The Joe Rogan Experience - #1929 - Louis CK

Episode Date: January 21, 2023

Louis C.K. is a stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and filmmaker. Catch "Louis C.K.: Back to the Garden," an exclusive livestream event, on January 28 at www.louisck.com. www.louisck.com

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. I never thought about... Yeah, there's a lot of shit going on over there. That thing in the front is weird. What, this thing right here? What is that? Oh, that's a piece of art.

That comes from... Beeple. Beeple. Beeple crap on Instagram. Beeple is a digital artist. He puts up a new piece of digital art every day. Oh, cool. And he came in to do the podcast, and he gave us this thing.

That's Elon Musk if he was jacked once genetic engineering comes along. I'm just going to grab a paper towel. Oh, okay. Glasses are brutal. I wear reading glasses when I try to look at my phone in the morning. Jesus fucking Christ. Every day I'm going a little blinder. Yes, you are.

Every day. That's just the way it goes. Yeah. I mean, they're just such intricate little machines, and they're organic so they just start to soften on you you know i had a guy in the other day balal muhammad he's a ufc fighter who's had a detached retina and a detached uh lens on his other eye on both eyes it's like you're talking to people like that and the game they're playing is you know you're punching

people in the face and a lot of times thumbs go in the eyes because UFC gloves have open fingers. Yeah, that's crazy. So occasionally guys accidentally get poked in the eye. Fucking terrifying. That's the reason I wouldn't ever, I mean, there's a lot of reasons I wouldn't be a pro fighter. But that's it now. If it wasn't for the eyes, I'd be all over it.

They can kind of fix them a little bit. Remember when Sugar Ray Leonard had a detached retina and he retired from the sport and everybody's like, holy shit. And then he came back. And everybody's like, he's back. I think he needed the money, but I think he also needed the thrills. Yeah, it must be those guys retired so young and then was left a huge expanse of life ahead of you. Not just that. Like the things that you've looked forward to are these enormous events where you're in your underwear and you're walking out in front of this gigantic group of people that's there to watch you slam your fists into someone's face. Well, and you've worked up to it, too.

All the training and the getting ready, the challenging someone, the setting the fight, and where it is in your career. And, you know, are you challenging? Are you defending? So it's like a year. A fight's like a year of your life. I mean, in boxing. UFC, they fight more often, right, I guess? I don't know.

Depends. Depends on the fighter. Depends on, you know, what stage they are in their career. Yeah. Yeah, but the guys like to fight more often just to stay comfortable. Right. Because otherwise the moment's so big. Yes.

When you have more fights, you can relax. Yeah, it's more. I remember Ali describing, somebody asked him, does he get nervous? He was a great guy because he wasn't a bullshitter. He bullshitted when it was time to sell the fight. But whenever anybody asked him things like that, he was honest. Somebody asked him, do you get nervous? He said, every fight I get really nervous.

When I come out to the ring i feel like i can't do this and that guy's huge and what why did i why did i come here yeah and um but then the bell rings and as soon as i start moving as soon as it becomes about the work i go well this is what i do yeah and then what takes over is just routine what i do and then he's just serious you over is just routine. It's what I do. And then he's just serious, you know. I always felt like the worst part was before the fight started. Yeah.

The worst part was like standing there getting ready before the fight started. Yeah, I can imagine. But then once the fight starts, you're on instinct. You're in, yeah. It's like sort of normal. That's what stand-up is like. I fucking hate waiting to go on stage. Yeah.

It's the worst thing. And I get a little, if there's stuff going on, I get irritated if the opener's going over a little. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want a drink, you want a this, you want a that. Give me something to distract myself. Yes. Yeah. It's bad news.

Yeah. But yeah, I could see why guys like that need to come back. But it's good to be able to live your life where that's not what you need. It's a gigantic shift, though, in the way you view the world. You have to view the world as not like these big events that you're planning for every three to six months, but instead just life. Yes, that's what I've tried to do in the last few years. I'm about to end this tour, and then'm i'm going to take a year off i think

100 off yeah no no stage anywhere that's great that's the plan i think that there's a there's a balance between performing a lot and perspective like and one of the things that happens to guys when they perform too much is that they talk about things that are related to their life as a traveling comedian it's all air travel and flights and hotels and restaurants and so much of the material revolves around this very narrow window of existence. Yes, that's true. But also you put all this pressure on performance that it's got to fix all your life. And it's not going to. Right. But if you live a fuller life, then comedy has the place it should, which is like it's a weird thing to do.

It should always be weird and it should always be like, man, I can't believe I'm doing this. Yeah. If your life is normal, then comedy is a gas. It's a jolt. And inside of it, you know, for me, you're working in there and there's routine and there's, you know. Yeah. But it should stay special, you know. and there's, you know.

Yeah. But it should stay special, you know. Well, you're at a point right now, like you're ready to do this special, which is this thing that you're going to live stream. Yeah. In Madison Square Garden, which is fucking super exciting.

I love it. Yeah, thanks. January 28th, it's my, I'm going back to the garden. I used to play there all the time. Haven't played there in a number of years. I didn't know it would come back. There it is.

Woo! And so we put the sale. I wrote to you because I wanted to do it in the round. Yeah. I never did it that way. And so I asked you if it was good. You said it was really fun that way. It's so fun.

And then I found out that it costs twice as much because you get a light from two sides. Yeah. And also you need to be able to see the guy from four angles. So you need more cameras. Right. And then we sold the thing out. Like we sold 10,000 tickets on the first day. It's sold out now. It's 18,000 seats.

It's the most people I'll ever have. I mean, I'm doing this 38 years. That'll be the biggest audience i ever played for and so it costs so much money though to put the cameras in there yeah for the jumbotron and then i thought just let's live stream it because it's actually only costing a little bit you know there's not that much more because we already have all this shit in there right right so yeah so we're gonna live stream it and on my website you just go, and it's like $25. That's awesome. We'll keep it up.

It's a live event. It's not a special so much as a live event. So it's all new material since my last special, and it'll be up until the 17th, I think, of February. Then we take it down, and then it'll go away. And then in April, I'll put out a special of the same material that I already shot at the Dolby Theater in L.A. I shot a special there. Oh really, when did you shoot that?

Earlier this month. Oh okay. Yeah, it was really good. That's a great idea, I love that. Yeah, so that's like the album. Yeah, right, right. And that'll be the same as every special I've ever done, like 10 bucks and you can download it and all that stuff

and keep it, but this one is only for streaming and it's a short, limited time. So Chris Rock is doing a live special too on netflix right he's gonna film it and it'll stream live on netflix is that what they're gonna do for the first time yeah they never live streamed anything so that he's their first one and that's cool for him and it'll be march i think he's doing his in atlanta i've heard nothing but good things about his new set yeah he's well he's been been, I think, holding back a little bit. So I think this tour has been great for him.

Yeah, I think this is going to be really great. I'm excited for his show. I'm excited for comedy right now. Yeah, comedy is getting... It's amazing. Picking up steam again. Well, it's also, it's like people are really longing for it

because there's so much political correct bullshit, this woke bullshit, what you can and can't't say and so many people feel upset about it and that like they don't know what to say because they can't talk at work or they get fired they can't talk amongst their community or they get shamed they don't they like oh and then you go see someone talk on stage like yeah yes and that's what comedy always was yeah it's always been that yeah and it's to me everything that's happened has been natural. It's like normal that comedy has to be defended every few years.

Yeah. Like when everybody's being cool, like when the world is kind of cool like it was up till maybe 2015 or so, like it's just kind of cool. Comedy is cool and everybody, you know, but then when things get shitty and in terms of this sort of thing, people being more divided and unable to, uh, um, express themselves, comedy gets more important, but also starts getting attacked and we have to defend it. That's all. Yeah. I mean, by just doing it, that's all I don't, I don't get into defending it by saying, fuck these people. It just means you have to keep doing it at the same discipline. Right, and doing it the same way. Yeah. Yeah, don't pull back. No, just keep doing it, and folks will show up and love it.

Well, that's one of the things I really loved about your last special. It was like 100% a Louis C.K. special. You didn't back off of anything. That whole thing that you did at the end the the faggot thing was so funny man it's so funny it's such a good bit yeah that's new today's straight matter yes it's so funny it's so good because it's so like ah he's going there you know but I saw really well thought out my audiences are really diverse I mean in terms of like i get young people and

some kind of like progressive looking people i get men and women and all races mostly white but you know some cities i get more but uh but i tested it in front of so many people that bit and they every kind of person laughed at it every the only people that got offended by it were people like in the south or more kind of like red state people because when i said straight men are faggots i'm talking about you know brooklyn twinks and right right right they don't know they think i'm talking about them hey man will you call me you know so they didn't they missed it i thought I would be offending progressive young kids. But for them, it was a relief because it's about them. Right.

And they feel that way. In real life, people like being laughed at. They like their community. When you do good jokes about black people, not like a white perspective about being alienated from them. about being alienated from them. But if you do a good joke about black culture or Chinese culture or Jewish culture, the people in those groups laugh because they're in the show

and they know their culture as well as anybody does. Yeah. So that's always been the case. But people just, you know. I mean, it never really changed. And the way I figured it was, there was no point in backing down and changing because what do you want out of life like what maybe i could have like i already had a crazy

heyday where the kind of comedy i do which is just flagrant fouls just fucking just bad bad behavior throughout right for a while that was like considered the greatest thing and people were just like this this is great. The mainstream loved it. Everybody loved it, right? And I had that for years, that success. So I figured if I have to do it and I start getting hated for it or even

just business goes down, I have to take some heat from the sides. So what? That's not a lot to ask of me considering what i've enjoyed so if my i and it was like that before when i first started i was gross and a lot of people stayed away from me and then i had a heyday and i'm like it's back to go it's time to go back into the underground it's time to go back into just like like i don't get mentioned in the big lists for a lot of reasons but also

for the comedy but but so it's okay it's acceptable to me if it if if it's not as popular anymore i'm still gonna do the same thing but that's what's bullshit it is as popular that's the that's the the lists are nonsense the lists are all non-binary people made a fucking special in a coffee shop. I guess. And by the way, let them have the list for a while. That's fine too. That has never meant much. The mistake is when you're on it, you go like, yeah. Right.

Exactly. When you're on the lists and you're at the red carpet and stuff, it's like playing blackjack and you start getting good cards and you think you're good at blackjack. Right. You're like, see, I know what I'm... No, you just... It's an arbitrary thing that has its own reasons for being

and sometimes you get benefit for it. Yeah. And sometimes you don't and that's who gives a shit. But like saying about your heyday, I don't think you're right there. Like, look, you sold out 10,000 tickets in a day. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? Well, one time I did it five times in a year. I bet you could do it think you're right there. Like, look, you sold out 10,000 tickets in a day. Like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Well, one time I did it five times in a year. I bet you could do it five times in a year. I don't think it's much different. I think probably that one was it for, to me. And also, I don't want to do five shows at the Garden. Well, you're going to have to if you don't want to, but I bet you could. Yeah, I suppose. I bet you could.

Well, people fucking love comedy right now. Yeah, they do. I mean, we're having a great time. It's a lot of fun right now it's a fucking ball i have no concerns on stage about yeah is this gonna be they're coming to see you yes also by the way i like i like the other thing is that this time was good for comedy the time of people getting their assholes a little tighter. Like, I was listening to Patrice last night with my opener, Ariel, I have just three names for some reason,

fucking Ariel Isaac Norman. We worked together in New Orleans. We did a show in Mobile and we drove to New Orleans and I was playing for her Patrice's album, Mr. P. And Patrice O'Neill. And he does a couple of bits and he says to the crowd, you guys are laughing, that's good, but you're not all laughing and that's good.

I don't want you all to laugh. If everybody's laughing, it's not fun. You need somebody in here going like, that's not, that's not okay. And I believe that. It actually makes comedy better if it has an adverse, if you have pushback because and the thing the problem that some comedians have is they get hurt they get their feelings hurt if someone doesn't

like the joke they feel that it's oh you don't like me and then they back away from anything that makes them feel like that yeah but if you can be like here's a terrible thing and then and the audience goes like oh and you just, you don't get emotionally involved. You hear the, oh, and you go, okay, I can either go around it or I can go into it. We can go further into this. There's some, there's potential in that horrible feeling for another laugh past it that they've, they've never experienced. Right. Because usually when an audience shows, I don't want to hear that people back away. But if you stay with it, I'm still talking about it. I'm never experienced. Right. Because usually when an audience shows, I don't want to hear that, people back away.

But if you stay with it, I'm still talking about it. I'm still talking. I'm still your friend. Like, I'm not going to fuck you people. You know, that thing. That's another cop out. Right. Fuck you, you pussies.

You just go, okay, you didn't like it. Well, here's a little more about it. Yeah. And if you get them like that, and then you can... I remember once I was in Houston, and there was the Houston Improv. And it's pretty much a black club. It's mostly black comedians go there,

and the clientele for the Houston Improv is mostly black people, Texas black people. And so I went and did a weekend there, and there was a lot of my fans, but there was a lot of folks that just come to the Improv. So I could see in their faces that they don't know me. And there was this one table of people, they were dressed like it's Easter, like beautiful clothes, you know?

And this woman in like a Robin's egg dress and just beautiful makeup, this black woman. I was doing this bit about pedophiles, one of the many pedophile bits. bit about pedophiles one of the many pedophile bits i don't remember which one it was the thing about that they should make doll very realistic dolls of children for for pedophiles to fuck uh and she was just like oh like literally putting her hands up like, please don't. And I just, I looked at her with love, with sympathy. I was really playing to her now. And I'm trying to convince her that I'm not just trying to piss her off, that there's something worth hearing in here. And somehow, I don't remember what the moment was,

but there was a moment in the bit where she went, I get it. And then she started to laugh. And I felt this relief. I think she would rather not have had the experience at all. But I don't know. I just love that so much. I love doing that so much.

And then it finds now I have a bit that she's part of, that her resistance helped me find all of the round edges to the bit and all of the angles. know what i mean that's one of the most fascinating things about comedy is that you really need the audience to develop it you need them you can't do it in a vacuum no it is the one art that the audience is your horn that's your fucking instrument yeah they're participating yeah and you need a bunch of different kinds of audiences so many yeah from all over the world yes you need to use you need a bunch of different kinds of audiences. So many. Yeah. From all over the world. Yes. You need to use, you need to see people that aren't like you.

That's the most important thing is to go to places where you're like, oh, I, this is not going to be fun. And there's bits that I do that I'm like, I don't want to do this to them. I don't want to feel this feeling, but I know if I keep doing it, each audience will bring me closer to them and figuring out and then there's this bad point where these bits that I do that are like about pedophilia and stuff they get to where they're killing because I've just I've fashioned them so well and had so much great collaboration with different kinds of outrage and now it's a blistering hot bit and then when I'm doing it I forget it was ever offensive right bit. And then when I'm doing it, I forget it was ever offensive.

Right. And I just go like, I'm doing it like this. Like, yeah, you're going to love this. And I always crest over the wave to some audience. They just stare at me like, what are you talking about? And I go, oh, yeah, that's right. This is a fucked up subject. This is a fucked up thing to be talking about.

And then they remind me to approach it like this yeah like i like the way you're talking to somebody with it like a panicking person with a gun right right right right you know who's got a guy like this and he's doing this yeah and you're just trying to get him to breathe you're trying to get him you know trying to take them through a scary room but what a great thing to take people to where the things that they hate and make them laugh at yeah you know what a great thing for for for some of us some people don't like that no some people just like clean and easy and that's that's fine too i mean there's a great audience for that too that i think one of the unique things that you've always liked to do is you like to go to clubs unannounced.

So they don't know you're going to be there. They're not your fans necessarily. They're just people. And then you just drop in and try stuff out. Yeah, that's the most honest thing. I mean, there is the – I'm thinking of some analogy where if you turn up all the dials, it all becomes zero again. So if you're doing your audience, there's also a huge amount of pressure. They're paying more money and they've been waiting.

So you feel this thing of like, this has got to be good. The pressure is really high for those shows. There's support, but those are your customers. Yes. So they're just like, let's go. Yeah. But when you just walk in, I mean, a lot of times if I walk in a place, they know who I am. But there's enough in the audience.

They didn't come to see me. And there's enough in the audience that's just I can get an honest sense of how this material works. There's some place in Australia. There's a club in Melbourne. And I've done it twice, 20 years apart. And both times nobody had any idea who I was. Like the MC did, he's a comic. So he was like, he said a lot of really nice things.

And he said, this guy, what a treat. And he brings me on and the crowd's like, and they're just, and I could see them going like this to each other. And I'm doing material that has been killing in large concert venues. And they just don't give a fuck. Like, then I found out what's actually,

you know, means something to anybody. Well, it's different culturally, too. Like, they'll laugh at things over there that we don't laugh at. Australia? Do you find that? Yeah. Yeah?

Yeah, Australia is a fascinating place. It is. They're wild people. They're very similar to Americans, but not quite. But not at all. That's what, you get there and you think it's America? Nope. Because you're in a tube, in an American tube, and you go over there and then you sleep in

an American hotel and everybody's white and they don't sound British. They sound a little more like us. It feels American. Then you're walking down the street and a fucking parrot flies by and lands on a telephone pole. You're like, what the fuck is a parrot doing? And you realize you're surrounded by tropical creatures. Like I was in Perth, which is completely different from Sydney and Melbourne. They call them the eastern states.

Perth is on the west coast of Australia. And it's in the Indian Ocean, south of India. It's a great, I mean, it's really like, Perth is like a city surrounded by just no people. And there's crazy creatures and weird plants. And then these white people. And they're not, yeah, they're not. They used to be prisoners. Well, in Perth, they were.

It's different. Is it? Yeah. It was founded as a commercial venture. An English captain went to England and said he got money and he got people – he paid people to go. And they're miners. It's just these huge giant holes in the ground. I think it's iron.

And there is these guys that live in Perth and they all have tons of money from this dirty work that they do. And they call them FIFOs, fly in, fly out, because they fly into the mines and then they just live, it's just covered in shit and, you know, sleep in a bunk next to the hole for like a month. And then they give them like whatever, you know, thousand, hundred thousand dollars. Then they go back to Perth. It's a weird culture.

There's a lot of those people in Canada. I guess like for the fishing, right? No, miners. Oh, yeah? Yeah, there's a lot of miners, oil people. A lot of people work the oil rigs in Canada. Yeah, a lot of the people that they're a part of that strip mining, like they all have like jacked up trucks and giant gold chains and tons of money.

That's what it's like in Perth. Every truck is a off road, you know, jacked up with, uh, with the snorkels. Yeah. Well,

you need that out there for the dust. Yeah, you do. But then the Eastern States was founded by, um, they were penal colonies. Uh, but,

and I don't know much about it, honestly. But Sydney and Melbourne is my favorite place over there. Melbourne's great. Such a great town. It's like San Francisco before it was ruined in Australia. Yeah. Yeah. I was just in San Francisco.

It's pretty gnarly right now. It's weird, right? Yeah. Isn't it strange how quickly a city can deteriorate with terrible government? I mean, I don't know all the reasons, but it's pretty. There's a ton of reasons. Yeah. But clearly they haven't made a course correction.

Some of it is cyclical. I mean, I started going there in the 80s and it's a little like it was when I started going there. It gets a little bit like New York City. Nobody remembers anything like that because it's all the young people. There's always young, trendy people whose parents pay for an apartment in New York city. And they show up and they're just like, so I'm a New Yorker. And,

uh, they came in a lot of the kids that are there now came in during this sort of golden sort of Bloomberg era when it was Giuliani had just, you know, stuck plungers up many black anuses to clean the place up. And we all kind of watched like, oh, don't do that. Ooh.

Like, which sort of turned away. People forgot about that story. And he cleaned up the city. What's that? People forgot about that plunger story. Amadou Diallo was the name of the guy. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. No, Abner Louima.

It's two guys. Abner Louima, I think, was the plunger. It's Giuliani time. They stuck a plunger handle up his ass and said, Amadou Diallo is a guy who was shot something like 68 times because he had a sandwich in his hand, you know. Oh, Jesus. Kind of looked like

a gun even though it was, you know, veal parmesan. People forgot about Giuliani at one point in time. People thought he should be president after the way he handled 9-11. That's right. Everybody's like, he's our leader. Yeah, and just because he walked down the street with a coffee and said, oh, boy, it's rough, that's basically what he did.

He didn't stop 9-11. He didn't solve 9-11. He didn't save anybody. There was no one to save. That's the most fucked up thing about that day is that there was no, you know, they had the hospitals were all ready and there was not like one. There was like nobody was injured. Were you living in New York City when that happened? Yeah, you know, they had the hospitals were all ready and there was not like one, there was like nobody was injured. Were you living in New York City when that happened?

Yeah, I was. I was not in the city. The day before on the 10th, I flew to LA to pitch a fucking TV show. Wow. And my wife was pregnant and we were living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which was right, I mean,

that came out of our house, the towers were our view right out the door. And so she was there six months pregnant and whammo. And she called me. It was like nine in the morning in LA or earlier, I guess it was like six. And she called me and she was just bawling. And I was like, what's wrong?

And she couldn't say anything. And I was like, what the fuck is going on? And partly I'm like, am I in trouble like and then she says turn on the tv and i saw these towers on fire and i was like okay it's not it's nothing to do with with home this is a big world problem not a me problem i'm pretty sure that's not my fault no anyway she was uh she handled actually she handled it really well like todd barry uh you know who todd right he uh uh called her she's the one who told him like what had happened he woke up not understanding what was happening and he was really scared and called my ex-wife and she calmed him down she's a good

person um but anyway, yes. And I was like, get out of this. I just panic. Living in Manhattan, because I grew up with movies like Warriors and with memories like The Blackouts. And I wasn't even there for The Blackouts. But there was all these blackouts where everybody got killed. And there was a lot of movies about like New York City is shut down and everybody and you know the wolves come out yeah so I thought as soon as it happened I told her get out of Manhattan there's just going to be people throwing tv sets through windows in like five minutes I just

believed I am legend yes that kind of thing yeah so get the fuck out of so she got out of there um and then I was on the road and I was I I, I was in LA. I was supposed to pitch a show and I called the network and I said, I assume the meeting is canceled. And they said, yeah, but if you want your show to go forward, we do have to, we have to have, they made me do, pitch a comedy. On September 11th? On the 12th. Oh, the 12th.

I had to go in. They gave you a day off. What's that? They gave you a day off. Yeah, that's right. It's a day to let everything settle down. Yeah, the 12th oh the 12th i had to go in a day off what's that they gave you a day off yeah that's right it's a day to let everything set yeah the 12th is my birthday um but so i had to pitch a fucking comedy and it was it was hard i mean obviously that was you know terrible and then i went back on the road i was doing gigs so i was flying as soon as they were flying you know there's no airplanes- How many days was it? I don't remember how long they didn't fly for, but I think it was a couple of weeks before a flight went up. I don't remember, but I started flying right away and the airports were all empty

and everyone was allowed in the lounges and everyone was getting upgraded to first class because the planes were empty. And for a while, it was part of the protocol before the flight takes off. They used to say they would give you the safety stuff and then they would say you can use your seatbelt detaches. You can use it as a weapon. Oh, Jesus. You can use your seat as a shield. And they would. Yes, they would say this is part of the thing for like the first

month after 9-11 and they would say we're here to protect you but you have to protect us they would say that and there was one flight i took where i was flying first class like seat 1b i was right at the bulkhead and and this other guy sitting at 1c across from me and the captain came out right before the flight and he kind of squatted between us, and he said, listen, fellas, because it was a red eye, he said, you're the last line of defense, so I need you not to sleep on this flight. Jesus Christ.

Yeah. I need you not to sleep on the flight to defend him. Yeah. But of course, there's part of me that's like, I'm a guy, so I'm like, oh, yes, sir. I was excited. Yeah, I got asked once, so I'm like, oh, yes, sir. I was excited. Yeah, I got asked once by a lady. These two guys were fighting, and they were thinking about removing the guys from the plane

because one guy had put his bag above this other guy's seat. And the other guy goes, hey, man, that's for my seat. And he's like, no, it's first come, first serve. He's like, no, fuck you. And then they were like, fuck you, no, fuck you. And then the lady had to come in and go hey hey like i will fucking kick both you guys off the plane yeah this is before you took off before we took off she goes we have an understanding and they go yeah and then

she comes to me she goes hey if anything goes down you're gonna help right she deputized you deputized me i I'm like, okay. What do you want me to do? What am I allowed to do? What's my directive? What are my orders? If I go back there and smash some guy, am I in trouble? What happens? What am I allowed to do?

Yes, you were directed by a company employee, and she has federal power. I need you to put that on video. That's what I would have done. Say it on my phone. Yeah, say go ahead Yeah, I need to know what's going on. First of all, I don't know who's right I mean this one guy who says it's his seat and it's above his seat Yeah, he's kind of got a point and the other guy's got a point to like if that's the only space it's open I don't think it's about who's right right in that situation it's not about who's right about that right it's about if somebody throws hands well it's about one one guy was really douchey about it like he could have he could have been like um there was nothing else available right do you want like is there a space over here

i'll move your bag for you yeah like he Like he could have made a. So many things. Yeah. They could have made some sort of a considerate. He's probably got some at home, you know. Probably. You get on a plane after a fight with whoever at home. Oh, yeah. Work sucks. At home, he can't say it. He's got somebody who he's fighting with who he needs to suppress.

And so the first motherfucker. Yeah. You know. Or he's just a dick. He's just an asshole. Could be just a dick. and so the first motherfucker you know or he's just a dick he's just an asshole I can't get my head around that I always think it's something that's bothering him

I can't get my head around somebody who's just like well some people think you have to be that way to get ahead you have to be a dick to get ahead there's people that have that mentality. Right. And there's people that feel comfortable if they can do that. Yeah.

They're just comfortable if they can have whatever they want. So if you challenge it, they go, they find, they have their logic. Usually it's just fuck you. Yeah. I mean, he tried one argument and his second argument was fuck you. Some dudes like to just take up that kind of space. Just like, this is all mine, and fuck off. And if I do one thing for somebody else,

it's going to start chintzing in, so I'm not doing that. So that's just how they live. Some women do it too, but it's a different version of it. And now, you know, there's like, but the people that like, is all i was on a subway in new york once and it was packed and everyone's you know people like this you're smushed against people you know your chest is against somebody's back and we're all strapped hanging and some people are sitting and this woman had a salad and she was eating it on the packed subway and she was like she had she had it out like this

and she's just stabbing that and she's just taking up all this space so she can eat her fucking chicken salad and all of us were just watching her every person was just like cunt like nerd like black nurses that have been working 14 hours. Just like, bitch. Fucking bitch. Anyway. I mean, for her, it's probably the only time she has to eat. The girl eating the salad?

I guess, yeah. She probably has some reason. She didn't look, she looked comfortable. It's kind of a prison thing, too. Where you put your arm around your food and you eat like this. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever been scared somebody's going to eat your food maybe in high school maybe yeah maybe not really newton south yeah maybe some rough some dickhead

wasn't very rough wasn't very rough i mean i'm thinking maybe i don't have a thought a memory i remember the first conversation we had I guess I was like 20 and you ever yeah yeah how well because this reminds me of it because Newton South okay cafeteria I'm 55 55 to I'm 55 okay so we must have both been around 20 you when you started comedy you were 21 yeah all, so I must have been the same age. But we talked about fight, because I found out you were a Taekwondo guy or something. Is that what you fought?

Yeah. And I asked you about fights. I said, do you have skills for fighting in real life? And you said, well, it's just some things you know that put you way at advantage with people that aren't fighters. Like, you don't wait for the fight to start, you told me. Like, you told me you were in a cafeteria once in South and some kid came up.

You know, people think they're going to get to do a preamble. They think that there's going to be a whole, hey, fuck you, and now they think there's going to be like... And as soon as you knew he was there to threaten you, you just punched him in the sternum and he just went down he's like hey man you and then he just anyway so that was the first time you'd explain that to me yeah that could have been avoided i thought about that one for a lot afterwards yeah yeah yeah you think you'd jump gun? Sometimes you jump the gun because like there with great power comes great responsibility

You know the guy here. He didn't no chance. He was just bowing up right. It was just a knucklehead. Yeah I should probably let him slide That's funny yeah, I think that's how you've changed too. Cuz you were really wired then you're tightly wired Well, we're talking then about like me being 15 or 16. That's right. Yeah, and a trained fighter at a young age And it's also like you got this thing you want to try out. So you got a fast car you want to hit the gas Yeah, of course. Let's let's see what happens. Oh Yeah, because people you know in the high school you're kind of trying out, bowing up on people. Right.

You know? It's a pretty nuanced thing to ask a kid that age to know, like, how to back off. I don't need to fight you. Yeah. No, it's hard. It's hard for kids. I just watched this horrible brawl today that someone had put up on twitter in a high school it was terrible where like all these kids were fighting in the hallway and teachers are trying to separate it

and this one kid threw this kid to the ground and punched him unconscious and the kid went into a seizure and like oh god this is and it's awful and a lot of it is people that just don't know how to fight and they don't know how to defend themselves and then they're fucking flailing wildly at each other. And this one guy knew something and he threw this guy to the ground and punched him out. It's a fucking school. So dangerous.

It's so dangerous because kids are just starting to get testosterone. They're just starting to become like strong and like a, like almost a man. And I'm out of lopsided kids who didn't, it just didn't kick in yet. Yeah. Yeah. Well, these kids were, it was all just didn't kick in yet. It's tiny. Yeah. Yeah. Well, these kids were all.

There was none of that. They were similar sized, but it was just awful. It was just awful. There's also weird energy in school for kids that age that's intricate. Like, I remember I saw a lot in my high school fights that were between friends because there's always somebody who wants people to fight there's always somebody who doesn't fight but wants a fight to happen everybody wants to see it so you take a kid who's trying to get some kind of status with a certain group and they go why are you

friends with that guy you know like that guy's a pussy and they actually turn him on his they want to see if they can make a kid fight a friend of his. I saw that so many times. And I saw a lot of kids that were tough but had a head, you know, smart kids who were – I remember this one kid. His name was Chris. And his friend Doug was pushed into, like, I'm going to kick your ass. And Chris could have beat Doug, but he just started crying because it was too much yeah

pressure and he didn't want to fight his friend and he could hurt his friend real bad and he's isolated everybody's around him he's like now the kid the fag you know and he just started crying and then everybody starts laughing at him because he's crying oh now. He's mad And he just beat Doug's face To read his oh, it's like he painted his face red One of his humiliating fights I get ever got into was I didn't there's never even a punch thrown it was me I was 14, and there's this kid in the locker room, and I don't remember the what words were said but we're standing in front of each other

and this is before I even was really into martial arts. This is one of the reasons I got into it. This kid grabbed me in a headlock, threw me on the ground and was gonna punch me in the face but then stopped and decided not to. So I was just gonna let you up. And I was like

I was like so humiliated. I was so humiliated. It would have been better if he hit you because then you look a little bit tough for taking the punch well at least I mean he was so unconcerned that I could do something to him that he just let me up and then I like would avoid him like in school like if I would like look down the hallway yeah and like I would open up the door to the outside breezeway and I saw him on the other side I'm'm like, oh, I've got to go around this way. I've got to keep away from that guy. I was terrified of him.

Horrible. Terrified of him for a full year. When I was a senior, I never really got in fights. I just didn't. It just didn't happen to me. I was kind of bigger than a lot of kids my age, so I guess that, you know. I just didn't and I didn't have a lot of conflicts with people,

so I never really got much into fights. I just sort of slid through, you know. And then at senior year i i don't remember junior or whatever but i was high a lot and i was in the library and i was laughing i was making a lot of racket in the library i used to get yelled at all the time for being loud in the library and uh this kid who's a sophomore little kid who was like this on me we're kind of uh skinny and wearing a leather jacket he goes hey shut the fuck up because he was just annoyed and the worst part is he was right like i knew in my head i'm being annoying yeah but i said fuck you like and i'm just like a status i'm a senior you're a sophomore fuck you shut up I'm just like, it's status. I'm a senior. You're a sophomore.

Fuck you. Shut up. And he goes, what? Fuck me? And I go, yeah, fuck you. And he comes over. He goes, you want to go right now? I'll fucking kick the shit out of you. He's smaller than me, but he's wiry.

And I'm like, I'm scared. I was terrified. Because I don't want to fight this kid. Even if I win, I'm not going to go unscathed. I don't want to get hurt. I don't want to be punched in the face. I don't want any fight this kid. Even if I win, I'm not going to go unscathed. I don't want to get hurt. I don't want to be punched in the face. I don't want any of this to happen. And he's standing above me, and he's like, you want to fucking go?

And I was just like, no, I don't want to. I don't want to fight. And he's like, then shut the fuck up then. And my friends were so ashamed of me. And for the rest of the year, I was terrified of this little kid scare. I did an episode about it in my show where some high school kid threatens to beat me up, and I back down, and I apologize to him.

Oh, God. Because I don't want to get... Yeah, that kid really... He haunted me for a long time. It can happen. Yeah. It can happen. Yeah, and he's somewhere now, you know?

I got beat up on a bus by a girl when I was 14 because I didn't fight back. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't sure if I should hit her back. Yeah. When I lived in Newton, in Newton South, we would go to, I think it was Round Meadow, which was the middle school.

I think that's what it was. Okay. And we would walk across the field because my sister was going to the middle school and I think that's what it was. And we would walk across the field because my sister was going to the middle school and I was in ninth grade and she was in eighth grade. So I would go and take the bus with her because like the bus was earlier or something. I forget what it was. So I went over and something happened when I got on the bus and there was this girl who like was this tough girl, smoked cigarettes, she had a leather jacket on.

Newton tough girls. And I don't remember what happened. I don't remember what the conversation was, but she either decided I was in the wrong seat or whatever. So she just starts wailing on me. Like it wasn't even, like I didn't argue back. It was just like, she just started punching me. And then this little guy

Who was like who I want to be my friend his name is Muggsy Malone He wound up being my he later went on I think he was a politician Yeah at one point in time, but he became my friend. Yeah, but he was just tiny little guy He was like in fifth grade Yeah And in like the girl beats me up and and then and then he. He goes, I ain't fucking afraid of you either. I'm like, oh, Jesus. It's like, what the fuck? Like he jumped on her side against you?

Yes, 100%. Yeah, it was like one of those things where I was like, my God, I got to learn how to fight. It was like really what turned me into a martial artist. It's like I was tired of being terrified. This girl kicked my ass. And I didn't even fight back. I was just like covering my head up. And she was just fucking

with a leather jacket on and fucking cigarette. What is her life that she needed to go right to Defcon 5? Well, she wound up being the girlfriend of the guy who's the toughest guy on the wrestling team, which I joined the next season. So thank God I didn't swing back.

Yeah, that would have been horrible. This guy, Mark Collings, who was like the neighborhood tough guy, who wasn't even a small guy. Wasn't even a big guy, rather. He was a small guy, but he was just fucking intense. And he was a really good wrestler. Yeah, I lived in Newtonville, which was like right along the highway. And right next to Nonantum, which was all those Irish and Italian kids. And so that's who I went to junior high school with and mostly high school.

But there was a lot of really terrifying kids. There's a lot of scary kids. Well, blue-collar communities. Like, I was in Upper Falls. Yeah. In Newton, Upper Falls. There was a lot of fucking, a lot of drinking. Yeah.

Everybody would hang out by Echo Bridge. Right. You remember Echo Bridge? Yeah, sure. That's where my house was. Okay. My house was right next to Echo Bridge. Yeah, Newton had a lot of, like Cabot, I went to Cabot School, elementary school, and Cabot Park was a hang.

And to cross Cabot Park, sometimes you'd get these guys that would just converge on you. And they would play games with you. And you didn't know what was going on. Hey, kid, come here, come here. And then all of a sudden you're in the middle of the park and you're like, fuck. I remember once this kid, he said he had a $100 bill for some reason. And he said, we're going to play this game. They're all surrounding me.

And he puts the $100 bill on my hand and he gives me a cigarette. And he says, if you can burn a hole in his head all the way through, I'll give you the $100 bill. And I was like i don't i don't want to do it no jesus christ no try it try it and i was trying to do it and it hurt like fuck and i don't remember how that ended like i just remember that terrifying and they're all staring at me at one time some kids had a a cup of puke it was like a coffee cup with puke and he said can you drink this whole thing if you drink this whole thing we'll give you a beer that was that thing oh god and these guys can i'll give

you a beer yeah these guys just scared me and then when i grew up i hung out with those kids and smoked cigarettes that's where i learned to smoke cigarettes in that park and i drank my first beer in that park uh but there was kids there was a kid named Mike who was the toughest kid in Newton. He was just a fucking terrifying person. And there was one point where, this kid named David Russell, he was, his family lived in Boston. I don't know if you guys had Metco kids, the kids that were bussed from Boston into our schools.

Black kids from, all black kids from Boston who were bussed into our school system. It wasn't part of that bussing Boston thing. It was out to the suburbs. And these were kids that got up at 4 o'clock in the morning to go to school. You know, they were living a particular life and coming out to this suburb. And some of them were my friends. One of them was Ronnie DeVoe of Bell Biv DeVoe. No shit.

Yeah, I went to high school with him. Wow. And I knew him since like junior high school, through high school. He was a nice kid. And when he was in, what are you, first edition or new edition, they used to come get him in a limousine and people would say, shout racist shit at the Bobby Brown. All these guys would be in the limousine in high school. It was so racist.

It was so crazy. Yes. Whoa. So David Russell was a Medco kid and his family's house burnt down in Boston. And a family in Newton, actually friends of mine, they had a rental unit and they let the Russells live there.

So it was like, there's a black family living in Newtonville. It's a big deal. And everyone was into, because it was all liberal teachers. Everybody was into like like we're hosting this family because they lost their home so all of a sudden david russell's living in newton he's not just going to school there and one day um mike and his group confront david russell at the park and they go hey listen we we're really happy you're here we want to show you this bench right here. This is your bench.

And they had literally painted it black. And they painted one of the swings black. They said, this is the Russell swing. This is the Russell bench. You can use it anytime you want. Whoa. And I remember I heard that story and I went to the park that day and there was a black bench and a black swing.

And they were there. I mean, I remember I went back when I was in my 20s and it was still a little black paint. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it was Newton, Massachusetts. It's crazy. Kids were latchkey kids back then.

Yeah. Remember those days? You were just like- Oh, your parents were at work. They just let you out. There's no parents. They come home. My mom would come-

I was raised by a single mom. She had four kids and worked. So she'd come home at 7.30, 8 o'clock, rush hour traffic, just exhausted. Yeah. But I'd come home, make my own lunch and often dinner. Yep. Yeah. Sometimes I'd make something for my mom, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Home alone all day. All day. Yeah. Out on the streets. Out on the streets. Nobody knew where you were.

There was no cell phones. You just wandered around. Yep. And just hope you didn't die. Yeah. Because every now and then someone would die. Yeah, kids would die. Someone would die in a drunk driving accident or something.

I think every year in my high school there would be a page in the yearbook for the kid that got killed in the drunk driving something there was always something like that my friend sis my best friend ian his sister claire was in a drunk driving accident where somebody died and half her face was paralyzed still today she's just uh yeah it was a fucked up fucked up time well it's just those i mean getting through that though is like a very unusual education in in human beings and in development and like why people do the things they do and why they say the things they do when they're trying out different kinds of behaviors and you know and bullies and people are pacifists and people get bullied and you see it ruin their lives and

you know it can ruin your fucking life man i've i've i really feel for people who get bullied and you see it ruin their lives. It can ruin your fucking life, man. I really feel for people who get bullied because if you get bullied in high school and you just decide that's who I am, I'm just this fucking loser, I'm just going to hide. And then you hide in your apartment and you hide in your house and you hide at your job and then your life is hiding now because somebody fucked with you.

Also, you were very badly hurt when you were extremely vulnerable exactly and you're probably hurt because you already were vulnerable you are already were right uh unsure of yourself for a million different reasons yeah and so you never really recover from that i don't think it's it's part i mean it doesn't mean it destroys your life but it's in your life all the things it's All the things that happen to you that are horrible, like unbelievable, they just stay with you. They just become part of you. You don't swap it out. You don't clean it out.

You don't clean it out, but you can get over it. You can get over it. You can integrate it. Yeah. It can help you understand what's happening to other people it can help you even understand people that hurt people yeah like when you get really hurt by people you have two choices you can decide to collapse under it and say i'm too weak to live in this world or you can decide to hate them which is another very corrosive thing you can just decide

that they are shit they They're not human. Or you can look at them and go, what the fight? This person do this to me. They've always been abused. Yeah. And then you go, okay.

And then you get an insight that no people don't get without that kind of experience. And, uh, and then you have a self reliance cause you go, I got through it. I did it. I got through it. Um,

I think every extreme experience, bad and good, is food, you know, it's good food. It is the potential for a learning experience. Yeah, potential, yeah, it's up to you. It's up to you what you turn it into. Yeah, like all those stories about like me being bullied and thrown around, like that's what led me to get into martial arts.

If it wasn't for that, I probably never would have done it, and I never would have been the person that I am. Sure. But all that came out of bad feelings, like terrible. I feel like just moving to town. So I was 14. I just moved there. I lived in Jamaica Plain before that, and then we moved. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yeah. Well, how old were you when you moved from there? I lived in Jamaica Plain for, I guess, a year and a half or so. My parents were like, this is way too dangerous. We've got to get out of there. Yeah, still probably. It was sketchy. Well, now I think Jamaica Plain is gentrified now.

Oh, yeah. Okay. But when I was there, it was not. When I was in, I guess it was eighth grade, seventh or eighth grade. There was a boy who was in our class who was 17 years old. And I was like, what the fuck is he doing in class? And what grade were you? Seventh grade. Oh, wow.

That's crazy. It was crazy. Yeah, he just kept falling out of school. And he was in there and he started off at the beginning like, I'm just going to fucking do it this time. And I remember being in class. I was like a little kid. He was like an adult. So I was like, this is crazy. there and he started off at the beginning like i'm just gonna fucking do it this time and uh i remember being in class like i was like a little kid he was like an adult so i was like this is crazy and um he fell off it just he was in class for a couple days and then he stopped and i realized like oh this poor guy like he's never gonna catch up like he's fucked because now he

feels like a loser and he feels like he's so far behind he can't even do it anymore and so he just dropped out but it was that kind of a neighborhood it was there was a lot of criminals in my neighborhood i mean the other thing is that school makes people feel really shitty in some ways i i always felt like a loser in school me too i was always in trouble i was never i mean i remember when i was in uh kindergarten i was in in first grade i was in mexico city that's where i lived when I was in kindergarten, I was in first grade, I was in Mexico City. That's where I lived when I was little. And I have this one, I don't remember much about that time,

but I remember this one day we had desks with all work and a desk folded down and all your papers were in there and you had to keep it organized and keep handing stuff in, but I could never finish anything. So my desk was always like, I couldn't close it.

And I hated this feeling. And the teachers, fucking angry Mexican teachers would scream at me. And one day the teacher left us in the room alone, me and some kids for some reason. And I took all the papers and I threw them out the window. I opened the window and I threw all my papers out the window. And the kids were like, what? And they started screaming and everybody started throwing papers out the window. It the kids were like what and they started screaming and everybody started throwing papers out the window it was like fucking attica it's just nuts and then there

was this pounding at the door and the teacher and i knew i'm in so much trouble right now like i'm in beyond trouble but it felt so good it just felt so good to be like in this outside of the box yeah you're not supposed to do that at all but it felt free i felt like a some kind of adult or something you know isn't it funny those moments of rebellion like early on that really sit with you like it felt so good like it plants seeds for further rebellion in the future well once you get that feeling you don't you want it again and again, you know? Because it takes you out of everything.

It's like, yeah, I may never get out of this class. I may never finish any of these. I might not graduate. I might, you know? Yeah.

But I'm right now, I'm throwing all this shit out the window. I'm alive. Yeah, exactly. It feels good for right now. And it's hard to reconcile that. I think that's a little bit of a comedian's upbringing. And then you have to start being a, you know, and you have kids and it all goes away. You have kids and you grow right. Whatever's left, I think, when you have kids. I mean, not for everybody. There's some real douchebag parents. But for the most part, I think once the kids come, you know, it's not about you anymore. It's about them.

And it's bizarre watching them go through it. Them going through like trying to find their identity and trying to find their friends group and little disputes that they have in their friends group. Like one of my daughters has this one little daughter, one little friend rather, who's, I don't want to say she's evil but something's wrong something's wrong she's just like always like very mean to the other girls and very insulting and and for whatever reason this girl just has like this fire inside of her and all the other 12 year olds are starting to figure it out now so they're starting to separate from her like they gave her a few chances right and so now the mom is contacting the other moms-year-olds are starting to figure it out now. So they're starting to separate from her. They gave her a few chances. And so now the mom is contacting the other moms like,

what's wrong? She's such a sweet girl. Your daughter's kind of a cunt. And it's weird. And then me and my wife are having this conversation. I'm like, do you think it's the mom? Where's this coming from? Do you think it's the family?

How does a daughter get to be so insulting and shitty? Yeah, you gotta learn that you can't just be like the sweetest kindest person in the world and have this fucking hyper Aggressive no something's going on. I mean there's people like I remember there was a kid when I grew up and He was a mess and he was huge. He just got really huge in third grade. He was a formidable. He was bigger than all of us and He was a really bright kid and he was funny and interesting But he had this crazy temper and he would throw these tantrums in the middle of class like something would piss him off and he'd start screaming and throwing shit and he'd get violent and the teacher would would go to the, back then there was like a box on the side of the classroom wall

with a clock and a speaker and a button, like a microphone, like to call the office. And they'd call the office and say, get Mr. Shanahan. He was our one teacher who was big enough to handle this kid. And he would come and just subdue him. He'd wrap his arms around this kid

and the kid's face would be purple. And Mr. Shanahan would just subdue him until he ran out. He would just collapse. And we would all sit there and watch this. And then he'd be taken out of the classroom, and then we'd all talk about him. But, like, the teacher would say, let's talk about it. Yeah.

Like, what do you think is going on with John, and how do we handle this? Oh, that's cool. He's in our communities, in our class. Oh, that's a great teacher. He was great, Mr. Weisberg. Great teacher. And then I was always in John's class, fourth grade, fifth grade. And in fifth grade, we had a trip to Cape Cod.

The whole fifth grade class goes in cars in a caravan to Cape Cod. And you live in tents, and you visit the Cranberry Bogs, whatever the fuck know, to Cape Cod and you live in tents and you visit the Cranberry bogs, whatever the fuck you do in Cape Cod. And it's a very social thing, you know? So somebody's mom is driving. So they like, you know, will you come in my car? You know, that was the cool thing. And I got invited to be in Jeff Drew's car. And I was like, this is going to be, I love Jeff Drew. It's going to be me and him and Mike McDougal. We're going to have a great time. But the teacher pulled me aside and he said, listen, John, the fucked up kid, he goes, his parents have offered to drive and nobody wants to drive with him. I'm asking you to do it.

Oh, boy. And I was like, I don't want to do that. And he said, you're I'm asking you because I think you're a nice person and you're the one person I can think of that I could ask, could you make this sacrifice and let him not feel so isolated?

And I was like, fuck. And I was, that made me feel good that he wanted me to do it and I did it and I got to know him and he was a really cool kid

and his parents were both professors. Really, really bright people. His father had killed himself, but his stepfather and his mother were professors. Really intelligent people. That's probably where it came from. I think so. It was really hard.

His life was really hard. And then I knew him for years after that. We were friends, but he would always explode all the way until, you know, 17 or so. The last time I saw him, he was like 16, I think. And he was still, we were talking outside of a Brigham's ice cream in Newton Center. And he was leaning on the glass of the window. And this guy came outside and said, don't lean on the glass. And so he kicked it and shattered the whole window.

And I walked away. I'm like, I don't ever want to see this kid again. Oh, Jesus. But anyway, just to say that, yeah, the point of it is I tried to stay friends with that kid. When there is a kid who's really fucked up and has a wire loose, someone's got to be their friend. Yeah.

I don't think, you know know it's like i've had girlfriends that are like really cuckoo and my friends have been like she's bad news she's crazy i'm like well somebody has to love her i mean if everybody walks away from her because she's nuts she's gonna be alone oh that was always the case with brian callan with brian callan me and brian callan like brian callan was always the guy who took in all the strays. He was like, everything's going to be fine. She's fine. She's fine.

We're fine. And I was always his friend going, hey, man, you got to fucking get out of this. You got to get out of this now. This is a dark road you're going down. This is only going to lead to doom. And he was always like, hey, someone's got to be your girlfriend. I've had a few friendships and relationships like that where I'm like, this person's tough. Like comedian friends that I've had

that everybody else is like, I hate that guy. I'm like, I get it. I'm staying friends with him. I get it. I'm not going to defend him all over the place, but... Oh, you're talking to me. I'm friends with Alex Jones. Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ. Okay, that's the ultimate example of that. Yeah. On a big scale, too. That's got that's the ultimate example of that. Oh. Yeah. On a big scale, too. That's got to be hard. The biggest scale. Oh, God. The biggest scale in the world.

That takes a lot of fortitude to just hang in there. He's not a bad guy. I mean, I don't know. He had a psychotic break. Yeah. But Alex Jones got dumped on his head when he was in high school. He's speaking about getting bullied in high school. Yeah.

This guy picked him up and pile-drived him, slammed him on the concrete on his head. Was it John Ronson that did a documentary about him? Or, like, he did a thing on NPR? John Ronson did a thing with him where they both went to Bohemian Grove. Where he grew up? No, no.

Bohemian Grove is this place in California where all the elites go, and they put fucking druid costumes on. And they worship Moloch the Owl God. Oh, Jesus Christ. And Nixon went there and Reagan went there. Yeah. Oh, I thought you were talking about like-

Bohemian Grove. You don't know what it is? Nixon and Reagan went there? Bohemian Grove is a famous place where rich world leaders would meet in Northern California. And they literally worship this Moloch the owl God and everybody thought it was bullshit. But John Ronson and Alex Jones snuck in. And this is in like the nineties. I want to say this is the nineties. I've been friends with Alex since 1998. That's how I know him. I knew him back when he was protesting George Bush.

And he was saying that George Bush is a warmonger and a war hawk. Which one? For a second one? W. W, when W was running for president. Yeah. Back when W was the governor of Texas. Right. So this idea that he was like this right-wing guy. He was always like this anti-power guy.

But he was dumped on his head in high school on the concrete when he was, you know, 15, 16 years old. And he was fucked ever since then. And he has real mental problems sometimes. And if he's drinking a lot and then he takes in too much conspiracy shit, he starts believing things that aren't real. Ruining folks' lives. Yeah, and that's what he did. Jesus Christ. Yeah, he starts believing things that aren't real. Ruining folks' lives. Yeah, and that's what he did. Jesus Christ. Yeah, he started believing.

Fucking horrible. But he wasn't lying. He just was wrong. He really believed that the government had faked it to try to confiscate people's weapons. Like, he's just... Well, I mean... But it was a haze of drugs and booze

and a psychotic break and like legitimate traumatic brain injury. Yeah. There's a lot going on there. Well, you know, pretending that he wasn't the way to start this conversation. I remember when that happened. Sandy Hook. That was Sandy Hook, right? Yeah.

And I remember that the media went up there right away. Yeah. I remember it made me really sick because there's such a horrible thing that happened. Yeah. And what everybody should have done is just let the chief of police talk to you and let him say, we don't know these things yet.

Just wait, just wait for information to come out of this very painful place. But the media flew in. Of course. And they're on the fucking grounds of the school. And Anderson Cooper is talking to fucking kids who were there. And their parents have their hands on the kids' shoulders. And you can see in both the kid's face and the parent's face that they're not sure they should be doing this.

They don't know. We take for granted this thing of being exposed to the media and being talking on cameras. And there's been things, of course, in your life and my life where you say something or have have an experience and then afterwards you go, fuck, that was I wish I hadn't said that. Right. Or I didn't know how this would feel is the thing. Right. So somebody who is not even in public life and who just suffered it on off the charts trauma and Anderson Cooper in there and his producers going, no, you should talk talking them into it. Saying you should talk to the world right now. You should be on the news talking about it now. We don't want to wait till later. We don't want to do an expose 10 years later. What was it like? Or even a year.

We want to know right now. Why does it have to be now? Why can't you just talk to the stoic chief of police who says here's what. Why? Because it's just dirty greed. It's just dirty. I want it. It'll be great on camera.

I don't give a fuck what happens to this person when I leave Sandy Hook today. I don't give a shit. I'll be back in my CNN studios. I'm picking him because that's the face I remember. Yeah. And the fact that they were there. It's just macabre and it's ghoulish. And it's gross.

And it puts those people in a very vulnerable, fucked up position that they didn't anticipate yeah they had no idea and i'm talking out of school because i didn't experience what they experienced but as a person sitting and watching i'm like i'm not being told too much i know too much about this too soon and if that's not because i need to know where it's going to help fix what happened it's because somebody wanted wanted it. Because it drives ratings. That's it. That's it. It's just money. Yeah.

And there's been extensions of that throughout the history since then. Every time something bad happens, nobody slows down and thinks about it. Well, there's also a thing that happens where you get eyewitness accounts that are all fucked up. And one of the reasons why eyewitness accounts that are fucked up is because when people experience a traumatic incident, their memory is very confused. You are working with a part of your brain that's like this reptilian part of your brain

that's like completely freaked out that something horrible happened. And that happened after 9-11. Like after 9-11, everybody wanted to believe that this was some grand conspiracy because there was all these bizarre eyewitness accounts. Oh, I heard a bomb go off. I heard this.

I heard that. They don't know what they remember. They don't know what they saw. These people flabbergasted. They don't know what the fuck happened. They were so overwhelmed and blown away by the moment. There just should be, every time something awful happens, there should just be a blackout, like just a period where let's not talk to anybody

Yeah, don't talk to the traumatized. Well going there and sticking a fucking microphone their faces It's just so gross and it's par for the course. It's like how it's done Yeah, and then they're reporting from the place and imagine what it's like being in that community and there's fucking a van with a Doing here. Yeah, it's it's obscene. Yeah, it is obscene. It's obscene and it's normal A van with a, like, what are you doing here? It's obscene. Yeah, it is obscene. It's obscene and it's normal.

Yeah. I mean, that's what they operate under. That's their currency. I guess so, yeah. Yeah. I don't think they think about it anymore. I don't think they think about it because there's a diffusion of responsibility when you work for a large corporation. That's the job that has to get done. Yeah.

We got to go there. It's not my call. No. It was my call. I'd stay in the studio. I'm a good to get done. Yeah. We got to go there. It's not my call. It was my call. I'd stay in the studio. I'm a good person. Right. Yeah.

I remember I was at Fox News once because I was shooting a sketch with Greg. What's his name? Geraldo? No, no. Greg. Fox News. He's got a funny talk show. Gutfeld.

Gutfeld. This was when he was just sort of, he was didn't have the gutfeld show i shot it yeah i think it was but we they he let us shoot a thing where he it was a sketch for my it was like a scene for my show where um i'm i'm debating with a woman who's against masturbation and i'm i'm the guy on pro masturbation andurbation. And he was the moderator. And we had this TV news thing. It was a silly episode of my show. And anyway, so I got to go to the studios to shoot it. And Gutfeld was really cool.

I like him. He's a good guy. He's a nice guy. And so I sat in the – they didn't have a place for us yet. And they let me – I asked if I could go in a control room. And they're like, okay. And I sat in this control room because I love television I love being behind the scenes and the president was making a speech it was Obama

he's making a speech and I was in the live fucking in the room the Fox News room watching them do their thing and Bill O'Reilly's on this camera having his hair done and this guy's over here looking at you know and a girl's got, she's getting makeup. Everybody's getting ready. The president is in the corner and the sound's off. Nobody's listening to the president. He's giving a speech and nobody's, they're just going, Alex, what do you got? Alex.

And Alex is like, did you get the fucking guy? Everybody's cursing and trying to line up guests for interviews. And just, it was fascinating to watch. And the second the president is done, they go to whoever, not Alex Jones. What am I talking about? The guy who was the big Fox News guys back then. Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly.

Yeah. They go to Bill O'Reilly and he goes, well, this is just the president doing this. He wasn't listening. Nobody listened to the speech. They just go, this is just bullshit. We don't believe in him. And this guy and this guy. And I saw how fast, and they were so urgent. It was so urgent that they get in right

away. And I know that the same things happen in MSNBC and CNN. They're not thinking about anything. They already know their reaction. Yeah. And they got to come in with it really quick because it's got to get in here before anything else. It's got to, you know, so nobody listens to if there was like a thing where you need to take a day after his speech, you have to read it.

You have to watch it and discuss it with a staff and then make a decision, make a speech, you know, an opinion. The opinion would be like, he's got points and you know what I mean? It would definitely be and it would move the ball forward and it would get people to hear each other more. But there's such a need. Because it's entertainment. Yeah. You have to be there right away with a rebuttal.

Yeah. Well, you know what it is, is like for, it's entertainment disguised as news for minimally engaged casual viewers. Because it's not really people that are completely locked in for the most part. Not into it, no. Most people are just flipping through the channels and something outrageous like, what I think he's doing is bad for America. Oh, bad for America?

What is he doing? And then you'll tune in. But if they don't say that, you're not going to pay attention, and then they're going to lose out on that Pfizer dollars that's going to come during the ad break. If you say what you really think, it would be like, well, we'll see. It should be fine. In other ways, it won't be, but it'll be okay. Nobody wants to watch that.

Well, because of the format, it's just a trick to get you to watch a commercial for Colgate. It's just a trick. Well, that's the old days. That's the old days. It is now, too. Yeah. If they can't get you to stick around and wait for the commercials, they don't make any money. Like the whole deal is they have to be engaging enough to get you locked in so you can

see that Toyota truck commercial. And if they don't, they don't make the money. No, that's the same with a little videos too. Like have you ever seen back when there was police shooting videos, black people that were coming up a lot, they always some news organization would get it it would be theirs and you go on youtube to watch it and there's an ad so it's like snapple yep the guy gets beat up and then snapple again and that's wild yeah and they make money off snapple is like yeah so strange the news is so bizarre yeah we get what format so bizarre. The format's so bizarre. We get what we want from it, though, because everybody likes to be entertained by news. So if there was, it's like drug use.

If there isn't the user, then the dealer goes broke. It's way less popular than it's ever been in human history. Like in the history of television news, the news, like the evening news and CNN, those things, are less popular than they've ever been, ever. And it's because people are tired of it. It's a shitty format, and in comparison to long-form discussions like independent interview shows, like, you know, there's so many different political shows now

and podcasts where people have nuanced perspectives. And if you really want to understand what's going on in the world, like complicated issues like the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, like you need people to break it down to you. And they're not going to get it in five minutes. No, you're not going to. You're going to get they hate us for our freedom. That's what you're going to get in five minutes. You're going to get nonsense talking points. Now, I remember when I grew up, like Walter Cronkite was still on the air somewhere.

I remember he was on CBS, I think. I still, my earliest news memory was when Apollo and Soyuz, the two, the Russian and the American capsule docked in midspace. There was something where they were both up there once and they ran into each other and saw each other from the window and kind of got close and thought, hey, what if we could meet? So they went back and they fashioned a dock. This is like in the early 70s or mid 70s. And they went up and they docked and then they hung out and drank vodka. Anyway, it was during the Cold War. It was a big deal.

And I remember Walter Cronkite. I think this is what i remember i could be wrong but walter cronkite saying if you live in the northeast of the united states if you go outside tonight if you look up you'll see a red light and a white light blinking next to each other and that's and that's them uh in orbit and i went up and i fucking saw it and it just i mean it blew my mind and the way he said it with a little bit of a smirk like isn't that cool because he was very stoic but there was a thing back then where there was just him and David Brinkley it was a couple of news organizations and then like PBS and you kind of got a sense that they were on it that they and also that it wasn't fun it was they had ethics that there took years of training in college and school to get through and and a system of a hierarchy of

whatever internships and that by the time you were running the network news you were you were serious person that took it seriously yeah you know and I remember maybe in the mid 80s when I started to hear this sound from the news that I thought, what are you doing? And then sometimes it just sounded like this. And they're saying, and I was like, what are you fucking doing? I could hear the bullshit. Yeah. And I knew that they were, but back then they were just trying to make it sound

interesting when it wasn't they didn't start having this opinion thing yet you know right but it became a show and now it's a show about opinions it's entertainment and like any other entertainment organization in america they ran it way past the finish they went way past it nobody likes it anymore and it's they're they And they're running it to the ground. They can't just, they don't know when to stop. Yeah. Well, that's the train they're on, right? Do you think Fox started it?

Was it Fox that started this like aggressive sort of opinion version of the news? Were they the first and then everybody else sort of had to respond to it? Maybe. I don't know. Fox is the first to put hot ladies in short skirts. They were the first. Well, there was, I mean, look, Barbara Walters was hot when she started. Right, but she dressed

appropriately. She was very attractive, but she dressed appropriately. Do you remember thinking that? Yes, I do. You know what? She's attractive. She's very composed, and she dressed appropriately, and the way she handled Sean Connery was great. Yeah.

I liked her. I found her. I liked the bump on her nose. She had kind of a funny face. You like that? Yeah. Why'd you like that? I don't know.

I liked Barbara Streisand. That was sort of the same for me. I like Lauren Hutton cause she had that gap in her teeth. Yeah. Little flaws are very, very attractive. Yeah. Um, Barbara Streisand was one of the was in this movie um what's it called stars born no fucking um with ryan o'neill it's a great movie peter bogdanovich who just died

does this fella know the way we were no no it's a comedy um uh what's up doc What's Up Doc Great movie Holds up Yeah Hilariously funny movie Really And she was funny as fuck She was really To me she was I always liked funny women

When I grew up I was raised by a single mom So women being like You know It was my Three sisters My whole life I've raised two girls

All my dogs have been women Your dogs are women Well girls I don you know women i respect them they're not girls i get it yeah uh but i always liked her she was funny and sexy she was hot in the young days yes and she was young she did have that uh that Yep. Big nose. Hot Jewish lady. Yeah. Yeah. Hot Jewish girls.

Ooh. Yeah. Well, growing up in Newton, the hot Jewish girls were the thing. Yes. And they were cool and they were brassy and they'd just say the thing. No, my girlfriend in high school was Jewish and I was deeply in love with her. I had one year, senior year. Yeah. Girlfriend. She was great. I didn't care about anything her. I had one year, senior year. Yeah? Girlfriend.

She was great. I didn't care about anything else. How did it fall apart? She went to college and I didn't. I never went to college. So she went to Dartmouth. So now she's in like Ivy League school. She can't be hanging out with a loser like you.

Fucking no. And I'm like showing up in a Datsun B210 to visit her. Hi. And I saw the look on her face like do you know you can't you see you see these people yeah nah man this is over hurt really bad too I saw her recently she came and saw me on the road really yeah she's so happy to see that's gotta be bizarre yes first girlfriend and we're in our 50s Wow do these. Ooh. Wow. Do you ever see any of your exes? No, not, um, I ran into my ex from high school when I was 25 or 26 in New York. Oh, it's not that far after. No, it wasn't that far after,

but it was interesting. It was like, we were kind of adults now and we hung out in a little bit, but then, uh, we, we went on a little road trip together, and she was so annoying. Mm-hmm. She was so annoying that I faked that I had... My friend called me up, and I faked that I forgot to take him somewhere so I could get rid of her. I go, I'm so sorry. I forgot.

He's on... My friend Johnny's on the phone. Yeah. What the fuck are you talking about? I go, dude, I forgot I'm supposed to take you there. I'm really sorry. Oh, no. I go, listen, I forgot I'm supposed to take you there. I'm really sorry. Oh, no. Listen, let me take care of it. I can still do it.

Don't worry. I can take care of it. I told her I'm really sorry, but I got to drive my friend. And I just like, God. I've lied to a lot of people. That was a good one. That was one that I just, I really wish I hadn't done it. I really wish I confronted her and said, listen, I know

she drove from like D.C. to visit me. But it was awful. It was awful. She was just nagging. She would just like, don't do this. Don't do that. Like I try to listen to music in the car. She's like, I don't want to hear that. It wasn't like, why don't we listen to something that we both like. It wasn't a conversation.

It was just, nah. And I remember like, oh, this is what you were like in high school. So she just wanted that back. She wanted that. I think for some people, that's a way of showing affection, you know? I don't think it was with her. No?

No, it was like, she was just a really strong girl and she became a strong woman. She was very, very smart and just very rigid in what she wanted and what she didn't want and and she just was for lack of a better term she was a bitch she just like well and you're only 25 yeah and also i was free at the time i mean i was 25 and i was finally a professional comedian i was actually making a living i was doing comedy comedy clubs. I was doing okay.

I mean, that gets back to the thing of life being normal and competing with comedy. Yeah. Because comedy is a weird life. It's too much fun. It is. I was like, you're not going to drag me into this shit. I know where this goes.

This goes to me being a henpecked husband, and you yelling at me because I didn't do what you wanted me to do. No, and you're already sleeping until 2 in the afternoon if you feel like it. Right. And you're working. It's a joke to call it work. Yeah. You're hanging out with guys that you like and you're just out and meeting anybody you want.

And you're in New York City. You're like living Miles Davis' life. Yeah. It was even worse than that because I was hanging out at pool halls too. Oh, yeah. So that was my pool hall days. So all day long, this is what my day was. I'd wake up whenever.

I'd go to the gym. I'd get a workout in. And then I would go to the pool hall. And I would go to the pool hall in the afternoon and I'd hang out with the guys. We'd play pool. We'd talk shit. We'd have some lunch or whatever. And then I'd go do shows.

So I'd do shows at night and then I'd come back to the pool hall at midnight, one o'clock in the morning and it would be packed and those fucking animals would be in there gambling and talking shit and doing drugs and they would stay up till five,

six o'clock in the morning and then we would go to the Star Diner in Mount Vernon, New York and we'd eat cheeseburgers and like a cheeseburger deluxe. It was a cheeseburger with like coleslaw on it

and pickles and onions. And then I'd go to sleep and I'd wake up and do it all again. So I had this life of just like being around these degenerate bachelors that were fun people with great stories. And they were always gambling. Everybody was gambling. And we're just playing pool all the time. And to this girl who was telling me, don't play that music. I don't like that music.

I go, well, what do you like like she was just like everything was like you know i remember don't chew that way don't do this don't do that especially new york because it was wide open and it was infinite and open all night and i remember those early years in my 20s living in new york and i would do sets till four in the morning sometimes yeah like the the the improv on 44th and 9th the last was like the last set was like 350 on a Saturday it was something crazy like that how many people in the audience not none like no like barely anybody but you kept going you know just all night shows like I had a motorcycles because you could get to shows faster through traffic you do eight nine shows a night um and then you just get to shows faster through traffic. You could do eight, nine shows a night. And then you just get paid cash.

I mean, it was a great life. And then me and Kevin Brennan and Dave Attell and a guy named Dan Vitale, who just passed away, and a few other guys used to go to the diner, the Westway Diner on 9th Avenue. And the Westway was all the street came into DeWestway. Like everybody that's out hustling, you know, midtown in Times Square.

Back then, Times Square was still filthy. And so there were vice, there was always like a table of vice cops and then like a table of transvestite hookers. And they're out on the street, they're after each other. But everybody goes to the same diner. So it's like Wile E. Coyote.

Yes, like Wile E. Coyote and the whatever. The sheep dog. And they punch in. How you doing, buddy? What a tam. Yeah, it was like that. And the cops always had their guns, their shoulder holster guns,

and there'd be a table of comics. Wow. And we would just sit there and eat fucking Greek food and just hang out and watch this weird... I was so happy then. I was just so happy. It's such a fun time. Yeah. You don't really know what's going to happen.

You hope that you make it. You hope you can continue to make a living. Yeah. But it's such a fun time of complete freedom. I really enjoyed that. I loved it. It was enough to pay my rent in New York City. And at the time, I liked New York City a little more than I do now because there was more cool stuff like bookstores and tower records.

And there was more movie theaters. There was more off-the-wall culture and strange stuff to see. And more restaurants and diners. There's really not all- night diners in Manhattan anymore. There isn't? They're gone. Like me and Bobby Kelly, when we were getting ready to do his special, I went to watch him at the cellar. And then I said, let's go to a diner and talk it over.

And we walked around there and couldn't find one. They all clubbed and they closed at like midnight. Now, is that because of crime? Well, COVID killed a lot of places. I mean, it really just really distinctly changed the city and it's it's thriving new york it's really like there are sometimes i'd hear people talk on your show and other shows saying like this city new york city is dead and it's dangerous and i'm like i don't know we're here like it's okay it's a very resilient city

it's been through a lot yeah well it's it's bouncing back. Just the fucking sheer numbers. Yeah. There's just so many people. Someone's going to pick up slack. Yeah. Somebody's business will fail. A lot of businesses fail. Katz's Deli's still open, right?

Sure. That's open late. I don't know how late they're open. I think they're open until like two or three in the morning. They might be. That place is amazing. I love that place. That's my favorite New York place to eat late night.

It hasn't changed. You give them the ticket, and then the guy- You're paying cash. Yeah, you're paying cash, and the guy gives you a little piece of pastrami while you're waiting, and you tip him, and then you take these fat chunks of pastrami on rye back to you, and a big pickle. Oh, my God. So good.

Last time I was there, I rented a Jeff Ross. I'm like, this is the perfect place for you. Yeah, that's where he belongs. Yeah, Katz's Delicatessen, open 24 hours. That's right. Fuck yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's all that's left.

That's what you want. God, I want to fly there right now and go eat. It's so good. The brisket. Everything's great. Fucking the fries are good. And they've been open since like the 1800s. Forever.

Oh, look at that sandwich. Forever. Look at that fucking sandwich. Beautiful. Oh, so good. It's such. Look at that fucking sandwich. Beautiful. Oh, so good. It's such a classic Jewish delicatessen. Yep. Just classic.

There used to be a bunch more. There was a place called Ratner's on Delancey that was better. Jerry's Deli went under in LA. Yeah, they all. That's a sad. COVID killed Jerry's Deli. Yeah. Jerry's Deli was incredible.

I fucking loved that place. I used to stop at. Well, the one in Woodland Hills went under before COVID, but I used to stop there on the way home from the comedy store. I'd call my wife. I'm like, look, I'm going to Jerry's Deli. What do you want? Nice. Get pastrami, Reuben, a bowl of soup, and we'd eat together after my set.

It was amazing. That's great. Like, so much fun. That's great. Yeah. It was like such a good, Jerry's Deli was such a good place to meet people too. Like, yeah, let's go talk about it. We'll go meet at Jerry's Deli.

Go sit there, go over jokes and shit. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, that kind of stood on, I mean, probably younger generations have their own version of that. But ours, we're 55. So there's less of us. Most people our age are pretty settled. They're not going out anymore.

But the thing about the delis for me was always the history. It wasn't just that the food was amazing. It's like this place has been here since 1875. This place has been here since 1946. It's like Cantor's is another great place. Yeah, they still have that. In L.A., you can still go to Cantor's. I remember going to Cantor's and seeing – I was with a comedian.

Her name was Felicia Michaels. Do you remember Felicia? Yeah, I remember Felicia. I was hanging out with Felicia, and we went to Cantor's. It was my first time in L.A., and Jackie Mason was there. Oh, wow. And I just watched him check her ass out. He just checked out Felicia's ass with that kind of, hmm.

Like he nodded. He nodded at her ass like, mm-hmm. That's hilarious. And she's standing there. She had no idea. Well, Jackie Mason was a guy who got kicked off of the Ed Sullivan show because Ed Sullivan claimed that he gave him the finger. Yes. And so he got banned from television forever.

I went to the Museum of Broadcasting or whatever it is in New York where they have all the archives because I wanted to see that tape because I read his description of it and I saw it. What is it? Did he give him the finger? No, what happened was the way he tells the story is that he was doing his set

and I guess Ed was kind of, I don't know, he was a little nutty and he wanted him off. He wanted him to quit, to stop. He wanted to get him off early or something. And so he got behind the camera and he was giving him two minutes. He was like giving him a, like himself.

And Jackie's trying to do his set. And he goes, why don't you show me a finger? Here's a finger. You want a finger? Here's a couple of fingers for you. Like he just sort of like flashed fingers around because Ed Sullivan was showing him, like making finger signs at him that he didn't understand he wasn't he wasn't told that ed sullivan would give him a two minute signal right just ed sullivan came over he was stressed out for

some reason and i saw the tape and it doesn't it goes by very quickly but he goes whoa whoa finger finger you want fingers fingers fingers is that available on youtube you got it here before we had in jackie someone else talking over it yeah that's say they got apparently give Sullivan finger on this day in 1960 Wow young he was just play it a little bit on the Ed Sullivan show during his set Sullivan gave Mason a signal indicating that he had two minutes left before he had to finish up section my actually might not be the video. Mason then gestured at Sullivan, and it was interpreted as him giving the host the finger.

They're not going to show it. See if you can find it. If he's just talking over it, that's not it. Right, see if you can find it. No, that's how you know. It's a similar bullshit thing. Yeah, there's so many of those. Well, I think they have to do that so that some, like, you know,

like you have, you can't just own someone's stuff. But if you do commentary over it. Oh, that's the thing. And then you play it. Yeah. Then they can't give you a copyright strike on it. Right. Because you've altered it enough with your commentary.

Unfortunately, no footage from that specific incident exists on YouTube. Yes. However, it's been widely argued that Mason never did flip off. No, he didn't do it. I mean, I saw it. I saw it. I don't know if that place is still there. You're supposed to be kind of an asshole, supposedly, Ed Sullivan.

I mean, you'd think with just what he did. He's like, you ever see Sweet Smell of Success? No. It's one of the best movies ever. Really? So good. What is it? It's Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster.

What year is it? 50s, early 60s. Patty Chayefsky wrote it. Oh, look at that. It's 57. So Tony Curtis plays a, he's a publicist. It's this New York, I mean, look at the images. It's fucking beautiful, this movie.

And it's all about nightlife in New York. In the 50s. Yeah, in the 50s. And this guy, Burt Lancaster, plays J.J. Hunsucker, who's a columnist. And he makes people famous by writing just little snippets about them in his column. And Tony Curtis plays a publicist who tries to shill items to him. He represents comedians, and there's a comedian in the movie. And he's a bullshitter, and this guy is really powerful,

and he changes people's lives and show business, and he's also very conservative. But anyway, he has also a TV show, and that's where Ed Sullivan came from. He had a column where he would write great young comics, and people also a TV show. And that's where Ed Sullivan came from. He had like a column where he would write, you know, great young comic just to people cared about his opinion. He became very powerful. And then he had like a radio program where he would say this, this young artist. And then and then he started his show. So J.J. Hunsucker is kind of like a version of Ed Sullivan.

And he's a bastard. So I don't know if people knew that about ed sullivan but but he ruins lives and and pits people against each other it's a very dirty movie if you go back to those days when there was only one or two you know you had like jack parr you had ed sullivan you know there was only one or two guys that was in control of the gateway to show business in a lot of ways. Like Johnny Carson was like that in a lot of ways. Being on Carson made your whole life.

Yeah, and if he liked you and if you sat on the couch next to Carson, I mean, that made Richard Jennings' career. That's really where he took off from. That's where I first saw him. I used to watch The Tonight Show specifically just to watch the stand-ups. And Rich Jen Jenny did a great

thing I'd never seen before, which is he did one subject set about Jaws 3. Oh, but he could do that, though. He did. But that set, if you ever find it, just him talking about Jaws 3 for five minutes. See if you can find it. It's the greatest. Richard Jenny

was the very best at squeezing all of the material. Here we go. I'm glad you're all in a good mood tonight because that's important for a young comedian who's making his very first appearance on The Tonight Show. And Richard's going to be seen this September on the annual Young Comedian Special on HBO. And he'll be performing in New York City at Caroline's at the Seaport. Caroline's at the Seaport.

Will you welcome, please, Richard Jenney. Richard. Nervous as at the Seaport. Would you welcome, please, Richard Jenny. Richard. Nervous as fuck. Look at him. Look at that suit. Yeah. Thanks. Hello.

Hello. Hello, hello. You're in a great mood. You like this suit? Do you think I should have worn this? Yeah. I don't know. It fits good, but it takes so long to wax it.

It's a New York suit. I'm a New York guy. That's where I got it. I just came back from there performing. That was fun. And then after that, I went up to Canada. Canada's just like New York backwards, isn't it? You go up there, everybody's going,

how's it going, eh? Then you go back to New York, and the people, hey, how's it going? It's like the same thing. Hey, get off the car. Get off the car, eh? It's like the same thing. And I went down to Miami, had a good time.

That's fine. You get on a... Yeah, a couple of people. You get down there, they have the Hispanic thing going on a plane. You get on a plane and they're like, for your convenience, we have air sickness bags. And someone else goes, Eos recepticales de barfo.

They always have the same... I think if the plane crashes, they'll have to do that. They'll have to be going, we're about to crash kiss your butt buenos noches 1980s comedy so interesting quick rapid fire it just gets lonely on the road boy you just there's nothing you know you can tell you're getting lonely when you're sitting in your hotel going gee i never noticed it before but wilma flintstone doesn't have a bad body before but Wilma Flintstone doesn't have a bad body that's the sanitized version of that joke yes got a nice ass yeah yeah that's what it was in the clubs who's nice ass yeah I got so desperate for something to do one night I actually

went to the video store listen to this I I rented all four Jaws movies in a row. This is a little point in your life. When it's like 4.45, you're watching Jaws 4 The Revenge. That's the title. Jaws 4 The Revenge. And you're sitting there going, this shouldn't be the title. The title should be, here's a fish, you're stupid. That's the title.

You ever see a movie like so bad that they just slap you in the face with how bad it is? You can't even pretend. You go, you know, maybe this movie isn't that bad. I'm not wasting my life. And they just slap you in the face with how bad it is you can't even pretend you go you know maybe this movie isn't that bad I'm not wasting my life and they just go yes you are are you sure absolutely look at you it's 4 in the morning you're sitting there with one sweat sock and a burrito watching a shark that only kills one family out of an entire ocean full of perfectly edible people for no reason that we ever explain and you won't turn it off because you think it's going to get better a movie i'm still in pain from this a movie so stupid that no matter how

stupid you couldn't be stupid enough to enjoy it i mean let's say you have no brain at all let's say you're sitting on your bed here's you a bucket of popcorn and a spinal cord that's it even your spinal cord let's go hey hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm not a brain, I don't have thoughts, but what is going on here? The mother of the family, check this out, has three people in her family eaten by the shark in one week. So a genius in her own right, she comes up with a plan. She says, well, shark, it's obviously after our family.

Can't put anything over on me. There's only one thing to do. We'll have to leave town. And you're going, leave town? Wouldn't an apartment building be sufficient protection from the average shark? I mean, even if he's a really ambitious shark, right? Let's say, by the time he gets to the apartment building, parks in a guest spot, explains himself to the doorman,

come up in the elevator, you would most likely smell fish and run. No, the mother is leaving town altogether. And you sit there. And you're going, but why doesn't the mother just not go in the water? Wouldn't that make more sense? And they go, well, no, yeah, but this is stupid. You see, in a stupid movie, everyone's stupid. The mother is stupid. The people that make more sense? And they go, well, no, yeah, but this is stupid. You see, in a stupid movie, everyone's stupid. The mother is stupid. The people that made it

are stupid. But none of them are as stupid as you, because it is now 501, and you still think this is going to get better. And look at it. In his head, he's like, I am destroying on Carson. The fish is coming up with plans to kill these people that the CIA couldn't figure out. I've caught fish. They're not that brilliant They don't even make any noise when you're about to kill them you ever see if they come up on a hook one

They have any brains they make noise you wouldn't be able to kill me Start the boat I'll get a burger at the dock. Did you see what just took place over there? So now comes the turning point in your life. If you don't turn off the movie now, just do the world a favor, and when the credits roll, get a vasectomy. The mother gets on a plane to get away from the shark, but before she goes, has an affair with Michael Caine.

Typical reaction to this kind of tragedy. That's what I would do. Most people would say, gee whiz, three people in my family been eaten by a shark in one week. Geez, am I horny. Man, I don't know. Man, why don't... Gee, my goodness. Ooh, ooh, God.

Ooh, the dip. Ooh, ooh, the tragedy. The bloodshed. Stop me, I'm vibrating. Where's a blow-up towel when you need one? Ooh, I mean... So now, get this. Here's the crescendo.

The mother gets on a plane in Long Island, New York, to get away from the shark. Flies to the Bahamas. Are you with me here? An ideal place to avoid a fish. This small island surrounded by water. When she gets there, guess what? Not only has the shark discovered that they have travel plans to go to the Bahamas,

but to boot, he has beat the jet to the Bahamas. They land, there he is, couple of beers, Ray-Bans, and you're going, but wait a minute, that was a jet. Wouldn't a jet be faster than a shark? And they go, well, ordinarily. But again, this is stupid. You see, in a stupid movie, shark is the fastest transportation available. See, if you're going to London from New York, let's say, right? Tear up them Concord tickets.

Get the next fish out of town. Oh, they played him off. Interesting. Well, they were probably told that's his last line. Yeah. Get the next fish out of town. Yeah. That made him.

And they came in hot with the music, yeah. Yeah. I saw him at Catch Rising Star when I was an open mic-er. I went to see him. I sat in the front row. It was amazing. Because it was like a half-filled crowd. It was like a Wednesday night show.

Yeah. Catch Rising Star in Cambridge. Still the best way to see stand-up comedy. Yeah. Is in a dead club. Right the best way to see stand-up comedy Yeah Is in a dead club Right You get to see the real deal That brings out the best in every

I've been When I was getting ready for this tour I'm on now I was at the Cellar a bunch And like I usually That's where I usually build this stuff And I was struggling A lot of sets

Because the Cellar has become Very trendy There's a lot of cooler people to go there like nicely dressed young people go to the cellar it's a scene now so it's not automatic that they're gonna get it's not it's like a weird thing and it's actually good i think in a sense because you gotta fight for your laughs a little more than we used to but uh but i've been i've done some shows this year where like i'm struggling i'm like every bit is pissing them off and not for like pc reasons but just because they're not

trained comedy audiences and they're like ew it's more that old thing remember before like um that's problematic there was just ew right so it's like that again and i'm just struggling. But I got nowhere to go. All my shit in this set is kind of nasty, so I'm just getting through it. But there's, out of the 100 people at this other, there's about 20 of them who are fucking having the best time of their lives. Like, they're laughing so hard. Because not only are they seeing jokes that they like, they like my jokes. They're getting to watch people get really offended. jokes they're getting to watch people get really offended and they're getting to watch me squirm like every time i do a joke and it would kind of

get this oh then i'd go like you'd see me go fuck and i'd hear people go like this is the like high-fiving like this is the best night so much better than seeing your favorite comic in a theater where everybody loves him i don't know if it's so much better but it's definitely different it's just there's more friction to it so there's more there's more going on one of the uh when i was like early days like open mic or me and fitzsimmons saw bill hicks bomb at nick's comedy stop most of the times that's what he did and and clear the fucking room. But at the end of his set, there was 50 people left. Like, what does Nick's hold?

Like 300 plus people? Yeah, it was big. About 300. Something like that. So at the end of the set, there's 50 people left in the audience and maybe 20 comedians. And Fitzsimmons and I are just fucking howling. We're howling. We thought it was so funny, and it was so funny that he was clearing the room.

And he went on after Larry Norton. Do you remember Larry Norton? Sure. Comic on a Harley. Comic on a Harley. Yes. Yes. I'm Larry Norton.

I'm a comic on a Harley. That's it. So Larry Norton killed and then Hicks went on after him and Hicks is fucking existential angst and smoking cigarettes and cancer and this and that. And then the audience is just fucking leaving. And so he's doing, I don't remember that bit that he does about, I think it's like the devil fucks John Davidson in the ass. Yes, and Debbie Gibson.

Or no, that was Jimi Hendrix fucking Debbie Gibson with his guitar. That was that. You wanted it rock and roll, didn't you, Debbie? Yeah. No! Yeah, that was a different one. So he's doing this bit where John Davidson is shitting out the devil's kid. That's where... Yeah.

I remember that. So he's squatting, and he's like... And he looks up and he goes, this generally clears a room. Yeah. And the people are just getting up in fucking droves. And we were howling. We thought it was so funny. Yep.

We thought it was so funny. It was nice to see this guy who is so respected but eating shit in front of a bunch of people that didn't know who he was. He ate shit a lot. I worked with him. I opened for him at the San Francisco Punchline. And there were some nights where he was destroying, just killing. He did this whole thing about

they should use terminally ill patients as stuntmen. Yes, for Chuck Norris movies. Yeah, he goes, do you want your grandmother to die alone in a room of strangers with her veins fading into dust? Or do you want her to meet Chuck Norris? And he'd do this thing of sending out like this person who's like half dead. And then Chuck Norris just kicks her head off.

Just kicks it off. And you go, whoa! But he was destroying some shows. And then other shows, just nothing. Just nothing. Wow. Just they didn't get it. They didn't want to hear it.

He didn't have a gear to go to. No. And he didn't have a... I mean, I learned from it because I used to think you could make these jokes work for some of these people that don't like them. You could just... I just reach out a little bit. It doesn't mean changing the jokes you could just i just reach out a little bit it doesn't mean changing the jokes it just means just give it it's just something in your eyes that says i look i know

you're having a hard time but i i don't mean you any harm i just this is this is funny if you listen i swear to god just get you know get he wasn't interested in making that bridge no he wasn't he wasn't he was a bit of a misanthrope yeah uh also a very sweet guy in his way you know but uh yeah i never got the chance to talk to him yeah i liked him i only said hi to him once uh-huh nick's comedy stopped i was like yeah i don't think he noticed much about me but i worked with him a number of times yeah and i liked him i liked i liked listening to him i liked his act he also was a good comic, he made good noises with a microphone and stuff. Yeah.

Because he came from here. He came from Texas and Sam and all those guys. This was a big scene. Yeah. Yeah. This was the scene at one point in time. Yeah. I mean, you think of Kennison and him both coming out of here.

Crazy. Pretty wild. And those guys were, I mean, Kennison was probably the most revolutionary comedian of our lifetime. You think so? Yeah. There had never been anybody like him. All of a sudden screaming, I was married!

Twice! Hell would be like Klopman! Yes, he was like, where did this come from? Totally different than any other kind of comedy. I think Steve Martin was like that too in a totally different tone. He was the one that excited me the most like i loved cosby and prior and carlin when i was a kid but uh steve martin was the first one where i went you're not even doing show business right what are you doing

you're just being really weird and i love it and other people love it he was the guy who made me think maybe i could do this. Really? Yeah. That's interesting. He was the first person I watched that I thought, there's other ways, because I wasn't a slick guy who can talk and then talk like this, and then talk like that, you know?

And prior with this, just these skills were just swim around my head. I could never do that, especially as a kid. But when I saw him, I was like, that's how with my friends that's how that's the kind of jokes I make and that's and the off that no rhythm to it you know I'm so mad at my mother like just odd weird stuff you know he was so weird it's kind of a bummer that he stopped doing stand-up because it was so good and when you know back in those days Like what was that like I guess early 80s

70s killing it set I think 70s mid to late 70s was disco time. He had a white suit Yeah, which was kind of a disco thing. So it's around the time like Saturday Night Fever Yeah, there is this time when there's so many hit things back then. There was Saturday Night Fever. And all of this is compressed in my head. But Jaws and Star Wars and Rocky and Steve Martin was the comedian of that time. Those were all the golden things that were killing and making tons of money. Everybody loved those things.

I remember reading that he had decided at one point in time that the audiences liked him too much for being Steve Martin. And then he would go out there and he couldn't get a gauge as to what was funny and what was not because they're just so happy to see him. Yeah. He did arenas. Yeah. And they just, people would just scream.

Yeah. And it wasn't the same anymore. I mean, it was a good discipline. I think there's truth to that. I think. There's definitely truth to that. I mean, I think it can be navigated, but you're definitely in some very tricky waters. Like, you can still do comedy.

And I think what we were talking about earlier, what you do a lot by showing up at clubs where they don't know you're going to be there and just actually working out stuff. You really do get to figure out what's funny and what's not. Whereas I know guys who have their own crowds who never perform in front of anyone but their crowd. It's diminishing returns. It's just not going to be. I mean, you could do that and your crowd might appreciate it. You could do it, but you get more out of fucking around. It's the only way to do it is to go on and do clubs and unannounced and start with zero jokes and you know struggle

have a bunch of bad sets yeah get through even at the cellar people when they recognize me they're happy to see me then i'm like well here comes new jokes sorry and they just within a because that evaporates yeah no one pretends to laugh at you no one will pretend to laugh at you so the first couple of jokes they go what and i usually would try opening with stuff that's not this ain't gonna get it this isn't gonna work probably and get them to this level and i'm like okay here we are i don't want to be here but this is where you know it's like if you're in the gym yeah you don't go to the gym to have a good time right and you get into like, I'm glad, I'm proud of myself. I'm at the gym today.

But the first moves you make, you're like, this fucking sucks. But so you get through shitty 10 minutes of jokes, and you've maybe got one joke. So you do that night after night until you get 10, 20. And then after you get 20 minutes and you've done it a few times, if you have the discipline, you stop doing those jokes and you start again with a new 20 from nothing. And this is the way I usually do it.

I end up with two 20-minute sets, and then I start mixing them a little bit, and then I start going to stuff in the notebook that never worked and never should have worked or things I was too scared to try. You know when you write something on your notes for a news comedy set, but when you look at it, you go, I ain't doing that. Like I thought of it, it sounded good today.

Yeah. I'm not touching that. I always have a set when I'm developing where I go, you have to do a set that's only those now. Really? Only things that you just shouldn't be doing or things that have gotten silence. It's like this is the last chance for these bits tonight. And no bits that have been getting laughs.

That's a rough set. That's a rough set. But if anything makes it out of it. It's good. That's a fucking spark. Some of those bits have ended up being the best bit. Isn't that wild? Yeah.

The best, always the best bits I have in a special, like the ones that are like, that just kills every time, started with silent, hate it, hate it. It's wild. It's such a wild process. Yeah. The beginning to the end. When you write, do you sit in front of a computer, like specifically trying to come up with material? Never did it really i never wrote jokes ever do you write ideas or do you write bullet points i have i write it down like

one word you know to one because i need to write on stage it doesn't if i write off stage it comes out writer and then you're using it's like you're using your hand to write and then you're using your eyes to read it yeah and then it's coming out your mouth right so when i have an idea you know that moment where you go oh it's a bit it's it's fucking maddening but it comes when it comes you're in conversation or you're in the car or wherever yeah you go fuck that's a bit about whatever about uh zoo lions. Yeah. And I avoid thinking about it.

I don't want to work it out. I just write down zoo lions. And I know that it's in the ether. I know the general feeling. And I wait till I'm on stage that night and I explain it to them. And the audience is there as a target. Yeah. So I tell, I, for the first time work it out and then it's like

that that's the bit because i know i can't think straight as a comic unless i'm on stage did you develop this process over time have you always done it that way or did you initially try to write the jokes out i never i could never do it i was a bad student in school i didn't go to college i barely graduated high school because i can't do work like that i can't i mean i learned never do it I was a bad student in school I didn't go to college I barely graduated high school because I can't do work like that I can't I mean I learned to do it

when I started working in TV and movies but for stand up when you're writing scripts and stuff yeah I can write when I have to

but I have a huge agita problem and whatever many D's and H's and yeah all that shit so

I would just do little set lists and that's the way I always did it. I never wrote. There's no written word of my act. It's because your spoken, your speech center, when it generates the work,

that's where it's supposed to come from. Right. It's a spoken word art. Yeah. And then I do a lot of work. I record every set and I listen to them. And I do now, I work on paper, but it's kind of like research.

I listen to the set and I write notes. Like this last whole tour I had to do because I had to come up with the material a little quicker. But I write notes about what worked, what didn't, what's innovating. That last set was funny when I did this. you know what I mean? Stuff like that. And before, uh, if I take a break of three days or more before the day of the show, I sit down and I write a set list. Even if it's identical to the last one, I just, I listened to the last show I did, and I write down tonight's order. It's like the lineup for baseball. Yeah, I always do that when I do arenas.

What I do is I get index cards, and I'll actually write the bullet points for each bit, and I lay them out on the coffee table in the green room. I get there early, and I write all that stuff out. That's good. Because that way, I'm good. I know I remember it. You've got to load it in. You've got to be living it.

You got to be like, it's got to be refreshed. Like I know I just did a set last night. I'm ready to go. It's not, I'm not unconfident about it, but I know that the right way to do it is to sit down and to write down these index cards and to set them out and have all the punchlines because the fucking thing that drives me more nutty than anything is like when i forget a tag oh yeah yeah it's a shame and then i leave i'm like fuck i forgot that part about the guy oh and then the last the rest of the night doesn't matter like everybody's oh

standing ovation great show like no no no that tag is gone everything you're destroyed destroyed yeah they missed well it's because your brain like i I remember my mom teaching, my mom was in computers when I was a kid. She was a computer programmer like when they were punch cards and stuff like from the beginning. My stepdad did that too. Oh yeah? Yeah. And then she had a terminal at home with a big modem and a phone going

and so she taught me about computers and the thing I always remembered was that there's main memory and then there's auxiliary memory. So auxiliary memory, I might be getting the words wrong, is stuff that's on tape that's stored. And main memory is the – it's like RAM. Right. It's the working, buzzing, loaded into the hopper what you've got working.

And then you have stuff on tape and you can access it anytime you want i'll remember this remember this remember this but you're set from the times you've been doing it over and over again it's kind of on tape and when you're on stage your brain goes and accesses it but doing like the cards before it loads it into the ram it loads into the into the present moment because especially when you're doing big things like an arena, you get adrenaline and you start thinking about the size. And then that's nowhere. There's no help there. It's all negative.

Shouldn't be thinking about any of that. At all. The thing you should be thinking about, you shouldn't be thinking about what do I need and all this bravado stuff. Right. I'm going to be a star or I'm going to kill. That's the worst. Death. Death.

The only thing you should be thinking about is cows. Right. Because you're talking about cows. You shouldn't be thinking this is my bit about these cows and here's what's gotten a laugh before. Right. You should be thinking about here's how I feel about cows. Yeah.

You should be in the feeling. My favorite shows are when i feel very present yeah and sometimes they're because i studied but sometimes they're because i haven't been on stage in a long time and i'm having to remember and i go yeah fuck and i get the feelings get a little more real yeah there's also a little sometimes when i do too much stand-up i lose a touch of enthusiasm and sometimes it's actually good to take a day or two off, and then I jump back in, and then I'm kind of excited. Yes, that's why this, like I'm doing tonight the, what do you call it?

The Moody? The Moody Theater in Austin, and then tomorrow again, and then San Antonio. And I just did New Orleans and Mobile. It was five nights, which is a lot for me. And then I go up to Baltimore and D.C., but then I take two nights off before the garden. And that's a pretty decent amount, two nights. Yes, that's perfect.

So you'll be juicy when you get back. I won't think about my set at all for two days. Really? Yeah, and then I'll work out and exercise. I kind of train for this stuff because my feeling is the show has to be great. that's my responsibility you if you're not in shape then the show is as good as your luck right if you have a good crowd

you'll have a good show and if it's just a good night and things line up right you'll have a good show but you if you leave it up to that you're a fucking asshole if you're in shape and you have wind and you're you know your mind gets clearer when you're in better shape and you try not to eat sugar and stuff, then no matter what, the show is going to be great. If the crowd sucks, I'm just going to have to work a lot harder. It's not up to them how good this show is. It's just I'm going to have to put in a lot more fucking effort. So I need to be healthy enough that when they suck, I'm great. And that when they're great, it's out of the park.

It's complete. I remember you telling me about this back in the day where you used to run. You used to, like, run like you're training for a fight. Yeah, I do. That's what I'm doing right now. Yeah. Yeah. I was on the steps machine for an hour.

And I train for however long I try to do the steps machine for how long the set is i'm doing oh wow and i watch uh ollie frazier fights or no shit yeah i watch 15 round goal fights and i pick a guy that i'm him and i with the level of the machine i follow his effort oh so when ollie's back is the ropes, I go down to five a little bit. And then when he comes off the ropes, I go to six. And when he starts firing away, I go to eight. Oh, interesting. And I go up and down a lot.

And it's very good for your heart, you know. It's very good for anxiety. Yeah? Yeah. There's a thing about exercise before any big event. I think it burns off all the residual ancillary unnecessary stress because there's like a certain amount of stress that I think people just naturally carry in their bodies. And if you don't exercise, you're going to have a certain amount of tension and a little weirdness that it's just energy because your body's designed to run away from fucking saber tooth tigers and fight off villagers. That's what's, that's the, the body that we're dealing with today is the same body that people

had 10, 15,000 years ago. That's what I think what's special about humans is that some of us try that extra step. In other words, every animal has that. If there's trouble, get the fuck away. You know, they have a calculation in their heads. Who can I take and who can't I, you know? So sometimes there's a confrontation. This guy is a match for me, so I'm going to, you know, like two bears fighting.

Yeah. So they have that thing. But humans go like, if I try to hang in there or if I hide or if I, you know, I might be able to get something out of this. Like it's worth doing something dangerous. It's worth going, not, it's worth resisting fight or flight because if I'm still hanging

around after the, the, the flash point moment is over, I might be able to do something that somebody else couldn't do. That's a very human thing is to think past the fight or flight momentflight moment and also being able to like not confront somebody like you're the guy in the in in the cafeteria like do i need to right fight or flight is there something else that's i think particularly human it's like can i just i mean maybe there's gorillas that do it i have no idea um probably not probably i don't know

it's probably a human thing yeah it's just going like i could fight i could flight he looks like he wants to fight but if i just waited a few extra seconds and let and keep my if i can discipline my heart rate and not listen to the reptile and just cool off i might be able to get something out of this i think that's what helps me on stage because there's a fight or flight moment when I do you know an abortion joke or something and everyone's just upset that I brought it up and I'm like that's all right yeah I've seen this that comes from experience I've seen this I know there's a moment past this that's and the payoff is extra sweet it's huge because nobody does it right I mean a lot of people do it, but it's rarer. It's rare.

And then when you do get that juicy payoff, you're like, yes. It's so much better than something that's easy to get to. Yes. Yeah. Which has its own charm. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with a good, easy joke. No.

I enjoy all kinds of jokes. So do I. Jim Gaffigan is one of my favorite guys because he just keeps coming. He's got this constant flow and it in a but huge laugh, but he walks past it. Mm-hmm. He's one of my favorites He's great, you know and it's such an interest. No one else has quite that that didn't know that talking and talking Yeah, you know very different Brian Regan's another killer clean guy, but it's all it's punchier, you know, right? It's a whole other thing, but it's all it's punchier you know right it's a whole other thing but it's not better it's not ever noticed there's a misnomer about or whatever you want to call it about dirty

comedy being easy i don't buy that i don't buy it when comedians say like clean comedians or comedians that are purists say um well that's an easy laugh because it's about dicks and i always want to say go well you do it yeah go up and get the easy laughs with the dirty shit yeah it's about dicks. I always want to say, go, well, you do it. Yeah. Go up and get the easy laughs with the dirty shit. Yeah. It's not, there's no such thing as an easy laugh. Yeah.

There's not. There's not. Joey Diaz used to do this bit about what he called doing the pigeon. And he goes, that's when you're eating a girl's monkey from behind, you stick your nose in her asshole

like a fucking pigeon. And somebody who said that about it, like, oh God, why is he talking about it? I go, you think that's easy to do? Do you know how hard it is to be that person,

to go on stage and talk about stuffing his nose in a girl's asshole when you're eating her pussy from behind? And also, it's just another subject, and it's a pungent subject,

because sex is a pungent, and it excites people, and it scares people. What people don't like about dirty jokes They're really hard to follow with clean jokes if you're a fucking pussy and you're not paying attention Yes, because anybody who's killing this comics are so stupid That they think I can't follow that When somebody's killing you're if you have your head on straight, you're gonna have a great time

Yeah, because the audience is primed. They're excited. They're having a good time. And they don't think like, Hmm, this guy, they're not thinking in your stupid, insecure brain.

Right. Like, huh, I bet this guy's not as good. They're just thinking, Hey, another guy. Right.

And if you're doing something very different, they're like, cool, here's another way to. Right. Like there, I learned that because I was the same. I was scared of certain guys.

I worked with a guy named John uh something Ayers John Ayers maybe he was a Connecticut comedian there's certain like comedians that were like Connecticut guys yeah weird guys yeah and he was he opened it was the Nanuet Holiday Inn this is the 90s when comedy had just fallen out. Remember all the clubs? Catch closed. The improv closed. Yep. And I had been in it too long to quit. And now I was doing like $100 gigs out of town.

So I was at the Nanuet for a whole week, like Wednesday through Sunday, with Tom Ayers. Tom Ayers. Nice guy, too. I liked him. And his closing bit, he was opening for me, and he would just annihilate. And his closing bit was he had a banjo, and he would do dueling banjos. So he had a hat on that was like a helicopter with hooks that he put a cow on, like a stuffed cow. And he'd go, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

And on the tape it would go, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo, moo. And then he'd move the thing and put on a cat. Meow, meow, meow, meow. And so each animal, and at the end he's spinning. The thing is spinning on his head. And he's playing, and all the animals are, you know, and people are going, ah, ah. You see them like so excited.

And at the end, he'd play a big finish. And he'd raise his leg. And on the tape was a big, a big fart. Made no sense. Big fart at the end. And the people would get up,

just stamp and applaud. And I think Keith Robinson was emceeing for me. He's opening for me at MSG now. I mean, on the 20th, Keith was like, you want me to do like some time to, and I'm like,

bring me right up because I started, it was the first time I watched a guy really just go for it like that. And I thought it's beautiful. I loved it. And there's joy in it. And the audience is so happy. So I started telling him, bring me right up,

give no pause. And he, he barely, people And the audience is so happy. So I started telling him, bring me right up. Give no pause. And he barely, people would barely hear him introduce me. And I'd be out to people going, oh, oh, I just like dying. And I'd just look at them. And I had great sets after Tom Ayers. You rode the wave. I did. Yeah.

That's what people have to realize, to just ride the wave. Comics tend to think of things, a lot of comics are narcissists and they think of themselves more than they think of anything else Yeah, and they also they they have a famine mentality What's that famine mentality means there's only enough for one person like there's not enough for everybody I thought it's a weird way to think of the world terrible way to think of the world It's so wrong and it's so self-serving. And it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like if you really do believe that there's only so much out there, you'll act as if.

And you'll give up. Yeah. And you'll start to alienate people around you because people know that you're really just thinking about yourself. You get real weird. And then people get weird around you. They don't feel comfortable. You know, when you're happy for people, like genuinely happy for people, better things happen. Like everybody feels good.

No, I always tell comics when you're watching a guy before you and you're thinking, if you shit on a comic to the person next to you, you're going to bomb. I've seen that happen a million times. Somebody's on stage and the guy next to me is going, God, I hate this. I hate when he says this. Then they go on and they have a shitty set. Because you're angry. Yeah, it's the last thing you should be thinking about.

Some comedians, a lot of us are frustrated. We wish we were like rock stars. We want to look cool up there, but nobody wants you to look cool. Nobody wants you to look cool. They just want to laugh. Yeah. But the looking cool thing is because you don't want to feel like a piece of shit. And you do.

So you decide, I want to look cool. So that way I won't be a piece of shit. Yeah. And then you go up there and you just ruin the vibe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so complicated.

There's so much going on with comedy. Yeah. There's so much going on with every phrase and everything you say. It's really like mass hypnosis. That's really what's going on. Yeah, there are some I've kind of gotten realized in the last few years because I'm in deep now. I'm 38 years into it. And there's like you get another.

It's like Scientology when they tell you about the aliens, you know, you got to get really deep in. Yeah. You start to go, Oh, there's shit about standup. I didn't know. And one of them is that there's some automatic laughs that you're getting and you got to be careful with that. Right. Just timing laughs. Yeah.

You're just getting some laughs cause you know, like tags, a lot lot of tags are just like all you're doing is spending that dollar again. And they'll laugh for you. And also, they're nice people. Yeah. The comedy audience automatically is a pretty nice person. They have fun. Well, and also, they came to sit. And in this day and age of, like, staring into it, they put their phone down for the most part.

And they sit with strangers like shoulder to shoulder and they listen to a fucking person, you know, for sometimes two hours. They're just listening. It's a very giving, you know, people that can't, there's people that can't do that, like sit in a comedy audience. They're constantly, you know,

like people you see leaving their table constantly. And some people like they just not built for it. But it takes a very patient and giving person. So they'll laugh. And I think about this when I do shit that's really fucked up. And I get some laughs. But I look at them and I go, you didn't want to laugh at that, but you did it for me. You did it for me.

And especially if they're your fans. Yeah. But also, like, I have my ex-girlfriend who's my dear friend. She's a comedian in France. Her name is Blanche Gardin. She's a hilarious comedian. She's a huge star in France. She's, like, the biggest star there.

And I used to go see her do shows. I saw her about ten times in French. And I would sit in the audience and watch her, and I'd laugh really hard, and I don't know anything that she's saying and I'm not fake laughing I'm just it's hypnosis I start getting into she's got a rhythm and she's got she's really good at it and so there's ways that she's doing stuff and then she's building a thing and I'm just find myself laughing with the people also because they're laughing but also I just I just was honestly laughing really hard at something.

I didn't know what they were saying. So I know that there's this armature under the jokes. That's just a, it's a trick. It's a bit of a trick. There's definitely that. But there's also if you are genuinely having a good time and you're genuinely locked into these ideas, like you're not thinking about anything else. You're thinking about those ideas and that makes its way into other people's minds. Yeah.

When you do, that's to me the goal. Yeah. Every show to break out of the rhythm and try to be saying this stuff and really feeling it. Yeah. You have to be actually thinking about it in the moment. When you're not, they can tell. Yes, they can. In some weird way, they can tell.

It's a weird thing about what an audience can... But sometimes you think they can... You think there's stuff going on on stage that's not going on. Right. Yeah, it's because it's in your head. It's in your head and you're in a very weird place. On stage, it's like being a pilot in 20 Gs. It's like your head and you're in a very weird place. Yeah. On stage it's like being a pilot in 20 G's. It's like your brain's not working properly. You're being a pilot but you're also a

passenger too because you're kind of like riding this thing. Yeah. You know like you want to steer it but you're also kind of riding it. You're in it with them. At the best you're in it with them. Yeah. You're like right. Yeah. And yeah. It is a mass hypnosis. I really think it is.

And I think it's very difficult to trick people on stage. I think you can trick people for a little while, but after a while, they kind of figure out who you really are. Yeah. Well, it's like pitching. I think at comedy, like pitching a lot. They'll time your fastball after a while. They see it. It's like, you know, when there's a new phenom that gets put in a game and he strikes everybody out.

But by the sixth inning, they've all been up twice, and they just start killing the ball. That's most comics. They figure out how to pitch, but after a while the audience goes, I don't know what you're doing. But if you can be like, what's his name, El Duque in the Yankees, he's like many arm angles, not sure where it's coming from. I think of some jokes as brushback pitches,

some stuff where they just go, what the fuck was that? Right, right, right. And there's no – and some of those jokes you don't come back and fix them. You just let them be upset and you go, yeah, I'll do that. Just watch it. Yeah. I'll fucking do that. I'm not even – that wasn't even to make you laugh.

Right. You don't know what I'm going to do. So don't dig into too easy. Right. Right. They're off balance. You can get them different ways. Yeah.

We talked about, you at one point in time thought about opening up a comedy club? Yeah. Because you're opening one here. Yeah. You thought about it? When? I thought about it when I saw the Babe Ruth movie with John Goodman. Did you ever see that movie?

No. He played Babe Ruth. And I don't know how much truth there is in it, but he wanted to manage a ball team. And John Goodman was such a good actor. And he does this moment where he says, I just want to, I love the guys. I want to take care of the guys. I want to be the guy who looks after them and, you know, trains them and makes sure they're okay because he just loved ballplayers. I watched him do that and I thought, that's how I feel about comedy.

I'd like to have a club and start, like, be the place where new guys come in and new people and watching them and encouraging awkward comedians that aren't easy laughers, you know? Right. And being a place and bringing in great veterans for them to learn from and, you know what I mean? And feeding and cultivating an audience. I watched a lot of guys do that, like Manny and The Cellar

and Lucian Holden and the comic strip. Some of my best friends were comedy club owners. Guys I respected so much were guys that ran clubs. So I thought that would be really cool. But it's a very, I mean opening a fucking

business is horrible. Yeah. I don't want to do that now. Yeah, I don't want to either, but I'm stuck. I already started doing it. Are you anxious about it? Surprisingly, not that anxious. No. Yeah, I have an unusual ability to handle a lot of stress.

Yeah. I just kind of like settle into whatever that is. I know what you mean. And I go, okay, this is what we're doing. I can not freak out. And so this is not that stressful because I got really good people here. I brought Curtis Nelson and Adam Egott

and Eric from the Comedy Store. All these people from the Comedy Store, Carrie to run the bar. I brought the best people that were at the Comedy Store. Oh, good. Because it was during the pandemic. Nobody was working. Right.

I said, hey, this is what I'm going to do. Do you guys want to work for me? And so for the last year and a half, they've been actually working for free. They've been getting paid, but they haven't working. They've just been waiting to work. You're just holding them. Right. But I kept giving them their full salary. I just said, this is not your problem. We had an initial venue that fell apart. Yeah. So we had to buy a second venue

and the second venue required considerable construction. Yeah. So I said, listen, this is okay. We're going to have fun. Yeah.

So let's just do this the right way and I want everybody to be comfortable. Right. And now we're less than a month away. That's amazing.

So it's pretty exciting and it's really good. Like the inside looks fucking incredible and the scene here is already amazing. I mean, we went, I did the Vulcan last night. And then after I did a set there, I went over to the Creek in the Cave.

And then there's other rooms in town too. And guys are hopping back and forth from room to room and doing two, three sets a night. It's really exciting. And there's really good comics here. There's really good like up and coming people. And, you know, Tom Segura moved here. Duncan Duncan Trussell moved here Tim Dillon lives here now this Christina Pazitsky there's like a lot of really good comics Tony Hinchcliffe yeah so like we're doing these show Ron white is here yeah yeah so I can't see me at

the creek in the cave list oh did one of my favorites he's the best yeah he's the godfather of this town yeah so when you know we're doing these shows we're doing like, you know, Shane Gillis comes into town all the time and Ari's here all the time. So we're having so much fun. It's really an amazing scene right now. And it's exciting because it's new. And all these young people that come here and they do Kill Tony, you know, that show. And so that gives them a chance to maybe get one minute and do it in front of hundreds of thousands of people on YouTube. So there's like this energy to this town that's happening now with stand-up

that's really exciting because it's a completely new scene. That's great. Well, like you said, you can't practice it at home. It's the only way to learn it. Right. So I always feel a responsibility in that sense. If you love stand-up, you got to encourage other people. I bring people on the road with me who I think need exposure to higher pressure and stuff.

Yeah. And to help them learn and also to tap my head. And I spend the whole time talking to them and answering stuff and stuff like that. And when I'm at the cellar, I try to – I like mentoring. I like being a bit of a teacher, you know? Yeah. So, but you have to, because there's no school for it and there's no. Which is wild.

Yeah. There never will be. I don't think that anybody will ever properly, you can't really teach standup. It comes from the heart or the balls or the pussy or wherever it comes from. But how do you do it? Do you do it like Steve Martin or do you do it like Stephen Wright or do you do it like Patrice O'Neill? Like you can't teach that. No. You can teach like certain principles and you can kind of coach people in

whatever their individual style is and sort of giving them some tips like maybe if you did it this way or here's the problem with that or you're taking too much time with this yeah there's obvious mistakes people make and you can help help them by giving them that yeah I'm like you know you don't need to be doing that yeah that's That's a big, giant waste of time. One thing I've told a few guys and women that work for me is stop laughing. You're just nervous. That's just shit. You know, a little nervous laughter.

Right, right, right. It just looks dumb and it's just do the joke. And if that nervous laughter is because you said something that's kind of tough to sell, fucking stand there and sell it. just say that's that's the joke like adrian uh appaloocia opens for me a lot she's hilarious very funny and she's really hard to take for a lot of for my crowd who are there to be offended what i love doing whenever Adrienne's on stage, I'm right behind her, behind the curtain. And I'm standing there where I can really hear, because she does these jokes and people go,

oh, like she does this thing about how, um, Jeffrey, how white women, about racism and, and, um,

white women are the worst and that we don't have enough serial killers because that they always kill white women. And it and that we don't have enough serial killers because they always kill white women and it boils down to it when you think about it jeffrey dahmer did more for black people than martin luther king because he killed white women and uh but he didn't what jeffrey dahmer didn't kill white oh i don't know no no not jimmy not ted bundy yeah i'm fucking up her bit i'm destroying her bit anyway it's a hilarious bit, but any audience goes like, Jesus. And I love hearing them because she's really loosening them up. She's really fucking doing deep knee bends, getting them warmed up.

But she used to kind of nervously laugh after certain jokes, which showed a little insecurity on her part. Like, maybe I shouldn't be saying this. And I told her, just do the fucking joke and stand there. Like, that's it. That's what I said. Yeah. That's what I said. And some early jokes, people were having a hitch with it.

But they see that confidence in you, and they go, I guess she doesn't give a fuck. I guess she really means it. And they start to come around. Yeah. You know? That's my favorite thing is how do comics that don't belong up there get good at it? That's where great comedy comes from. It's somebody who's not a ham and who's not even into performing much or, you know, but they just want to do this one thing.

Those are where some of the better comics come from, I think. And then they figure it out. And it's so exciting to watch them figure it out. It's so exciting to watch someone go from being like, he used to be like guys who were like a doorman at the comedy store. And then you see him six, seven years later, and you haven't seen him for a while, and all of a sudden they're killing. And they've got interesting points, and they've got great bits.

It's great to watch. It's a fun art form, man. It's still my favorite thing to watch after all these years. And I didn't for a while in the beginning. In the beginning I didn't because of jealousy and insecurity. If someone else was killing me, I'd be like, God, I wish I thought of that. God, I wish I was killing.

It was like a weird thing where i was too wrapped up and trying to get somewhere in comedy that i didn't enjoy it anymore right and then i realized like hey stupid like this you got into comedy because you love watching it like why would you not still love watching it are you gonna give up loving watching it because you like to do it that's's so stupid. Yeah, I have written all over my notebook this year, don't forget to love it. I wrote it across the bottom of the page of all the pages one day on an airplane. Oh, yeah. So as I'm writing notes, it's just there. Yeah.

Because you do forget. It's work and it's hard. Yeah. And whatever you do for a living becomes a hassle. Mm-hmm. But you got to love it. Whatever you do a living becomes a hassle but you gotta love it you know whatever you do in life becomes a hassle one thing I always tell people is like

the one thing that you think about the most when you're sick is god I wish I was healthy when you're healthy it just seems normal but when you get sick you're like oh god this sucks I can't wait to get healthy but you when you're

fucking healthy yeah you've got to like do whatever you can to preserve that and recognize that there's a possibility that you could get sick appreciate the shit out of being healthy well and then with work though with comedy i feel like there's this other side of the other side of the spectrum which is that you should be willing to be very uncomfortable and very unhappy oh yeah right because that's love that's real love but you're doing it yes is my point yes if you if it took it away from you like covid when we couldn't do stand-up well then that's you being sick yes that's what i'm saying i mean it's's like, not that it should always be the most fun thing to do. Because exercise fucking blows. Like, being healthy, like sitting in a fucking sauna for 25 minutes at 190 degrees and cold plunges and all the shit that I do, it sucks.

I don't like doing it, but I'm doing it because being healthy is far superior to being sick. Yeah. But you forget. You forget sometimes. Well, but also it can be a bummer to be healthy. It can be. How so? Well, I've had streaks where I'm like, I'm doing it all right.

And I'm not doing things that I know make me feel like shit. Like eating a bunch of pizza that's just going to flood me with sugar and slow me down and give me a headache and give me a depression that I end up curing with a cigarette and then I can't move even more and then I eat more. And it's a terrible thing. And two weeks later, I come out of a dungeon. I got to stop.

I can't believe I just wasted all that time. But when I'm like like i'm doing it all right i'm eating well fucking salmon with brown rice a little bit of vegetables you know or whatever and uh drinking water with lemon and staying away from you know drinks no alcohol sleeping without any help all those good things you? There's a dryness to that. I just, after a while, I just get cranky. I just feel like I want to indulge and just get some sugar in you. Yeah, moderation.

Feeling like shit has its good points. Indulgence has its good points. Yeah, when you feel like, you're like, what the fuck did I do that for? When you hit the bottom, there's a comfort in that. It's a bed. The bottom is like a bed. Do you know what I mean? I mean, not like alcoholics

and drug addicts. I don't know what it's like for them, but in my little self abuses. Every now and then getting off the rails. You just got it. Yeah. No, I like it. I like doing that too, but I stay healthy. That got it. No, I like it. I like doing that too. But I stay healthy. That's good.

But I do go off. I mean, I will eat pizza and fucking spaghetti and ice cream. I'll go crazy. This is the best thing in the world. But then I just self-correct. I go, okay. Yeah. You know, and I feel so bad when it's over. When I eat like a giant, like a fucking big Italian sub

and like a fucking 32-ounce Coca-Cola, I feel like hot dog shit in an hour and a half. No, and then ice cream, which is my favorite thing. I'm just shit. It's just shitsville and it's burning hot shits for like a week.

I pay hard for ice cream so I don't do it often. But there is, I don't know, I don't think it'll ever not be. I still stay in shape and some discipline for a stand-up, and I've got this thing at the Garden, like to me that's like the big fight of my life. That's the championship fight.

But when that's over and I take a year off, I do, part of me thinks I might just Brando out. I might get really fucking big. I don't know., I do, part of me thinks I might just Brando out. I might get really fucking big. I don't know. You might do a reverse Bobby Kelly. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I hope not. Sometimes I'm able to be more healthy when I'm not performing because I go up state more and I get, I make my trail and I, you know, I do my, that's better exercise than a gym anyway. I think it's important to be healthy, but I I think it's important to be healthy, but I also think it's important to enjoy yourself.

I think there's something about food pleasure, mouth pleasure from eating a big fucking bowl of rigatoni. It's great. It tastes great. You just got to know what's happening. I like drinking. I enjoy drinking. I like fucking tipping a few back with my friends.

Cheers, everyone. Cheers. I like doing a shot before I go on stage. I enjoy drinking I like like fucking tipping a few back with my friends cheers everyone cheers I like doing a shot before I go on stage. I enjoy it. Yeah, but I I know what I'm doing, right? I know when it comes to the morning. I'm going to do everything I can to counteract that yeah sure I do everything I can with vitamins I take IV vitamins and drips and I do all kinds of shit, but I keep it working, right? But I also it's a funny use my body in a different way. Yeah. Like, you know, because of jujitsu and martial arts.

It's a vehicle for me. I'm using it. Well, we live weird lives too because most people can't, when we say things like, it's important to be healthy, but it's important to enjoy yourself. Most people even can't have that conversation.

Right. Like most of the population is just fucking grinding just trying to live they're just dragging their bodies across broken glass and trying to like hand off just enough to their kids and then fucking collapse yeah a heap of cancer that's most life they're just trying to pay the bills just stay one step ahead of the the grave digger or only two and a half steps behind yeah that's how most people live like i was talking to my blanche my french pal and i said life is zero-sum game it's something i believe is a zero-sum game effort you put in and it comes back but you end up at zero right

she said for a lot of people life is about a negative 500 some game yeah and it's true some people and everything they can possibly do they end up so fucked yeah just fucked for good and it's just life is fucked uh and because of that you have this attitude that life is fucked so then that's a self-fulfilling prophecy i guess i mean it's negative attitude there's not much room for that kind of shit though for in most people's lives, but in America compared to everybody else We were really doing great. Yeah, so we can have these long conversations about what's the right way to think and what's you know? What's the right way to live in all these many many? Boutique things of here's how to feel better. Yeah, because we're just kind of sitting around We're just consumers. We're just consumers of the rest of the world.

I was watching this video where these guys were talking about, Lex Friedman and Andrew Huberman were talking about saunas and cold plunges and stuff like that and the benefits of it. They're two scientists. They're talking about the provable benefits, heat shock proteins, cold shock proteins. And then I read in the comments where some guy was like, yeah, well, you guys aren't talking about how much it costs to buy a sauna. You're making it seem like it's all free.

And like, what are you supposed to do? Like, every fucking thing? Like, I'm sorry if you're broke. Oh, no, you have the conversation for people that can live that way. Well, I mean, not just. But it's just funny. But it's not impossible to achieve we're not talking about buying a fucking lamborghini yeah but i'm not saying that there's

something wrong with talking about that stuff because other people can't afford it that's not at all what i'm saying what i'm saying is that it's actually part of why people are miserable is because they're actually it's a ridiculous conversation it's a ridiculous it's not like the way the the earth and the experience of like competing for food and oxygen and living in on earth you know and living in society and just being a person we've got to some altitude here where we're having some stupid conversations that are just you know should i do a cold plunger of sauna? What the fuck is that? It's not that you should be ashamed because people can't afford it.

I feel sorry for the guy in that conversation. It's like it's a ridiculous trying to find just the right balance because there's nothing really challenging you. Because you don't have any real problems and you're not on the earth. You're not standing on the earth anymore. You're in a bubble where you're sort of like, maybe I'll try this and maybe I'll just do protein now and I'll do, you know what I mean? And you'll never find a balance

because that's not a normal life. That's not organic living. That's not living like a human being. You don't have a choice because, I mean, what are you going to do, be poor on purpose? But you have a physical body. And if you have a physical body, there's things that are beneficial to your physical body. Sure.

And if you choose to do those things, you'll have a better body. It'll work better. And if you choose not to do those things because you think they're ridiculous, or do you think, oh, that's not organic living. That's not life. This is not life. It is life. It's life.

And people have invented shoes. The reason why they invented shoes is because rocks will cut your feet. So they figured out shoes. Shoes are better than no shoes, right? Getting in a sauna and getting in a cold plunge is better for the physical body than not doing it. It's the same thing. Lifting weights is better than not lifting weights because then you develop a strong body and don't lose your bone density. All true.

Like all these things are a part of life. You can just decide they're not organic. They're a part of life when you've removed yourself from the food chain and from real life. They become part of life. If you're not getting eaten by tigers. Yes. That's right. Yeah.

But like we already figured that out. So like as we move to becoming a multi-planetary species. That's what I'm saying. There's a lot of things you're going to figure out. Well, and also our predator now is each other. So it's now that's, we're not anymore about other animals. We're about killing each other. And when you are about other animals, that's when you realize you've really fucked up.

Like, we already sorted this out, and here I am getting eaten by a tiger. You're a fucking idiot. Yes, you're a fucking idiot if you're a human being being eaten by a tiger. If you're a guy from Connecticut, you're getting eaten by hyenas. You've made a giant mistake. That's right. But I don't know. I think part of it is just being an old guy that I think, like, you see certain signs that the game is over.

Because people are starting to talk about such abstract forms of life. And I can see that none of it satisfies anybody. Abstract forms of life? And I can see that none of it satisfies anybody. Abstract forms of life? Abstract things like having your body at the right temperature and talking about different substances going in and out and ways to, you know, and turn on oxygen in certain rooms. To try to enjoy it more. It's just to try to enjoy it more. Yes, it is.

But you won't ever get to what is fulfilling about life, I don't think. That's not true. Through that stuff. That's not true. Through that stuff. That's not true. When you do those things, your body is more relaxed. It works better. Sure. And you feel better.

Sure. It does with me. I understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I do cold plunges and I get out, you know what raises your dopamine 200% and lasts for multiple hours? Yes. You feel better.

You really feel better. I don't even know what I'm saying. I just feel a thing about this. I know what you're saying. I feel a thing about it. But there's also a thing that people do. The last thing I'm doing is putting it down from like, oh, you're so lucky you can have. That's not what I mean.

No, no, no. But you're kind of dismissing it as being, at the end of the day, it's all fucking bullshit anyway. Kind of. It's just that it's just... Which is true. I think that the most... I don't know.

There's a form of life... It's a weird thing because you're not supposed to be happy and you're not supposed to be safe. I think that that's the problem is that people expect that and it's not a good way to... You're not happy when you're safe.

You're not happy when you're happy, when you're secure. you know like people i was really listening to something about the border you know these people just trying to come into america and some people are like well if we let just a few in it's a mess like there's no good answer you know right what if we just let the ones in who are really upset yeah or but we can't let them all in like when liberals try to say it's like the dumbest position they get into it's like well we can't know we can't keep let them in here got to keep them out but we really like them and it's great that they're brown and sorry but you know there's like an impossible and then the and then the right takes over and

they sound racist and then the left takes over. They just sound stupid. But my feeling is they should open it, the border, and just let them pour it, let everybody pour in. And then the answer, which is, well, then there'll be all these problems. Yes, there should be. It shouldn't be so great here, is what I'm saying, in America. It shouldn't be. It's a weird thing to sequester a certain group of people and try to keep upping their lifespan and their lifestyle and just keep trying to increase that for this group of people. And then everyone's – and then this pressure of people trying to come in so they can enjoy it.

And then it gets worse and worse down here. I mean I'm not in Canada. It's really just from down here. There's something wrong with that. That's not a system that's working. And it forces people to do cruel things to other people there's a lot of people that die so americans can be safe they're just dying you know weddings that are drone bombed in yemen because the guy said something that might

have resulted in american insecurity not even like definite American deaths, but like just so we can breathe a little easier. Folks die and folks do labor in unsafe places so that we can keep the prices where we like them. There's so much about American life that other people pay for. That's part of it. But also, it's not good for us either. It's not a good way to live in a gated community

you know if if you let folks pour in like any other wave it'll kind of slosh and then y'all just things will be different i i don't know like there what'll really happen a bunch of people like will they just come with knives and start killing everybody i don't think so i don't know what'll happen but it's just weird to me i mean i, I lived in Mexico when I was a kid. My dad's Mexican. And I remember my first cogent thoughts were in Mexico, and then I came to America. But you lived in Mexico pre-cartels. It's a different world now.

Yeah, but it was Mexico in the 70s. It was a pretty gnarly, smelly place. Oh, I'm sure. I mean, it was Mexico City. It was beautiful. It was a city before America had anything. It's this very old European kind of place, you know, Mexico. It's a beautiful country.

And it's got a lot more depth to it than anybody knows here. And we're not really sharing with them because they're kind of like the other guys because we're afraid of how many of them are dying to come here to work for us for very little. Like this thing. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. This is shit I don't know about. But the feeling I get is that the more this American security, this feeling of like, you know, there's more oxygen in the air.

It's more. It's not good in the end for everybody somehow. Well, it's certainly not balanced, right? No, it's not balanced. The top 1% of the world is $34,000 a year Yeah, you make $34,000 a year. You're in the top 1% of the world. You've been basically living in like lower income America right the top 1% of the world. Yeah, which is crazy. It is and so like why is that? percent of the world yeah which is crazy it is and so like why is that well corrupt governments lack of freedom lack of democracy but also exploitation from american businesses where

they go over there and they start sweat shops and you know i mean one of the the greatest ironies is people complaining about social justice issues on an iphone which is made by slaves oh yeah it's a horrible yeah it's a horrible thing i had uh sadarth kara on yeah, it's a horrible thing. I had Siddharth Kara on the podcast. He's a journalist that traveled to the Congo to watch them mine cobalt and snuck into these cobalt mines and he wrote this is it called Cobalt Red? Is that what

it's called? It's out it's out at the end of this month. Oh, what they do to get the It's fucking horrific. Yeah. I mean horrific. It's all slaves. It's fucking horrific. Yeah. I mean, horrific. It's all slaves. It's slaves. It's women who are 19 years old with cobalt red, how the blood of the Congo

powers our lives. And that's some of what goes into electric cars and stuff too, right? Yes, cobalt. Yeah, it goes with lithium ion batteries. It's stabilized. Yeah. So, there's all sorts of shit that has to, that's a cobalt mine. This is the thing is that we look at these wide shots of just like clogs of people.

That's how most human beings live. Well, this is particularly egregious. And this is, what are they, they're making iPhones in there. First of all, look at that dude right there, the one with the tan shirt. Yeah. That dude's jacked. If I was that guy, I'd be like guy but like hey buddy do you know how to wrestle like come here you want to make some money yeah like look at the size of that motherfucker that guy's got superior genetics this is some guy this is some guy he's he could live in cincinnati right he could work at uh at

the avis in the at the airport in uh st louis or he could be a UFC champion. Yeah, but he's in this huge pile of people so that we can have the new phone. Yeah. It's a crazy amount. It's so lopsided. So lopsided. And then our lives become more and more pointless until people are like, should we just give americans money you know like andrew yang's idea let's just give them money and they don't have to do anything yeah like what are we doing what the fuck the point of life used to be don't die that used to be the point of life yeah don't

die pass on your your sperm or whatever but and then somewhere in the margins, you'd be like, this feels good. You know, like next to a fire and you just almost died, but you cooked the thing that tried to kill you and you're eating it. And you go, all right, I feel good. This feels nice. And you get to enjoy the stars in the sky, you know?

There was something to that. But this point of like, just give everybody money every week so that they can buy, but who's doing anything? Like who's, and like who's and just let's the money coming from let them make the shit they're invisible and then let's all just be and then we start having conversations about what's the

right way to say things and what's the right stuff to put in your body and what's the right position to sleep in because we're it's a joke it's just funny to me I guess is the thing like the thing. Like, I remember I was at a wedding and there was a guy there who was Tibetan with his wife. And my wife and I were talking about our dog. And we're saying that she was getting surgery. She's had a hard month. And he goes, I'm sorry, who was getting surgery?

And we said, our dog. And he just laughed really hard. He's like, what? Our dog was in surgery. And he's like, I'm really sorry. And he was like, I'm sorry. I don't understand. He thought like our mom was having surgery or something.

It's like, you give a dog surgery? You put a dog in an operating room and operate them? This guy who's like some from some place in tibet was like that's that's insane you know it's like my chicken has a psychiatrist on some level it's like ridiculous ridiculous we're we're from but and i looked in that guy's eyes and i'm like i want to be him it's not and it's not that I'm ashamed of me being because of him, but I just think we've gotten really far away. And that's me and how I feel. I mean, when I meet kids my kids' age and I talk to my kids, I'm like, they're ahead of me in some ways.

And they got something new that I'm not sure of. And my nephews, I have four nephews. Well, they got their eyes are forward, you know? And a lot of this shit. What do you mean? Well, like a lot of the shit, you know, that we worry about, you know, these kids are growing up with the internet and TikTok and they kind of, they're smarter about that stuff. It's not, it was a big jolt for us, the internet, but they're.

Well, they're growing up with it. They don't know a life without it. I know they're well they're growing up with it they don't know i know they're gonna they're adapting there's an energy to my my kids and their friends that i really admire and i think they're i that gives me hope you know i always have hope for human beings i think human beings figure things out human beings figure things out they do i think they're and they also mean well for on the whole to each other. They hurt each other a lot, but I think that people don't want to. And there's always extraordinary, you know, the kind of things that go down in history of extraordinary moments by Kennedy or Obama or somebody. But I see them all the time. If you ride the subway, you see people take a bit of abuse and go like, okay, you go ahead.

Like those moments you go, well, you just saved the world, buddy. You just in your own circle. I mean, that's, I guess, and I think one thing a lot of people are doing is looking at the big picture too much and thinking they can, they listen to podcasts and they have a whole world opinion. But your only responsibility is the space you take up and the people you encounter. Right. That's all you should be thinking about.

Yeah. And when you're thinking globally, it's a giant distraction. Yes. And really, you don't have any real ability to affect things that much. No. The things you can do is be kind to people you know and that you encounter people every day. Try to live a life of interaction instead of distraction

and be out and look at folks and treat them okay. That's like huge. There's a lot of people. There's a great movie called The Man for All Seasons. It's about Thomas More, I think. This guy who was the the king's he was

the chancellor of England during Henry VIII I'm not going to talk about the whole movie but it's remarkable I love the movie and there's a scene where there's like he was a very powerful man so this one guy keeps trying to get him to get him a position in government and he says to the guy I don't think you'd be

good at it but I'll get you a job as a teacher and he goes why would guy, I don't think you'd be good at it, but I'll get you a job as a teacher. And he goes, why would I want to be a teacher? And he says, I think you would be a great teacher. And the guy said, but who would know it? And he said, well, God, your students, your friends, and yourself. That's a pretty good crowd, you know? Yeah.

I think of life more that way now. Like, it's cool this this i could be a big or then the negative side of it how are we gonna all this fucked up who's gonna solve all this and right but if you can just be a good person and do your best anyway you do your best it's all anybody can do you also got to acknowledge that you've got problems in your head and you're you're everyone's selfish in ways that ends up not being good for other people. Everybody has that. So you try to balance, try to balance and be okay with the people in your work, you know, and your family. Try to be real, a real parent to your kids. And, you know, I think that's the only thing you can really do it is bizarre this very very common aspiration to want to be recognized by an enormous number of people that you don't even know yeah that's a weird thing i don't have that i mean i've been recognized which is hilarious you don't have that i don't care about but you're a famous famous comedian yeah maybe if you weren't

you would have that maybe i would would. I mean, I, because you know what it is and you've experienced it and you've, it's been a giant part of your life is walking out there and everybody goes crazy and cheers

and like, thank you. When I come out and they're all cheering, I want it to stop so quickly. I often tell them to stop, but I really don't like

that part. It's strange. I don't like it. It's not normal. I like normal interaction, so I don't like that. I think what's normal is it's setting a tone like they're happier here. I'm like, I'm happier happy. Thank you.

That's right. Thank you. I'm happier happy, and I'm happy too, and I've got a bunch of shit for you. That's it. I've really been working on this. That's right. Yeah. That's right.

But the people that really soak it in, they love it. Yeah. Need it. They need it. Yeah. I've seen people stand on soak it in they love it. Yeah, you know, they need yeah I've seen people like stand on stage and they just look Take it in and they just walk around. Yeah I saw Paul Simon at Forest Hills in New York Which is a good I had done it like a week before and I went there to see him and he's a gnome friend of mine and uh

So he was on stage and it was like one of his last tours. And Forest Hills is like a block from where he grew up. So they loved him so much. And about halfway through I saw this moment where the crowd was going nuts and he just put his arms out and he just went like this and he basked in it.

And I brought it up to him later and he said, Oh, you saw it. I'm so ashamed of that. I'm so ashamed of that. He said the second I did it up to him later, and he said, oh, you saw it. I'm so ashamed of that. I'm so ashamed of that. He said, the second I did it, I was like, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. Yeah, he's like, that's not cool. That's hilarious. He just tried it out. You're not here to be like, hey.

You're here to go like, here's the show, here's the show. Yeah, but he's a rock star. Isn't that funny? That's the thing that people love. The thing that people love is the thing you really should not want to be. It's like this complete alien. It's no good for a human being.

No. That's what the thing I'm excited about, and I have to bring it back to my stupid plug, but the garden show. I used to do it. It was normal to do the garden for me before, which is not a good thing. I remember Chris Rock saying to me once after a show at the garden, he's me before which is not a good thing right like i remember chris rock saying to me once after a show at the garden he's like you you like this

is like a club for you where you try shit out now because i did it like five times in a week i just take the subway take the c train up do the garden and leave like i don't party after i just show right right but it's that went away and i hadn't been there for a while. But now to me, this one show, there's this very exciting thought to just do one. And the set I've prepared for it is not a rock star set. It's pretty gritty. It's pretty, I mean, it all kills. It's similar to what I saw at the Creek. Yeah.

I've been working on it since. So there's a lot of new stuff. Yeah. But it's the idea of being surrounded by these 18,000 people in this elite arena and saying some of this stuff, but also knowing that I've crafted it. So it's not just reckless. You know what I mean? Right, right, right. I'm really excited.

38 years in comedy, I don't get that excited. But I'm really excited about it. I'm excited for it, too. I love that you've made this return. And then you experienced a bunch of resistance, but now it's kind of gone. Yeah, just keep doing it. Just keep doing it. Yeah, and now you're doing shit that's really being recognized.

Like, you won a fucking Emmy. Yeah, I got a Grammy. I got a Grammy since I came back. Yeah, yeah, that was nice. It's nice. And I think you won a Grammy for the special. It was very funny, but I think the next one was better. I think Sorry was even better. Thank you, man. I came back. Yeah, yeah. That was nice. It's nice. And I think you won a Grammy for the special. It was very funny, but I think the next one was better. I think Sorry was even better.

Thank you, man. I really do. Sorry was amazing. That got nominated for a Grammy, so we'll see what happens. I hope it wins. Yeah, we'll see. I'd love it if you won two years in a row. I want to see people get crazy.

Like, fucking bullshit. You know, whatever. Whatever. God damn it. I loved it. I got so angry when people were calling out that leaked leak set. Yeah, people are mad because to me it was like that's times he's even said these things aloud in public. I literally was having a conversation with another comedian and came up with the bits and went on stage and did them. So it was the first time I'd done them.

And I just got so excited to be back on stage because I had taken a long time off and there was resistance coming back. But I was in a club with my crowd for the first time. And so I was – the only thing I regret is it was reckless because my life was very precarious. Things were tough and things were tough for my kids. So that created a bigger, huge stink bomb than anything else that had even happened. The set did? Yeah, the set was really, really hard. So given how things were, I probably could have made jokes about a couple other things.

I don't believe I did anything wrong. You did what you always do. I've always done this. The way it works is I say stuff that is the wrong thing to say. I hear the resistance to it. And then I, and then I work with it and work with it. And it takes a few shows for it to be a safe bit to do. But there's a few audiences that that you know and

that audience actually didn't didn't mind it but it's not for regular consumption it's like watching somebody practice piano yeah and going like he sucks or or it's not it wasn't supposed to the i think it's really bad that we don't have these barriers anymore where there's speech that's for these few people. There's speech that we're going to we're going to have a fun conversation where we're going to get a little crazy. It's not for the whole world to see. Well, what was infuriating to me was people that know that they know what you're saying. Yeah. And they went after you.

I was like, you motherfucker. Yeah. There's people that I won't talk to to this day because of that. Wow. I was like like i'm not talking to you like unless you want to make some like big public apology or you want to apologize to me and tell me why you did it and what real feelings of insecurity and jealousy but nobody can do that tim dillon put a great post on his page about what's really going on yeah he put a

great post on his instagram and that's when I became friends with Tim Dillard. He wrote, you're getting a bunch of people that are mediocre comedians, and that are attacking him, not really because of what he's saying, but because he's great, and because they hate the fact that he was getting any attention at all, and that it should be theirs,

and now they find some chance to move up in the social structure. That's what it felt like to me. To me, all of that is totally true. And it makes me understand it. In other words, it makes me feel sympathy. It makes me go like, all right, if that's what you need to do, that's what you got to do.

I get that. I would prefer to hang out with somebody who doesn't need to do that. But I get it. I can't be around them. No, I understand that. understand you can do that again you could do that again you know it's like having a snake in the room like you can have a snake in the room as long as i mean aside from my shit the thing that was a drag to me about comedy in the last few years was people who any comedian who's out in the world saying that comedian shouldn't

be saying these things yeah that's a traitor to comedy. Well, they always, that's not, they're not a real comedian. None of them are good. They've learned some tricks so they can seem good and they might have a big audience,

but they're not, they don't love this. Right. And they are, that's a fucked up thing to do. It's a fucked up thing to do. And it's always coming from a place of jealousy. Yes.

And also it's never, it's always happening to somebody who's already deeply besieged, somebody who's already the whole world. Of course. When you see the whole world coming down on somebody for something they said, and then you go, man, I'm going to say the same thing. Exactly.

That's about you. That has nothing to do with how you really feel about what they said. It has nothing to do. It's just that you want to be heard in your circle saying it also because you see that you can get a little something from it well you're just taking cheap shots that's another way to say that yeah you're just kicking someone when they're down yeah it's a shame and not only that it's

someone like who should have a deep understanding of what that person's actually doing yeah but it's too much to ask i think from people i think it is people's life life is hard if it's too much to ask of those people those people should not be doing stand-up. And all the people that did that were all fucking terrible. All of them were mediocre at best. All of them. Every single fucking one of them. Chris Rock's not going to fucking talk

shit about people when they're down. He's not going to be the guy who gets on Twitter and goes, that subject matter was fucked up. You're not going to get that out of Dave Chappelle. Well, it just became profitable to do it. And it's going to stop being profitable. It already is. It's already not a cool, it's not a good look anymore.

But it's not profitable by those comedians. Those comedians get ostracized. Now they do, yeah. Oh, man. I go out of my way. I won't talk to them. I won't look at them. Like, you don't do this anymore.

I can't talk to you because now I can trust you because you know what this is right? You know this bizarre process of yes like bringing an idea on stays like a little puppy and yes You're not to shit on the floor like right you're doing this thing with me. Then you're pretending No, it's an easy thing to do because the audience will never know that right they shouldn't right audiences Just come and they see what you do. They don't know what goes into it And they it's not there and none of their business well some of them do get into it I mean that's one of the things that was interesting about the store It was like you would get Comedy nerds that would come and then go I love how that bits change because I saw it and then I write it again

I saw it again and I saw it again and now it's got to this point. That was a great compliment. I was always like, oh, thank you. Thanks, appreciate it. Yeah, there was a time, there used to be this back in 2005 or so, there was a, what is it?

A Tenacious D, you know, Jack Black. Yeah, sure. They had a website with a message board back before social media. There were message boards where people would make comments. It was just comments without a thing. And they had a message board with different categories, and one of them was other comedians. And that became huger than the website.

It was called aspecialthing.com. Oh, yeah. Remember this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do. And it was about stand-up mostly in the L special thing.com. Oh yeah. Remember this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do. And it was about standup and mostly in the LA area. And so like there was one guy, his name was Sasquatch and he would go to every show at Largo at these kind of alternative shows.

And he would do a rundown. He'd tell you who is on, he'd give you an idea what the bits were and he'd analyze. And he, every comedian loved reading it because if you like being mentioned in it was kind of cool he was a really smart his name was matthew something i forget but he was interesting and you'd and and he would talk about bits and he'd seen bits before and how they had changed and stuff comedy fandom when it's like you know yeah it's really fun it's really

great it is fun yeah there's a lot now that's just like, I'm on this guy's side against this guy. There's a lot of tribalism in comedy. Yeah. But again, you're always going to have people that are like that. Of course. You're going to have all sorts of different ways of looking at things and things that people disagree with and agree with

and things that people like and don't like. Yeah. But it's just, I fucking love it. After all these years. Yeah, so do I. I've been doing it 35 years, I think. Yeah. It's the best.

It's really the most fun thing to do. I love it more than anything I've ever done. Yeah. And I'll always love it. And I do think after this show at the Garden, I'm going to, on January 28th live stream on my website lucyk.com lucyk.com there it is there it is live stream event from Madison Square Garden that's fucking awesome yeah I don't know if any comedian's done that not not on a website

I mean maybe like HBO and stuff how difficult is it in terms of like the infrastructure like to set it up to live stream from your website, how many people can it handle simultaneously? As many as will come. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, Tom Segura does these live shows. Yes, your mom's house.

The company Maestro or whatever it is. Yeah. We're just doing the same thing. Oh, great. That's all it is. And it's parked on the site. Have you been a part of one of those? You need to be a part of one of those.

I have not done that, no. They're fucking horrific. Yeah, no, I've heard it's crazy. Oh, my God. But he's really so fucking smart, Tom. He's the best. He's very funny and a great guy. Yeah.

But I asked him about doing this, and he helped me get the courage to do it. And the show starts at 7.30, and there'll be opening acts like Keith Robinson and somebody else I don't know yet. But also I have Ravi Coltrane, is he's John Coltrane's son which is incidental but he's a great saxophone player and he has a trio

that he's bringing to open in the show so you get so it's a show it'll be about 45 minutes of pre-show with him

and some comedians I'll probably be on stage around 8.15 it'll be like a 20 second delay but otherwise it's fully live. What time are you up tonight and tomorrow?

I think the show's at 7.30. I got to go soon. Yeah. And then I guess I'm on it. I guess the show's 7.30. Usually I end up on stage by 8.15 after there's always a delay and then opening comedian. Well, I'm going out to eat with my wife tomorrow, so I'm going to try to catch you tonight. Yeah, you should.

I'm going to head out. You should. Okay okay let's wrap this bitch up yeah okay louisck.com the date is january 28th january 28th live stream event go see it the material i mean the material that i saw months ago was fucking amazing thanks and you can watch it until january until february 17th then it disappears you know you can't download it it's like a fight on DAZN or something, or pay-per-view. And then in April... And then it disappears. And in April, the special from this material will be out in April. Beautiful.

Yeah. All right. Great seeing you, my friend. You too, man. Thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun. Thank you. Bye,bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.