Boeing And the MTV thing

Comes and goes They do two seasons of it And then But that's not like a fucking It's not like a Rock solid thing And Ari would Show me the ropes

He'd be like I used to collect Unemployment from An acting job You get an acting job Then you get unemployment That's how it fucking works And he taught me how to do it

And all that I've never heard of anybody Getting unemployment From acting gigs Ari would do a commercial that's how it works it's like because you pay into it and all that it's all in the up and up it's just part of an actor's um i guess requirement or necessity of an actor is being available yes so if you book a commercial like a toyota commercial let's say you make 30 grand or 20 grand whatever in that chunk you've made enough money in that quarter

to to apply because you're paying into it with your thing you have to hit a certain amount and then you're eligible there's tiers of how much money you get for unemployment then you're eligible for x amount of dollars every two weeks or whatever and that helped me keep a full for like a year and then i got to the point where i didn't need i didn't need it i had enough steady work coming in. But that was the moment. When did you tell your parents? I thought that they would take it worse than they did.

But I think we had been at odds for so long that what I've noticed is you can't stay at an 11 your whole life. Right. Yeah. So I think they had to know

this day was going to come eventually because I would talk about it. That was the plan the whole time. I guess they just never thought that it would come to fruition. Now, when you quit, how long did you wait? Or when you got fired? How long did you wait before you told them?

That you don't have a day job anymore. Yeah, it was around Christmas. It was around the holidays. So we were at my aunt's house. And then I told them. But I was surprised. Like, it went over better than I thought. Yeah, I was surprised.

Did you say all the good things you're getting? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Obviously. Come on. I'm not going to be like, I quit. And I'm going to figure it thought. Yeah. I was surprised. Did you say all the good things you're getting? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously. Come on. I'm not gonna be like, I quit and I'm gonna figure it out. I'll figure it out. But I like having- I might come to you guys for money later.

But I'm really proud of that. In this whole adventure, I've never asked my parents for money. And I think that's a win. Yes. That's a huge win. That's a huge win. Yeah. And I hope that they kind of noticed that through the tough times.

I never, that's a sign it's going well. They should figure that out. That's a sign it's going well. They should figure that out. That's a giant win. Yeah. But I mean, I just want to tell people if they have a similar path that you don't. There's this romanticized version of being an artist where you just pack up all your things, come into LA. Yeah, man.

And like, no, I got to be 100% of my art. Yeah. You can have a plan. Do you want to set yourself up for success? Or are you trying to. Are you an artist or are you an engineer? Yeah. You can have a plan. Do you want to set yourself up for success? Or are you trying to... Are you an artist or are you an engineer? You've got to choose. Be both.

There's a lot of hours in the day. Fuck that. You're a prime example of that. It's amazing all the things you do. There are so many hours in a day. And it's such a cop-out to be like, I've got to be all in it. I've got to live and breathe my art.

Otherwise I'm going to be a hack. No, be methodical set yourself up for success well i think you have to be disciplined disciplined for sure i think it's very important you can still be artistic and disciplined contrary to popular opinion you can yeah and you have to be careful not to lose yourself once you come to la how many people do you know who come out here with a particular plan to like be an artist or a writer and they're at fucking birthday parties every day like when you come to la you can go to someone's birthday party at a bar every day really oh yeah yeah there's so many it's everyone's birthday every every day

dude this town's so big yeah that's true so you get sucked up in the party yeah you'll see it too some artists just get like they'll go down this networking rabbit hole and they have no tangible and they never want to do a bad show they just want to do the rabbit hole and they have no tangible and they never want to do a bad show they just want to do the best shows and they don't just focus on getting good at stand-up comedy it's just i'm going to this party so-and-so's here and they have nothing do you ever envision a time where one of us or maybe a collection of us writes down all these things what do you mean some sort of a guidebook to stand-up comedy. I really think someone could benefit from it. It really is the only art form that, as we were saying before,

is a viable art form on a large scale that doesn't have any... A handbook or... Nothing. I mean, every fucking book about comedy, like how to do comedy, is terrible. Is the worst, yeah. You know what's weird? You know what's scary? There's all these formulas.

I think podcasting has taken some of the mystique out of it. Yes. I think. It's also created a bunch of fans of the process too. Sure. Like I've talked to people that have like come up to me at the comedy store and said, hey, I saw you first do that bit a year ago and then I watched it change. And then when it became on your Netflix special, I was like, holy shit.

Like, look at it. It's kind of cool to see it grow and become viable yeah i think it's cool that there's an audience for that or that they value that because i think it's easy to to assume the end consumer just wants to see the finished product yeah but they're comedy fans are so savvy now they want to see that process and they feel like they're let in like oh cool like it's not a magic trick anymore no no no it's different yeah no I agree listen man

I'm glad I got you in here thanks for having me my pleasure brother my pleasure and it's always cool seeing you at the store you're a funny motherfucker and I wish you all the best

so tell everybody what your Instagram what is the it's Fahim Anwar so just my name Twitter same Fahim Anwar and then I name Twitter same Fahim Anwar and then I have a special

on Amazon called there's no business like show business so I want people to watch that oh your special's on Amazon yeah but it was acquired so it wasn't like an original I did it for CISO

oh that back in the day but everyone knew that was going down yeah that's right yeah alright brother

thank you very much yeah of course dude thank you too bye everybody oof that was great man