The Joe Rogan Experience - #1826 - Fahim Anwar

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Fahim Anwar is a stand-up comic, actor, and host of the "Fahim Anwar Dance Hour" podcast. His new special, "Hat Trick (Live at the Comedy Store)" is available now on YouTube. http://www.fahimanwar.com/

The Joe Rogan Experience Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day Cheers sir Cheers Good to see you my friend Likewise, thanks for having me I was commenting the round ice, I'm a fan Yeah I like the round ice, it makes you feel fancy

You're a fancy person, drinking bourbon on round ice. Yeah, when in Rome. I was like, can we do this again? Yeah. You don't ever smoke cigars and drink whiskey unless you're with me? No, I do other people, but like, yeah, this is like the thing to do. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Last time was fun, we did it. Yeah, we're conversating. Yeah. I like that word, too. Yeah, conversating. Conversating. Doesn't seem like it's a real word, i think it is i think so yeah yeah yeah good to see you likewise it's fun hanging out last night yeah i mean i was here when things were shut down in la

with the pandemic and i thought it was great then like the way vulcan was set up and then last night it's like even more people and they keep on like elevating yeah yeah it was a fun show well you know the the scene here right now is just on fire it's hopping there's so many comics here it's really fun yeah it's a good time like on any given night at vulcan we'll have ron white tony hinchcliffe tim dillon stops in sometimes tom segura when he's not on the road, Christina Pozitsky stops in. There's so many comics here. Derek Poston's here.

David Lucas is here all the time. Hans Kim, William Montgomery. I mean, it's fucking hopping. Yeah, I think that's part of the charm of that place too, is just people don't know who's gonna pop in. Yeah. And even when I was here, I was here for like three months during the pandemic.

It was cool. It almost felt like a festival city because it's that midpoint between New York and L.A. So I would see like Giannis. I would see guys I just wouldn't see unless I was doing Montreal or something. Yeah. So it's this organic midpoint. Yeah. And there's also like other clubs, right?

Like there's with the other day we went over to see Ari. He was at the Creek in the Cave running his new hour special that he's going to film July. I think it's 11th and 10th and 11th or 11th and 12th. 11th and 12th. I think one of them might have some tickets available. The 11th is sold out. But I think there might be a few tickets left for the 12th. Don't sleep because it's fucking good. His new special is called Jew.

I was going to name mine that as well. You should. Get it out first. Yours is about to release. You should just change the name of yours. To Ari Shafir Jew. Just rename everything? Just call it Ari Shafir Jew. It has nothing to do with him whatsoever. I just beat him

to the title. That would be funny if we just start naming our specials after our friends. You know, you just name a special, call it Neil Brennan. He's like, hey man, why? Why are you doing that? I like you. Come on, man. It has nothing to do with me. Do you know where he's going to put his? Ari's? I think he's going to do the YouTube route. We were talking about that last night. I honestly think that most of us are going to wind up doing that I mean I think There's a lot of money in Netflix Right

And Netflix is great But for the widest possible distribution I think you should put it everywhere And put it out for free Put it everywhere Because that's what you're doing When you're doing a special you're essentially saying Hey this is like an advertisement to come see me live

Which is way better live anyway. Like, I always say that coming to see someone in a club or in a theater or what have you is probably, it's at least 30 or 40% better than watching it on TV. Oh, for sure. At least, right? Yeah. It might be twice as good. It's always better live. Way better live.

Things get lost. But YouTube is the play now. it's always better live. Play better live. Things get lost. But YouTube is the play now. Honestly, and I think I'm getting better about this

just giving compliments and giving flowers to people. Like, my hat goes out to Schultz. I think he really kind of broke it for all these comics and shifting our thinking

because for the longest time all of us were just hoarding our material because we were still in that old legacy Hollywood, traditional Hollywood mindset. Yeah. We're like, all right, I have this polished stuff. just hoarding our material because we were still in that old legacy hollywood traditional hollywood mindset yeah we're like all right i have this polished stuff i'm waiting to be tapped i'm waiting for netflix to say you can do the thing you can do i'm waiting for comedy central we're

waiting we're asking for permission to do something we already know we can do and and he just saw the power of youtube and was like nah this is like powerful enough on its own. And when he did that and all the comics kind of saw, oh, that's a route. Now look, there's like all, it's a clip economy on Instagram and everyone isn't so precious with their material. It's, they're taking their lead from music with SoundCloud and mixtapes. It's like, get it to the people. Exposure is more important than short money yeah like what's the point like this special mine's on youtube because i just want eyeballs

i made it myself i'm not trying to make money off this is this your first one no i did one the traditional route like on cso was like who the fuck knows what cso is remember cso i do remember that was like quibi before quibi just like yeah What happened to all the, didn't Doug Stanhope have a special on CISO? A couple guys did. Yeah, Brody had one on there too. Did he? Brody had one on? Brody had one, yeah.

So, I mean, it allowed me to have a special that way. It's in a theater, it's glossy, it's polished and all that, but it's in comedy jail. Like, no one saw it because nobody knew what CISO was. Nobody knew how to get it and nobody wanted to. There was a paywall. And does CISO own it now? Well, Comedy Dynamics produced it. So they licensed it to Comedy Central. So it's on Comedy Central's YouTube, my first special, which is great.

You can watch it right now. My old one, yeah. What's it called? The old one's called There's No Business Like Show Business. It's called The Archvish Jew called there's no business like show business it's called the archer's jew yeah but the new one no business like show business that's what you called it the old one yeah boy and then the new one's called hat trick and i did that one at the store and i directed it i did everything and this is the one you did each room yeah you did the belly room the or and the main room yeah what was the order i did the i started with the OR, and the main room. What was the order? I started with the OR, and then the main room, and then the belly room.

And people ask why I did that order, and it just felt right. In my heart and in my soul, I just knew that was the order I wanted to do. Because the OR, I think, is the comedy store. At its core, the original room is the Comedy Store? Yeah, and then the main room is kind of like Vegas style big room here It is presentational right and then the belly room is kind of like a hang. It's a vibe It's like an 80 seater. You know yeah, so I wanted to cap it off. I wanted to come out hot with the OR Show the extravagance of the main and then close close it out with the night winding down in the belly.

Nice. Yeah. And then there's interstitials. I just wanted to show the store for what it is. Because every time I see it in specials, you know, like Ari shot his there and everything, they fancy it up. Louis C.K. shot a special. Yeah, yeah.

He did his in the main room. Yeah. But they dress it up and and i'm like that it's not exactly the store so i just wanted to really capture the vibe so in in the special in between sets i'm talking to like theo tim dylan um santino so you get to see like what it's like us hanging out before we go oh that's cool on stage yeah so it's a special from like a comedian's pov and and how did you arrange the conversations with like dylan and santino and all that it wasn't premeditated like the whole point of this like they didn't even know i mean i asked them obviously but i just had

very skeleton maybe one guy with a camera shooting from afar and it just picked up organic conversations i'm not having the entire conversation on there but you get little vignettes and slices of what it's like in the hallway in the parking lot neil brennan driving up fist bumping you know like just what it's like to be a comic in the store that's nice yeah and when did you film it maybe i'm trying to think like january or yeah a couple maybe like maybe two no February like February so things had just started to come back the store was finally fully operational like full shelves and then some people wearing masks some weren't it was kind of like a choose your own adventure

in LA with COVID so you'll see like maybe one person with a mask in one shot or yeah but it was like up and running It wasn't limited capacity. It was it was running enough to do this type of special nice Yeah, I can't believe no one had done one this way. So it was just my ace in the sleeve. I'm like Because I'm in this weird place where I've been doing stand-up 20 years I'm a comics comic like comics like me and stuff and like Artistically, i'm further along

than i am visibility wise why do you think that is i think i think i would enjoy i naively when i was younger and a younger comic i just thought if i'm funny and crushing the clubs and stuff and i have representation i trust my representation is getting it done like they will make it happen my job is just to like keep writing material doing well in the clubs i would get validation from other comics like oh my god that's great but like i don't know why you're not popping or you're under the radar i'm like oh thanks man like that feels good when you get validation from other comedians you know right like that means more than anything. Like, when Burr texts me about a bit or whatever, that means more than any, like, getting a guest star on something.

Because, like, I respect Burr because I love stand-up. I respect the craft. Like, when you do it, like, that means more to me than these little Hollywood things. So I just trusted that my people would get it done. But they have big rosters. Like, people, your people don't care as much as you do about you. Do you think that's really what it is?

What? Well, listen to what you just said earlier. You have a special that's on CISO. Yeah. So who the fuck saw that? Nobody. Nobody. So how would people know about you?

Yeah. Okay, here's the thing, though. Like, why do that? What about other stuff? What about other ways to get your name out there? Have you been on the road a lot? Yeah, I would go out a little bit. Yeah, that's not a lot.

That's the thing. It's like you've got to develop markets, right? So you have to develop a following. A lot of guys, like Gabriel Iglesias is a great example. That guy developed a following just fucking hustling, just constantly hustling, constantly doing shows. Yeah.

You know, like you didn't do that a lot and you were also in the writing ecosphere. Only during the pandemic. Only during the pandemic? Like that was my first, yeah. Oh really?

Yeah, because that just fell in my lap because standup wasn't happening and then they were a fan of my standup and they were like, do you want to write on the show? Because when you were out here,

when you first came out here and you're staying in that apartment building, I remember like there were certain gigs you couldn't do, do you want to write on the show? Because when you were out here, when you first came out here and you're staying in that apartment building, I remember like there were certain gigs you couldn't do because or you had to show up late because you had to be in Zoom prison. You're kind of the lighter, sorry. Yeah, sure. But they were cool. It was kind of nice being in this Zoom writer's

room and it's almost like you have this super power because we'd be writing all day and I'm like, hey guys can I leave early? I have to do this show with Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle. And they're just like, yeah, yeah, go. What are you doing? It's like a rom-com. They're like, what are you doing?

Get out of here. A rom-com. Kind of. Because it is kind of rock and roll what we do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, for people that don't do it,

it's probably weird. The people that used to do it... You make the weirdest noises when you suck on cigars. I watched like 1950s guys smoking cigars. I'm not saying. There's a lot of great comics that got trapped in that writer's world. Yeah.

I can see. People never found out about them. It's a tragedy. You know, to this day I say, Owen Smith is one of the greatest fucking comics alive. Yeah. And people don't know who he is, unfortunately, other than people talking about him. Because you can make a really good living doing what he does.

He makes a very good living as a writer and a producer. But when you watch that guy do stand-up, you're like, how is this guy not huge? Yeah. How is he not selling out theaters and stadiums? He's fucking excellent. Yeah. His timing, his writing, everything's excellent. He's far beyond. out theaters and stadiums and he's fucking excellent yeah his timing is writing everything's excellent he's far beyond you want to talk about a guy

whose ability is far beyond his his name it's Owen Smith in my book yeah that's my yeah I see him in the store all the time he's my number one guy in terms of like underrated guys yeah yeah I think once you get that writing opportunity you kind of decide what some guys just grav i think once you get that writing opportunity you kind of decide what some guys just gravitate towards it you know some people get into stand-up they do it for four years they get a writing gig and they're happy that's all they wanted to do they weren't like real stand-ups it was kind of a springboard for them but there's some people who do it and they're like i don't like it's uh it's like a deal with the devil a little bit.

You'll get complacent. You'll get tired at night. You don't want to go out and do a set. The money's good. Maybe you have some kids and a wife and then you're in this golden cage. Yeah. Yeah. Tony was telling me how when he was doing it, he did a lot of writing, but he never stopped doing sets.

And they would say, man, come on, come out with us for drinks. You don't have to do a set. And you'd go, what? What the fuck did you say? Yeah. And his mind was very clear. He's like, I am a comic. I am doing this writing thing for money while I develop an act to be one of the best comics in the world.

That's how I approach it, too. Yeah, when I was writing in the room. Because people were like, oh, you should just keep on doing it and just go down that writer path. But the thing is, then you put out your flame. The whole reason I got the job

is because they liked my standup. Every opportunity I've gotten in Hollywood is because of my standup. So why would I extinguish my superpower? Because then you just become a writer and there's nothing wrong with that. But that's more common than a very good stand-up. It's also, it's like, how do writers know if they're funny? You know? I mean, you know if you're funny when you interact with people. Yeah. But I guess you know you're funny if you're

funny in a room. Like, perfect example, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. They're hilarious. The funniest fucking guys on earth. They don't do stand-up. But South Park is one of the greatest shows the world has ever known. If not the greatest comedy show of all time. It's a real good argument that it's the greatest comedy show of all time. The greatest cartoon of all time, for sure.

And for how good it is, for how long, is amazing. I don't know any show has had that type of consistency. Insane. And apparently it's just Trey Parker. He's a fucking complete maniac. Yeah. Have you ever watched that show? What is it called?

Seven Days to Air or Six Days to Air? Something like that, whatever it's called. It's a great documentary. I love that inside baseball stuff. No matter what the subject is, I'm so fascinated. It's interesting to see how the sausage is made. And a lot of his trey parker there's people like that that are just wizards yeah you know they just they just have a thing

and they know and obviously he's got a system completely down and they hire great writers and you know they've got the people at comedy central are smart enough to leave them the fuck alone which is rare you know to have a network it just sort of goes go ahead but it's always it's nice when you do have a conglomerate like that to just trust the artist because look what gets produced i think it's tough when you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen who don't my favorite things artistically are pretty singular in in vision like chapelle's show right they didn't have a lot of meddling in that you know yeah um, they started to meddle when it started to make a lot of money, and that was one of the reasons why Dave quit.

When Dave, you know, got the offer, it wasn't the money that corrupted him, where he's like, I don't need this $50 million. It was what it came with. It came with them trying to censor the show to make it more friendly to advertisers. Like, they were literally telling him, don't say this, don't say that, do say this don't say that do this don't

do that and and dave was like yeah i see the writing on the wall here and it's quite a legendary move to vanish for 10 years and remember do you remember when he was doing shows in like seattle yeah where he would pull up with like a little portable speaker in the park and do a stand-up set and everybody's like, what the fuck is going on? Is that Dave Chappelle? And he would just set up shop in the park and do standup. It just added to the legend. I think at the time the world was like,

what a dumb move, he's gonna regret this. Cause I guess that's not betting on yourself to people. Or it is betting on yourself and they're like, why would you do that? And then from the vantage point that we're at right now, like, what a move. Fucking legendary. Yeah, and then when he came back, you know, he came back and started doing shows and kind of got into the groove again and then started killing it

and then started putting out specials and then getting attacked. What's your take on that? What do you think is going on? Well, for sure, the Will Smith thing opened up the door to the idea to that guy, the guy who attacked Chappelle. And it's also, you know, there's a narrative that his jokes are transphobic.

They are not. That set is not transphobic. That set, if you really watch it and pay attention to it, it has a transgender person in it who he loved, who was a good friend of his, who he had open for him at shows, at least one show, and talked about with great love and respect and with humor. But it wasn't transphobic.

It wasn't. It was about, it had to do with a trans person. But we live in this weird era where you can't even make fun of a thing unless you're a bad person, you're a hater. Like fun equals hate now. It like ricky gervais is catching a lot of it now for his latest special yeah that fucking first 15 minutes of that special is fire it's fire he's it's the best ricky that i've ever seen it's his best shit yeah and i was

telling you too it's like the rotten tomato just shows you the disparity between what's going on in the country and what the critics are saying and same with Chappelle stuff, too Well the critics could the critics, you know, what are they? What does that mean? You know, they're just humans, right? But they're humans that are captured by a system and that system is like either It's a system that's propagated by social media or it's a system that you know They're on a website that is almost they they're almost all left-leaning websites that have a problem with it, which is really interesting.

It's like the right-wing website. It's like, who would have thought that if you look back on the early days, what we used to think of as conservative versus liberal. Liberal was pro-free speech. People were open-minded, non-violent, and people were open to other people's ideas and the right was like suppressive you know the nanny state you know condemn certain language

condemn certain behaviors that's not the case today yeah today the left has gone so fucking far left so radical that the right are the ones that are celebrating comedians and celebrating Chappelle. Yeah. They had my back through all the crazy shit that happened with me.

It was Fox News that fucking had my back. Would you ever think that they would be the ones to cape for you like, you know, 10 years ago? I'm so liberal.

Yeah. Like, I talk about it all the time. Like, I say, I am not a conservative. I'm not conservative. But I am pro-Second Amendment, and I am a hunter, and I am a cage-fighting commentator, and I drink and I smoke cigars, and I like to bow hunt. So there's a lot in there that's like, hey.

There's some crossover. Yeah, but it's just being a human. But I'm a compassionate person, and I believe that there's's a boy. I'll tell you what, though. One thing that happened during this pandemic was I open it open my eyes about human nature. Like I used to be very pro universal basic income. My thought was, wouldn't it be great if you just had enough money so you could eat and you could pay your rent and then you could pursue what you wanted to. But the reality of human nature came fully into focus when I realized that when some people got all that money from the government, the COVID money, and then they got unemployment, they didn't want to work.

I have a friend who has a restaurant. He could not get people to come back to work. And one buddy of mine, a bartender told him, I can come back to work, but I can only work for 20 hours a week because that way I get unemployment. So he wouldn't work more than 20 hours a week so he could get free money. So he could have made more money, but he didn't want to because he didn't want to work. So he was getting that free money. And then my friend was like, what the fuck, man?

Like, okay. And now he's always short staffstaffed, and it's a mess. You see a lot of people that own businesses that have a hard time finding people to work for them. So there's pros to that, right? The pros are people, it's a marketplace that favors the worker, so workers can ask for more money. So you're seeing a lot of places like bars and restaurants and stuff that have to pay more money per hour, which I guess is good as long as the restaurant can stay open because it's at a challenge. Well, not so much in Texas, but in California it's at a very challenging time

because the time where everybody was shut down in California was radically extended as opposed to like other parts of the country. Yeah. And in Texas, things were just wide open. That's why I came out here. It was like a totally different world. Yeah. I remember I had that writing job. We were on Zoom and my nights would suck.

I'm just writing by day and then normally I would do stand up at night and I'm not doing anything and I'm on Instagram and then I see Tony post sold out uh kill Tony and it's on Anton's you know yeah and I'm like

what like it just kind of like snapped my brain I go this I could be doing this so I call up Redman I'm like

how is it out there I'm like he said you gotta come out here man it's great well once the club gets open after we get out of here I'll take you to

I'd love to see it I'll take you to the theater we're gonna do some wild shit out here man yeah but it's just sort of like Once the club gets open. After we get out of here, I'll take you to the theater. We're going to do some wild shit out here, fame. Yeah, but it's just sort of like, even with the agendas and stuff, and that's why I kind of did my thing on YouTube too, because I never fit into that Netflix mold, or there's just certain people who pick certain things, and they have a certain brand of comedy that they want to cultivate.

And I think the stock price and what's happening, because there's the mega famous people who have their specials, and sure, it's great, home run Netflix. But then the up-and-comers, they're not, I'm not knocking all of them, you know, some of our friends are on there and they do well, but they are under-facilitating this whole market of comedy that is just underserved.

I don't think that's what it is. I really don't. Really? Yeah. Like, Giannis' special's great. Like, why didn't he have one? And he did his on YouTube. It's fine.

Yeah. Like, do it on, it doesn't matter. It's like, Netflix only has so many resources and so many spots and so many opportunities for people. And do they make some terrible picks? Yeah. Yeah, they do. They've had some that just are bad everyone does they well they leaned into it they went woke they gave it a shot and they went broke you know like the the fucking the price of the stock dropped it dropped radically i mean you saw what happened to netflix's stock a lot of that has to do with all this,

well, first of all, a lot of it had to do with some stuff that people really freaked out that they had. Like, was that Cuties? That fucked up show about young drag queens and everybody was like, what the fuck are you doing? That was weird, right? And then it was, was it young drag queens or was it girls too?

It's like young dancer, like little girl dance teams or something like that. It wasn't boys, right? There was a drag queen thing. I think I'm completing the two. There was a thing about young boys that were doing drag shows, but I don't think that was the Netflix thing. But the point is, it's like, you know, there's like an ideological capture that happens when you're connected to these kind of corporate systems that are embracing wokeness. And so you say, well, we're going to find comedians that reflect our ideals. Yeah.

Yeah. And our values. But those aren't funny. That's what's frustrating because I like funny, you like funny. I have always, my whole life, just gone by funny first and my identity is secondary.

That's why I love Tim Dillon. You wouldn't even know that he's gay. So many comics would lead with that and that would be their tent pole for the entire being.

That's just like a crumb of what he is. He's so funny regardless of that. He barely talks about it. Barely talks about it. Like, I'm Afghan, but that is secondary. I want to talk about everything.

Yeah. And that didn't fit that agenda because they have boxes and like they don't look at purely funny. Right. So I'm like, YouTube, I will trust America. You decide. I think that there is this marketplace now

where it's like, fuck the system. It's punk rock. America, you decide. The world, you decide i think that there is this marketplace now where it's like fuck the system it's punk rock america you just the world you decide well i think netflix is embracing funny with ricky gervais and with dave chappelle and with bill burr and there's a lot of other great comics that have netflix specials that are just purely funny you know but they already have a big name yeah yeah and the people that are coming up like you know Joey Diaz had a bit that they they told him he couldn't do and it was about Terry Crews and it was fucking funny it was a very funny bit you know about you know Terry Crews is me too allegations about how hard how hot he is you know like How could gay guys resist him? It was very funny.

But it was just they decided that he couldn't do that bit. But meanwhile, the audience said he could do that bit. The audience was like, yes. I mean, people were howling. I was at the store and there was a fucking gay couple and they were high-fiving when Joey was doing that bit. I'm like, who are we offending? We're not offending these folks.

This couple came to see a show, saw Joey do that bit. We're not offending. It was 100% just comedy. It was clear what he was doing. He was just trying to make the most happiness and fun out of a story, out of a subject matter. Yeah, I think sometimes these places don't give the people enough benefit of the doubt. Right.

And the only people who are allowed to talk about anything are already huge. But they're not gonna allow Joey to do that. They're not gonna allow me to do it. They're not gonna allow, you know? Yeah. So YouTube, you can. Yeah, but you can on,

well, you talked about Schultz. Like Schultz released his stuff on YouTube and then he got a Netflix thing. Yes. So, you know, like his- They came back to him. Exactly. Well, he became, I love this quote, I use it all the time, be undeniable.

He became undeniable. His shit on Netflix or his shit on YouTube and his shit on Instagram that turn your phone sideways stuff was so genius that they were like, this fucking guy needs a show. And they were like, yeah. And then when he put the show together, it was excellent. Yeah. And so it was like, and a lot of people complained about it but that's about everything that's funny you're not going to make everybody happy if you're doing it the right way it's just just how it goes

yeah it was such a different way of doing things that it it's it's become a blueprint for other comics and it's it's great like i think it's allowed me to do this as well, and he's been really helpful. I hit him up when I was going to do this YouTube release. I go, hey, do you have any advice? He gave me the full download. He was so happy to help out. It wasn't like I have the secret sauce and it's only for me. He wants this pushback to what it is.

It's great. We're all helping each other, and we are the gatekeepers now. It's not like one guy at a company anymore. Yeah, that's how it should great. Like we're all helping each other and we are the gatekeepers now. It's not like one guy at a company anymore. Yeah. That's how it should be. And we all support ourselves. I mean, I talk about is probably too much for people that are listening to this again, but this is, we have an organic network and the organic network is friends that have each other on each other's podcasts and talk about each other. Oh, this guy's so funny. Oh my God. You know, go see Chris DiStefano, go see, you know, go see Chris DiStefano. Go see, you know, Giannis Papas or Joe List or whoever these people are.

It's like we have a bunch of really funny friends and we let everybody know. And then everybody sort of does each other's shows. We do shows together. We do stand-up together. We do podcasts together. We do specials. And, you know, that's the way to do it. And that way it's natural.

Like if you're on Tom Segura's show and Tom Segura says Fahim is fucking hilarious like BAM okay Tom Tom's gives you the the stamp of approval everyone knows you're good to go yeah yeah and it works that way yeah because there's no there's no reason for him to lie but you know if you go on a tonight show no no no it's single it's a tonight show but any kind of late night talk show, they don't fucking pick those people. It's like, you know, Jimmy Fallon's not going to the clubs and making good friends with all the comics and trying to figure out who's the best guy to get on. They're just like, I mean, he's a good guy. Jimmy Fallon's a very good guy.

But whoever gets on his show gets on his show because some executive goes and scouts or they get a packet sent by an agent. goes and scouts or they get a packet sent by an agent and you know that stuff is not really as appealing to people anymore because they've they've heard this they've heard the the raw stuff where people get together and just really just fucking drink scotch and smoke cigars totally talk shit man like there is this shift um i think, before podcasting and before YouTube and Instagram and where you can pull back the curtain to what comedy and stand up in this world really is. All we had was like the gloss of The Tonight Show and all that. But now people really like the nitty gritty stuff and they're a little more savvy. They know about the different the comedy store, for instance, you know. Yeah.

It's talked about so much on podcasts and everything and and like me doing my special there it's like people get to see the hallways and stuff and like people want to see that element of it they just don't want to see the five minute tonight show thing or a special glossy paid audience like i just tagged along on a regular night of operation at the store it people didn't know i'm shooting a special, like very small footprint. Like people had no idea I was taping. And it was conscious because when I did my CISO thing, it's like you load in the audience, there's lights and it's sort of a recreation of your act that you've been developing in like grimy clubs. But that's, that's standup when it's not being filmed. Right, right, right.

So I wanted to capture the material, not do a recreation presentation of the real material. You know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. Yes, because it's a different type of laugh when people know they're being filmed as opposed to just them acting natural. Right, yeah. So there's a beauty to that too.

Right, it's like when you go to, have you ever been to a filming of like the Tonight Show and they have the applause signs? Yeah. They tell you when to applaud. Like, train seals. Or a sitcom.

Oh, yeah. Well, you were on one. Oh, God, yeah. So they have in between, you know, the scene, the warmup guy, like, where are you from? Yeah, well, let's have a dance contest. You from Detroit? Where are you from?

Michigan? All right, guys, break. And it's like two dads. Did you ever do that? Did you ever do a warm-up? No. I got asked to, but I just, that's kind of like a writing thing, too, where you can go down that rabbit hole,

and people will only view you as a warm-up act. That's a problem. And you can't get out of that box. You're 100% right. Like, Brody was in that for a while. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, Brody was just, I mean, you want to talk about a comics comic they didn't

know what to do with brody yeah because he was he was our guy but also because he was like a shooting star um you try to capture that because they would try to film something and then brody wouldn't be like yes so it's hard to capture that in a bottle yeah isn't that though it's like he became a guy that was like a legendary live performer like you would go to see you just wanted you you want to see him at the club like don barris yeah great example right don barris does a lot of warm-up too he does warm-up for the kimmel show but you really don't know don barris until you see him doing a 12-15 spot at the store. That's Don Barris.

That's the real Don Barris. There's some people who you can't capture their essence when you take the lens cap off. They just know, like Holtzman's one of those guys too where it's hard to capture the magic of that. Joey Diaz is that way. Joey Diaz is that way too. It's like putting a saddle on a horse or something.

It just doesn't want it. Well, horses wear saddles all the time. I don't know if that's the best analogy. Let's see. A zebra? A zebra? Yes. Can we edit the horse thing out?

I don't want people to know that I don't know my horses. Don't put a saddle on a zebra. We were just talking about that. Like, because zebra, I said that zebras can't be tamed. And one of my friends sent me a video of a fucking guy who got a saddle on a zebra. We were just talking about that. Like, uh, cause zebra, I said the zebras can't be tamed. And one of my friends sent me a video of a fucking guy who got a saddle on a zebra and was riding a zebra. And I'm like, that, that's like having a wolf for a pet.

It was like, do you really have a pet wolf? You know, or is that wolf just hang out with you cause you feed him? That's a good point. It's like my dog Marshall. I love Marshall. He's the best. Every photo I like, like I love Marshall. He's the best every photo. I like like I love Marshall He's a real pet you know Marshall is like the sweetest friendliest Dog like I've never had a golden retriever before and I always had heard that they're like the best family dogs like

He's not even like a dog. He's like a magical creature. That's like a love sponge He's like all he wants to do is like people come over the house, he starts whining, you're here. Like everybody gets greeted like they're his new best friend. Does he bring a shoe? No, he usually brings stuffed animals. He has a box of stuffed animals. So when people start walking down the driveway towards the house, he sees them and he runs to his box

and he grabs a stuffed animal. So cute. So many of them will bring a shoe. I just love it. Like, it's just so weird to me. I know it's dog behavior, but it's just so funny when a golden comes with a shoe. Like, here you go. They're retrievers. Yeah, I know.

You'd be like, thank you. Thanks for this one shoe that isn't mine. Well, they get praised for retrieving. Like, I've never had a dog that I could teach how to catch a ball and bring it back better than Marshall. Like, he immediately did it from the time he was a baby. Like I had dogs and I would throw the ball to them. They'd chase after the ball. I'd go, hey, bring it back.

They'd be like, fuck you. And then they'd run away with the ball. And he'd be like, come on, man. I got to teach you how to do this. You got to bring it back to me. So you like chasing it, right? Well, I got to throw it for you to chase it. So you got to bring it back to me.

And like I had pit bulls before and they never wanted to give the ball back. They're like. So you like chasing it, right? Well, I got to throw it for you to chase it. So you got to bring it back to me. And like I had pit bulls before and they never wanted to give the ball back. They're like, I tried to pull it out of their mouth. They were playing tug of war. Yeah. But Marshall came out the womb knowing how to do it? Out of the womb. Like right away.

I mean, I don't remember teaching him how to fetch. I think he just fetched. Like right away he fetched. That's pretty crazy. I used to have a cat that would fetch. Whoa. Yeah. Her name was Cosmo and I used to take like a little piece of paper and I would crumple it up in a ball and I would throw it

and she would chase it and she would bite it and she would bring it back to me I'd play fetch with a fucking cat some people have outdoor cats or like go on a walk with a cat that's like weird it is weird but that dog that's like yeah weird it is weird but that dog is it's a that's a pet a wolf i had a friend who had he had three wolf dogs they were like 70s timber wolf they

were not his pets i'd go over his house i'd be like oh you got roommates that are murderers he lived with a bunch of fucking three wolves they were real wolves they were big man big ass fucking dogs i went to go see the bats you know underneath the bridge oh yeah i do You live with a bunch of fucking three wolves. They're real wolves. They were big, man. Big ass fucking dogs. I went to go see the bats, you know, underneath the bridge. That's a good thing to do. Is that every night? Yes.

Every night at dusk. Yeah. It's interesting. It's like bat Coachella. Everyone is just on that hill. They're like, ah, the bats are going to come out. Even during the pandemic. Really? They didn't develop a bat phobia.

No. Yeah. And it started from, supposedly from bats. Allegedly. Yeah, yeah. But they didn't give a shit. They're like. Yeah. And it started from supposedly from bats. Allegedly. Yeah. Yeah. But they didn't give a shit. They're like, they're not going to bite me.

They're just going to fly by me. Yeah. But it's just so funny seeing all those people on the hill and on the bridge like bats, bats. It is weird when you see them come out because they come out. Yeah. There's like this big flow of them. Apparently there's millions of bats under there. So was that just inadvertent?

They built this bridge and they go, oh, fuck, we built the perfect bat habitat? I believe so. Huh. Yeah, because when you go under that bridge, have you ever been under that bridge? No, I've just seen it from like a far nut. If you go under in a boat or something like that, you can hear them. Oh, yeah. I would call that the sound check, just like when they're about to come out.

You hear this fucking weird noise. It's kind of creepy. Let's find out how many bats. I said millions. It was a never-ending stream of bats. I think it's at least a million. We left. We walked out on the bat show because it was just lasting so long.

We get it. They're flying away. It's like you need those bats because those bats keep the insect population down. Those bats are predators. They're flying away. But the thing is, you need those bats, because those bats keep the insect population down. Those bats are predators, so they're out there eating bugs. I don't know. How long do bats live? That's a good question. Do they live longer than a year? Let's guess.

Probably, right? Let's guess. I'll say a bat lives like a dog a long life for a dog is like 15 years. I'll say 5, five or seven. Yeah, I'll say five. Most bats live less than 20.

20. Six species live more than 30. Damn. And you were not wrong. There is an estimated 750,000 to 1.5 million bats. That's a lot of bats. Wow. But they're migratory, so they come and go.

Oh, wow. I wonder where they go. Mexico. Oh, they go to Mexico. They fly from Austin to Mexico and back? They go to party, dude. They party. Or they go for the drugs and they come back.

Yeah. Which is what everybody would do if we all had jetpacks. Imagine if everybody could fly. All your borders would be bullshit. That's a good point. The only thing that keeps people in countries. The only way you have border protection and all that shit is the fact that you have people stuck on Earth with gravity. My God.

Can you imagine once jetpacks become ubiquitous? Border patrol is going to be like the Mandalorian just fighting people trying to come over in the sky. I think they'll just give up. We won't have the resources to stop it. I mean, ultimately, look, I think right now, especially given the laws that we have now and the fact that fentanyl comes across the border and terrorists come across the border and there's a real situation, the world is not at peace.

But wouldn't it be great if people could kind of go anywhere they wanted and everywhere was a place where you could live and thrive? Like imagine a world where every place was like a city that had opportunity and freedom and democracy and was thriving and had good food and nice people. Like Austin has good food, nice people, polite, not too overcrowded, plenty of resources. Wouldn't it be great if the whole world was like that? Pretty great. And you could kind of go anywhere you wanted. I will say, it feels more crowded than when I was here.

It seems like there's more people here. Really? Yeah. Somebody told me the population doubled, like, in the last year. Rainy street is crazy. Is it always like that? Well, this is Memorial Day weekend, first of all. Like last night was nuts on 6th Street.

Did you go out afterwards? No. 6th Street was mobbed. We were driving like this is fucking nuts for a Sunday night. And then, you know, my friend Sean was like, oh, it's Memorial Day weekend. I was like, that's right. I didn't even think of that.

It's not normal to have that many people on a sunday night but it's kind of normal like and on any given tuesday or wednesday when we do the vulcan it's mobbed the club's mobbed and the streets are mobbed and it's just it's a unique place it is it's really unique yours isn't on the street don't tell me oh i mean anybody. Oh, fuck, fuck. Shh. I mean, it's somewhere else. It's going to be awesome. Just wait. I can't wait to show you because we have so many cool things that are in the place that we're putting together. It's wild.

How did you design it? What was going through your head? What do you want it to be? Is there a vibe you're trying to capture? Is there other clubs that you kind of are trying to pull some things from? trying to capture is there other clubs that you kind of are trying to pull some things from or well i want to make it very um hospitable to comics and obviously to audience members too but one of the cool things about the store was the hang you know is that like it's our home base yeah you know so the name of the club is the comedy mothership yeah and that the reason i

want it to be like a feel i want you to feel like this is your This is mother. This is home like you can do the road from here You can hang out and you're always be welcome You'd be taken care of like I want to give the comics health insurance and whoa for real. Yeah for that Yeah, so not typical. That's like insanity in America. Yeah, but it should be like that But you know how many comics have paid for their fucking surgeries? Comics that have things wrong with them and I find out, like, what's wrong?

Are you okay? I got something wrong with my neck. What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong and then I take care of it. I've had that happen multiple times because a lot of us, you know, in the early days you're broke and you're barely paying your rent.

You can't afford surgery. You can't afford insurance. And so if something goes wrong, you're kind of fucked. For sure. Like I feel like stand-ups were the lowest rung on the entertainment ladder. At least actors have SAG, health insurance, and writers. There's nothing like that for stand-ups really. It's just you're alone out there.

And you just have to hope you have friends if some calamity befalls you like a go fund me or hopefully you you know the person you know and that's kind of fucked up so well the idea is to make you know make it more but but again you gotta be careful that you don't set it up where people become too lax. And people have a tendency to sort of relax too much. And I don't mean relax too much like not enjoy your life. I want people to enjoy their lives. But I also want them to work hard.

And I don't mean work hard like struggle. I mean put in effort and actually try. That's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable to put in effort, but it has to be rewarded, and it has to be encouraged, and that's how people develop a whole community of other people doing the same thing, and then it feels good to do that

because you're one of the people that's doing that. So as you're writing every night and as you're trying new stuff, people pat you on the back, hey, Fahim, your new fucking shit is awesome. That's great. Like, that's a great feeling, right? And it's great when you see other people that are going up and doing new stuff and writing on the back, hey, Fahim, your new fucking shit is awesome. That's great. Like, that's a great feeling, right? Yeah, yeah.

And it's great when you see other people that are going up and doing new stuff and writing all the time, and it encourages that, you know? So you gotta encourage hard work as well as, like, make things better for people. Yeah. It just, it makes you better as a comic, too.

Just know, that's why I like being out in L.A. and, like, being at the store, just seeing some of the guys, you see what they're doing and then it makes you do inventory with yourself and you, you know where the bar is. Yeah. Whereas if you're in like Ohio or something,

I know, you know, sometimes you'll do the road and someone's featuring for you or something. And they're like, yeah, this is like my second time getting up this month. I get up twice a month and it's like,

your heart goes out to them because you're not going to be able to develop with just those few data points. There's no one develops in a vacuum. Like you never go to like a place that doesn't have a comedy scene and you see one guy who's just a fucking wizard who's so good in this one scene.

Maybe you might see more of that today because you see a lot of internet comedy where people get a chance to see comedy. Even if you don't get a chance to visit the cellar, you can watch sets from the cellar on YouTube or Instagram or what have you. So I think you probably have more of a chance of developing somewhere else,

but really you need an atmosphere. You need an atmosphere of other people that are also doing it. Yeah, that, to see what your peers are doing, and then also just that feedback from the audience. Sometimes, you know, people will see you perform and they'll be like, I don't know how you got that. You're so amazing. That's so great. And, like, you are, but you've developed the skill where the audience is your editor.

The audience is doing all the work for you if you're listening. That's our whole job is just listening, actively listening, and being your editor. The audience is doing all the work for you. If you're listening, that's our whole job is just listening, actively listening and being an editor. Cause we have kernels of ideas, but the audience shapes them into what it is. So like I'll go in with some rough stuff. Like it's just clay. And then the laughs dictate these polished bits. And like, I love that about standup the most. Yeah. And stuff comes out like while you're in the middle of talking you have a new idea that'll come out of nowhere that'll branch off you know yeah that's why like I always tell comics that you have to have you don't have to like let me stretch this

like you could do it any any way you want some guys don't write at all and they're great yeah they're great fucking comics they just go up a lot and they remember what they said and some guys write exclusively and they go up and they basically have like a fully formed bit when they get to the stage and they kind of tweak it and edit it and then some guys just improvise like literally just go on stage with a premise and just under the pressure of the audience improvise I think you should do all those things I think you should write I think you, improvise. I think you should do all those things. I think you should write. I think you should improvise.

And I think you should go up as much as possible. I think all those, like people say I write on stage. I'm like, I can write on stage too. Like anyone can write on stage. But I actually sit down. Like last night I got home. I sat in front of the fucking computer for two hours. And I might have nothing out of that.

Or I might have my best bit ever. Yeah. I never know. And you don't know until you try, you know? Just stay the fuck off of YouTube. Don't jerk off. No incognito mode. I gotta buckle down.

And just write, you know? Yeah. So the way I do it is I have two laptops. I have a laptop that is like my what's going on in the world laptop. And then I have a laptop like, okay, time to write. I pull that fucker out and I'm writing. I found I will, I like maximizing my stage time. Any show I do, I know what I want to achieve with that show.

I know what, this is a lesson that came later in life for me too, is when I was, the part of stand-up I love the most is chasing the new bit. I'm always chasing, I did it to a detriment early on. And what clicked for me

was knowing what to do, what bits to do on what show. How'd you do it to a detriment? What do you mean? It might be a showcase or something,

and I'm like, oh, let me try this new thing I thought of tonight, or like earlier today. I think it's, you know what I mean? Where I didn't realize I need to shine in this show, not try new bit right right right so once it clicked for me

knowing what to do what needs to be achieved on what show is this an impressed show i'm beyond that now like i'm known in la and shit like it's kind of nice to be farther enough in your career where the store trusts you and you can take big swings and like I'm a made man I'm fine, you know, but when you're coming up and the you're not a paid regular yet It's a problem for a lot of comics or they never write because they always want to kill So they'll do the same 15 minutes everywhere they go. Yeah for years and years and years So you got to know where to do that and if it's a bar show Why the fuck are you trying to

smash at some bar show that you're not getting paid for work on some new stuff yeah you're getting a hamburger you don't owe them it depends if you're a one-year comic or whatever okay you need to get your chops and all that but if you're five years in and you're doing the same 15 yeah every show you're you're wasting these different types of shows. Yeah. Well, people get scared, you know? And there's like two arguments. Like, yeah, you get scared, but also if you just do that same act over and over again, then you're Bobby Lee and you have 15 minutes of fucking thunder. You know, Bobby's set, when he does a set, it's so tight because he's been doing it for 150 years.

He wants to. We've talked about it and it's kind of a like he has ideas but he likes crushing and yeah but Bobby is he's like bigger than comedy too he has to podcast and it's upside down oh that makes sense you're like fucking with your

thumbs I'm like yeah so he wants to write new stuff well he's the unique he's the one that like you could point to there's a guy that should have done a special a long fucking time ago but he's also there's a lesson to be learned from that as well just performance wise because i'll see him you know i see him at the store all the time and i get tired of stuff very quickly. And when I see Bobby breathe new life into bits that I've heard for a while,

it is kind of a reminder to me how to sell the jokes. You don't have to give up on something. Good bit is a good bit. There are great performance elements to learn from Bobby. He knows all the beats. He knows all the beats. He knows where all the corners are. He knows how to make it different each time so there is nuance in that even yeah um but he started doing

his show in brea where he does new material and so he's starting to like chip away at that he needs a whole second hour so he could put an hour out so he needs training wheels i've been telling bobby just like why don't you why don't you have a special everybody has been But he's been fine without it. Yeah, I think we just selfishly want to see it as friends and comedians We wanted to do better. Yeah. Yeah, that's all it is You know and you also when someone's as good as Bobby as you want the world to know like that This is you know, like people that have seen him know, but I want everybody to see it. Yeah but it's that thing, you know, thing. I think there's a lot of

anxiety and fear in almost every profession that people do. I mean, how many people work for someone and become like a very valuable asset to the company, but really feel like they're not getting appreciated enough and they have to decide to make a leap and go on their own. There's a lot of people like that. And then maybe you have a wife and children or a mortgage or a family you're taking care of, family members that depend on you and you can't really take that chance. You don't know how you take that chance and also take care of all your obligations. It's fucking hard, man.

That's why comedy is a young person's game in the beginning, in the struggling days. Like, if you want to start comedy at 50, fuck. I know. Good luck, bro. You ever have those guys after a show, they'll come up to you to pick your brain.

They're like, hey, I'm a programmer from Oracle. I'm like 47 years old. I've been writing jokes. And you don't want to tell them that it's too late. It's not too late. It can be done. Like Robert Schimmel, Robert Schimmel, who's one of the best ever. Robert didn't start doing standup until he was 36. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. And he was fucking great. Anything can be done. Yeah. It's just standups, a lot of hard work no matter what age you are.

Dean Del Rey didn't start until he was deep in his 40s. He's inspiring too just to see, because I remember when he started, I was many years in when he started

and you don't know, you don't think someone, because Dean's an outlier. Most guys that age starting will do it for three years and I'm out. Yeah. But I think he does like 300 sets a year.

He tries to hit a certain amount every year. He's, you know, he's an interesting case because, you know, he had a long history of performing, you know, as a musician. You ever hear him sing a whole lot of Rosie? He's great. Yeah. Great voice. Dude.

He's really good. Yeah. He's great. Yeah, great voice. Dude, he's really good. Yeah. Like he put, him and Burr were doing, what they would do is they would do music during the day before a show.

So they would show up at like a big iconic venue and they would set up drums and recording and they would fucking just sing for the fun of it. Because Burr is really good on the drums. Oh yeah, he gets lessons and everything. I heard when he was doing his show at the Kia Forum, they rented out, so he paid for the place. So he just brought his, he got a drum lesson in the Kia Forum. What's the Kia Forum?

The Great Western Forum? Yeah. Same forum? Yeah. LA Forum? Yeah. Yeah. Is this him?

Let me hear this. this. This is tribute to Bon Scott. He's really talented. Like legitimately good as a singer. And so for him, he was like, man, this fucking music business is a goddamn grind. I'm friends with the band Honey Honey, the band formerly known as Honey Honey. And Suzanne Santo is a really good friend of mine. And I went to see her live the other day in Austin.

And, you know, I know how talented she is. I've known her for at least 10 years. But when you see someone live that's that talented and that good, and she sings and she plays musical instruments, she's playing violin, she's playing guitar and singing she's so fucking good i'm like how is she not famous how is she not like uber famous like taylor swift style famous like there's plenty of people like that art is just strange and that it's subjective and like there's some music i listen to some artists artists where I'm like, they just resonate with a certain vibration with me

where I'm like, this should be the biggest thing in the world. Right. And it's not. Yeah. And I will do whatever I can to blast it out if I like a song and all that. And you want that for them.

But I think all of art is just, you are compelled to do it and it's just bursting out of you and whatever happens, happens. But like, like the special i'm proud of it hopefully it does what it does i don't have any expectations like i just made the thing that i wanted to make without any interference um and and i'm very zen and peaceful about that that's awesome yeah that's what it's all about yeah keep doing that yeah keep doing that you'll

be great i mean you're already doing well keep doing that and you you'll do better. That's just really what it's about. And the beautiful thing about having something out there like you did and putting it on YouTube is it's super accessible. People are listening to this right now. They're going to pause this on Spotify and go over to your YouTube page and they're going to watch your show. And they can get it like that. That's partly why I did it because if it was there. There it is. Bam.

We're getting it. See? Look how quick that was is there volume Yeah, give me some volume Freddie Prince Redd Foxx Andy Kaufman. We're looking at Eddie Murphy although the names on the wall But I thought I came up with all my bits of this place. Why not just shoot it here? Every time I see the store in specials. It's shot in only one of the rooms the main room the original room or the belly room.

I wanted to do all three, the hat trick. And I didn't want to dress it up or smoke it out. I just wanted to show the place for what it is. Home. home. Oh, this is awesome. That's so cool. It does seem like it. There's Annie. That's awesome. Is that Fitzsimmons?

Yeah. Nice. Fuck yeah. Look at that. Bobby brings you up up so i go on the road sometimes and uh sometimes i bring comics on the road this guy i used to bring on the road and he got too strong he's really funny this guy is literally one of the best joke writers in this country i love him everybody clap your hands this country. I love them. Fahim Anwar, everybody, clap your hands.

Yeah. Bobby has this weird thing. And you went up dressed like you would dress on any given night. Yes, yes. That's cool, too. You go out, baseball hat. I didn't want to make it precious. And I hope that people respond to that. There's something nice about

the look behind the curtain, you know? And there's no smoke and mirrors. And I like that they're not there for me, they're there for probably a bigger person on the lineup, in all the rooms. I'm probably the most medium guy on these lineups or whatever. So there's something romantic about making strangers laugh.

They're not my crowd. And so you're doing how many minutes in each room? Like, like 14, 15, you know. Oh, so you're doing it like a regular set? Yeah. Oh, nice. These are just my regular sets. Nice, nice.

So, it's all about capturing. So, you just put three regular sets together and strung them together into one show? Yeah. Nice. And you see me walk around and shit, like. Dude, way to go. This is cool. You fucking managed to do something unique i like it

i love it because i knew i was due for another special and i was gonna do it like my other one but i'm like who cares yeah you know if i did this material at a theater like who gives a shit there's so many specials and i thought i am a store guy that is unique. Not everyone is passed at the store. Um, it's, I have access to this building and this just elevates it. You see, you see like Jessel next bringing me up in the main room. Um, Bobby brings me up in the OR. You see these Titans of comedy. Uh, and it's just a regular night at the store because people don't realize that this is a hub for us We're all on the road, and then we all come to this place to work out And did you tell like jessal neck that you were filming I got clear yeah, I had everybody that's cool. Wow

That's really cool, dude Nailed it what a great idea It's a really great idea and it's interesting like all the years and years of people doing comedy, nobody figured out how to do that. Dude, it's almost like, has anyone done this? I can't believe I'm the only one to think of this. It's like I invented the wheel or something. Like how has nobody done this? It's a really good idea. I had to do like tech stuff too. I had to figure it out. So I had to learn how to plug into the soundboard. I was literally hooking up audio equipment backstage before I'm going on, hitting record. They introduced me.

I go out there. I was like in the shit. I was like half tech guy, half artist to get this thing done. Wow. But that's what you got to do. Yeah, why not? I think people make standup.

We're taking the ownership back. i think there's this shift happening because before we just trusted the system we would show up do the thing make the product and we would just perform and that's it and now we're having to be entrepreneurs as well we're having to take ownership of our own business and careers well when you see guys like schultz that sort of pioneer that level of hustling like he hustled so hard and put his stuff on youtube and became like this giant theater selling act yeah because of that yeah did it all in front of our face why everybody watched him do it all on his own that's like the guys like that they set the bar and they change people's ideas of what's possible if you're really smart and you have a really good focus and you you come up

with a game plan yeah there's too many tools at our disposal nowadays that if you are not doing stuff like what Schultz is doing or this or doing it on your own then that is your fault yeah if you were in the 70s or 80s you were kind of beholden to the system you couldn't reach the masses on your own. Yeah. So you had to have the right person like you at The Tonight Show. I was even thinking about this. Remember back in the day, the path for a stand-up, you would try to get on The Tonight Show.

That was like early stand-up, right? And then you would try to get a sitcom, say like in the 90s. You would try to get a sitcom, act in the sitcom, and then that would boost you as a comedian. Yes. But nowadays, if you are a stand-up comedian and you get on a sitcom, nobody cares. Like nobody watches anything. It's so fractured, the viewership, that even if you get on an ABC sitcom as a stand-up, no one really cares. I feel like podcasting and this world is the new acting

so now when i get an audition and they go hey it's like three months in atlanta and it's and it's like a very small show or some cable thing that's great if you just want to be an actor but it's not going to help your stand-up right right right whereas back in the day it would Well, it'll help you a little like there's some guys that get on TV shows and they they start doing really well on the road Stand-up. Yeah Like who um? That's a good question It used to be Rick's the only way right so it became like a well-worn path

And everybody would want to get on a sitcom you got on a sitcom or on some other show like The Soup or, you know, like some kind of a show where you could be on television and showcase that you have like a funny personality. And then that would be an ad to get you to come to the clubs. Like Stan Hope said that best. We were talking about doing TV projects and he was, let's be honest, like every time you do a TV project, it's really just an ad to get people to come see you at the clubs. Like Stan Hope said that best. We were talking about doing TV projects and he goes, let's be honest, like every time you do a TV project, it's really just an ad to get people to come see you at the clubs. I was like, you're 100% right.

You're 100% right. But the problem with that way is that everybody wanted to do a specific kind of comedy because you wanted to get a television show. So like you wouldn't try to be, like I remember there's a guy who was the host of an open mic night when I was up and coming

and he was a local headliner in Boston, local professional, and he was telling me to stop swearing and telling me that I should stop talking about sex and talk about things that make people uncomfortable. And I said, but my favorite comedians all do that. I go, like, my favorite comedians are do that I go like my favorite comedian so like Sam Kinison and and Dice Clay he goes I got news for you you're not Dice Clay and I was like well how

do you become Dice Clay like what are you saying like you're saying that there's only one style of comedy even though the best ones are like Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy who didn't follow that at all like what are you saying? This is me back then trying to figure out what was going on here. And so the path was, and Jay Leno still believes this to this day. We actually talked about it when we were doing that Comedy Store documentary. He still thinks to this day you've got to be clean, and that's the way you get the big long market.

You're just going to get short-term success if you're dirty dirty I'm like this is such a crazy conversation like the cleaner dirty like I do not give a fuck some of my favorite comedians are clean Gaffigan clean genius brilliant Brian Regan Brian Regan clean Genius brilliant Nate Bargatze clean genius brilliant. It doesn't matter. It's just good Yeah, it's just we don't care like with like those guys to us are it's there's no the same it's the same it's just funny yes however you're funny it's funny however you're funny it's it's just are you what are you doing like you're just doing comedy like i don't want to tell you how to do comedy however you do if you want to do clean comedy

fuck yeah i'd like watching it's hilarious i love the fact that like if i'm watching a gaffigan special my 12 year old walks into the room. I don't have to go, hold on. I have to pause. If Cat Williams is on, I'm like, hey. Get out of the house. You're not ready for this. Get out of here.

Get out of here. Was news radio big for you at the time? News radio was medium big. Yeah. It's like I was just one of many people on a very talented ensemble I was only one of eight people did that help with stand-up though were people coming out because yeah a little bit yeah it helped yeah what was the first big thing do you think it was probably Fear Factor well that was after though right but that was 2001 Fear Factor was 2001 right after news radio that's

when things really started that's when things really started, that's when I really started selling out really well. But it was like some people knew me as a stand-up and some people just knew me as the Fear Factor guy and a lot of people would get upset. You were telling me backstage about the early days when you were doing Fear Factor. People would get so upset.

Because they had this idea of who you were from the show. Yeah, yeah. And I had these very controversial bits like about like ann nicole smith and her husband and people were like what are you doing but what i think is so funny is that the audience is like we expect better from the fear factor host oh we thought he'd be clean they thought it was well it's clean on tv that makes sense to me it's like but people get programmed to like think a certain way like that This is okay, and this is polite and this is not polite and that you you know you shouldn't joke around about certain things

Because at work, I'm not allowed to joke about certain things and on television. They don't joke about certain things So if you're at a club, how are you allowed to joke about those things because it's a club But I know they don't want to hear that, though. They come to see the guy from TV. It's not a lot of people. Yeah. But it was a percentage of people. But I was like, look, I could either become a different person and only cater to those people, which a lot of guys did.

This is the point. A lot of guys, they developed an act specifically to attract the television world. But that's fleeting. If you are conforming. But it's's not meaning, but it's not fleeting This is what you're wrong. No no no no in the day when you were Tim Allen If you could be Tim Allen to get on home improvement You are one of the fucking richest guys on earth like those guys like the Jerry Seinfeld When they developed a show they were the owner of the show they were the star of the show and they got ownership in the

Show they made preposterous They were the owner of the show they were the star of the show and they got ownership in the show they made Preposterous amounts of money and that's what everybody was chasing and a lot of guys weren't happy like Richard Jenny was like notoriously not happy Because he never became that sort of Jim Carrey movie star guy even though he was For comics he was one of the best comics alive. He was so fucking good man. Why do you think that is? I know you're a big Jenny guy like what do you think that disconnect why did it not happen you know i think for a lot of comics there's a lot of self-hate right and so you're chasing love when you're doing stand-up you're chasing the love of the audience the way you get that love is to come up with the funniest and some guys develop

funny just because they're funny and some guys develop funny shit because they just really Want that love and that's the best way to get to it and someone you know guys like a combination of those things People are different people that do the art are doing it for different reasons Like I know women that do it that came from a great family And then I have some of my funniest friends who also came from fucked up families when I talked to them about it And I think for them about it and I think for a girl it's probably even harder because it's not a situation where if you're in front of a bunch of guys like it's not a situation where you get treated equally the moment you get on

stage they don't just go boy can't wait to see this really funny chick they go oh I hope she's funny right yeah but I think there's like there's a prejudice that men have towards women controlling the microphone and then also talking about certain things like women who have opinions on politics like a lot of guys they don't want to hear that yeah you know it's it's a weird thing it's like I think it's like there's another several steps if a girl does stand up yeah don't you think yeah also though I think that happens just with any comedian who takes the stage and is not known you're starting from zero or a deficit there sure there is this like this guy thinks he's funny you gotta you gotta prove yourself funny

you're unfunny until proven funny for sure but don't you think there is a prejudice that women aren't as funny that exists in the world. So they go up, for the most part, with at least skepticism from some audience members. Yeah. Yeah. Which is too bad. You know, because it's just, it's not, it doesn't go across sex lines.

It just doesn't. Some of the best comics that we know are women. It doesn't, I saw a Whitney set. Whitney has a new set. She's about to film. Dude, it's fucking brilliant. It doesn't, I saw a Whitney set. Whitney has a new set she's about to film. Dude, it's fucking brilliant. It's fucking great. You saw her when she came through town? Saw her at the Paramount.

It was really funny. When was that? Month ago, somewhere around there. Yeah, she's about to shoot. I wonder if she's gonna do it or not. She's hot right now, dude. Her material is smooth. She's in a groove right now.

It's like she's so comfortable on stage. It's really fun, but she's a perfect example like she doesn't play up her looks at all you know like Whitney downplays it if anything she's always got like pink hair she's wearing a jean jacket like Elvis she's also kind of an inspiring person where you look at someone who just doesn't do stand-up like as a grinder has always been like sells the show is always moving always doing things she grinds so hard dude she's like she's one of the people i'll have a conversation with her she goes i'm about to make a documentary on violence i go what the fuck are you doing yeah where do

you have the time for this and so she was uh telling me i didn't even know about this there's some crazy fucking sport they do in england i think they do it once a year or something like that where was it england or italy oh is it like rugby but it's almost like- But they fight. Yes. They fight but they have a ball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they beat the fuck out of each other.

Want some more of this? Yeah, yeah. Can I have the lighter too? Yeah. What is that? Do you remember what we're talking about, Jamie? My buddy wanted- There was a thing.

I wish I could get a hold of her right now. She wanted to do a bachelor party and go to Italy to watch this, but I wasn't able to. Yeah, this is it. So it's Florentine football they're calling. Oh my god, dude, it's full on fights with a ball. It's like the craziest version

of a soccer or a football type game. You're allowed to hold on to it. So is it rugby? And then they have MMA matches in the middle of it. They're teeing off on each other. What the fuck? They're fucking choking each other.

Oh, my God. He's grabbing the guy's nose. He's, like, gouging his eyeballs out. He's gouging his nose. Did you see that shit? I mean, it's basically simulated war with a ball. Do they even pay? But no weapons.

This is crazy. There's just a bunch of dudes squaring off in the middle of this fucking sand dirt, and one guy gets tackled from behind by another guy. My question is, where's the ball? This is what's so crazy. It's like it's team fighting, and you just look for a guy who's wearing red pants,

and they look for a guy who's wearing white pants, and they fuck each other up. Would you play that? No. You have to be a reckless person to play that. You're getting hit from behind by someone on the other team. That is crazy. Like these are the most psycho fucking human beings alive.

Look, they're beating the shit out of each other with no pads in the dirt. So you're going to get sand in your eyes. Do you think that's like Christmas time for doctors? I didn't see a fucking referee anywhere in sight so no one's stopping anything, right? I guess that's a referee. Is that a referee? But you're not seeing anybody like break these fights up. So what do they do? Like how do they

dictate whether or not a fight is over? Do you let a guy just keep beating the fuck out of a guy or does someone come along and stop it? Because it seems to me like there's people just sitting on people, punching them in the face and there's nobody watching it. It almost seems like the ball is secondary. If you go to a UFC fight, Herb Dean is hovering over the action. When dudes are getting wailed on, he's ready to jump in.

Mark Goddard has his fucking eyes on the action, ready to pull the trigger at any moment. There's no apparent goal either. They're just throwing the ball against the fence when they get to the other side like chess, like King Me. This is crazy. This is crazy. This is just an excuse to beat the fuck out of each other. But these people, I mean they're getting really hurt. If you're having like gang MMA fights like that, you're going to get really hurt. Because people can hit you while you're getting hit from one side and the other side at the same time. The odds of you getting really hurt are pretty fucking high.

So how do you play Calcio Florentino? The teams change sides with every... How do you say? Caccia? Caccia? Or goal scored. It is important to shoot with precision because every time a player throws or kicks a ball above the net, the opposing team is awarded with a half caccia.

The game ends after 50 minutes, and the team which scored the most caccia wins. So it comes from Florentine? It seems like that's the only place it is. You know, it's also a place famous for eating meat. Oh, yeah? Yeah. You're a fan of that? Steak Florentine.

There's a style of cooking in, it's like caveman style. Like their style of cooking meat is just meat over fire. It's like they have meat over fire down to an art. Yeah, Bistecca di Florentine. Just Google that and you get all these Italian videos of guys showing you how to cook a steak over hardwood. Fuck yeah, I've done it. Yeah?

Yeah, that's how I cook them. You don't do the grill? I do the grill sometimes. Sometimes I cook it in a Traeger. I got a pellet grill, and what I do is it's called a reverse sear. So I'll put it in that, and I'll get it up to like 115 degrees internal temperature. And then I pull it and then I have a cast iron skillet. And I take the cast iron skillet, I get it really hot.

And then I sear it on the outside. I usually do like a minute and a half maybe each side. So you'll finish it on the cast iron? Yes. And then I let it rest. But the point is like that's when I'm pressed for time. But if I'm not pressed for time, I cook over wood. So I get dried oak, and I start a little tiny fire,

and I get the oak set up, and I get it crackling, and I get it turning into coals. And then I put a couple of fresh pieces on it to keep it smoky and fresh, and then I slide that steak over the top. I got one of them Argentine grills. Yeah. Crankity, crankity, crankety, crank. So what does the crank do?

The crank makes it higher or lower. Oh, okay. So I can have the steak way above the fire, and I have a little probe in it. And so I have a probe that tells me the outside temperature, and it tells me the temperature of the meat. And I can see it on my phone, this thing called meter. Oh, that's cool. And I look at that. So I'm watching it cook slowly over these hard uh hardwood logs and then at the end i

sear it when you cook like that and you eat it it has this insane flavor of smoke like you get this like real fresh smoky flavor in the meat it's fantastic and there's like there's a thing i think in your brain there's some weird like trigger that goes off when you have meat that's cooking over fire I think it's like programmed into us from all the years when people would have successful hunts and they would cook meat over fire they would feel good like everyone's going to eat we're going to survive another day because we were successful because it's hard to be successful it's like the feeling you get when you catch a fish right you ever even if you're not gonna if you're gonna release the fish there's a feeling like there's something about that that

i think is primarily connected to the idea that back in the day when it was hard to get food if you caught that fish you were fucking very excited because you're gonna live yeah you're gonna live so like when you watch like bass angler sports society, a bunch of guys in these tournaments, and they're like, look at it, and they're holding up by the lips, and everybody's cheering. They're basically playing a game. They're releasing the fish. Yeah. They're just fucking with them, and holding them up and showing everybody, I caught these

motherfuckers. I could eat these. Look at these dummies. I could if I wanted. If I wanted to, they're eating. But I'm going to let them go because it's fun. It's sporting. Like, what a weird place to be to be a bass.

Yeah. You know? Like, you're hunted down, but you're not. Oh, thank God. Once they get splashed. Oh, thank God. Right. If you're a trout, it's the same thing.

Like, a lot of trouts, they get released. They use barbless hooks. So they know they're going to release them before they ever catch them. They don't eat them. Like a lot of these fly fisherman guys, they just release them. So how do you season the steaks? What's your perfect steak? What do you do? Salt. That's it. No pepper? No pepper. Straight up salt? Just salt. That's all I do now.

Like kosher salt? I used to do, yeah, kosher salt's probably the best because it's nice and coarse. You know, but I also got this stuff recently. I think it's called OG steak seasoning Steak Seasoning from one of those Texas, I think it's called Pit Master or something like that, I think that's the name of the company, and it's a great blend of garlic salt,

a little bit of pepper, a little bit of regular salt, or garlic powder, yeah. No, that's not it. It's just called OG. My problem, I was trying to do cast iron skillet, the steak. Yeah. And then I would season it with salt and pepper and everything, you know, the coarse grain. But then it would always come off on the pan.

Yeah, some of it's going to come off on the pan. But too much. Well, then you could add salt to the end if you want more salt. But don't you want it to kind of like mean I thought you wanted to kind of like I thought that it would just sort of grill on it and like crust and be fine when I Know you're gonna get some of it to come off in the pan, but you can't be precious Can't be precious just salt bae it after I'll be good if you want to salt bae it, but I do sprinkle a little I think it's from

Things from Bali somebody gave me some salt. It's really interesting salt. It's from, I think it's from Bali. Somebody gave me some salt. It's really interesting salt. It's got like a, there's different, salts have different flavors to them, which is weird. Yeah. You know, like there's a company out of San Francisco. I think it might be even called the San Francisco Salt Company. But they have different salts. They have salts with like different herbs in them and, you know, like truffles. They have salt with truffles in it, which is delicious. Yeah. You know, you ever have salt with truffles in it which is delicious yeah you know you ever salt with truffles never had a truffle salt i've had like

truffle mac and everything it's just an interesting flavor i love truffles but you add them to stuff like steak like with the salt it's nice it's just but i don't like to do too much with meat especially like um like a beef steak if i use elk um one of the things i love with elk there's this thing called um black blackened saskatchewan rub that traeger makes i think that's what it's called saskat it's something black in saskatchewan but it's like uh i i need to know what all the ingredients are because i just know it tastes great it's definitely got some salt salt in it, and it looks like it has some pepper in it too, but it's like a blackened crust. And for elk, I found nothing better.

It's the best. So I just season it on the outside with that, and then I cook it to a little. I like to cook that to like 100 degrees. I don't bring that to like 110. I get it to like 100 degrees so that when I sear it, it doesn't overcook. You can't overcook wild game because it doesn't overcook. You can't overcook wild game because it doesn't have any fat in it. It's very lean. So you have to make sure you nail the temperature. It's really important.

Some people do too much with meat and steak. They'll come up with the sauce and everything. I just want to taste the meat. I don't want to taste the peppercorn. It ruins it to me. Well, it's definitely a different thing. It doesn't ruin it because it's still delicious in my mind, but it's a different thing. It's like you can have just a piece of meat with salt on it, which is one thing, or you can have like chimichurri sauce, which is another thing. It's awesome. Chimichurri sauce on a piece of meat is fucking delicious. I feel like the chimichurri is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there in the flavor profile. I don't know, man. I think it's a fucking group effort.

I really do. But it's a different thing. Like A1 steak sauce is fucking good. It hasn't been around that long because it sucks. A1 steak sauce is fucking good. A1 steak sauce, you can take a Waffle House steak and just squirt some of that on it and it's pretty damn edible. It'll make anything delicious.

I'm sure it's filled with sugar. We not arguing about nutrition you ever have hp what's uh hp steak sauce yeah yeah i think it's sort of like a1 adjacent i would have that in canada for some reason they love hp out there i probably have had it i probably have but i mean that's a different thing right if you're eating with a steak sauce what's your favorite steak place in austin austin's a good spot um we did eddie v's a lot we were there the other day yeah eddie v's is the shit because it's like real old school i hit up tony you go in there it's like a classic steakhouse i love that i was wearing a t-shirt i'm like oh fuck i'm the schlub at this place i didn't know how fancy it was. Well, it's not necessarily fancy. Like you can most certainly go there in a t-shirt.

I know, but I don't want to be the only guy in a t-shirt at the fucking steak place. It doesn't matter. Luckily I saw another guy with a t-shirt. I was like, all right, cool. Austin's pretty laid back with that. Pretty fucking laid back with that. They're not going to make me wear a loaner blazer? Like, sir?

I would not go. One time I did that. I was graduating high school and my rich friend, he's like, Hey, we're having dinner at the Columbia tower in Seattle. I'm like, Oh,

okay, cool. So I thought I dressed nice. I thought it's nice for what I think. I go up to the top floor of the Columbia tower and they're like, sir, you're going to have to wear this loner blazer. And I just,

I'm like swimming in this. I look like a NBA, like a 98 draft class. I would go just for the loner blazer and i just i'm like swimming in this i look like a nba like a 98 draft class i would go just for the loner blazer so i'm having to eat this it's so embarrassing it's like the blazer of shame i'm eating with all these like this rich family and i'm just a guy with a hand-me-down blazer that i'm swimming in eating this food that i never get on my own what a weird rule like who is this off-putting to? Like, you're just shaming me. You're just making everyone look over their shoulder.

This little boy doesn't know any better. Like, give me a pass. If I was a 35-year-old man, give me the loner blazer, and I deserve to be shamed. But I'm 18 at the time. Like, I don't need this. Why didn't your friends tell you? What a setup.

I guess. How did they not mean, when you're 18- How do they not know? When you're 18, you're not like, hey, wear a blazer. This place is fancy. But how do your friends not know that you have to wear a blazer? Did they not know either? Or did they just magically have blazers on? I guess they magically had-

Maybe they're so fancy, they always- They were fucking with you. They were fucking with you. Let's make him feel bad. Like, do you have one my size? No, we don't. We just have the shame blazer. The shame blazer. We have one my size no we don't we just have the shame blazer the shame blazer we

have one size fits all yeah i mean if you're gonna have big people and little people just get a giant one fuck those little people with no blazers yeah well i made everyone there happy i guess by having the blazer so hilariously stupid what's interesting is like you could be at that same restaurant and there's no rules for women in that way. Like, a woman could have a sleeveless shirt on. That's a good point. And a woman could have a skirt on where you could see her legs. And as long as she looks good, it's totally cool.

Like, the standards for a woman's dress. Is there a loner female equivalent of the blazer? No equivalent. No equivalent. I'm sure there are places that don't want women to expose their shoulders. Like they don't want sleeveless shirts. I'm sure there must be

like some elegant gatherings where they're trying to discourage hoes from shining up. Well, some places will do the hat thing. Like I've been to a steak place and they're like,

you can't have a hat on. Yeah. Yeah, I've had that before. Yeah. Do you think they do that to Jay-Z though? I don't know, man. They do it to me. Really? They do it to you? Yeah, they tell me to take my? I don't know man, they do it to me.

Really? They do it to you? Yeah, they tell me to get my head off, yeah. Yeah, but I want to. It's like the rules of the place. That's your rules. You're establishing it, it's not like I'm like, man, why can't I keep my head on?

I'm like, sure, no problem. Yeah, you're good that way. Well you should, you know, respect the business. They're trying to create an atmosphere of civility. Yeah. And they feel like if they discourage some kind of attire, maybe they'll discourage a casualness that would lead to more incivility. I mean, that's just the thought process.

But you want to have a nice place. You want it to look good. You want people to dress nice. I get it. I think part of it is the mental escapism where everyone is dressed nice it's almost a throwback to mad men like you know what i mean like it's a nice diner and when there's a guy with like a tap out hat and like a wife beater maybe it ruins the anniversary dinner but what if it's a girl who looks like a porn star then that's fine everyone's on board for that everyone's on board everyone's on board with a short skirt they go here's a blazer big old old ta-tas, just presenting for the world.

Ta-ta. Everyone is okay with that. Yeah. I mean, that's real. We have gender rules when it comes to attire. I wonder if a man can claim that he's a male. He identifies as a male, but he identifies as a male, but he identifies as a male who dresses like a female.

Is that next? Could you, like, what if it's hot out and you don't want to wear a blazer, but you do have to go to this place for lunch? I think that is just a political minefield that they don't want to deal with. Like, they would rather just, like... If you showed up in a sundress...

That would be fine, I think....with flip-flops on and just explain that you're a woman me in a sundress that would be fine i think with flip flops on and just explain that you're a woman i wouldn't have to explain anything like no one would touch it just because they don't yeah it's just not worth that especially if you were like super obviously in a dress it wasn't anything ambiguous about the gender of the clothing you're wearing it's not like a toga yeah if i was wearing a sundress and I tried to have dinner, they wouldn't make me wear a blazer. Okay. What about kilts?

That's a curveball, dude. That's the curveball. I think we need to try this and see what happens. Kilts are the curveball. What if you had a beautiful tie on, a nice dress shirt, and a kilt?

They would allow you. But your balls are just hanging out. Well, you don't know that. But what if they are? Don't go looking. Don't be rude. Respect my choice with whatever I wear for clothes.

You get offended. You go, why are you looking? Yeah. I'm just trying to have a fine steak here. Don't the steak folks, don't the kilt folks have odd shoes as well?

Odd shoes? Yeah. Don't they wear like a specific kind of shoes when they wear kilts? I think they have like their socks. Yeah, yeah. They have like those

Let's Get Physical Olivia Newton-John socks. Very specific socks. Some kind of hiking boot. Yeah. Look at those. I mean, that's a ridiculous outfit. I mean, that is fancy.

Look at that. I wonder why they did that. I guess it's easier to run around in if you're going to fight with a sword or something like that. The Scottish people, they're wild fucking people. Yeah. run around in and if you're gonna fight with a sword or something like that like those people that the scottish people they're wild fucking people yeah they probably developed a kilt because it'll let you uh let you move your legs easier than pants like if you if you think about like

running and stuff like you don't if you could move around like in a kilt you have no restrictions if you have shorts they have to be made right. Like, if you ever wear shorts that bind and you can move funny and they're annoying, or pants, like if you wear pants, you can't even pick your knee up above your waist. Everything's all bound up and shit. They probably wore that for battle.

Yeah, a lot of mobility within the kilt. Plus, they could heist it up and show you their cock. Yeah, it's a power move. That's my cock, matey. All of a sudden he became a pirate. But you know what I mean? Those are wild, warring people. No wonder why they had kilts on. Would you wear one? Fuck yeah.

Yeah, I'm down for a kilt. There was a dude named Melvin Manhoof. He was one of the most terrifying strikers that ever fought in Pride. Melvin Manhoof would fight in like his shorts. He was like a wicked kickboxer out of Holland. Wicked and built like a fucking brick shithouse.

But his thing was like he didn't have shorts on. He almost had like a skirt on. Like his everything had like all these openings in it. I don't know what you would call it. There is a word for it, the way they did it, but almost like where gladiators would wear like almost like a skirt. Yeah, yeah.

That's what he would fight in. Like Russell Crowe in Gladiator, kind of that thing. That's Melvin Manhoof. So you see those things? It's like he kind of has underwear on or he kind of has shorts on, but not really. Like everything is just, if you find a video of him fighting it's like it's all swinging loose

and because of that like he had his shorts never bound up like sometimes you see Thai guys fight they actually touch oh that's him wearing shorts that's an MMA fight because he had to wear it for an MMA Google K1 Melvin Manhoef.

So there he's got, that's when he's wearing it. See it? If you can see him when he's fighting. Does anybody else wear that or just him? This dude is 185 pounds, by the way, and he knocked out Mark Hunt with one punch, which is fucking crazy. Watch this.

Boom! I mean, Mark Hunt is, but you see those shorts? Wild shorts. Mark Hunt was one of the most durable heavyweights of all time and Melvin manhoef is like easily 60 pounds lighter than him and he knocked him out with one punch He was a monster, but that's what he wore these like it was like a skirt So they have that kind of weight disparity in pride did some wild shit man. They did some wild shit

They had freaks fights, like freak fights, where they had Noguera, who was the Pride heavyweight champion, who was an immensely talented jiu-jitsu black belt. He fought this guy, Bob Sapp, who was 375 pounds with abs. I'm not kidding. If you've never seen Bob Sapp before, when you see him fight, you don't believe it's a real person. You think it's a video game character or this is CGI.

I'm not kidding. You need to see this. Bob Sapp versus Nogueira. He's so big. So big. And he pile drives Nogueira within the first opening seconds of the fight. Like a literal pile driver. 375 pound man driving another 240-pound man's head first into the ground.

Look at the size of Bob Sapp. Yeah, dude, look at the fucking size of him. So this is the beginning of the fight. Watch this. Pile driver. Boom. This is how the fight starts. So Nogueira literally gets his spine crushed in the very first seconds of the fight,

fighting a guy who's a legitimate 130 pounds heavier than him. Look at the size of the guy. And they had a lot of fights like this. Like, Bob Sapp wasn't the most talented MMA fighter, but he was certainly one of the biggest. Yeah, that's his brute strength right there. Well, he had some Well. He had some talent He did some skill he worked out what you could you couldn't survive if you just had brute strength He definitely trained in martial arts and he trained with my friend Maury Smith who was the UFC heavyweight champion and was he won? multiple championships in multiple different organizations

Maurice was a legit striker, very, very talented, very talented fighter, and he trained him. So he was training Bob Sapp, and Bob Sapp was kickboxing too. But he was just a freak. Like you were like, what am I seeing? He was so big, dude. He would start walking towards guys with his fists up,

and you're like, how is that a real person? Yeah. So is that how Pride was? Just sort of? Freak shows. Yeah? Yeah. They had Hongman Choi fought Fedor Emelianenko.

Fedor Emelianenko is arguably the best heavyweight of all time. There's a real good argument that he's the best heavyweight. In my book, it's like there's a few guys in the running for the best heavyweight of all time. One of them is Fabricio Verdum. He gets overlooked because he tapped almost everybody. He tapped Nogueira, he tapped Cain Velasquez, and he tapped Fedor. He was the first guy to beat Fedor. And Fedor went on this long run. He caught him in a triangle and tapped him. So in my mind, he's got to be in the argument for one of the greatest heavyweights of all time

too. So you got Fedor, him, and Cain Velasquez. Those are the three guys that most people, when they look at the greatest heavyweights of all time, they look at those guys. And then maybe Francis Ngannou. If he continues his title run one day, he'll be thought of that way as well. But it's like, and then, of course, Stipe Miocic, who's like the most accomplished heavyweight of all time. So those, I guess, yeah, you have to say those four. Those are the guys that everybody, if there's an argument for who's the greatest heavyweight of all time, it's hard to say.

And you might have to go. The thing is, it's like all of them are really good, but Fabrizio Verdum tapped all of them. There's something about that. There's something about he tapped all of them, except Stipe. Stipe knocked him out. So I was like, maybe Stipe's the GOAT. But either way, it's like there's a number of guys,

and Noguera's in that group. Noguera in his prime is in that group. And they were all over it, Pride. And they had crazy, crazy fights. So Pride, it's not around anymore? No. The UFC bought Pride, and when the UFC purchased Pride, they basically just closed shop.

They were going to keep it running for a while, but I think it was so chaotic, and I think they decided to just absorb it into the company. And they took a lot of the fighters. The only guy they didn't take was Fedor. Well, there was a few other guys, but Mark Hunt came over from Pride. I think Mark Hunt, he wanted to fight in the UFC. They wanted to buy him out, and he said, no, I want to fight it out in the UFC. And then there was a few other guys that came over as well.

But it was Cro Cop, of course. But it was, you know, the end of an era, unfortunately. For people who are fans of the sport, there was something about the Pride era that was a really unique time in MMA. Like, we'd have to watch it at 4 o'clock in the morning because it was airing in Japan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, it was a Japanese company? Yeah, o'clock in the morning because it was airing in Japan. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Oh, it was a Japanese company? Yeah, it was a Japanese company. So it was live on pay-per-view. We'd have to watch it, you know, at 4 in the morning. And then they would have fights, and then they wouldn't show it on TV until, like, a week later or even more sometimes.

And so you'd have to stay away from the internet because everybody already had the results, and they posted all the spoilers. It was interesting. It was like they were figuring it out, but the Japanese did some gangster shit. They had freak show fights They had a lot of freak show fights. Yeah, it's kind of like early days of yeah Yeah, I remember like yeah when I was a kid and MMA was coming up. It was just insanity was like Street Fighter Yeah, they have big giant guys fight small guys all the time Yeah, it's like BattleBots with humans. Well, they just like the aspect of the freak show.

There's this woman, Gabby Garcia. She's an enormous Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. She's really big. She's more than 200 pounds, maybe 230, maybe even 240. She's really big. And they'll have her fight like a maid. It was kind of like, in its infancy, it was like, will karate beat sumo?

And that's what it was all about. Like, will the art form of karate triumph? They still kind of have that. But they had like Aki Bono versus Hoist Gracie. And Hoist Gracie is like 180, maybe 190. Aki Bono might be 400 pounds and I'm not kidding see if you can find that this is like the fact that this fight was was a legal fight to take place like like Nevada State Athletic Commission would not sanction a fight between someone who's a legit 210, 220 pounds heavier. Oh, this is Bob Sapp versus, uh, Aki Bono. See if you can find Aki Bono because that's two giants. See Aki Bono versus

Hoist Gracie. Um, spoiler alert, Hoist Gracie wins. That's what a bad motherfucker is. Yeah, there it is. The top one. Yeah, that's it that's it so uh hoist caught him in an arm bar is this the beginning of it is where it shows it for the beginning and he taps he taps with an arm bar but if you you know the thing about being a guy that big is like how much gas in the tank do you have yeah not a lot that guy's so overweight as much as he has skill and much as he's a sumo guy and he's probably been competing his whole life, he's too big. You're not gonna be able to compete

against a guy like Hoist Gracie. Hoist Gracie can survive. See, and he's also really comfortable fighting off of his back, so he let the dude rush him. It's funny. I always know how old I am when I watch old Sonics because I'm from Seattle. I'll watch Sean Kemp's Slam Dunk compilations, and they're all in 360p. You know?

Yeah, this is pretty blurry. Yeah, that resolution really dates you. I'm like, oh, all my highlights are in low def. But look what Hoyst did. Right away, he pulls clinch from the guard, and then he's standing up with the guy. Now he's got the guy grappling. And even as he throws a kick, he falls onto his back. Like he's allowing the guy to lay on top of him and he's obviously strategized for what he would do when he's off of his back and he's going his foot across the face. And Aki Bono knows what he's doing, but he can't stop him. And so he pulls it back down again. And now he gets his left leg over the top of his right foot. And he locks it in place.

And he's got a fucking armbar. And this dude's fucked. And he's fighting a guy 200 pounds lighter than him. But the guy knows better technique. And he taps. Did you see that elbow? Bad elbow fall? Guy got slammed.

And he landed on his elbow. His elbow went the wrong way. I don't want to see it. Not good. I still haven't seen the Tom's Cigar. I can't watch it like that. Somebody show me one today.

A kid blowing his hand off with a firecracker and he drinks a beer while he's holding his hand up and his hand is destroyed and he drinks a beer. Don't show it. Yeah.

Don't do it. Don't do it to me. Don't you do it, Jamie. I won't i saw him you know i didn't know what it was until i saw it and then i was like oh god damn it i didn't want to see that bobby will do that he he has a stomach for that and he's like look i'm like i can't i can't look at this yeah the dude literally blew his hand off which happens you know you got fucking it was good seeing you at the store when you came back. It was fun. Yeah.

Yeah. Is that going to be a recurring thing or? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. When I feel like it. Yeah. Yeah.

It's fun. It was, uh. It was fun. Cause I got, I got past when you weren't there. I think you were doing the ice house and stuff. Yeah. And there was definitely, it was, it was this golden era before COVID. It's crazy.

You didn't really realize. There's this quote, like when you were with your neighborhood kid and stuff playing baseball, you never noticed the last day that you're all playing. Right. Before everyone moves away or whatever. And that kind of, it felt that way with the store. Yeah, we had a cool thing going on for a while. Yeah.

It was fun. It's different. It's still fun, but we had a cool thing going on for a while. Yeah, it was fun. It's different. It's still fun, but it's a different thing. But there was just monster insanity lineups when you were there. That helped too. You know, the COVID thing opened up a lot of people's eyes about what they can just take away from you and taking away people's ability to make a choice as to whether or not you want to go out or not five months into the pandemics eight months in the pandemic a year into the pandemic where the rest of the country there's all these spots that had opened up they made choices in LA that I don't think they should have made and I think in retrospect most people would agree it's hard to be a Monday morning quarterback right right? It's hard to look at it and go, I would have done it differently.

But everybody's going to do that anyway. But when there was no data that showed that outdoor shows were a problem and they still weren't allowing the comedy store to do outdoor shows. Yeah, that's weird. All of that was horrible. Because I was doing outdoor shows

and for some reason the comedy store, they wouldn't allow them to do it like I would do it at these other Yeah, are they would do in the parking lot and stuff, but the store wasn't allowed to there was there was a Arbitrary nature to some of it it where it was different some places than other places and It wasn't it was like there's a real problem when people have the ability to tell you what to do. They like it. They like doing it. And it has to be factored in to anything that happens. And when a bunch of people are saying, why can't I make my own choices? Or what if I've already had the disease and I have the antibodies? Or what if, you know, I'm a very healthy young

person and, and they're like, well, you could spread it to other people. Shouldn't those people isolate? Where's the logic in isolating everybody? And does that even work? Is there any real data about what happens when communicable diseases like respiratory viruses, which are highly contagious, is there ever a history of containing them ever? No. The answer is no.

No. All the virologists will tell you, everyone's gonna get it. Or you're gonna be exposed to it, and you might be one of the rare few that has a very good natural immunity to it. Very, very few people, apparently, just they don't catch COVID for whatever reason.

But that's kind of like with everything, right? With every disease, there's a very small percentage, you can't count on being one of those people. I've had it twice. Same here, yeah, I's a very small percentage. You can't count on being one of those people. I've had it twice. Same here. Yeah, I've had it twice too. So is it just a part of our lives now? Yeah.

Like everyone's going to get it every year? I think they say it's endemic. If we're lucky, it goes the way it's going with like Omicron, which is actually, why am I giving advice? I'm not a biologist. I'm like laying it out like I know. But what I've heard from people that do understand this stuff is that generally speaking, and this is only generally speaking, it doesn't have to go this way. Viruses become more contagious, but less

virulent. Because for the virus to survive, really it wants to get as many hosts as possible. So it kills the host that kind of defeats the purpose and it stops its ability to spread which is really wild because if you really think what's going on like imagine if that was demons and there was you know there was weak demons and really really powerful demons and the really powerful demons they would come and they would snatch young people and they would take them and they would take them and they would take their souls and take them to hell it would be so terrifying but if the same exact amount of people get killed by a flu you don't really weird out like it's terrible but it's normal now if it's a novel virus like

coronavirus and people get super anxious and afraid yeah you know or if it's a novel virus like coronavirus, then people get super anxious and afraid. Yeah. Or if it's heart disease, which kills fucking everybody. There's so many people that are dying of that. That doesn't even get discussed. Imagine if obesity, imagine if sugar was a demon. All those things were demons. And they just, you know, some people are just better at not listening to the demons. But they're always talking to you. Twinkies are good.

Fahim, don't you want a Twinkie? No, I don't want a Twinkie. Come on, Fahim. I'm healthy. Have a Twinkie. Or you pass by Krispy Kreme and the hot sign is on. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.

The hot sign is on. I got to eat there. The hot sign's on. The hot sign's on. They're hot right now. You get a hot Krispy Kreme, one of them glazed babies. I like seeing it float, you know? Like float in the oil.

That's nice. Nice. I like the chocolate cream filled. I don't like shit. I don't like filling. You don't have to like it. Alright, but that's your jam? That's my jam. The cream filled on the inside and the chocolate on the outside was my favorite guilty pleasure.

But I remember one time we went to Maui and we stopped at Krispy Kreme and got like a not even one time I think we did it twice stopped and got like a dozen doughnuts were pig it out in the car and then by the time we got to the hotel which is only like 20 minutes away we couldn't think we're so tired sugar we just get crushed oh look at that look at Oh, that's Jamie Vernon's Instagram page. I made this post like five years ago. Did you really? When I did the same thing.

Was this a, you were watching them apply the glaze? Is this what's happening? I had a good meal and I walked by Krispy Kreme. Red light was on. When I was living out here, I was right by a Krispy Kreme. It was too close. It's one of the best tasting things ever. Right?

Can we agree on that? Yeah. Like a hot Krispy Kreme donut is undeniably good and worth a temporary coma. Remember when they first came out, there were like lines for two hours to have this Krispy Kreme donut? But I mean, we are really legitimately surrounded by things that are terrible for you, that are highly profitable. terrible for you that are highly profitable whether it's fast food or sugar or any gas station you walk into it's filled with sugary drinks and sugary snacks and all that shit is terrible for you it's terrible when i was in middle school they just had all these like mountain dew machines terrible for you i had a i had a mountain dew when i was in florida

said fuck it i'm gonna have a mountain dew remember mountain dew they'd be like i mean the urban legend with all the kids would be like, yo, don't drink Mountain Dew. It has yellow five in it. It'll make your balls shrink. And all of us just, like, believed it. I don't know who you were hanging out with. I never got there.

That was a thing. Whoever is around my generation, there was this urban legend about yellow five, that it would make your balls small. Was it your whole generation or just your friends? I mean, look, it's a very localized group that I'm in that I am sort of extrapolating and thinking that it's nation and worldwide. But I know that when I was growing up, there was this thing like Mountain Dew, Yellow Five. But I don't. I mean, it's all bullshit.

Well, that stuff is definitely not good for you. That's the thing about like food colorings and natural flavorings and artificial flavorings. It's like what's safe for you and what's not safe for you. You've got to do your research on that, and it's very complicated. Yeah, see? Oh, here it is. Yellow 5. I'm not crazy.

I didn't think you were crazy. The urban myth states that this shrinks your testicles, not to be confused with maroon 5. What the fuck? What the fuck? Just because it has a 5 in it? If you listen to maroon five it'll make her balls small oh that's hilarious samantha it's a color and a five yeah it's a color what's that maroon's a color oh maroon five is a color oh i'm just saying maroon and yellow both colors did you

like what were your urban legend right but maroon five they're talking about the band a hundred percent right so what are you saying? Never mind. There was another one when I was growing up they would say Marilyn Manson removed his ribs so he could suck his own dick. That's true. Look who it says here. Samantha, why are you drinking that Mountain Dew? Don't you know it has yellow 5 in it? Andrew, do you

honestly think they would sell a product that shrinks your testicles and not even put a warning label on it or even sell something like that at all? Samantha, oh, I never thought of it that way. What is that? What am I reading? No idea. Is that like an example conversation about yellow five?

But for sure, there's some stuff that they put in food that's not good for you, right? There's certain preservatives and there's certain chemicals and different things that wind up in food. Urban dictionary with science here. Not only shrinks testicles, it has been scientifically proven to reduce penis size as well. Holy shit. I don't know if this is accurate. Click on that.

It's going to be that guy with the big dick leaning over the bed. It's just a link to scientifically proven on urban dictionary. No, if you click on that, it's the black guy with the giant hog leaning over the bed. How many times have you gotten that? Yo, that's like the new Rickroll, right on that, it's the black guy with the giant hog leaning over the bed. How many times have you gotten that? Yo, that's like the new Rickroll, right? Yes, it is. Yeah, there's so many times.

Like Ari has sent me a link or Tom or Bert has sent me a link. It's so believable every time. And then it's the guy with the dick and you go, you got me. It's like we send each other links. We have a little chat in the Sober October crew chat. And 50% of those links lead to that guy with a big deck leaning over the bed. I heard he passed away. The actual guy.

Yeah. But he's still bringing joy to the world. But it's like, you know, he was talking about like being a shooting star. That's, that's a shooting star. You know,

that's like that bad company song. Don't you know that you are a shooting star? Don't you know? Do you remember that song? Who sings that? Do you know that you are a shooting star. Don't you know? Do you remember that song? Who sings that? Do you know that song? Who sings that? See, you're like from this dance music generation.

Yeah. My generation of old people before the internet, they had songs that had stories in them. The song was a story. The song was a story about Johnny. Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his story about Johnny. Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles song. Listen to this, son. You gotta appreciate this kind of music.

It's me, 1982. Yeah, paint the scene. Newton Upper Falls, Massachusetts. Don't quite have my driver's license, but man, I can't wait till I do. When I do, I'm gonna drive around, I'm gonna look to look cool, and I'm going to listen to this song. Yeah.

No internet, baby. Johnny said to his mama, Hey, mama, I'm going away. I'm going to hit the big time. Going to be a big star someday. Mama came to the door with a tear drop in her eyes. Johnny said, don't cry, mama. Smile and wave goodbye Don't you know

I will say I do appreciate this music live Because I'll see the dance stuff Like a DJ, it's like a guy in a cubicle And everyone's going live But I can't appreciate it like a live singer in a band and this music is being created in the moment. You've got to understand that this song represents a different time

of limited information distribution in the world. It's a different world. We didn't know what a rock star was. Yeah. They didn't have reality shows. We found out about who they were from their songs. When we hear a song about a young guy, which we all wish we could be, the young guy who becomes a music superstar.

Every fucking kid in my neighborhood thought this song was about them. Everybody wanted to be Johnny. You know how many fucking people started bands because of this song? There is a romance to that period of time where the entire world and consciousness was focused on one thing. Where everything now is kind of segmented and fractured. Like I was thinking about SNL. I have a buddy who's on SNL now. But hold on.

Don't stop it. Yeah, keep it going. Because this is where it gets important. This is where it gets important. Because this is the tragedy and the romance of this song. He doesn't live long, Fahim. It doesn't last, buddy. You know why? Because the good die young. And James Dean, and Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison, all of

them died young. They never saw 28, son. Don't you know? So young. So young know and in this song where it ties it up so that's cool is it because you're on Spotify you can play songs yeah man or not maybe they get mad at me

listen I'm just trying to blow up bad company but this is where the song gets really good here's the bad company but this is where the song gets really good. Here's the somber. Ready? Bottle of whiskey, sleeping tablets by his head. Johnny's life passing by like a warm summer day. If you listen to the wind, you can still hear him play. See, it's like you live on forever.

Everybody misses you. Instead of you being a fucking loser. Where people get annoyed when you come around. Instead, you get to be remembered. You die young and you get to be remembered forever. It's a fucking Joseph Campbell book. Sure. I'd rather

live longer though. Yeah man, but like, you're hanging around the auto shop and you're 17 years old this was the shit. That's what I grew up with. That's my kind of shit. I'm trapped. Like musically I'm trapped. There is something beautiful about it though. I remember one time

I saw Boyz II Men in Vegas and there's all these older women there and it's a it's a time machine music is a time machine because they are no longer 35 year old women or 40 year old women they are 13 again and it was beautiful just to know how many horny women you would find that are over 50 at a rick springfield concert probably so many yeah because all the you know trappings of being older all that like evaporates and you just think you are that age again and it well also it's like what you really appreciated when you

were growing up like music unlike any other art form has like an instantaneous connection with the time in which you first heard it yeah like i remember like it's not even like a song that i really like that much but the bob se Seger song, Like a Rock. I was in my car, and I was 18 years old when the song was out. And I was like, oh my God, it's about me. And I'm driving, and I remember the street. It's not even my favorite song, but there's songs I remember when I heard it. Yes, there's something about it.

Sometimes I'll hear a song, and I'll know exactly where I was. Yeah. Like, what year. year yeah it just cuts through everything have you seen those videos of like uh people with dementia or whatever and they play a certain song and it's like they're back Alzheimer's yes Alzheimer's yeah yeah yeah yeah it's amazing that yeah it is crazy it's like whatever it is it's just dementia too it just cuts to a certain part of the brain where yeah yeah it's just like excites them again but how weird is it that you can remember things so well with music attached to it

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious it must cut through a certain type of part of your brain because same with smells you know smells cut through all the yeah prefrontal stuff right but i mean but the information that you that you're containing inside a song, the fact that you can do that. You remember shit from when you were little kids where they would teach you about grammar. Conjunction, junction, what's your function? Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.

It's amazing that you would never be able to repeat like um someone's lines if they were reading that in a television show you would never be able to repeat it like that but because it's attached to music it's like it's stuck in your head all you have to do is kind of get the rhythm of it and then you can remember where the words go it's wild yeah what a weird thing that like that aspect aspect of the way our brains work. Like that we connect information to sounds and songs. And then we do that really well. And it's a great way to teach kids.

Fucking strange. Do you know the quadratic formula? No, what's that? From algebra. We all needed to know it for the rest of our lives. That's why we had to memorize it. I know Pythagorean was like A squared equals B squared equals C squared. That's an easy one. Pythagorean was like A squared equals B squared equals C squared. That's an easy one.

Pythagorean is a little more advanced. Our math teacher taught us it in a song so we would never forget it. I still know it because of that stupid song. How's the song? Sing for us, Jamie. The opposite of B plus or minus the square root of B squared minus 4AC all over 2A. Nice. That's a good song.

That song should be on Spotify. Someone should put that to a dance beat it was like row row your boat honestly but i have no idea why i still know it 25 years later yeah 20 years later there's a bunch of those things from like uh those abc after school tv shows yeah just learning through song yeah you you just remember like certain stuff well it's always tough whenever you do like a stand-up show and there's music too because music wins every time no matter how good the comedy is it's tough yeah yeah oh yeah music and comedy don't go together good

yeah music is a heart game and comedy is a brain game you know like music you don't even need to think it just hits your fucking soul. The last thing you want to follow is someone who's a murderer with music, like, like music comedy with awesome jokes and a guitar. Like bro. Yeah. It's tough.

Those are tough to follow. Crowd work too. Like whenever I follow Ingram at the store, it's like, what's my game plan here? It's cool that he's touring with Chris Rock now. Yeah. Cause you know, we all love Rick Ingram and we've known him for years and he kills it at the store and You'd be like, oh why isn't this guy bigger and stuff and it's cool that that is a special place

We're like rock sees him one one night and he goes come on tour with me Yeah, so he's doing all these like awesome shows at Chris Rock now getting to do his thing but crowd work like great crowd work, is magical to an audience. Yeah. Because it's here, it's now, it's present.

Whereas bits, I like jokes, like the best is when you can do both. Because like jokes you can bank. Bank are, like jokes are a commodity. Like okay, I can,

I have an act. I can tour with this these are bulletproof no matter where i go but there is this kind of ethereal quality to crowd work like oh fuck you just thought of that right now and yeah it sets the room on fire so when you come on after that you kind of have to reprogram them into like a little bit of crowd work and then some jokes as well but it's hard for that like the first five minutes is kind of getting them to your speed yeah but that's always the case if someone has like a slow paced acting going after someone who's loud yeah there's always a I mean that's one of the interesting things

about places like the store is that you're forced to do that because there's ten people on the on the lineup and everyone's doing 15 minutes and everyone's style is so different but for an audience member it's a real treat because you get to see all kinds of different styles. All sorts of different approaches. Like, if you're a real comedy fan, like, how many people have, like, decided to come see comedy and then decided to try to do it? Because they've gone to, like, one of those sets and seen so many different kinds of comedy that you go, God, I must, I love comedy. Like, maybe I fit in there somewhere. Kind of. Yeah. And just to sort of see how many different ways people can be funny.

Yeah. I don't know. If you don't see a lot of- Where did you first go up on stage? What place? The Comedy Underground in Seattle. Oh, I heard about that place. Did you ever play there? I think I did once. I think I did once. Okay. Yeah. I think I did once, but yeah, I'm pretty sure sure I did once but it's not there anymore, right?

No, not anymore. They moved locations They were in Pioneer Square and then they moved like two or three blocks away The best fucking place in Seattle was that place that was connected to a pool hall. Oh parlor. Oh, you're biased You're like a big pool guy. I know but to me it was like a dream come true Yeah, like they had pool tables right next to the comedy club like oh my god I was like Ron White if they had a comedy club at a golf course That's hilarious same thing. Yeah, it's not there anymore Wow Too fucking bad

That place was the shit. Yeah, I cut my teeth there So comedy underground and then giggles by a University of Washington did giggles that guy got mad at me once cuz I Terry I said that I heard that you can't swear at his club because people were telling me that not you though I think he would do that for like the guys coming up yeah you weren't allowed to swear which I don't mind you know actually my first two or three years of stand-up I put it on myself to not swear or drink later on too even because I didn't want to become a crutch I didn't want to have to drink before I go on stage. Like I'll do it. I'll do it now. Sometimes if it's like a second show, like I'll have a drink before I go on stage, but I don't use it. I want to be able to be enough as me. So, and it was nice having that foundation of, I, I don't need to swear to form a joke. And then I

swear now and stuff. I allow myself to use all the words and paint with all the colors. But I think it was good just to not rely on like fuck, like out the gate when you don't know the foundations of comedy yet. Right. And there's nothing worse than bad jokes with a lot of swears.

Yeah. Like bad jokes by themselves with no swears are not as offensive. Yeah. Swears are great as seasoning. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like someone who serves you a salt sandwich. Totally. Swears are great as seasoning. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's like someone who serves you a salt sandwich.

Totally. You fucked up, stupid. There's too much salt in this thing. But later on, sprinkle a little fuck, sprinkle a little yellow bitch. A little bit of this, a little bit of that, everybody's happy. You know? It's just, I love the fact that everybody does it different, too. Everybody has a different approach, different take on things, different, you know, different style.

I love sitting in the back chair at the store, like in the OR. I'll watch Theo go on. I'll love it. He was there the other night. And then Ian will go on after and talk about polar opposite guys. But just as funny in different ways. And it's inspiring. Just as funny in different ways.

And it's inspiring. Sometimes you have to remind yourself, like, I don't have to kill in the way that this person kills. Like, know your instrument. Like, just be the best you. Yeah. Be your version of funny. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Some people want to enforce their version of funny on you, which is really weird. What do you mean? Like, they get upset at some styles of comedy. Like, that to me is one of the most misguided approaches to, like, look into the way other people do comedy. Don't you know anybody that has that weird thing? Like, oh, he's doing that again. Yeah, yeah.

He's doing this kind of stuff. But if the crowd laughs, that's the bottom line, you know? As long as the person is being true to themselves and... It's like... All we're trying to do is be funny. That's it. The only thing that bothers me is when someone's derivative, like openly derivative. I don't mind influenced.

Everyone's influenced. Especially at the beginning. Of course. Yeah. I remember literally being on stage recognizing that i was doing richard jenny's patterns like his pattern of speech and being embarrassed like oh my god i suck like how many years before you recognize that oh that was like a year in uh-huh it was like really early on because he was like one of the first guys that i ever saw that i was like super impressed with live certain comics have they spawn a bunch of like other genres patricia called them babies he's like you know you talk about all the different people who have babies out there david tell has a lot of babies yeah dane would have a lot of babies a lot of babies

mitch mitch headberg oh yeah mitch had a lot of babies yeah yeah brody had a lot of babies. Brody had a lot of babies. Oh really? Actually, he had step kids. Brody had people that didn't really do his act on stage, but they did his act off stage a lot. For fun. It flavored the way people would even

playfully talk to each other. They would talk to each other like Brody. Negative energy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Arms crossed. Enjoy it. Yeah. We would do that.

So he definitely... Attell, I think, of the current guys, he probably influenced the most guys out of New York. Because if you watch Attell right now in particular, that's a guy that's probably the most underappreciated and underrated, even though I know the fans rate him very highly. I'm talking about the general public. Every comedy fan that knows Dave Attell rates him very, very highly.

He mightn't be the best comic alive, but criminally underappreciated as far as the general public goes. And if you see him, he's so good, and his jokes are so sharp. And you get into that Dave Attell rhythm, and that's all you want to hear. general public goes and if you see him he's so good and his jokes are so sharp and they and you get into that david tell rhythm yeah and that's all you want to hear and then guys start doing jokes like him you start doing that he's got this way of talking and it's so addictive it's so i've seen so many guys like and i don't they're not bad guys but you see like a little bit of a telling them because they're like insecure and they don't know how to be funny and they're not bad guys, but you see a little bit of a tell in them because they're insecure,

and they don't know how to be funny, and they're trying to be funny, and so they try to do it like a tell. And they have that very pronounced sort of accentuation of words and delivery. I remember Insomniac was big when I was growing up. That was kind of his big Hollywood thing, but then I didn't see much after that.

I know, wasn't he like an HBO young comedian special? Is that partly like him? Like he just loves standup. He'll go on last at the cellar. He kind of just enjoys. He does a lot of like late night sets and he can revive an audience and he's not like a big energy guy either. It's like, he's just doing it all. He's the master of what he does. Brilliant jokes. But yeah. Um think the first big success was definitely Insomniac. And then through Insomniac, he developed a drinking problem. And then through the drinking problem, he quit and then became the best comic alive. It really happened all through that.

His quitting drinking, everybody agrees unanimously that his act sharpened up radically it got really really really good and i think it's just his mind is free it's amazing yeah like the amount of new jokes he's just a machine and he's super dedicated yeah that's the thing it's like he has a thing that he's really good at that he really loves that he's very dedicated to so he's like always after it and so because he's always after it he's always doing all these sets and he's always sharp. And I mean, that's really what it's at for all of us, you know. And there's kind of almost a monastic approach that he takes. He wears the same clothes essentially every night.

I don't mean like the same clothes, but he doesn't vary in his style. Just like the same hat, the same, you know. Look, Dave just sold out Stand Up Live in Phoenix and killed it down there. It's not like he's not loved. The people that know and there's plenty of them

love him. But as far as great comics that don't get put into the category of great comics, he's number one on my list. Yeah, I love him too. He's great.

He might be one of the best of all time. And right now he's in his prime and I think a lot of it is like he stopped drinking unlike us and Turned his life around what when it was the last special. Do you know what I know was it bumping mics on Netflix? Well, that's interesting too right him doing that thing with Jeff. That's a really fun thing because they're both so good off their feet Yeah, you know skanks for the memories was his first big cd that was a really good one that he did at denver the comedy works it's really fun

that's a great club it's a great club i love there and uh comedy on state in madison oh yeah those are great clubs i never worked that place by the time i got to madison i was already doing theaters but uh when i was someone was someone was there with me and they came back to do it and they said it was, oh it was Ian. He said it was awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Ian's coming to a soccer game with me. I've become a soccer fan. Yeah, I saw you posted a game here,

right? Yeah, we went to the Austin Football Club. It's called the Austin FC. You dug it? Dude, it's good. Yeah. It's really good, man. When dug it? Dude, it's good. Never letter. Yeah. It's really good, man. When you watch those guys in real time, first of all, massive appreciation. Are you going to? No, no. Let me hear that noise.

Let me hear it. Let me hear it. Is this like ASMR? It is. Like that nobody wants to hear? Do you listen to ASMR? I do all the time. I don't.

I went on a date with a girl one time, and that's what she does for a living, just ASMR videos. And I was like, that's hot. Okay. That's hot. It means she just wants to make noise. I guess. What do you mean you guess?

I mean, it's weird to me that people are into that. I'm into it with cooking. Cooking videos? Yeah, I listen to cooking ASMR videos. How does that work? Because you hear the slicing the onion with the chef's knife. Ah, that is cool. Have you seen this part of it? Where they're doing ear sucking? Hey, that's her! No. What are they doing? They're sucking on things? Yeah, they lick. There's like a microphone inside this ear.

It's ear eating? Let me hear this. Let me hear this. Oh, yeah. Isn't it weird how the internet has has opened up entire economies for weird shit? They probably make $100,000 a month. Well, I hope they make more than that. Okay. All right. We got an idea of what that is. I'm sure.

Look, if you can imagine it, someone's doing it. Right? Yeah. Someone's out there sucking toes on OnlyFans, and all they do is suck toes. Guaranteed. Why wouldn't you? This is a lot of money. I bet.

What do you want to do? I know some people who would, like, send underwear. Like, guys would pay top dollar just for, like, worn underwear. Imagine if you're in the middle of shithole USA, and you've got two options. Work at Target or suck toes on OnlyFans. Imagine you're working at Target. Why choose?

You're working at Target, you're making $7.95 an hour. It fucking sucks. Everyone's dumb. You're working with assholes. People are on fentanyl all day. It's just a disaster, right? And then one of your friends goes, hey, I just made $3,000 taking pictures of my butt.

And you're like, what? Wait a minute, $3,000 taking pictures of my butt. And you're like, what? Wait a minute, $3,000? And you start thinking about your stepdad and how you got to get the fuck out of this town. And you're like, I need to get some goddamn money. You know, what are people into? They're into feet. Yeah, here they are.

There's a lot of girls on the OnlyFans apparently. All they do is like show feet. Like, yeah, that's enough. That's all you need to do. Like Patreon is our OnlyFans just for they do is like show feet like yeah that's enough that's all you need to do like Patreon is our OnlyFans just for for comics you know like one unreleased episode a week that's our underwear and a ziploc bag is it as shameful though I don't know I feel like we're in a post shame society Patreon is an interesting thing too right because at first I was a little skeptical of it but now it's become so widespread and so many people support artists and comics

and all kinds of shit through Patreon now. It's pretty cool, dude. Like even the special that I did, there's a donate button now on, because I saw Joe List, he released his on YouTube as well. I love Joe List, very funny. He had a donate button on there.

I'm like, oh, let me do that on mine. It's called Super Thanks. Because I self-financed, self-produproduce this there's no company behind it i go if you guys liked it or whatever share like subscribe or you know if you're awesome hit the donate button but you don't have to and i would get like ten dollars fifty dollars it's like i wouldn't expect this type of goodwill from people but fans really want to support you and I've been just kind of taken aback by the amount of donations from people just from that button. Yeah. If you can get to a just purely donation based income, it's probably the best way to do it.

Like I know Sam Harris essentially operates that way. He does his podcast purely. Not only does he do it, he does, this is what he does. He does it through this system where you have to subscribe. He'll give you like the first 30 minutes of the podcast. Then you have to subscribe to get the rest of the podcast. So it costs money to subscribe. But I think you get to donate like whatever you want to. I think it's like one of those deals. And then on top, check to see if that's true.

I don't know if you get to donate whatever you want to get to Sam Harris' podcast. But one thing you definitely do is if you can't afford it, he doesn't want it to be an impediment to you getting the show. So if you can't afford it, he doesn't want it to be a barrier. So he gives it to you for free. All you have to do is email. If you just email, I can't afford it. He goes, and we grant 100% of the requests. I go, that is crazy.

And it works like it works like are you going to have some scammers yes of course you are but you're going to have a lot of people that appreciate the will behind that that it really is honest and it's a it's an even exchange yeah it's like i'm going to do my best to create the show donate and uh if you can't afford to donate i don't want it to be the reason why you can't watch the show or listen to show so then you can have it for free. Just email me. It's beautiful.

And that's what I wanted to do with this too. Just have no friction between the content and the people. I'm incorrect. So he's got a monthly and an annual. I think I'm conflating him with somebody else who did a thing. Someone else had one. I forget who it is. Obviously I forget. But someone had one where you could donate as much as you want so it could be a dollar or

it could be you know hundred dollars whatever the fuck you want yeah he had it set up that way but it wasn't Sam so Sam has a specific model like a subscription model but because he's so good and because he has this reputation from all of his debates that are online and all of his talks online, he puts on rock solid, very fascinating, very intellectually challenging content. And so it's worth the money. But if you can set up a model like that, where like, even if you can't afford it, all you have to do is ask. And then people are like, well, this guy's legit. He has to be legit. This is not something that a business person would create.

They wouldn't create that kind of a loophole where the Redditors would capitalize on that, or 4chan, I should say. But there's also something cool about having that intimate relationship with the fans, and you just kind of trust each other. Because I'll get 50 bucks, I'll get 60 bucks, and if I charge that much for my special,

no one would give me 50 bucks for the special if I had that paywall. But because it's free, there's so much goodwill they go i enjoyed it so much here's 50 bucks and there's something cool about that yeah and and you don't like it's kind of communism a little bit or socialist ee yeah it okay. You don't need as much. I think what's great about what's happening with technology and art is you don't need everybody in the world. You can have a thriving business with just a core group of diehard fans. Yes. That is important. And I think if you're connected to a network, unfortunately, like if you're on a television show or if you're doing something else, they don't want a small group of thriving fans.

They want the largest widest reach possible and the best way to do that is to water a town and to make sure you don't put anything in danger you don't say anything crazy yeah fahim it's like art we're all a team okay there's 100 people behind you on this team if you get in trouble we get in trouble okay yeah so why don't you shut the fuck up just be a team player yeah just be a team player well that's what i thought about when comedians get canceled supposedly and then people on twitter will be like cancel culture isn't real look at the comedian still performing and you're forgetting the fact that they the comedian is

fortunate enough to have so so like they don't have any moving parts to but the commerce between them and the people because like kevin spacey needs a production team he needs uh people so many people to say yes to this thing where it's not going to happen right whereas with stand-up comedy if enough people come to a venue that's the business yeah it's a guy in a mic will people show up to the venue you can't throw a wrench into that's the business. It's a guy and a mic. Well, people show up to the venue. You can't throw a wrench into that. Like people are voting with their money. But yeah, but it's also like,

what do you mean cancel culture isn't real? If you're saying that people don't like to gang up on people when something goes wrong. No, I'm not saying you are. I'm saying other people that are saying cancel culture isn't real. If they're saying that, that's just because someone can still work doesn't mean they didn't get a horrendous experience

that they may or may not have deserved. And it's sort of sport. There's a sport to it. There's a lot of people that pile on. There's a sport. And Tim Dillon and I became friends because of a thing that he wrote about Louis C.K. and I reached out to him.

He wrote about all these people that are mediocre, not very talented comics that were shitting all over Louis C.K. And out to him. He wrote about all these people that are like mediocre, not very talented comics that were shitting all over Louis CK. And I was like, he's right. Cause I see that. I recognize that these, there, there were certain people, not all of them, but there are certain people that were highly critical of Louis in a way where it was almost like he was, they were trying to make sure that this uber talented guy never entered back. It wasn't even what he did. It was more of the social status they're gonna reclaim or they're gonna claim higher ground by pushing him down it was a weird sort of like kick him when

they're down thing that didn't it wasn't just about what happened it was also about them moving and it was transparent it was was about them moving up. You could see it Yeah, because they all sucked. It wasn't like anybody that was really brilliant that was killing it They came out against Louis CK like that. It wasn't it was guys that were terrible at stand-up and or okay at stand-up But they suck at women in life and they're depressed and there's like they're not maybe the career was going good Then it started to falter It's like those guys those are the attackers it wasn't people there was people that were critical of him But it's the attackers like the way they did it. It's like it's almost like the you didn't want to recognize that

He's a human being it's almost like he becomes enemy sure he becomes like oh you can attack There's a crazy shit. It doesn't have to be accurate. There is an opportunistic element whenever someone is down like that. Like, let me jump off their back to slam dunk here on Twitter. Yeah. You know, that is very prevalent. It's natural. It's human nature.

And it's human nature is also because if someone like Will Smith does something really stupid, like smack Chris Rock, it's not just he did something stupid. But it's also he has lived a life of extreme, like, I don't want to say fortune because he's super talented. But it's a very, very unusual life and unattainable to most people. Oscar winner, movie movie star recording artist i mean he's a super superstar so for him to do something where we can all go boo fuck you it's not just boo fuck you it's also boo fuck you and now you're not going to be as big as you used to be now we're gonna now i'm not going to support you now i'm not going to go to me now're not going to be as big as you used to be. Now I'm not going to support you.

Now I'm not going to go to a meeting. Now I'm going to boycott you. But if a rapper, like some unknown rapper, went up and smacked Chris Rock in the face, that guy would be huge. If he was with his girlfriend. So let's say Jada Pinkett breaks up with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett is at the Oscars,

and the Will Smith slap never took place, and she's with some young rapper, and the rapper responds to Chris Rock's joke by going on stage and smacking him. That guy would be huge. He'd be balling out of control. He would make 15 songs about it. He would have stacks of cash on a private jet talking about slapping chris rock it was weird seeing the takes after that happened like some people were like yeah that's how you protect your woman i'm glad he did it it was so weird how that was like a

test for america yeah or the world i'm like how could anyone think that that was justified it wasn't even a mean joke. Not at all. That's the thing. It was very – I've said this before but I'll say it again just because in the interest of being clear here. That movie was a strong movie. G.I. Jane was a movie about a beautiful woman, Demi Moore, who became a fucking Navy SEAL. She was a badass lady.

Yeah. There's nothing negative about it. So saying G.I. Jane 2 – It's empowering. There's nothing negative about it. So saying G.I. Jane 2. It's empowering. There's nothing negative about it. Yeah. It's like you're literally comparing yourself to a hero. Or someone is comparing you, rather, to a hero.

It's not an insult. If he said powder, now I get it. Yeah, yeah. Then I get it. Yeah, yeah. If he said fucking Kojak. Yeah, then by all means, do what you did. Kojak was a-

I thought I was dating myself with powder. No, Kojak was in the fucking 70s. I used to watch him with my grandpa. He had a lollipop? Yeah, he had a lollipop. I know. He was a detective. Those are the early days of law and order.

That's set up the trap of law and order, where there's always a smart detective who figures out your fucking sneaky plan. There are certain boilerplate shows that will never go away. Like the hospital drama. Yep. The legal drama. Yep.

The cop thing. Yep. Yep. Those are just, they're timeless. Because there's inherent stakes. Somebody needs to do a new Smokey and the Bandit.

Didn't they do a movie? They need to do a new one. Oh shit. Like a series? No, a new movie. Okay. Burt Reynolds is dead. We need a new Smokey and the Bandit. Who's going to be Smoke series? No, a new movie. Burt Reynolds is dead. We need a new Smokey and the Bandit.

Who's going to be Smokey? I don't know. We need someone who's good. The Bandit. Oh, okay. Smokey was the Jackie Gleason character. Okay, okay. So who's going to be the Bandit?

Is that it? Yeah. Smokey's like, that's the fuzz, right? Isn't that what they called it back in those CB days? The fuzz? Oh, the cops? Smokey. That's like a cop, right?

The bandit was Burt Reynolds, right? So the other guy, Smokey, must have been. I mean, that's must. I don't remember. Isn't that like term? Smokey, doesn't that mean the cops? Yeah. I think it meant the cops back then.

But Burt Reynolds and Sally Fields, those are fun ass movies, man. Oh, yeah. It was an innocent time I'm excited for Top Gun I feel like since COVID and everything there hasn't been a movie that has captured

the nation yet or whatever I'm excited to go back to the theaters and like check that out especially when we're on the brink of war sure

and it might be a war with jets you think they'll address it in the movie? I doubt it I doubt it he's flying up there Tom Cruise I mean Will they address it? The movie? I doubt it. I doubt it. He's flying up there, Tom Cruise?

I mean, that's what the movie's about. The movie's about guys who fly fighter jets that kill people really good. The movie's about the guys who are the best at flying the jets that kill people. They just do Top Gun with drones. I mean, they do that simply because they want to kill people. That's why they're really good at it. Or to defend, to stop anybody from killing us. Yeah, that's a good thing.

It is a good thing. But I'm just saying, it's a wild subject for a movie. Like, this guy's the hero. The guy that kills people the best. And it's kind of an indiscriminate way of killing people. You're launching missiles into a fucking bunker somewhere. Because it's kind of an indiscriminate way of killing people. You're launching missiles into a fucking bunker somewhere. Because it's so tiny.

Like it's not real when it's you're so far away. You just see a puff. You just see choo choo. Yeah you're like I'm not. I don't see the carnage. I'm okay. Yeah you're not stabbing someone. You're not shooting someone in the face. You're launching missiles from the sky. It's easy to compartmentalize that.

Do you imagine how fucking alert you have to be to pilot one of those jets? And how long do they fly for? I don't think they fly for very long. I think they run out of gas pretty fucking quick. Yeah. Don't you have to be a certain height too? Like if you're too tall, you can't be a fighter jet or a fighter pilot.

there's a thing about, uh, G force. Um, I flew with the blue angels once and, um, they don't wear G suits. And the guy who flew me

you know it's like there's a pilot and you sit behind and he goes through like some stuff with you the guy who flew me was fucking jacked he was like maybe 5'9, 5'10 at the most and they try to keep him fairly short because I mean you don't want a guy

7 feet tall to be a fighter jet also probably wouldn't fit in there that good but the thing is it's about the distance between your blood and your heart Because, I mean, you don't want a guy seven feet tall to be a fighter jet. Also, probably wouldn't fit in there that good. But the thing is, it's about the distance between your blood and your heart. So when you hit G-force, you have to do a thing called hooking. And hooking is you're like this. Hoots, hoots, hoots, hoots. And you're forcing blood into your head to try to stay conscious.

And the gravity, the fucking G force of the acceleration, the banking of a turn or something like that, we got to, I think we got to 7.5 Gs. I think that's the most I could take. And this dude has done 9, 10 Gs. It is insane amount of pressure. You feel your consciousness closing, like the blood is leaving your brain. It's being pushed out by the force. And the only way you can stay conscious is do this hooking thing so they have to be jacked yeah and they have to be fairly small

except the G suits I think the G suits make it quite a bit easier and they're like I don't know I'm not exactly sure how they work but there's like they're almost like inflated like G suits are like some sort ofuits are like some sort of a... It's some sort of thing that mitigates the effect of gravity, but that's why you can't be like tall. Right. Because I think it's harder to get the blood to the fucking brain. Without passing out and shit. Yeah, because you're going...

Like you're literally forcing blood into your head. You feel like... If you just let go and relax, you're gonna go black. Have you seen those videos? The training videos where they're like pulling all those G's and relax just you're gonna go black have you seen those videos the training videos where they're like pulling all those g's and you see where they pass out yeah oh it's nuts yeah yeah it's it's hard to not pass out and you know some people have like almost like a natural proclivity to fainting i wonder if that plays into a factor there some people like they

see things and they just black out yeah you might you might be a great pilot, but if you pass out too early, you're just kinda fucked. Or what if you're a great surgeon? The moment you cut somebody, you know? I mean, that's a thing with people. Where you get the yips. I dated this girl and her dad was a dentist. And he couldn't see bad stuff, even though he was a dentist.

Like blood? His son came home once and his son had bad sunburn like real bad sunburn he had like third degree burns like bubbles and blisters on him the dad saw it blacked out i was like oh my god geez oh my god you can do you pull teeth though we went to a movie once me and this gal and uh in the movie someone's shooting heroin and she sees the heroin needle go into the guy's arm and she she blacked out and she warned me i thought she was joking like you really faint she was yeah i can't my it's in my family my dad does it too like that's crazy she goes i know but i can't do anything about it i'm

like wow that's weird that it's hereditary it's hereditary it's like the golden retriever thing like yeah i just can't see needles. I think it's like a shocking Trauma thing like any shocking Physical trauma just shut off which is like what a weird reaction not repulsion Not you know your body is like I'm out you buy is like check, please Better if we shut off people catch us and they'll bring us to a nice Hospital I have to see this fucking needle go in this guy's arm in a movie theater. I would just look away.

I would just look at the top corner of the screen. It is weird though, isn't it? That like people, some people have this built in like snooze button that you can just hit. Weird. Yeah. I bet that happens when like trauma happens. Like I was thinking a few, an explosion or you get shot, your body just makes you not feel it,

go into shock to protect yourself. Oh, that's true. Yeah, that's definitely why you get knocked out. Your body's trying to protect you. And also it's like your mind and your central nervous system just can't handle the shock of what just happened to it.

So it just shuts down to try to, almost try to reboot, I think. I mean, that's probably a shitty way of describing it, but it's just the trauma of brain injury that causes a concussion and being knocked unconscious is just a ruthless situation for the whole body. If you see people get knocked out, like Gervonta Davis just scored a stunning knockout this past Saturday night against Rolando Romero. And he hit him with this fucking left hook, man. It was so beautiful, this counter left, because the dude was like a super powerful knockout puncher.

And he wades in with a right hand to the body, and he throws another right hand. Boom, and he gets caught with his left hand. Boom, and he gets dropped. So he threw a right hand to the head and then a right hand to the body. Pull it back again so I can see it. So watch it one more time. So he throws his right hand to the head, and then he throws it to the body, and he gets countered with a picture-perfect left hook and just starched.

So watch. He tries to get up, and his whole central nervous system is just fried. Like he can't get up. His legs aren't working right. Like he's conscious. Like, look, look how everything doesn't work right. Like he's trying to back up and the referee's like, stand here. And he's like, no, no, no, no, you can't, you're not even listening. Like he, and he's not even protesting. He knows he's out of it. He has no idea what's going on. So his whole system just shut the fuck off. you seen that Instagram account that boxing I sent it to you one time you're like, oh, yeah I know this guy or they do the animations on the boxing. Yes. I love that account. No, that's great

Yeah, damn. I forgot the account boxing loop. I think it's a it's like Mortal Kombat animation. Yeah. Yeah, I love it That's the beautiful thing about the internet one of them. There's just so much content so much cool shit There's so many talented people out there in the world and it's really democratized talent well how about memes memes as well like how many fucking hilarious memes are there yeah here it is boxing loop so he adds all this cool animation two-piece no soda that's interesting this makes it fun there's a few of those there's a few of those that are out there that do stuff with mma fights too it's uh it's again just like comedians you know it's it's an interesting time for anybody to create things as long as the gatekeepers understand the reason why it's so cool in the first place

is because you let so many diverse ideas and opinions and styles of thought and styles of creating things get loose. Yeah. You can't control that so much. It's not good for anybody. It's exciting to see that no one conglomerate controls the pipe anymore. But they do kind of. They do a little bit. YouTube kindate controls the pipe anymore. But they do kind of. They do a little bit.

YouTube kind of controls the video pipe. It's a little more open than, say, one person's taste at Netflix, HBO Max, or Comedy Central. You have a better chance of reaching more people via Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Right, but they can remove you if they don't like what you say. They can remove you, and they they do and they do all the time

Yeah, but it's like should that be a thing well That's it's all I mean I understand the impulse to try to make things nicer Try to make people behave nicer, but I don't think necessarily like banning people from having Differing opinions in you is the way to do it and shadow banning people It's like you're taking away someone's livelihood on a misunderstanding Occasionally, it's an imperfect science Exactly, and it's also it's like it's a little too convenient to shut people up that way, you know, but then You know, it's like what it it's weird. It's like

You know, they'll say like One thing that people are really freaking out about is Trump. Trump coming back to Twitter. You know, if Trump comes back to Twitter. And people think that would be terrible if Trump comes back to Twitter. But the fucking Taliban's on Twitter. They're on TikTok? They're not allowed to do TikTok.

And you shouldn't even say that. Especially being from Afghanistan. Yeah, sorry. You even say that, especially being from Afghanistan. Yeah, sorry. You should know that, buddy. But, I mean, China's on Twitter. CCP's on Twitter. I almost feel like that was just a ploy from China. Like, all right, yeah, we're just going to have your youth do dancing

and all these pranks in grocery stores, and we're going to limit our people with what they can do with it. It's going to be education-based. We're going to shut it off at a certain time. And then you guys are going to idiocracy it. And then we're going to take over. Well, that's the thing about social engineering. First of all, let's not pretend that any civilization

has ever done social engineering where it worked long-term. I mean, just the horrors of this single-child household that China imposed for years. Just the horrors of what happened to female babies. It's terrible, terrible shit that doesn't just make a disproportionate amount of males to females, which is a huge problem in China right now, but also all those people that had female babies that had to be killed, like that's not a small amount of people. And all those people whose family was ratted out and someone found out that the woman's pregnant. And so they forced her

to have abortions when she's nine months pregnant or forced her to give birth to a dead baby. months pregnant or forced her to give birth to a dead baby so they would literally inject the head of the baby with a poison to kill the baby while it's in the womb so that it's born still born. I'm reading this about it in this Douglas Murray book called The War on the West, and that's one of the things that he talks about. Like that is the single child household in China. It was a terrible thing. And that's a form of social engineering. There's too many people, so you can only have one kid. And, you know, people with no kids are like, yeah.

Well, how do you enforce that? It's the problem with any idea with socialism, right, or Marxism. How do you enforce it? With violence. It's the only way way if you want to get everybody to like give their money up and no one has any weapons and you know you you decide how much everybody gets paid and you know what whatever your task is it's the same as the fucking guy who makes pizzas is the same as the guy who builds jets it's all the same yeah like

how do you enforce that violence it's the way. And so then the state becomes your daddy and then the state decides that, you know, like in the case of North Korea, that it's daddy is super powerful and plays golf better than anybody that's ever lived. You ever read the account of Kim Jong-un playing golf? No, but I know like him and Dennis Rodman were boys. I read something about it that it might be just a misinterpretation that got way blown out of proportion. Sounds like Jamie works for the state. No, there's a way to keep score where you're not writing down the actual number you got. You're just writing down relative to par.

He had 11 holes in one, bro. That's just someone read the score wrong and it got reported that way is how I read this interpretation. But that was the interpretation of the glowing media coverage in the North Korean news, wasn't it? I'd read through this in a golf magazine expose. Golf magazines getting paid off. It just made more sense when it was written that way. He got a score way more accurately than he should have, like 120 or something like that. I don't know what that means since I don't play golf, but...

His holes in one would have been one over rather than an actual one. That's how they were writing the score down. That's all I'm trying to say. So what was that, the depiction that we read? So then someone saw that scorecard and was like, holy shit, what? They don't understand there's different golf...

But that wasn't written by the North Korean news? I'll pull up the article I read. I'm just sort of telling you. It seems like. It's got to be blown out of proportion. I wanted to do a sketch called North Korean Sports Center. And it's just Kim Jong-un.

He's winning the finals in the World Cup. And he's elbow dunking on LeBron. Like, great leader wins again. Yeah. I had Yeonmi Park on the podcast, a woman who escaped North Korea. Yeah. You want to talk about a lady

who just doesn't want to hear any bullshit? When you escape North Korea and you make it into China as a sex slave when you're 13, you have no tolerance for bullshit. None. No tolerance for bullshit. It's just, what the fuck, man?

The fact that that is going on right now and that in 2022 while you and i are sitting here drinking whiskey and talking shit there's people that are slaves in korea and in north korea and they can't get out yeah they're trapped and they're barely alive they barely survive in terms of like their ability to just have enough food to live. And they live in concentration camps, and they work for the state. You live in slave camps. And you might even not have ever done anything. You might be born in that slave camp.

Like she was explaining how if one generation, say if your grandfather does something that's bad against the state, they will curse multiple generations. So you'll be imprisoned, and your children will be in prison, and their children will be in prison before their children get released. That's fucked. You're on the hook for previous generations.

What the fuck, man? Yeah, you'll live the rest of your life in jail because your grandfather was an asshole. You're not even born yet, and you're already fucked. What did you pull up, Jamie? So this reporter went to the golf course where this happened, and he explains in here how it went from an innocent scorekeeping mistake and got before i tell you what i know i should tell you how i came to know it the details were relayed to me five years ago during my own travels in north korea

where i turned up to compete in a tournament billed as the national championship the north korean open is more curiosity than cutthroat contest which is only fitting given that it's So it goes on and explains how he talked to some people there. They explained to him that there was a scorekeeping shorthand that is used there, and then someone who ever found that in the North Korean state news most likely didn't know that and then ran with the score. Okay, so it says, unfamiliar with the scorekeeping shorthand,

the North Korean state news agency covering the outing had read the five ones on Kim's card as holes in one. Forget the fact that Kim, a ranked beginner, probably never sniffed bogey all day. If you were keeping score for a brutal autocrat, would you dare tell him he'd made nothing but snowmen? I don't know what you fucking dorks talking on your little word jargo. I don't want to hear it. Shut your mouth. Easy.

His alleged aces. Okay. Maybe. Maybe. That's all. I would like to pretend that I didn't read that. All right. Just go with the original propaganda piece because I think it was awesome that they said he scored 15 holes in one. You're not a golf guy?

No. I would be a golf guy, though. I would definitely. Look at Tony Hinchcliffe and Jamie and Ron White play. It would be fun to play with them. I think what I'm going to do one day is when Jamie and Tony finally play, I'm going to film it on the iPhone and just get super baked and just talk shit to them. What if you're amazing?

You're like Happy Gilmore. No, I'm not going to play. No, you got to play. No, if I played with them, I would hold them back. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I mean, I don't play, but I want to. Like Santino, he's a member at this great country club. They say Santino's very good.

Really? They say he plays. Don't you say that? We're going to do nine holes. He's like, I'll take you. You can have my loaner clubs. He's going to try to get you to gamble with him. No, you think?

He's going to try to rob you. All right, I'll do it. He's going to hustle you. It's a big thing with golf, right? It's like pool. Like Jordan? You suck. Well, Jordan gambles.

Oh, yeah. Big difference between like hustling and gambling. Hustling is someone pretends they're not good, and they get you to gamble, and then they rob you. You know, that's like psychology. It's gamesmanship. I used to be friends with a pool hustler, like a legitimate homeless pool hustler who sometimes slept on my couch. And sometimes he hadn't slept for days, and he'd snore like a goddamn train was rolling through my house.

Like I couldn't sleep. I'd be on my bedroom in the other room and he'd be on my couch and I'd have my fucking pillow stuffed over my ear. I couldn't sleep. That was his whole living? Just pool sharking? Just being a pool hustler.

So what would he do? Just like pretend like he's not that good or? That's what most of it was. And then occasionally it was him getting big games. So like you'd play for money but those are you know when you're playing big games you're playing a good player and so like if you know you're betting 100 bucks against jamie and you're both like a players like who knows man you might be real loose that night and you might run out or he might be loose and he might you know

the balls might roll bad for you and you could lose 13 12 in a race to 13 for like 100 bucks now you're fucked so when you're really good it 13 for like 100 bucks. Now you're fucked. So when you're really good, it's hard to make any money because you're playing against other people that are really good. And then also, people don't want to give money away. They want a chance. And so if you're, say, Copigny, one of the top guys in the world, and you want to play Shane Van Boning, who's another top guy in the the world who the fuck knows who's going to win that

they have to figure it out so guys bicker the guys are like I want 2-1 on the money I want 10-9 on the score he has to go to 10 but we only have to go to 9 they try to come up with advantageous games and sometimes people are more hungry to gamble than they are smart and so they agree to these stupid games

like fuck it, fuck it, you want to rob let's fucking play and they'll play and they'll have a terrible game that they probably can't win just because they got cajoled into it by some guy who talks a lot of shit so there's that play yeah it's not just ego it's also you're you're dealing with the fact that the person's a junkie they're gambling junkies they they're action junkies they want the action action. And the action of playing pool for money is very exciting. Did you get into that? Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did.

I was never good. I'm never good like I could play real guys, but I was good enough so I could occasionally do really well in like a local tournament. But I couldn't beat anybody, not a real player. I was always like a B player. There's like a very big distinction between a B player and an A player. What is the difference in that level jump?

Time, time practicing, practice with intention. Like if you watch a guy like Jason Shaw, he's one of the best guys in the world. There's videos of him, Jason with a J-A-Y-S-O-N Shaw. He practices and puts videos of his practice sessions on YouTube and on Instagram. And he just lines balls up and he shoots the ball and gets position on the next ball and shoots the ball and gets position on the next ball. He just has like a line of balls and he has to place it perfectly to get position on the next ball and maneuver his cue ball around the table. It's like this drill that he does.

So instead of just playing, he does specific shots over and over and over and all the best guys do that because that's what separates the guys who are truly elite from guys that are just really good players. The really good players, they don't practice like this because this shit is fucking boring. So this guy is making the eight ball on the side. That's on purpose. Like watch this shot. is making the eight ball on the side. That's on purpose. Like, watch this shot. This is a bank shot where he's going to bank it off the long rail here,

bang, and it'll go right into the side off the cue ball. Wild. Just over and over again. And he can do that shit over and over again. But he's one of the best players on earth. You know, there's like a handful of guys that consistently win. Like, watch one of these. This is these practice things that he sets. By the way, this guy just broke the world record for the most amount of balls run in straight pool.

And it's either in the 600s, depending on one person's, because apparently he touched one of the balls at one point in time, or it's in the 700s because the rules don't state that you can't touch a ball. Like it's only fouls on a cue ball, meaning you can't accidentally touch the cue ball or the cue ball scratch. But what you can do is accidentally brush up against the ball, like say maybe with a fingertip or with your clothing or something like that. Is that glove new?

When did that come in? That's been around for a while. They developed these gloves because like the thing about a cue in your hand is like friction you don't want to have friction you want it to glide through your fingers and the best way for it to glide through your fingers is these uh pool gloves that they develop and a lot of guys play with them now because it's just more consistent the whole thing is like consistency you want like a consistent feel to the cue you want a consistent feel to the tip you want a consistent feel the way it slides through your fingers and then see how how genius this is like how he just

gets perfect on every ball like if you don't play you don't know how difficult this is but what this guy is doing is just cue ball wizardry he just knows exact exactly where the net he almost up there see that he knows exactly where the next ball is going to be, and he's going to maneuver his cue ball in place so he can make that shot. And he does this all day long. So this is not the most fun. The most fun thing to do is to play.

Now he's going to go in between the rail. Look at that. Ooh, perfect. So the most fun thing to do is play. But if you do this for hours and hours a day, you'll play better. So then when you actually do play, you'll win more more it's just like stand-up and writing yeah same thing some people just play some people practice some people just go on stage some people write

what's your process like when you do these arena tours and everything and your your hour is pretty tight like are you ready to... Yeah, I'm probably ready to do something. I have to put something on special soon. But I just practice a lot. We're doing a lot of sets in town, doing a lot of sets at the Vulcan, doing a lot of writing. But right now, one of the problems with having an hour that's pretty much ready to go

is when I release it, then I'm going to have to write a whole new hour. That's where I am right now. I'm starting over. It's tricky. It's whole new hour. That's where I am right now. Yeah. I'm starting over. It's tricky. Yeah. It's fun though. It's exciting.

It's exciting. Yeah. Dangerous. It's like you're starting over again. I like having the mental real estate. There's no safety net anymore. It's a, all right,

do the thing again. Yeah. Do it again. And you did it before. You'll do it again. And then two years from now, you'll be thinking about filming this and you'll do it again. Yeah.

That's what we do. You know, it's fun. and also what is a humility to it because it makes you a beginner every couple years every couple years you run out of weapons you have no more weapons like you used to be able to go on stage yeah yeah and you had comedy weapons you know that you know you had like you had comedy missiles you could launch out that crowd but also you kind of care uh whatever you're talking about now, you always care the most about. Because I'm proud of the special and all the bits and stuff that I did,

but if I were to do them now, I'm not as invested. It's a snapshot of you. It's almost like looking at a senior photo of yourself or something. Sort of. Well, it represents an era. An era.

Of your work. Yes. It's a little more complex than a senior photo because it's all those thoughts and ideas and the way you deliver them. But it does represent an era of your work, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's just like picking the fruit when it's ripe because sometimes you can, it's on the

tree for too long. Let that shit ferment. Yeah, it ferments. And there is an art and a magic to like, I'm still invested in this. Let's get some cameras on it while it's still magical. Yeah. Because if you wait too long, then you're not as invested anymore. What the fuck are you doing, Jamie?

Jamie's over there watching porn. What are you doing? I'm doing that up. I didn't notice. Oh, there it is again. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, nice. Oh, Tarantino.

Yeah, he was there. He's a comedy fan. He saw my set. It was so wild because I'm a huge fan. And he was like, I want to talk to the cool guy. And he was hanging out the whole night. Even after the set, he was kicking it where everyone smokes weed in the back. And I had a writing job.

So I'm like, this has been great. Thank you so much, man. Fuck that job, dude. You're supposed to stay up. I know. What are you doing? Well, I don't have it anymore. I don't have it anymore.

Yeah, but you could have been staying up. Look at that. You're going through the back and everything. That's nice. But it's beautiful because I still was working at the time, but at night, I just knew I had to do this. This was my North Star. I did that thing by day, but there's so many things when you're a comedian, like what do

I do? What's the move and all that? And you can get really clouded with what I should do. But I'm like Make this special just forget about everything else make this and then worry about everything else So I just did the writing job by day. I made this thing at night just funneled all my energy into it I'm like make a great piece of art that is you and then figure out that shit later But for some reason I don't know if the stars aligning or some spirit, it's like,

it just said, make this thing. And I made it. And, and yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. I love stories like that.

Thanks man. I love it. I love the fact that you did it and you're the first guy to figure out to do it. You're the first comic to figure out to do that. Isn't it so obvious though? Yeah. But you think about the amount of specials that have been filmed at the comedy store,

it's really not that many. It's Louis and Ari and who else? Gerard. Gerard did his there. And who else? Brody. Chappelle in the Belly.

Oh, that's right. Chappelle in the Belly Room. Yeah. Which one was that? The Closer? No. No. Sticks and Stones?

No. Equinox? Oh, right, right, right, right. The one with the weird name. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's, there's not that many over the years.

I think it was difficult to film there for a while. I think people didn't want you to film there for a while for whatever reason, you know? Yeah, I will take my hat off to Peter Shore because I had the idea and I called it because I couldn't do it without their sign off, you know, because it's they're very protective of the name and the building. And I call them and I go, I've always had this idea to do this type of special at the store. I was kind of preparing for them to say no, because they are pretty hard lined about. It's a magical place. You know, they don't want anyone filming in the OR because it's where we work on our stuff.

You know they don't want anyone filming in the OR because it's where we work on our stuff They're very protective because sometimes a laugh factory would just release clips of like Chappelle or and and they didn't want it You know like they're a little loose Film people and didn't tell them the life factor was kind of loosey-goosey with their clips that would go up and the store is just always Been known and had this reputation with comics that like you're protected That's not those clips like if you're working on a new bit now that bit's out there and it's got 10 million views that and then it's not done yet right it's already out in the world exactly so comics didn't like that and the store had always been known for having it's almost like a yonder bag as a place well you can't do that it's right it's yeah so i knew but but for some people it's good what do you mean so for some

people when they put their clips up? It's on the laugh factory channel and then it helps them if it really depends if everyone's on the same page then it's great That's the only way but when it's up and you're like what is what the fuck take it down exact That's a problem when you think about your career and think about like times where you wanted to record and how much and think about times where you wanted to record and how much travel you have to do to get to the spot where you're happy with your material. If at any point in time it gets cut off and gets released,

that was one of the things that annoyed me greatly about people's response to Louis C.K.'s leak set. Remember when Louis C.K. had that leak set? He hadn't done stand-up in 10 months. It was funny. It's pretty good. It would have gotten great. You're talking about a guy who didn't do stand up at all for 10 months and then this is what he does when he comes back I mean he didn't do it at all and then this is

what he does when he comes back and he was killing yeah and it's like and people say oh he lost his heart he lost his way no he's doing the exact same shit he always did. Yeah. The exact same shit. And when people were criticizing that, I'm like, hey, man, you're literally criticizing a baby step. You're criticizing the first steps of a whole set. Get the fuck out of here.

Do you know how to make comedy or not? Do you know how to make comedy or not? Well, if you do, then you're a fucking liar and you're pretending that this isn't how it works and that you don't go on stage with some ideas and just fucking swing you fail so many more times until it gets more refined there i will have bigger ideas and maybe it's touchy and i do it and it and it doesn't go well so one thing if you criticize someone for a finished product that you don't like yeah but it's another thing when someone's doing a workout set and they're they're filmed without their knowledge or recorded without their knowledge come the fuck on you know what comedy is right you know how hard it is to make yeah so for you to pretend that this is some indictment on this

person's soul like the fuck out of here you're ripping apart a first draft. It's barely a first draft. It's barely. It's an idea from that day. And also people, like the Louis set, people were viewing the comedy through a new prism. Yeah. Whereas if none of that had happened and they heard that set, they'd be like, brilliant. He's done it again. He's done it again.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, we never got to see a lot of those bits evolve. Because how long was that set? Do you remember how long that set was? It was like a half hour maybe? Something like that, yeah. I mean, think about it.

He might have got 15 killer fucking minutes of that. You don't know. All those great ideas that he had sat on for 10 months while he was canceled, whatever. Yeah. It's one of those things, man. I get why people would be upset at certain things. That's not what my problem is. What my problem is is the way people handle stuff

and this tendency towards looking at someone through a distorted lens because it benefits you to do that. Choosing to frame things in a way that benefits you art is interesting in that way where people can They'll look at Louie now and just be like he's not funny because there's all these other Yeah, there's other things associated with it Well, if you are really upset by those things associated with it and you maybe have had a bad experience Your your own with a man and you just decide you just decide, he's not funny to me. That's your prerogative.

You are allowed to do that. That's 100%, you're allowed to listen to or watch whatever the fuck you want for whatever the fuck reason you want. But it's when you make an assessment of something that is clearly what a guy is just practicing for the first time in ten months he's just going on stage and fucking around and you're trying to pretend that this is his material that's ready for judgment it's not ready for judgment

he's fucking around yeah he's trying to create well it's just clickbait though that that's the story to propagate it well it's also like you're signaling to the crowd that you're on the right side and that you're not like him and what he did was bad. And I get that too. I get the need to express your disgust. I get that. But if you're an actual comic and we're talking about standup comedy, like to attack that set was like, okay, come on. Let me see you not do comedy for 10 months and see what you have to say. Yeah. Probably terrible, too. And if you're a guy who's always pushed the buttons and been rewarded for it,

because that's what Louis has been, always pushed buttons, always been rewarded. You go back over his stuff, like, post-cancellation and go back and watch some of his bits, you're like, oh, my God, imagine if he released this now. But this was the stuff he was applauded for. Yeah, yeah. Comedy's like that, though. Just the, we progress as a society.

Yeah. And, like, the bits I did three or four years ago, I wouldn't do today. Maybe because I've grown as a person and society has evolved and I'm a different person. But people will hold the standards of today to yesteryear. And that's like not entirely fair. Well, it's definitely not fair if you want to go way back, right?

I mean, you go back to like the 1960s and 1970s. It'll keep getting trudged up like that Steve Martin King Tut was making the rounds on the Internet. No, it wasn't. It was. Gen Z was like, this is like, what is he doing? This is, you know, appropriation and they're bastardizing. So he was getting taken a task for the king tut on snl they all need to live in the woods for a year all of them they need to

hunt their own food for a year and toughen the fuck up did you notice though like when covet hit when everyone was scared and no one knew what was going on all of this stuff it wasn't happening for about two weeks because there was bigger fish to fry. No, but then it accentuated because then people were trapped indoors. And all they could do was complain about stuff online. And people that are already addicted to Twitter now didn't have a job. So now they're on Twitter all day and they don't have

a job. There was a lot of that. But I found out when we all thought we were going to die, no one was getting cancelled because we were worried about are we going to make it through this thing? Yeah, sure. I mean, that was 9-11 too. After 9-11, everybody was like super cool to each other.

It's like there's ways of reacting to things that are justifiable and understandable. And then there's also, you're dealing with a certain amount of mental illness in this country. And there's a lot of people that are just filled with anxiety and fear and anger and chaos. And they're online taking it from other people and giving it to other people and just feeding the fucking monster all day. Yeah. All day.

And it's terrible for the mental health of a giant percentage of the population, including mine. That's why I don't fuck with it. Yeah. It's like- I've learned that too i kind of i'm at a point now where i create i put it out there i use it as a tool but i don't do a deep dive into the comments or whatever it's like crazy i just well it's a statistics game no one

is going you're not everyone isn't going to like you that's just the uh a nature of putting yourself out there and being an artist. You're not going to have unanimous fans across the board. And part of being an artist is you're, you are going to have that 50 50 if you're, if you're doing your thing, you know? Oh, for sure. You're, you're always going to have that. But if you concentrate on the negative, you really will think you're a piece of shit. Even if like a giant percentage of people love you, it's just not worth it. And I already have that in me. I don't need somebody else. I'm my own, like I'm my own troll. I don't need you to. That's also why you're really good. It's because you judge all your stuff very harshly and you really tighten it up and you know, polish it up. That's a big part of it, man. A big

part of it is how you approach the thing. You know, you got to approach the thing with some honesty. You can't approach the thing and pretend it's better than it is just you approach the thing. You know, you got to approach the thing with some honesty. You can't approach the thing and pretend it's better than it is. Yeah. Just because it makes you feel good that you've done something. The worst thing is when you're talking to someone and they want you to believe that something they've done is really good. And then when you have to watch it, you got to go,

it's a bummer. Yeah. You know, you have to be that guy to yourself first before anybody gets a look at it. And then the audience has to decide. I feel like I'm in a quantum state just for as long as I've been doing stand-up. It's like I think I'm great and I think I'm the worst. I'm both those things.

Perfect. Yes. And it flip-flops. But it's been beneficial for me. I kind of like having that. You're in a comedy superposition. Yeah. Yeah.

You're in motion and still at the same time. Mm-hmm. That's what it is. Because you don't believe one or the other entirely. Well, tell everybody the name one more time. It's Hat Trick. Yeah. It's on YouTube right now.

It's on my YouTube channel. It's on, is the YouTube channel just Fahim Anwar? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, and that's who you are on all the social media. Yeah, Twitter, Instagram. What are you most active on? Probably Instagram. Instagram, me too. And I'm trying to get the YouTube going this special is kind of planting my flag and like This is this is a nice 47 minute representation of Who I am what I do

Because people would hear that I'm funny on podcast and stuff but I never really had a tentpole thing to point people to and This is kind of nice to be like this is this is what i do this is who i am that's dope man that's dope i'm really happy for you and you're a really funny guy i know i always thought you've done a lot for me i mean i really appreciate it my pleasure brother my pleasure it's cool to see you blow up thanks man all right um that's it bye everybody thank you Thank you.