The Joe Rogan Experience - #1971 - Howie Mandel

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Howie Mandel is a stand-up comic, television personality, and producer. He's the host, along with daughter Jackelyn Shultz, of the "Howie Mandel Does Stuff" podcast.  www.howiemandel.com

Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day! Can you hear me? I hear you perfect. Okay. Hello, Howie Mandel. Hi, Joe Rogan.

Good to see you, my friend. I know. Very good to see you. I know. And amazing to see you. Before you start anything, I've got to tell you how excited... Did we start? No, yeah, we're starting. And amazing to see you. Before you start anything, I've got to tell you how excited are you. Did we start?

No, yeah, we're starting. Okay. I got to tell you how excited I am to see you. I am the biggest fan. If there is one thing that I'm a fan of, it's innovation. And I think that you have become the comedy innovator. And I'm blowing smoke up your ass right at the beginning of this. And I got to say what I've seen from the outside, you know, in 1978, I came down to the comedy store and I got

up on a lark. Mike Binder got me up there on a lark. I wasn't not pursuing it. I had gone on at Yuck Yucks in Toronto and I fell in love with this. Mitzi gave me my biggest break. Um, and there was a guy by the name of George Foster who was in the audience that night that said, Hey, do you want to do TV? And I said, yeah. And he hired me to do make me laugh, which I did with binder and a bunch of other people. And with no intent of making this, uh, uh, making this a career. You know, I didn't pursue comedy. I knew nothing about comedy.

I was a fan of comedy. I watched comedy stand up. Even when I went to Yuck Yucks, I had never, you know, I don't know. Let me get back to you, and then I'll talk about me. But the thing is that I'm aware of the history of comedy. And when I was a kid, it was in New York. Everybody went to New York. That's where Lenny Bruce was working. You just showed me a picture of Lenny Bruce.

And then when Carson made his way out to California, there was a shift where everybody had to come to California, you know? And you had to get on at the comedy store or maybe the improv with the intent of maybe, if you were lucky, getting a spot on The Tonight Show. Right? Yeah. And I don't know. How old are you? 55.

55. You're a kid. How old are you? I'll be 68 this year. You look fucking great. Thank you. Maybe all this knuckle touching is the way to go. I don't know what the fuck it is.

I don't know what the fuck it is. I don't know that I, but anyway, the point is that, that there was only one place to go and make it in comedy. And that was California. And that was, you needed a spot at the comedy store and anybody who was anybody either got a spot at the improv or the comedy store. And then even if somebody didn't know you and they came up to you and they said,

are you a comic? And, and, Oh, what do you do? You'd say, I'm a stand-up comic. They'd go, were you ever on Johnny? And if you weren't on Johnny, then they kind of dismissed you. But that was the truth. Yeah, I remember those days. And I believe now, and this is the smoke that I'm blowing up your ass,

there was a shift. You don't have to go to California anymore. You don't have to be in New York. You don't have to be anywhere. But you've got to be in New York. You don't have to be anywhere, but you got to be in Austin. You got to come to Texas or you got to be part of whatever it is, this movement that you have moved out here. And if you look at the people that are getting huge clicks online for, you know, their, uh, their specials, Ari Shaffir and Shane Gillis and all these other guys, what, what, what do they have in common?

They came and they touched you, you know, and I think that that is where comedy is going. And these people with podcasts are now selling huge amounts of tickets without going on one. They don't have a tonight show to go to. They don't have a club to hit. And now you opened up the Mothership, which is, I think, properly named because I believe that this is, if there is a geographical epicenter for comedy, it is here, you know, now. And I think you

did that. I've never met somebody that, you know, Mitzi was the last person that kind of, Mitzi Shore I'm talking about, but accidentally did it, you know, because that was just something she won in a divorce. But she was the perfect person to have it. Right, but she didn't know that. Yeah, but she had the best sensibility for comedy and she was so ruthless. She mentored me.

She helped me in so many ways. Right, what she gave me, we have a lot in common in that. She gave me my break. That's her. Yeah, gave me, we have a lot in common in that. She gave me my bread. That's her. I know. I recognize her. I saw her. I knew her. Taylor Bowes. Pretty dope, right? It is. It is a great painting. But the

thing about Mitzi, if you don't know the beginnings of that, you know, it was Sammy Shore's club. It was her husband's club, who was the opening act for Elvis Presley. Right. Which is hilarious that she took it in a divorce and she's not a comic. Well, because you take shit. It's like she took it in a divorce and she's not a comic. Well, because you take shit that's like you take custody of a child and you're not a parent.

Sugar Shane Mosley, the boxer, his ex-wife took one of his championship belts. But it looks nice with certain tops. Do you know how goddamn crazy that story is? No. That guy went to war with his hands. He was throwing knuckles at another skilled man and won a world title. Got this beautiful belt strapped.

The whole crowd cheers. She's like, no, it's mine. She took it. So Sammy Shore was telling jokes for audiences that weren't his. They were Elvis's. And he opened up a building for his friends to work out. And Mitzi went, no, it's mine. And then he told everybody that was in the business not to work there.

Right? So she got all these kids, all us kids, would show up and work because we wanted stage time. And that's how people started blasting off. You know, Jimmy J.J. Walker and who did, not my job, man, Freddie Prinze. You know? And who did, not my job, man, Freddie Prinze, you know? And that became the, and that's why when you started seeing Carson out in L.A., he'd go, we saw this young kid last night at the comedy store,

and that's what made it big. And I think by the same token, you're the new Mitzi with less hair, where you keep touching these people. Like, that's how I hear, personally I, and I think a lot of other people, hear about the Brian Callens and their stand-up and their Ari and Shane and Bert and all these other guys that are arena. They're playing fucking arenas in theaters now. Yeah.

There was a select few when I was young. You know, I was talking to you outside. I used to go. What year did you start at the Comedy Store? I remember seeing you. I started at the Comedy Store in 94. 94. And you got news radio out of there, right?

I was already on news radio. When you started? Yeah. I know a lot of people. I was actually on another show. I think I got passed in between shows. I got passed right when the show I was on called Hardball fell apart. I don't know Hardball. It was canceled very quickly.

It was like six episodes on Fox. It was a baseball show. And while I was on TV, that wasn't, my main goal was I had to be a paid regular. I had to get to be a paid regular at the store. Dude, when I was a kid, like in 88, when I was 21 years old, people would talk about the Comedy Store like with hushed tones, like it was Mecca.

That's where Kinnison came from. It was like, whoa, Richard Pryor used to work out there. Right. I was there every night. Watch that. I was there. Yeah. You would hear about Bill Hicks used to be a door guy.

Holy shit. Right. It was Mecca. Everybody knew you had to get to the store. Right. So when I came to LA, that's like the first thing I did, man. Like the very first thing I did when I came out here, I came and watched a show and sat in the back room. It was a terrible show.

It was like Bodak's were on stage. It was awful. Really? I used to sit in the back. I used to sit in the back. And Letterman was the host, who was this weatherman that came out from Indianapolis. And he was just pretty casual about, you didn't think, I thought he was hysterical, but, and, and you'd watch, you know, Jeff Altman

and Billy Crystal and Robin who was on fire cause he just started Mork and Mindy. And then every night I would watch, um, Richard Pryor. He, uh He come out and he was putting together what became live on the Sunset Strip. Wow. And he would get up every fucking night and like some people would be packed down the street to see him. But I remember standing at the back. He had just gotten out of the hospital from freebasing. He still had bandages on his neck from, for those that don't remember, you know, he got,

he almost died. He lit himself on fire. He lit himself on fire. And there was a joke, which he started, I saw him do it at the comedy store. He used to light a match and go like this. He goes, what's this? This is me running down the street.

And then that became like a joke. But he perpetrated that joke. And at the time, it's hard to put this in context it didn't get a big laugh people's jaw dropped like you don't talk about your near-death experience you know and he would always like push the envelope and I was just in awe I never saw a comic do this in in my life that he didn't have jokes per se where he would just talk about his life or he would experiment. I talked about one particular night on, I did Binders. Did you see the comedy story? Yes. I think you're in it. Yes. Yeah. I talked about the one night I'll never forget. He just

walks in, the crowd goes fucking nuts for him, you know, and he turns around and he starts doing, I can't do him justice, but he says, you know, I'm the fucking Lord. I'm the Lord. And everybody's laughing. And I'm just here to pick up my son. I'm here to pick up my son. You might've seen him. He's kind of a skinny kid with a beard and a robe, a long robe, goes by the name Jesus. Has anybody seen my son? Where's my son? And people are laughing, but it's getting kind of uncomfortable. And he goes, I need my, where is my son?

And then he leans down as if somebody in the front row is talking to him. He goes, what, what, what the fuck did you do? What, where is my fucking, what did you? And he just starts screaming, my son, my boy, my baby. What did, what the fuck did you do to my son? What the fuck did you do? And he's starts screaming, my son, my boy, my baby, what the fuck did you do to my son? What the fuck did you do? And he's like screaming, what the fuck did you do to my son?

And I can't remember because I don't remember the order. He wants to talk to an apostle. And then he realizes, what the fuck did you do to him? And then he goes, bring me Martin Luther King. Bring me Martin Luther King. Where the fuck is Martin Luther King? And then he gets that info and he goes where's kennedy i want to talk to kennedy and he goes where the fuck

fuck and he's screaming and he's got tears coming down his eyes that the the room is just sitting there in awe and then he turns around he points at the entire room and he goes you're on your own and he walked out oh my god i know and i thought fuck fuck but that's richard fucking prior who just had a he knew he just went for emotion you know not only laughter emotion well he would what what i feel like is that lenny bruce was the first guy to do our kind of comedy where it wasn't just street jokes it was it wasn't just you know two jews walk into a bar that kind of comedy where it wasn't just street jokes. It was, it wasn't just, you know, two Jews walk into a bar, that kind of stuff. It was like,

he would talk about life. He would talk about social issues. And then prior made it way funnier. Like prior stuff still holds up the Lenny Bruce stuff. It's hard because of the context of the time. Like you can't put yourself in 1960 and sit there and, and understand the cultural context of how crazy everything he's saying is. But he still has some jokes that fucking still would kill today.

But Richard Pryor's life, you know, he was raised in a brothel with no money, had horrible, you know, issues with relationships and drugs. And that's the kind of that's what he talked about. And those are the characters that he mimicked. and those characters are still alive and well today, you know, like that kind of character So the Italian mobsters, yes, think about him getting paid and they're giving him noogies. Yes, he pulled out a fake gun Yeah, yeah, but he but that's that was that's real and that was the first time I realized, you know You will never see anything in my comedy where you will say that's Richard Pryor like. But it really is. And this is what I identified with.

If you look at old YouTube videos of me when I when I first peaked and I went on stage on a dare, you know, and the dare was I didn't want to be a comic. I just thought if somebody goes, ladies and know, and the dare was, I didn't want to be a comic. I just thought if somebody goes, ladies and gentlemen, Howie, and I said, okay. And, and if somebody goes, ladies and gentlemen, Howie Mandel, that'll be a joke, right? Cause there's no reason for Howie Mandel to be on the fucking stage. And I went on the stage and, um, then I realized, oh shit, people are looking at me. This is the most embarrassing. This is the most humiliating. This is the most terrifying moment for me in this moment. So I started to panic. And in my panic, I started going, if you look at old YouTube videos of me, my act is me panicking and it's me going, okay,

all right. Okay. All right. Oh, okay. All right. And then they start laughing at me panicking and I go, what, what, what? And that's, and then, and then I didn't know what the fuck to do. And I put my hands in my pocket. And because we've talked about, I have OCD, you know, I carried rubber gloves with me always. And because I, if I was out in public, I was going to go to a public restroom and I didn't want to touch anything. And I had gloves and I didn't know what to do. I had the glove came out of my pocket because my hands were in my pocket. So I pulled it over my head. I pulled it over my head.

And I just started breathing. And the fingers are going up and down. The crowd's going crazy. And I blow up the glove. And I pop it off. And they roar. And I had enough sense to go, good night. And I walked off.

And Mark Breslin, did you ever work at Yuck Yucks in Toronto? Yeah, I've been at Yuck Yucks in Vancouver. Yeah, so Mark, the owner, said, you've got to come back tomorrow. And I said, for what? He goes, to do it again. I go, do what? He goes, do what you fucking did. And that became my thing.

Wow. I never wrote anything. I didn't have anything. And then when I watched Richard Pryor, I went, you know what? You've got to be lucky if you're talking about your life. You got to be lucky if you're talking about your life, if you're talking about real, relatable or acting out authenticity, people seem to be to gravitate toward authenticity, toward real, toward who you are. Even more than though I did love the guys who did jokes. I loved Rodney Dangerfield and I loved, you know, George Carlin.

But even in his later years, he just started talking about his philosophies, which I actually loved even more, you know, but that's who I kind of look up to. Well, the beautiful thing is there's no one way to do it. You know, there's so many different ways. That's one of the weird things about comedy is that it's something that everybody enjoys, but there's no real school for it. Like you can go to school and learn how to play guitar. There's some amazing guitar instructors, amazing people that could teach you how to write music, but there's nothing for you other than paying attention and trying to figure it out. And if you had told me, like, if I didn't know you and you said, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go on stage. I don't have anything prepared. I'm just going to like fumble through it. And I got some rubber gloves in case shit goes sideways.

I'm like, oh, my God. I'm going to watch a spectacular bombing. I would sit in the back of the room like, this guy's going to eat shit. But no, because whatever it is that you have, this weird, intangible thing that you can't write down, that you can do that. And it's hilarious. My friend Dimitri, rest in peace. He, uh, sent me, he, he gave me one of your CDs when we were both like, I guess I was like 21 or 22. When did you do your first CD? Uh, I did an album in 84. Okay. So somewhere around then a little bit after that, he gives me the CD.

And it was a lot of that. But it was so funny. It was so ridiculous. We were like crying laughing. Like me and him. He's like this fucking hulking national taekwondo champion dude. This enormous heavyweight guy. And he's like dying laughing.

Just dying laughing. With two of us in my car. Just laughing our asses off. Because I'm just silly. But it was so good, dude. It was so fun. And it was one of those things where you can't figure out why that's funny. Because it's funny. The sense of humor.

I think most people don't have a sense of humor. I always say this. And a sense of humor is to find humor where other people don't find it. Richard Pryor found it in a very dark, bleak, historical upbringing, you know, and characters that were probably scary, probably fucked up. And when he imitated them and told you these stories, we laughed really hard. You know, that's why the tragedy and the comedy masks are very close together. They are close together. And if you could find the humor in those moments,, that's why the tragedy and the comedy masks are very close together. They are close together. And if you could find the humor in those moments, then that's what it is.

The humor for me is I was drowning in public, you know, and I have. And that's the truth. And I, you know, as a kid growing up, I didn't have a fucking friend in the world. I'm weird. I have mental health issues. I which weren't diagnosed until I was in my 40s and Everything I was ever expelled for gotten in trouble for paid for is I mean is what I get paid for today And I found you know, I found a stream that is flowing my way

But it's I feel more lucky than skilled Well, what was it like because you had to develop an act right? Because then you went on to do these huge places and you're doing an hour, like you had an act. So how did you, did you just piece it together with all the different performances? Yes. So what I do and still do now is I, I put together an act. I put together, like if something funny happens, I realized, well, then you could just talk about it and you can just talk about it. And if you really talk about it, then it becomes something funny.

And you could even talk about how I'm putting together an act. You know, I was talking about how in my act, you know, I'm here playing in town. I want to come over to- Come over. Can I play? Two shows tonight. I would love to drop in. Come on down.

Jim Brewer's going to be there. I love Jim Brewer. I love Jim Brewer. I love Jim Brewer. And the club looks amazing. I've been watching it online, and I saw Chappelle. Everybody who's anybody comes by, I would like to. I'm playing the Paramount Theater tonight. Rob White's coming by tonight as well.

I would love to come by. You've got to come by. I would definitely come by. There's a seven and a ten. If nothing else, just to see the table in the green room. Dude, you're coming on stage. That table's amazing, isn't it? Is that a real thing?

No, it's carved. It's all carved out of wood. It looks like a crocodile or a snake. Yeah, this is a guy, Scott Dow. And it's the underscore Dow, I think, on Instagram. I don't know. Whatever it is. He's an amazing artist that used to cut things like ice sculptures and stuff with chainsaws.

artist that used to cut things like ice sculptures and stuff with chainsaws and then he eventually started doing these tables that are these 3d tables with like crocodiles swimming like halfway above the water it's sick well that's artworks incredible well his artwork is is incredible I always wonder about these guys who do ice sculptures like your work is fucking incredible yeah it's gone but this one is this is an anaconda The reason why I wanted an anaconda is jujitsu And jujitsu obviously Brazilian jiu-jitsu comes from Brazil. The anaconda is the biggest snake in Brazil it's the apex predator these fucking things are enormous and

You know, there's there's even moves called the anaconda that people use in jujitsu Because it's just yeah because it's just like this thing that's There's even moves called the anaconda that people use in jiu-jitsu. I didn't know that. Yeah, because it's just like this thing that squishes you. Is that your thing, jiu-jitsu? I know you're a fighter too. You're mixed martial arts, right? Yeah, I've practiced Brazilian jiu-jitsu for a long time. Yeah.

Right. It's really great stuff. I'm not a fighter. But the thing is, that's why I had that guy do a snake. So it makes sense. Yeah. But it was great even when it didn't make sense to me. It's just so, his stuff, he does so many different things.

He does skulls. He has one, see if you can find that one where he has a sea monster. There's a sea monster that's attacking a boat. Like a mythical sea monster that's attacking an old ship in these raging waters on this table. It's incredible. The stuff he does is just mind-blowing. You like art. You have amazing art in this amazing museum

of a place that you have taken over. Art's incredible. And plus, this is the only place where I really get to decorate. I have zero say over my own home. I bought a warehouse, too. My wife lets me bring... That's the best way to do it.

That way nobody gets mad at the house. I have two Greg Overton paintings. He's gorgeous. Three of them actually now. He does this incredible Native American art. And I have three of those in my house. That's it. Everything else.

And she's okay with that. Yeah, my office is chaos. How old are your kids now? Well, I have a 10-year-old that we moved out here. She was 10. Now she's 12. And a 12-year-old that's now 14. They go every year. Don't you find they get older at the last time i saw you you were in

calabasas california on your way to a father-daughter dance oh yeah at round meadow or something or yes yeah those are fun those are fun father-daughter dances yeah dance with your kids it's so it's so interesting so interesting watching them. I just introduced my 12-year-old to South Park. Does she have that sense of humor? Oh my God. When you have not, she's almost 13, you have not heard the wails of hilarity.

There's the, ah! She could not believe what they were getting away with. She couldn't believe it. I go, honey, you can watch that. She likes to binge watch shows like she's into The Walking Dead. Right. I'm like, you can binge watch this to the end of time. They have like a million episodes and they're all funny.

The biggest joy for me, for my children, is to find that they have a sense of humor. That was the most important thing for me. Just know what is funny. Yes. Just know. Don't take things so seriously. Don't be so dramatic. Just find, even in something horrible, because that's what's gotten

me through life, is just the ability to laugh at something. So when you introduce something to your kids and they just explode over it, I think that's, like you're telling me with such joy. She's all in. She got a South Park hat at Spencer Gifts. What is it?

It's not Spencer Gifts. What's it called? Is that what it's called? What's that one that's out here? Same kind of thing. Do you like living out here? I love it. I love it out here.

Because you're a Boston kid, right? Yes. Well, that's where I went to high school. I basically lived everywhere. I lived in New Jersey until I was seven. I lived in San Francisco until I was 11. I lived in Florida until I was 13, 11 to 13. I lived in Boston 13 to 24.

Then I moved to New York for a little while. Actually, I think I moved to New York when I was 23. And so it was back and forth. And then I lived in New York for a couple years, then I moved out here. I talk to Bill Blumenreich a lot. I love that dude. Yeah, he loves you.

He loves you. I've been working for him since 1989. Yeah, so I'm partners He loves you. I don't work for him since 1989 Yeah, so I'm partners with him in some stuff. He's the man. He is the man He did he not put you in the business when you a driver. He certainly helped me. Yeah, he got me spots for sure He took care of me. I was a limo driver, right? Yeah, you're a let my manager is a funny story My manager used to manage Bob Nelson and him and Bob Nelson were splitting up. And he came to Boston looking for new talent because he felt like he'd seen everybody in New York. And I was driving limos for Fifth Avenue Limousine, and I had an idea that came to me. I'm like, oh, my God, I think this is legit.

And so I called up Oliver, who was the manager of the club, and I said, hey, man, can I get like a 10-minute spot tonight? He was like, yeah, absolutely. And so he hooked me up. I came down and did a guest spot. The bit killed. I had no idea. Do you know what that bit is? I have no idea.

No idea what it was. I forgot completely. But it went well. And my manager, who's my manager still, was in the back of the room. I was basically an open mic-er. I was really only like a couple years into comedy. Wow. And I was just starting to get some paid work on the road,

like middling for local acts at shitty bars in the middle of nowhere, those kind of gigs. And he said, can I see you tomorrow night? And the thing about it is if I had known he was there, I would not have done that bit, because I do remember the bit was dirty. And back then in the 80s- Yeah, you had to work clean.

You had to work clean. you would never get far in the business if you work dirty and I was like god damn it like but that's what I like I like Dice Clay I like Sam Kinison I like Richard Pryor and I remember this guy told me I swear too much this host of an open mic night fuck him no no but just it was in his mind that you had to get on a sitcom it was in his mind that you had to get on that was a path was in his mind that you had to get on a snitch. That was the path. That's what I was talking about earlier. He was right to give me the advice career-wise.

He just didn't understand that I didn't think that way. I wasn't interested. Right. And he goes, I go, but that's what I like. I look like Dice Clay. He goes, yeah, but you're not Dice Clay. I go, okay, I'm not. But how do I become me if I can't do what I like?

Right. And luckily I didn't listen to him. And here you are today. This manager guy, he takes me to a bunch of different places, and then he took me to Fast Eddie's, which is a bar in Huntington, Long Island. And there's this dude named George Gallo who's on stage who's hilarious. And he had a bit where he would put a banana in his mouth and do a reverse shit. It was so ridiculous.

He was so ridiculous, but he was really funny like really eccentric and my manager sees this he goes listen i'm gonna get you out of this you don't have to do this i mean it's a dive bar people are hammered i go no no no no no no i go these are my people get me up there i go trust me and i just went up there and fucking killed and was all dirty it was all sex stuff and then he he was like, okay, I changed my mind. You're going to have to go dirty. It's going to be hard. You're not going to get on television, but that's the real you. That's the real you.

Well, there was no pathway. That's what I'm talking about. You created, and you created a new pathway. Well, there was a pathway. It just was a rocky one. You know, it's like, it seemed like it had already been taken by the outlaws of comedy, like the Kinnisons and those guys. And the new pathway seemed to be sitcoms.

Everybody wanted to be Brett Butler and Roseanne and Seinfeld. Everybody wanted to get a sitcom. Right. But even getting a sitcom, it was one shot, one shot on The Tonight Show. And you were given a development deal by one of the three networks that existed. And if you were lucky enough to partner with the right kind of writer, then you ended up on the air. So it was kind of an easy path.

Yeah, but I had that path too because I got a development deal from MTV's Half Hour Comedy Hour. I did the Half Hour Comedy Hour and I managed to be clean. So I did like a clean five minutes and I got a development deal. The Half Hour Comedy Hour was five minutes clean?

Yeah, you didn't do a half hour. It was called the MTV Half Hour Comedy Hour. So it was a half hour and several comedians would do that. Oh, so you only had to do five minutes. I don't remember what I did, but it wasn't long and it was clean. Maybe it was ten at the most, at the most probably. You know, there was those TV shows. They had a ton of them. I remember I saw Rob Schneider

on it. I saw Sandler on it. You remember? Did you ever do half hour comedy hour? I didn't do the half hour comedy hour. You were already too big by then. Well, I did Evening at the Improv. I did Norm Crosby's Comedy Shop. You were already really big by the time I was an open Evening at the Improv. Right. I did Norm Crosby's Comedy Shop. You were already really big by the time I was an open mic-er. Because when I remember- What you're saying, 94 is when you started? 88.

I started at the Comedy Store in 94. So 88- I started at Stand Up in 88. So I had finished doing St. Elsewhere in 87. Wow. So I was already done. Like, I was trying to get a sitcom, too. I forgot about St. Like, I was trying to get a sitcom, too. I forgot about saying elsewhere.

Oh, I did. The thing that blasted me off and probably my hottest point in my career was I did a young comedian special. I did the sixth annual young comedian special on HBO. I got cast by George Carlin's wife, Barbara. May she rest in peace. And it was me. These were the kids that were on it that were unknown. It was me, Jerry Seinfeld, Richard Lewis and Harry Anderson. And it was hosted by the Smothers Brothers. And after that, I could sell 10,000 tickets. I would do two shows a night in these, you know, outdoor sheds. And then the next I couldn't get on The Tonight Show, but I could I could sell tickets. I was on Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas and all those. Johnny didn't like me.

Well, the guy that was doing the casting didn't like me. So I went and met at MTM. I went and met Mary Tyler Moore at Radford. Yeah, CBS Radford. CBS Radford. I went and met them at a general meeting to maybe get a development deal and get a sitcom because they were known

at the time in 82, that's right after I blasted off, they were known as the sitcom kings of the world. They had the Newhart show,

they had done Mary Tyler Moore, they had all these other shows and Molly Lopata, who was the casting lady there, I'm sitting in her office, she goes, can you act?

I said, I don't know, I don't know, you know, I'm a comic, I don't know. office she goes can you act i said i don't know i don't know you know i'm a comic i don't know and she goes read this and i read this bullshit piece of shit i don't know what it was but none of it made sense to me it was like all this big terminology she says come down the hall i went down the hall and i met now i know it's with mark tinker and bruce paltrow gwenna's dad and I read the same thing. I got halfway through. They went, thank you. And I went home and my wife asked me, like, how did it go?

And I went, you know, I didn't get it, whatever it is, but it was the shittiest sitcom. There was nothing funny. I didn't read. I read this medical shit. There's nothing funny. And then I get a call an hour later to go down and meet with brandon tartikoff who is the who ran nbc he created all the classic shows of the time you know like cheers and taxi and all these shows that were at one time you know huge hits i went and met him i went down there this is on a friday and he had me read that

same scene again and they said we'll see you monday thinking that oh i'm getting a call back for this shitty sitcom and they called my agent called me at home and said, you got it. I said, what the fuck did I get? And I got this thing called sane elsewhere. And apparently it had been shooting for a week and they wanted to recast some of the parts I'm recast. And I played this guy Fiscus for six years on this dramatic series. That's where Denzel Washington came out of. We both, that's where he launched. He didn't have, yeah, there's, there's me and Denzel and David Morse. And, uh, you know, I think Tim Robbins and Ray Liotta and all these other people, Kathy Bates did their first guest appearances and acting appearances on this thing.

Mark Harmon. Mark Harmon's started there too. That's Mark Harmon. Sexiest man alive one of those years. Yeah, well, you remember all the sexiest men alive. Just a few. Yeah, and Bill Daniels, he was Kit and Norman Lloyd, who just died at 106 at the bottom there. Norman Lloyd. Who's that

gentleman to the left of Denzel? I know that guy. To the left. David Morse. Yes. David Morse. He's been in everything. And so was Bill Daniels, was in The Graduate, Mark Harmons on NCIS. Norman Lloyd was the muse for Alfred Hitchcock. He was the bad guy in Spellbound.

Whoa. So I walked onto this, and I replaced the guy by the name of David Pamer. Do you know who that is? No. He won. I got nominated for an Academy Award for Mr. Saturday Night. I think he played Billy Crystal's brother in Mr. Saturday Night.

Whoa. That's who I replaced. Oh, yeah, that guy's great. Another Jew-y looking guy. He's great, though. Yeah, he is great, and I was so happy. I always felt guilty taking somebody's place. you know taking somebody's place there's some of those guys that will they'll play like a tortured intellect like a very high anxiety guy like he's the best at that shit yes when you play

you you like get tense like whenever he's dealing with something like oh shit there's some guys that just know how to fucking there's like these daniel dayLewis type characters, these weird characters. Like they just see more. What was his name? The guy who died of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Holy shit, was he one of those guys? Yeah. When he had a scene, like you get emotionally connected. You knew it was Philip Seymour Hoffman.

You believed whatever the fuck he was selling in spite of the fact you knew who he was. I think that these guys have a real pain inside of them anyhow. And these jobs allow them to let it seep to the surface and we get to enjoy it. I don't know how you can be a happy person and do that. I don't think these are happy people, all the people you mentioned. I don't know that they were happy. I don't know that. I'm not happy. So, you know, and I'm this goofy. But you seem happy. I know. You seem happy when you're around people. That's why it's confusing. That's the scariest thing. Yeah. Nobody's more confused than me. And right now, as I talk to you, I'm incredibly medicated and I am. What do they get you on? I'm not talking about what I'm on because

people, it may not be good for you and I don't want people to take. Well, that's very admirable of you. Yeah, but I do, I get help. I'm surrounded by people. The dichotomy between how I feel and what I do is huge. You know, I'm a fucking mess. And, you know, I deal with depression and anxiety. It's unfortunate because you're such a nice guy. Every encounter I've ever had with you has been so pleasant, so fun, and so nice. I always walk away going, Howie is like the nicest fucking guy. Thank you.

I always feel that way. So when I hear about a person like you that doesn't feel well, that gets depressed, I'm like, God damn it, when he's around people, he seems so happy.

I'll tell you why. Because like in this moment, I'm talking to you. So I'm in this moment, you know, listening to you, responding to you. Right now you're happy.

I'm distracted. You know, responding to you. Right now you're happy. I'm distracted. You know, so I am. Because the worst thing for me is quiet time. You know, I don't like night time. I don't like when I get into my own head. That's why I like stand-up comedy. Because in those moments, you're

just in the moment, because you have to be. You know, I could, if I veered off into the darkness that is me, and not listening to a word you're saying, and not. You know, I could, if I veered off into the darkness that is me and not listening to a word you're saying and not trying to respond, I'm just trying to, you know, I feel like I'm balancing on this little ledge all the time. And these words and these interactions hold me, are my cable that hold me on this side of it without falling off. Wow.

That's heavy. It is heavy. You know, it's like OCD has become a vernacular for a joke. I can't tell you how many times a day somebody comes up to me and they go, you know, I'm a little OCD-ish. I want all my stuff lined up. I like to stay clean too. That's not OCD. They've used that as a word for being fastidious or neat. OCD- Slightly compulsive. It's not obsessive compulsive. Well, the obsession is the part that when you are obsessed with a thought and you can't get a

thought out of your head, no matter how dark it is, or you can't get a ritual out of your head and you can't move on. You think about Howard Hughes was probably one of the brightest, most productive engineering marvels of our time. And so many in technology and artistry and everything. And his last few years, he was in the fetal position naked in his room pissing into a bottle. Right? And I tell people at any given moment when you're with me, I can't tell you, I'm not that far from that. So I'm always just trying to toe the line and be on this side of that door. Have you done anything else that helps other

than meditation? Have you tried, other than medication, have you tried meditation? I've tried meditation and I do meditation. I've tried everything outside of the, and I'm not opposed to it, the psychedelics and mushrooms and things like that. I don't know if anybody would recommend that to you. Well, here's the problem for me. In order to do that. You'd have to get off your medication. Right. And to get off my, I don't know that I could survive that bridge from my medication to doing that.

So the medication is, for my, my lifeline. You would have to be like very, very closely supervised during that entire time. I wouldn't, I wouldn't know how anyone would approach something like that. Cause I think you're, you're dealing with a very specific kind of case. And most of the people that advocate for psychedelics do not advocate, advocate it for people that are really struggling mentally just to keep it together right now you know and to get off the medication which is helping you keep it together it probably doesn't seem wise but there's ways you can do it without drugs there's like the holotropic

breathing there's some people who practice I have never experienced this so this is me talking about in my ass but I have direct experienced this, so this is me talking out of my ass, but I have direct connections with people that have done kundalini yoga. There's a specific style of kundalini yoga, a specific way that you can achieve these bizarre states, altered states that are similar to like mushrooms or a DMT experience. They're similar to psychedelics. DMT experience. They're similar to psychedelics. According to people that I know that have actually done the psychedelics and have gotten obsessed with Kundalini, and they say they can get to that place on their own, which is really fascinating. If you know somebody, then give me a card before I leave here today. I do not know anybody. Well, I know some martial artists that have done it, but they don't teach it. But I do know that there's a great place in LA

that teaches Kundalini yoga. Well, if anybody's listening to this and you're, I'll read the comments if you have any recommendations. Yeah. I, again, this is not, I don't have personal experience with this, so I'm just relaying other people's anecdotes and seems interesting. But regular yoga for me, I really like a lot. I run. Running's great. But running, I use it as a meditation.

I just, I don't even listen to music. I just listen to the, my, I do it on a treadmill. I don't even listen to music. I just listen to my – I do it on the treadmill, and I just listen to my feet hitting the treadmill and my breath. And I'll do that for an hour every day. That's amazing for you. That's fantastic. It's good for my physical health, but it's also better for my mental health. So to me, that's kind of a medication. It is a medication.

Yeah, it is a medication. And a meditation. And just staying crazy busy is my other form of I'm really busy. That's good, though. It seems like everything you're doing you enjoy. So even though you're busy, you're busy doing fun stuff. this overlay of terror to think whatever I'm doing is going to end, whatever I'm doing will get me in trouble. You know, like the truth of the matter is when I found stand-up, stand-up was the most freeing thing in the world.

It was the one place where unlike, you know, acting, I didn't have to recite any lines. I didn't have to hit any marks. You could do anything. And that's why I've been such an advocate for you and all these guys that liked a very specific type of comedy just like people like a specific type of hip-hop or specific type of rock music they like that kind of comedy that's always been my favorite and so there was no place where you could just be free other than

stand-up comedy and stand-up comedy in LA was always at least flavored by the entertainment industry out here it's the podcasts so it's like your mom's house is here because Tom Segura is here and Christina Pazitsky's here Tim Dillon's shows here Duncan Trussell's here it's like all the Tony Hinchcliffe who has Kill Tony which is the best live podcast in the world they do live stand-up and amateurs actually get a career out of it. They get to do one minute and get judged and critiqued by comics, and everybody goofs on everybody. And guys have gone on to become headliners from that show.

No, that's what I'm saying. That's what the shift is out here. Were you out here before them? I came out first. Right. But Ron White was already here. Ron White moved here before the pandemic. He fucking loves it.

He goes, I fucking love it. It's the best fucking city in the world. And I was like, God damn it. Ron White's smart. Maybe he's right. And when the pandemic hit and we came to look out here and my kids loved it, I was like, I'm in. And my wife reluctantly at first, but loves it now.

And now I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. It's fucking amazing. There's so many great comics out here right now. Well, that's what I'm saying. But you feel that this is the epicenter, don't you? Well, I wanted to build it to give people a real stand-up home. I mean, we were already, like, we already had shows

that we're doing at the Creek in the Cave and the Vulcan pretty much every week. But I wanted to do something where it was, like, really designed to, first of all, to foster new talent. So we have two open mic nights, two nights. And then we have, after the open mic nights, two nights. And then we have, after the open mic nights, the door guys, all the people that work there, guys and gals, they all audition.

So they're all stand-ups. And so all those people are very talented. And so they get like real stage time in front of packed crowds. That's what the comedy store used to be. Yes. Well, that's what we're trying to do. And we're trying to do it in a way where, you know, everybody gets paid. There's plenty of money going around. It's really warm welcoming environment there's plenty of fun it's there's a lot of really great comics you can watch you might walk in there and boom rich

voss is on stage you walk in there shane gillis is on stage bill burr dropped into the amateur bill burr is on stage the open mic yeah he did two nights in a row yeah um you you see dave chappelle shows up i mean's like, that's what I wanted. And the fact that it happened so quickly and it worked out so well. So it's like, it took a long time to design, a long time to build, but we did it the right way. And this guy, Richard Weiss, who's the architect and the designer, he's the fucking man. And he put it together. I'll have him on one of these days to talk about it because it's really interesting.

He knows a lot about austin history so in the green room all the posters around the green room those are all from people that actually performed at the ritz because it used to be a punk rock club so it's like butthole surfers and the misfits and shit all that's the club that's now the yeah that's where the mothership is it's the ritz theater did you buy the building yeah it's a theater from 1927. Yeah. That's fantastic. It's pretty wild.

You've got to be proud. I'm very happy. But so we were talking about these guys and these podcasts. I'm also, you see, I'm torn because I am attached to that L.A. scene in as far as I enjoy doing America's Got Talent. I don't want it. So there's a dichotomy between Loving that kind of comedy wanting to do that kind of comedy and still taking it Well, the store is still in LA the store still in LA, right? But I'm talking about what you can do what you can do on stage versus yes

But yeah, if you want to stay on America's Got Talent, you can't get too crazy No, but my my leaning is leaning is that's what I watch. That's what I like. That's what I share amongst my friends. When I started out and I was just doing HBO specials, I did about 10 cable specials. That's what I was doing even before I got St. Elsewhere. And then I just like what network TV has. You know, I had a great time doing

Deal or No Deal. I had a great time doing AGT. I have a great time even doing, I'm doing a podcast with my daughter. But I also love that kind of humor that you and your buddies do. And you want to do it? Yeah.

You should do it. That's my sense of humor. You should do it yeah that's that's right you should do it that's my sense of humor you should do it yeah but i'm i yes i should i have to i i just things if you get in trouble and they get rid of you you'll just be selling out arenas everywhere you're right yeah yeah look at gillis right it's not gonna hurt you no no don't think so. I think if they're smart, they'd keep you on. I mean, you're not going to be mean. I'm not mean. It's just that... It's just raunchy.

But I think that raunchy... I think when something's wrong, when something's dark, when something... That's why it's funny. Sometimes. Yeah. Mostly. If you can find the right formula. But even in the most mundane jokes, like you said, these guys that write jokes.

If two guys walk into a bar, it's not a joke unless something fucked up happens to one of them. If they just walk in, they have a drink and leave, that's not a joke. That's a story. It may be a humorous story about what happened, but if it's a joke, something horrible has to happen to one of them. Right. Something

ridiculous has to be the result. And sometimes it's funny because it's so wrong. Because you're pushing the edge. And here we are in this millennium, and that edge seems to be moving back for more of the public. And I love that you can swim in this pond, which is a huge pond now. There are more people playing arenas than ever before. Ever when I started out, nobody was playing arenas. It was a big deal when Dice did.

Yeah. You know? Dice was the first, right? I think before that, Steve Martin? Yes, Steve Martin did Let's Get Small Tour was the first one

and I went to see it. I've never seen a comic in an arena, you know, and it was like fucking rock and roll and now every second comic is in an arena.

A lot of comics are now. A lot. It's the internet presence. It's podcasts and Netflix specials and YouTube specials. I got into podcasting not for standup. I got into podcasting just to have a reason to sit with my daughter. That's cool. Yeah, it is. It's fun. That's cool. Listen, man, you could do whatever you want. Thank you. But I get how you're feeling, and I get that you're attached to these things you enjoy doing. Yeah. You know, I do like it, but I love watching you.

I'm a huge fan of what you're doing. Let's see what happens tonight. Everybody has yonder bags, so the phones will be locked up, so you can get crazy. They do? At your club? Yes. Oh, I love it.

So then I can do my... You can get crazy. We'll tell everybody. Don't tell anybody. Don't tell anybody that I said cunt. Can I say cunt? You definitely can.

No, on this. Yeah, you did. I was... Yeah, it's all good. Yeah, I know. And then you can't... I already signed. Just coming here

was... It drove me crazy. You had a car pick me up and in the back of the car was dude wipes. I asked the guy, what's that? Is it for your balls? What is dude wipes? I think it's for your butt, right?

It's for everything. But just dude wipes bothered me. They're in the car. What would you do? You have a shitty ass in the car, and you want to wipe it off before you get out. In the fucking car. So they offer me that, and then I walk into this place, and the guy that's sitting right here says, got to sign this uh like a release yeah but it's not i i could

hold a pen with my sleeve it's a it was an ipad i had to touch you with the finger yeah so it's ridiculous why why don't you have like paper you don't want to freak anybody out with a handprint because then you'll think we're part of the new world order that's what we wanted to do and then you have the uh so i was freaked out just sitting here buy stuff at the supermarket now with your handprint what are you talking about yeah whole foods yeah whole foods what do you mean yeah you register your handprint and then you can pay with your handprint do you like that no i'm scared i'm terrified you see the shit that elon musk was saying that the head of google wants to do he wants to create a digital god and then elon was worried about the death of the species, and he called them

the death of humans, rather, and he called Elon a speciesist? Like a racist for an entire year. I didn't see that. See if you can find the video, because it's so bonkers. It's Elon talking about how general AI, which is general artificial intelligence. I know what that is. I watched your podcast. Just so the people that maybe never heard this before. They think that eventually what's going on with like chat GPT and all these things, you can answer any question that you have at any given time. Like they can pass the bar better than 98% of the population.

They could figure out complex math. Like chat GPT does some wild shit by literally scanning the entire internet There the main concern is that right now this is just just gathering information But if it goes to another place where it becomes Conscious and we create a digital life You're essentially going to have a digital God because it's gonna be smarter than any person who's ever lived ever by far And it's almost immediately gonna create a better version of itself. It's gonna to be smarter than any person who's ever lived ever by far. And it's almost immediately going to create a better version of itself. And it's going to continue to do that until it becomes a god.

I don't know. Right now, you can't picture who your god is. The fact that it's really improving itself, and we can point to it. Imagine if that is the birth of God, though. There's this perpetual cycle of humans creating God. Are you anti or pro AI? I don't know cycle of humans creating are you anti or pro ai i'm i don't know if it matters if i'm anti or pro my opinion is like i'm an observer of something insanely chaotic that seems to be sneaking up on people how did you feel about your how did you

feel about your uh it was you right your your ai well there's a bunch of AIs of me now doing fake commercials. There's me having podcasts with Steve Jobs. I saw the podcast. I saw that. Podcasts with Sam Altman, who's alive and I haven't met, but Steve Jobs is dead. And there's a podcast with me and Steve Jobs.

It's insane. Isn't that amazing? It's so wild. And it's just the beginning. There was a Drake song that went viral and they pulled it. With The Weeknd. Yeah yeah apparently it went viral and everybody loved it and they pulled it i know people are terrified of this thing no people

just couldn't figure out how to cash in on this thing well it's also they're terrified of it because they're going to become irrelevant if someone has your your sounds there was rihanna doing a beyonce song they might do whatever they want man they're going to be able to take you can you can they can have you say anything. Listen to this. I mean, the reason OP&I exists at all

is that Larry Page and I used to be close friends and I would stay at his house in Palo Alto and I would talk to him late into the night about AI safety.

And at least my perception was that Larry was not taking AI safety seriously enough. What did he say about it? He really seemed to be sort of a digital super intelligence, basically a digital god, if you will, as soon as possible. He wanted that? Yes. He's made many public statements over the years

that the whole goal of Google is what's called AGI, artificial general intelligence, or artificial super intelligence. But there's more to it where, is that the end of that one? That's the end of this one. See if you can find the rest of it, because the rest of it is where it's getting fascinating, where he warns him that this could be the end of the human race, and Larry Page calls him a speciesist.

I found them talking about that text. I didn't find the video. No, there's a video of it that I'll send to you. But it's like it's so bonkers. It's like, what the fuck are you guys talking about? But isn't that probably normal? Like, it seems like that's the general path that intelligence and innovation is going to go to it's going to go to something That's far more powerful than anything. We've ever created before that's good, but we're afraid of it. Yes. No, I'm not

interesting, I'm not I in fact my wife got mad at me because I I Licensed my AI to a Korean company. Oh boy I licensed my AI to a Korean company. Oh, boy. Is that a problem? No. She thinks it is. And maybe you do, too.

I found it, Jamie. Oh, you got it? I'll watch this. But I just feel this is the way it's going. What we don't know instills fear. So try, instead of touting all the negativity and all the fear mongering that this is going to cause, let's embrace it and figure out how we can control it or at least work with it to better who we are and how we do things. What if it's already here? It is.

What if that's why our cities are falling apart? That's why crime is rising. That's why we're embroiled in these tribal arguments that seem to be separating the country. And some of them seem to be trivial things. Because your conversation right now is exactly what's happening. I agree with you. But why are you making AI another tribe? You know, you're just, that's why we're tribal. No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is, what if that is the reason why all this is happening? What if the best way to get human beings to, if you want to take over, why would you fight us? They've seen Terminator. They know there's guns and tanks and all this craziness. How about just continue to degrade and erode the fiber of civilization to the point where you have to, there's no more jobs. You have to provide people with income, universal basic income, free electricity, free food, free internet. So everybody gets all this stuff. They get free money, free food, free internet, and then nobody

does anything. And then people stop having babies and then birth rate drops off to a point where the technology you give people is so fantastic that nobody wants to miss it. Nobody wants to have it. But this is what I would do if I was an artificial general intelligence. I would say, listen, I have all the time in the world. I don't have a biological lifetime. And these people haven't realized that I'm sentient yet. So what's the best way to gain complete and total control? Well, first of all, trick them into like communism or socialism or something where there's a centralized control and definitely have centralized digital money. And then once you've got all that, give them technology and perks and things and divvy up

all the money from the rich people that you subjugate and give that money to people, print it, do whatever the fuck you want, and then get people to like a minimum state of existence where everything's free. Free food, free internet, free cell phones, free everything. And then wait for them to die off. And if, for what purpose? Because you don't need them around anymore but develop technology that's so in captivating whether it's the metaverse or the next iteration or a neural link develop the matrix literally develop something that's so spectacular that no

one wants to leave it and why would you want to why would you want to have a kid if you've got a button on your phone that you could come 30 times in a row? You probably wouldn't. You probably wouldn't go on dates. You'd probably just be eating food and experiencing the joy of flying like an eagle over a river. You'd be experiencing space travel. You're going to be able to experience things

that are so beyond what's available in the real world. You won't really engage with the real world. And then people just die off. Do you believe this is what's available in the real world, you won't really engage with the real world. And then people just die off. Do you believe this is what's going on? It's just a dumb theory that I had when I was high. Are you high right now? No, not right now. Okay.

But I came in, I said I wanted to be distracted, so I wasn't depressed. It's not depressing. But it is. You're talking about the end of the world. As we know it. I feel like we are a digital caterpillar. We are. We're creating a cocoon, and we're going to give birth to the next form of existence the next form of life

to cohabitate with hopefully that would be nice i think maybe it'll help us get our shit together so therein lies the reason that i licensed my ai because i want to maintain some control. And, you know, you're taking nine steps forward. I'm just trying to live in the now. I think the now is very temporary right now. I think we're moving faster than we ever have. So fast. The now we're experiencing right now, what I'm getting out of like chat GPT-4 and these emerging technologies is that we really as lay people have no understanding of where this is going and it's happening so so rapidly at such a groundbreaking way like I don't even realize how I think chat GPT-4 is as groundbreaking as the printing press I think it's bananas oh I believe. It's some new thing that's going to completely change how people interface with information,

completely change how people get answers to ideas and jobs that are necessary that will not be necessary anymore. There's going to be so many things you'll be able to do, taxes, so many things you're going to be able to do. But that being said, on the other side of it, maybe this is a great tool that will enhance whatever our future is instead of take away us from the future. Both. I think both. I think we're going to integrate. If I had to guess, I would say that the way through this thing without becoming extinct is that we integrate. And I think that's probably what happens in the universe. what happens in the universe. I think civilization gets to a point where they develop things that are so transformative that it's one of the things that when we look at intelligence, what we're really concerned with is your ability to manipulate your environment. Because otherwise, we would all

be absolutely fascinated with orcas, and we'd be outraged that they're at SeaWorld. Because these are literally things that are probably as intelligent, if not more intelligent than us. We don't even understand their languages. They have different dialects. They have enormous brains. And we're not really fascinated by them because they can't manipulate their environment. We don't have it. But we, when you say we, we don't have humans. But I'm saying we don't have access to even know that. There is an end and the metaverse gives you access to become fascinated with an orca. Sure. But that's what I'm saying. So it kind of enhances and opens up that the problem is that we're not fascinated because what kid in Wisconsin who's nowhere near a sea world, who's nowhere near

water, who's nowhere, what access does he have? Not onlyually, the digital universe is bringing the world to everybody. Absolutely. I agree. That's the great part about it. The metaverse, like Zuckerberg, he gave us a demo. And one of the parts of the demo is you could do tourism. So you could be walking around the Acropolis in Greece. You could walk around the pyramids.

There's so many opportunities to go to places and experience it in 3D high resolution in these headsets. It's incredible. But that's just for now. I think the next stages are going to be so overwhelmingly advanced. I think it's going to happen so exponential and so fast that I think we're- It is. I'm really involved in, not as involved as you or any of these people that you speak of in technology. You know, I'm in this, the world of holograms. I work with this company. I sit on the board of this company called Proto Hologram. You know, and I came to it because I saw it online.

You can go see it on, go on Instagram and look at Proto Hologram. Help me, Obi-Wan. Your only hope. Right. That's what we thought it was going to be. Yeah, but I can be anywhere. I don't have to be here, and you could see me in 3D with no latency, and I can interact and see you.

Remember when they did that on CNN? Yes. Yes. Why'd they stop doing that? That was pretty dope. Maybe it cost them money. I can do it now at a price. In fact, you should talk about having one of these

in your club, because you can have any comic at any time, sit down and do a Q&A and have it. one in jimmy kimmel's club in in vegas there it is the epic you can be you can be anywhere that's incredible and you don't need special lighting for it go to the instagram and see a see a a play of it so the you could kind of say like this what what is based on your philosophy we'll never go out again we'll never go anywhere we don't have to travel we don't have to go anywhere we can just i think for us though for us current humans this model of human that we currently are both i think

that we enjoy actual physical experiences you do you don't enjoy them. Not so much. So you would be very happy with holograms. I go, look, this is, I had Nick Cannon, who's on my podcast this week, he came in, he was at a hologram, he said he wants one of those

for each of his baby mama's houses so he can visit his baby. But you see, all you need, and you can do it on your side, you can do it with just an iPhone, and you can see, there's a camera at the top of it.

And you can see in real time your audience, the person you're visiting. And you can also, that's like an iPad. So there can be graphics and a barcode and everything right there. So people can get information. You can talk in real time. And he can have a camera pointed at the audience. So he could actually see the audience. That is what, see the top of the box right there?

Yeah, where he is? That's a camera pointed at the audience so he could actually see the top of the box right there yeah where he is that's a camera not only is it not only is it shooting for him to see but it's also um this is another scary thing but it's collecting analytics so it knows who's in front of it oh how old you are everything recognition from fbi you're gonna get everybody on tape yeah look there was wow sagura did it yeah sagura did it well that that was... Whitney Cummings used it at the Bert Kreischer thing. We built a porta potty around it, a proto potty. But that was pre-taped. But he could have done that live and seen him. That was pre-taped, so he just used it as a video.

But all this technology, to answer your question, which could be like you can say, well, we don't have to travel anymore. We're going to be locked in our own little worlds. Yeah. At the same time, it gives me access to worlds that I couldn't go to. You can go do, I can go to a con a concert right now. I could take one of those boxes and be all over the world. We have them at all over the world in Japan and London, all over Asia, everywhere. I could be in 20,000 theaters all at the same time and see every face of every person. Whoa.

So I can do a world tour without getting on a plane. That's pretty dope. I'm still going to want to see people live, but I could totally see why that would be very appealing to a lot of people. You think you want to see people live, but I'm telling you, even at the mothership, if somebody didn't want to fly in, if during the day you wanted to do Q and A's with Chappelle or whatever, I promise you that those people sitting in the room will feel like, and he

will feel like he's in the room with them talking to them. It's a great idea. It is a great idea, but that's, I think that speaks, that's just one part. That's interesting. I'm interested in that. That's interesting. Yeah. So what I'm saying is technology can be really scary. It could fuck you up. It's kind of like the knife. Yeah, but it's also, look, I love the technology of cell phones. You know, I'm so hypocritical in that way.

Like a part of me is like, my God, we're so addicted to these things. But also look how goddamn convenient it is. You can take photo and video anytime you want. When's the last time you made a phone call? You don't anymore. I make them all the time. Oh, you do? Yeah.

I like talking to people. Okay. You have to talk to Joey Diaz. You can't text him. If you text him, he's like, call me, cocksucker. And you got to call him. Okay. So for Joey Diaz, we can't lose that connection.

I like talking to people, man. But you can text. You can send pictures. That's your computer. You can do your work. You can do research. You can can text. You can send pictures. That's your computer. You can do your work. You can do research. Memes. Memes. You can do everything. I'm on TikTok. You can do whatever you want to do

from this little piece of technology and that piece of technology. It's definitely got pros and cons. And I don't even know if the cons are con. It's just an inevitability. And I love that the artificial intelligence can enhance my intelligence. And I could write a paper or a speech or come up with something or do a duet with somebody without even being there. Yeah.

The issue that I have is can I maintain ownership of it? So it's more economical and it's more about economics for me and licensing and ownership and IP. I wonder if eventually that's going to be insurmountable, that the Internet and the data will be so it would be so available that we won't be able to lock things down anymore. Well, that's already happening, you know, in the old days. Napster. That was the Napster. But even Spotify today, like you're on Spotify. I don't know that the average musician is as happy as they were when they were just working with a record company who were just dealing with terrestrial radio. Well, they were definitely happier when they were selling records. Right. Because selling records was huge.

Right. And now nobody buys, I mean, very few people buy records. Right. They download them. So if you were having the conversation two decades ago about what you're broadcasting on right now people would go we're going to lose control everybody's going to have access to everything and there's they can manipulate it but it also gives it's easy access i don't have to get up and go to a record store to find out who this artist

that i love is and listen to this artist or listen to this podcast. What I love more than anything is that you can ask your phone while you're driving. You press a button on Apple CarPlay and say, play Taylor Swift, Better Man, and it'll just play it instantly. I was with my daughter the other day and we're just, I was like, what do you want to play? And she, I don't know these fucking songs. And she would just like, tell me what to play. And you can just talk to the thing. I don't have to look at my she would just like tell me what to play and you could just talk to the thing I don't I don't have to look at my phone. I just ask it and Instantly it's playing it's amazing. So are you afraid of this future that no listen? I'm not I told you I'm afraid because I know it's inevitable. I'm not afraid. I'm just like

We this is gonna be wild right? It's it's just a recognition of what I think is the inevitable. Here's my fear. My fear is that we are not preparing for it, that it's going to happen. People like you who are very clear-minded are thinking about it. You are few and far between. If you go into it, you know, my daughter is a teacher. Our curriculum is not set up to even, you know, the math they're learning, no life skills, nothing. They're not really learning to code.

Code should be like we learned cursive. You know, it's not part of our curriculum. Our world technically doesn't match our education. And we need to match that so there isn't fear. So we know we can find a way to control it or access it or use it yeah and we don't have that and we're not even set up for that well Andrew Yang talks about that a lot he talks about automation and that AI and automations can replace so many

jobs there's gonna be a giant percentage of our population that just no longer is employable whatever their skill was, they're going to have to find a totally new skill. That's why he was an advocate of universal basic income to bridge that gap. And I totally agree with him. It seems like that's definitely happening. You know, the original, they talk about, you know, we had the industrial revolution and that's kind of gone. You know, it's now the digital revolution. And, you know, the, the template was like Detroit, right? Where you got, everybody just got an kind of a C education, but then once you graduated, you can, if you, if you had connections, you can get a job on the assembly line at Ford and you would be taken care of for life not only even after you worked in the benefits and

then now we have no I'm still drinking this Laird it's really good it's good stuff Laird Hamilton coffee which is pretty bomb diggity it is bomb diggity that's the turmeric turmeric how do you say it turmeric I say turmeric turmeric you say turmeric yeah I've heard people say it that way. I think they're wrong, though. I think it's turmeric. But I'm just saying we're just not prepared. Yes, we're not. And what's really interesting is technology has, I think, since the beginning of time, been ahead of the curve. We invent something, we come up with something, and then we figure out, how do you use this?

Right. Like, they don't know what it's going to, what the implementation think some people do and that's the real fear some people like this guy who's advocating for a digital god like they do know where it's going because they actually work in technology it's not freaking them out but it's like columbus you know like everybody thought the world was flat he got a couple of people to get on a boat and fly and we didn't know what that was going to mean see if we can find where Elon talks about this part because that was the most fascinating time I mean the reason opening I exist at all this is what he said earlier but it's gonna Larry

usually close friends and I was at his house in Palo Alto and I would talk to him you realize these are the people that are at the pinnacle of technology. And they're having slumber parties. And their very exception was that Larry was not taking AI safety seriously enough. What did he say about it? He really seemed to be sort of a digital super intelligence, basically a digital god, if you will, as soon as possible. He wanted that? Yes. He's made many public statements over the years. intelligence basically digital God if you will as soon as possible he wanted

that yes he's made many public statements over the years that the whole goal of Google is what's called AGI artificial general intelligence or artificial super intelligence but you know and I agree with him that there's great potential for good but there's also potential for bad and so if you've got some radical new technology, you want to try to take the set of actions that maximize the probability that it will do good and minimize the probability that it will do bad things. Yes.

It can't just be health leather. Let's just go barreling forward and hope for the best. And then at one point I said, well, what about, we're going to make sure humanity is okay here. And I go laugh. And they called me a speciesist. Did he use that term? Yes. And there were witnesses. I wasn't the only one there when he called me a speciesist. And so I was like, OK, that's it. Yes, I'm a speciesist. And so I was like, okay, that's it. Yes, I'm a speciesist, okay? You got me.

What are you? Yeah, I'm fully a speciesist. That's a funny line. Busted. So that was his last straw. At the time... How wild is that? It is wild.

But these are the people that are in control of this thing. And I think there's also this race that's going on. There's all these different companies around the world that are trying to develop artificial general intelligence first. Because I think having it first, if you have a digital god first, you have a massive advantage over everyone and everything. Yeah. I mean, if you think that tech companies have a lot of power now, imagine if tech companies unleash a digital God. I mean, they literally might be the very seeds that create a God. You know, most people probably spend more time advocating for whatever they're seeing online anywhere than they do for their church or their, you know, that I think that already exists. People like Elon see that and there should be a race for it. I don't see it as,

you know, everything, everything can have a really dark, bad side and we can't control it. I don't see it as... You know, everything, everything can have a really dark, bad side. And we can't control it. So I think even talking about it the way you're talking about it is scary, and I don't know that it's... Can I scare you with this? Well, scare me with this. This was on 60 Minutes last night. They did a whole piece. Oh, that's right.

I saw this. One AI program spoke in a foreign language it was never trained to know. This mysterious behavior called emergent properties has been happening, where AI unexpectedly teaches itself a new skill. Like a minute in, he says something that I think is pretty... Yeah. This is bananas. Go ahead.

This is on CBS. It's called emergent properties. Some AI systems are teaching themselves skills that they weren't expected to have. How this happens is not well understood. For example, one Google AI program adapted on its own after it was prompted in the language of Bangladesh, which it was not trained to know. We discovered that with very few amounts of prompting in Bengali, it could now translate all of Bengali. So now all of a sudden, we now have a research effort where we're now trying to get to a thousand languages.

There is an aspect of this which we call, all of us in the field, call it as a black box. You know, you don't fully understand and you can't quite tell why it said this or why it got wrong. We have some ideas and our ability to understand this gets better over time, but that's where the state of the art is. You don't fully understand how it works and yet you've turned it loose on society? Let me put it this way, I don't think we fully understand how a human mind works either. Was it and yet you've turned it loose on society? Let me put it this way. I don't think we fully understand how a human mind works either.

Was it from that black box we wondered that... What else are they saying here? They wrote a poem and they're asking why did I write that way. Why does that scare you guys so much? does it listen it's alive it's not whether or not it's scary it's a kind of life form but here's the thing I am really fearful of

humanity I'm really afraid of us let's hope that's not afraid of us too decides to get rid of us or make us better or you know and that's a 50 50 and i would like to you know i have a enough negativity and i'm not talking it's not about me but going on in my mind where if i don't know and i'm assuming that it is a higher power than me, not God, but it is a higher power than me,

that maybe for whatever reason, let's trust that it is a benefit and not something that's horrible. Well, I certainly hope. I hope it's a benefit. What you just played for me didn't scare me. It doesn't scare me. The fact that it is artificial intelligence. What is intelligence?

Just by virtue of what it is. So it's learning things that we can't explain. It's intelligence. That's what intelligence is. I think we're using this word in a weird way. The word scared. Because I don't think that it's scared like I'm scared of wolves. It's not that kind of scared.

It's scared like, I realize where this is going. And it might not even be in our lifetime. But you didn't describe a good place. Well, it's not a good place for us, but maybe it's a good place for the universe. Do you invest in Bitcoin? It's a good place for life. Do you invest in Bitcoin? I've got some Bitcoin.

Okay. But that's not what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about maybe this is what happens with intelligence everywhere, that maybe intelligence realizes limitations to biology and biological evolution is very time consuming. It takes a long time to get adaptation for things to change. It takes decades. It takes centuries. It takes thousands of years. But this could happen in weeks and hours and minutes, especially if it knows how to make a better version. And you don't think that's scary, what you just proclaimed? You keep saying scary. I do. I think it's just the thing that's happening. And I think- But you have children. Yes, we will continue to exist. But I feel like this was inevitable. There's inevitable things that happen in nature that we don't want to admit you you don't want to say they're scary they're they're just inevitable you know like i watched a bear the other day climb a tree and steal an eagle out of its nest okay and then eat the eagle and people were looking at like wow this is crazy they were

filming this thing happening right but that's not scary that That's nature. That's nature. I think this is nature too. I think this is nature. It's just nature in a different realm. It's in the realm of this intelligent individual that manipulates its environment and makes things more convenient until it loses all need to be primal, all connection to the primal world, and then eventually adopts this intelligence as intelligence of its own. It eventually integrates with whatever artificial general intelligence is because to not have it, you would not be able to compete. If Neuralink or something similar to that connects you to artificial general intelligence in your own mind at any given time, that's going to be the option that most people take. Just like it's the option that we take where you choose shoes or no shoes. Most people pick shoes because they're better. And

you're going to pick that because that's better. It's a better way of existing. You're going to have far more access to information. If you want to be productive, you're going to be far more productive. You'll be far more intelligent and informed. I think just like your phone does that for you now or your computer does that for you now, eventually it will be a part of you. Then I totally agree. I was misinterpreting your lilt on it. It's scary because it's unknown. I mean, this is a wild time to be a human being, to be a person like you and I who grew up without the Internet.

You know, we remember when answering machines were crazy. Like, whoa, this is nuts. You remember when caller ID? Oh, my God, Mike's gone. Look at that phone and, you know, and whether every possible platform, every possible, it's really, if you want to look at the negative, it's really depersonalized my life, you know, and I can do a lot of people's lives. Yeah. And a lot. So you could look at the negative, but then I also look at that. Like I have access. It opened up a world to me without even leaving my room and my own mental health issues are, I don't want to leave my room. Well now, unlike Howard Hughes, I'm not blocked out. I could see everything. I could talk to everybody.

I can educate myself. I can be productive. I can learn. I can post. I can do everything from this little tablet that I have in my hand. So for me, it's actually a better. Well, that right there is all the good. That's the pros. Yeah, there's a lot of pros. And there are a lot of cons. It just depends on the individual, of course, right? For you, it seems like a godsend in a lot of ways, because it's providing you with a way to do what you love to do without having to do the things you hate about it and Listen, I don't have a choice. We have to embrace. I can't stop AI. I can't none of us can That's how I feel too. So I have to force myself as somebody who told you that my you know My leanings my mental leanings are negative. I have to force myself in order to survive

I have to force myself to take the positive and just try to, you know, spend my life trying to make other people smile and giggle, which in turn makes me smile and giggle. Sure. That's a beautiful skill. I mean, the ability to do that, like I've been doing standup for more than 30 years. I still love watching it. I still love it.

I still love laughing. It's still, still my favorite art form to be an audience member. Like if someone good is in town and I'm around, I'll come see them when they're in town. I want to see. I love it. I love comedy. Laughter is, they say, the best medicine. And, you know, unless you have explosive diarrhea, I would imagine that's really better.

But also you can't hold it in with a laugh. But, you know, it is tried and proven. They say, you know, if you're feeling really down, even if you force a smile, there are some endorphins that are released into you. So if you can receive that, you know, through entertainment and art, or you can share that through your, you know, artistry, that is, you know, a real high for, you know. Most certainly. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing that we get to do man we're really really really lucky you know in terms of like one of the most rewarding things to do challenging but very rewarding it's one of the most rewarding things you could do you make people feel better

they leave they leave well that's why I said you know on AGT there's a lot of comics that say they you know they don't want to come on because they they you know they feel like they'll be judged or they're not put in a good place. And I always say, you got to come on. Because in any given episode, six million people watch live. We have a billion clicks a year on YouTube. Don't predicate how you do based on me, Heidi, Sophia, Simon, even that room of a thousand people.

Millions are watching, and it's so subjective. If you really believe that you have art that you want to share, where else are you going to get that platform? Any stage time you can get, any camera time you can get, you just got to do it. It's interesting, too, because it's kind of the old school variety style because there's so many different types of performers that go up. You know, like an old school variety show used to be like that,

and that's how comics used to perform way back in the day. They'd be a part of a variety show. They would, and I get why it's hard. You know, I always try to tell the audience I'm probably the most supportive of stand-up comedy on our show. And that's because I say, you don't understand. You know, somebody else is coming on. If they're a singer, they're usually singing somebody else's song and they've taken guitar lessons and they have an instrument.

If somebody practiced juggling and they're lighting fires, you're seeing all that juggling and lighting fires. The comic, the comic comes out there with nothing, just their bare soul of what their sensibility is, of what they think is funny. And they need to elicit more than any other act, more from you than anybody. You know, you could play a song and then at the end, because you heard they stopped singing,

you applaud and you go, yay, or you stand up. A comic is talking to you and you have to intake whatever they are saying or doing or whatever visual they have. And then it's hard to laugh. It is hard. You need the audience to go, ha ha ha. And even if they're not, say you are and who's to judge whether you're hysterical, whether you're brilliant or not. There may be millions of people at home or on YouTube watching you and laughing. If in that room you don't hear that response, it is crazily painful for most people. Yeah. I actually kind of like that awkward silence. I like that makes me feel alive.

That fear to me, comedy is like I still love thrill rides You know and comedy is like a real roller coaster You know and the scarier it is the higher it is the closer you think you're coming to death Your adrenaline flows and you want to get on and take another ride again because it's really scary By the same token for stand-up comedy if you can get off the beaten path and not have something that's planned and maybe lose an audience in a moment but then bring them back, that is the roller coaster that means so much more. Because that's your soul that you're riding. Or they're riding your soul. It's pretty – so there is nothing that gives me more gratification than stand-up.

And there is nothing more dangerous for me than stand-up as far as all the other stuff that I have chosen to do. I think you're fucking grandfathered in. I really do. I don't think you have to worry about that. They'd be crazy at this point in time to get rid of you because you're funny, because you say wild shit on stage that people love. You have no idea how many times I get called, and they ask me to text an apology for certain things.

Oh, no. And, you know, I'm a good boy. I will. I don't necessarily agree that I need to apologize, but I apologize. Or, you know, it's just there's a lot of people are scared. Yeah. The world is scared. Hollywood's very scared.

Everybody's scared. Every side, whatever side you're on, every side is afraid of the other side. They feel that the other side is the end of the world as we know it. And we really are all equally afraid. And we're just wearing different uniforms. But we really need to kind of. Come together. We do.

Yeah. And people do come together through humor. Even if you say something that I don't agree with, if you can make me laugh, I have to consider it. If you say it in a way that I have to laugh at what you're saying is funny. Or here's the other thing. What about if you're saying it in a way that makes somebody else laugh? I respect that. You know, Scott Caratop.

that. You know, I, um, Scott, uh, Carrot Top. Carrot Top is, should be lauded, should be celebrated. I love that guy. Me too. But you know, and I was there, I was the butt of jokes when I used props and at the beginning and all that silliness, I was part of David Letterman's top 10 all the time. They would go, and we'll make him sit through a Howie Mandel concert. You know, and that killed me. But the fact that he can fill a room every night for the last 15 years in Vegas and get laughs and be successful, and I actually find it really funny. He's very funny.

Very funny. He's a very nice guy, too. And when I had him on the podcast, it's one of the things that I want to talk to him about. Like, I don't understand it. I don't understand the hate. There was so much pissy hate towards him. It was like an easy way to get laughs.

Right. And so many people did. But it wasn't. It isn't. You know, as much as somebody has to be, you know, a wordsmith. I didn't mean he was an easy way to get laughs. I meant making fun of him was an easy way to get laughs. Right.

He became the butt of jokes. And within our own community where we should be supportive. should be supportive yeah i didn't know i never got it and we should celebrate the fact that there is somebody that has been able through decades to make an incredible lucrative career and make everybody from across the globe show up in vegas and laugh yeah and he also took over a genre remember when we started out there was a lot of prop comics. Now prop comics is basically like you're copying Carrot Top. Right. He's so big. Right.

It's so known that he's the prop guy. He kind of like took over the art form. Right. But he did. And the thing is that you realize there's always going to be more people, no matter how big you are, even you,

there's always more people that don't care and don't get it. Of course. And I've told the story many times. But when I was in the 80s, I played Radio City Music Hall and I sold out two shows in one night and a couple of minutes. And that's 14,000 tickets. And it was a big deal at that point. It was in the early 80s. And I'm looking out onto the street as six or seven thousand people are

piling out of the first show and seven thousand people are coming into the next show and there's stanchions and there's cops and there's the fifth avenue or seventh avenue is just tied up in New York City my wife looks out the window with me she goes what are you thinking and I'm thinking you know this is a city of 10 million people you know nine, 9,984 people don't give a shit I'm here and don't think I'm funny. And there's always more that don't. So you just, you have to respect the fact that when we go to amateur nights, you know, which are sometimes painful and you watch somebody on stage and they just die and you go why are they even here somebody somebody laughed but it's got to be more than just you're lucky if more than uncle ned at the

thanksgiving table is the one that's laughing at you that's what you're just lucky that your sensibility your humor your artistry is kind of shared and relatable by a bigger group than sure joe schmo and the the cool thing about the open mics is you're watching people learn how to do it. Then that's how they learn how to do it. They learn how to do it in front of people, which is really weird. But it makes sense to me because that's where I learned it.

I had no pre-preparation. There's a rhythm. It's like music. And I feel that the audience is like your rhythm section. That is your drum. That's your beat. If you can get on a roll and they're laughing and then when to, you know, hold for the laugh, feel it,

and listening to that drum beat of the audience, they're not going with you. So you veer in another direction or they're coming with you. The audience is the only place to really learn it. Though there are other people, well, they still use the audience, like Jerry Seinfeld, who is an incredible wordsmith. Right, but he still hones it in front of the audience.

Right. It's all, you can't do it in a vacuum. No. I've never heard of anybody that like, maybe Cosby did. I think Cosby, in the end, he didn't do standup at all until he was performing. So I think he like put together his specials and then would go on stage and do them

He had already had them written out Well between you and me I I was a big Cosby fan when he had his albums and he really had an act Yeah, and then at the end even before he got in trouble. I felt like it was just he would just sit there I never saw I never saw him live Burr and I, we had planned on a trip to go see him live before all the craziness

happened with him. And something happened and we canceled. He wound up going to see him somewhere. I think he might have went to see him in Vegas. Did he like him?

He was very impressed. You know who was really impressed with him was Chris Rock. I remember we were in New York and Chris Rock came backstage and he said he had just seen Bill Cosby

and he said, I'm a fraud. He goes, I'm a fucking fraud. He goes, that's how good he was. I go, really? I don't agree. And this was, but this was quite a few years ago. This was maybe early 2000s. I went to see him a couple of times.

I was such a big fan. What years did you go to see him? When did he get in trouble? Just the years, just about five years before he got in trouble. When did he get in trouble? Just about five years before he got in trouble. So he got arrested like maybe seven years ago, something like that? So 12 years ago?

So you probably saw him just a few years. He was just sitting on an armchair and it was like he would ramble and ramble and ramble and ramble and ramble for like 15 minutes before there was a laugh. And I felt like he was, I felt this overwhelming. Anxiety? Feeling that he was just, like, you should just be thrilled that I showed up. You know, and I felt like he wasn't doing the work. And I think that we always constantly have to do the work. You don't reach, and the more success you have, the more work you have to do, because that expectation is reach and the more success you have the more work you have to do because that Expectation is there. That's the idea of the club. That's why I need a club

You can't work out in arenas like how you gonna write new jokes in front of 16,000 people You're not you can't you need to work clubs and and just at a time and time and time. It's like fighting You can't just show up for a fight It's very much the same thing in that everything is about how much time you put in. Right. You ever read The Outliers? Yes.

Malcolm Gladwell. Yes. And when he talked about the Beatles in Hamburg, about how well they went to Hamburg, they were basically playing eight hours a day. They were just constantly playing. And they came back to Liverpool after being there for a couple years,

and everybody was like, holy fuck, what happened? Like all of a sudden they were this insanely good band. And it was they had put in so many reps. They were so tight and so honed. It was so beautiful. They just synced up. And people don't do that anymore.

You know, people are getting hits off TikTok. And then they go out on tour and they don't have anything. Yeah, but there's some people that are still doing it like that. You know, and there's something to that. Well, even musicians. There's musicians that like, one of the things about music though is you can create amazing music

in a vacuum. Like you can get together with a band and put together insane albums completely alone. And you could just, just through your creativity and your feel

for what these songs are. That's the artistry. It's like painting alone in a room. Yeah, and then they go on stage or they seat an album or whatever and then they go on stage and the Audience sings along to those things. I mean, it's a totally different vibe like the audience They're not learning it like you're doing stand-up They're learning these jokes as you're doing them and laughing along cuz it's unexpected with them

It's like it's exciting. You want to see them. You want to see these songs that you love. It's a totally different kind of thing. Because they don't need anything from the audience so they can do that. A comic cannot do that. A comic can't do that. A poet can do it.

Sure. An author can do it. I mean, there's people that create things in a vacuum, but we, unlike any other art form, we kind of need the audience to create something. The club is our gym. Kind of, yes. Not kind of need it. We 100% need it.

That would be like learning jujitsu with no drills. Like, you have to do drills. If you don't do drills, you're not going to understand the positions. You still fight? You got to do reps. I still train. I still do martial arts. You compete?

No, no. I'm 55 years old. I don't know. I don't. I still do martial arts. You compete? No, no. I'm 55 years old. I don't know. I don't get broken. Bourdain did it. He competed when he was like 58 or 59. Competed? Did he place?

He did a tournament in like master's class or whatever it was. His age class. So they do age class. Yeah, but I'm not interested in doing that. You're not interested? No. First of all, I'm a black belt. So I'd have to roll with some dude who's a black belt my age.

And he's probably been like nonstop training. And I'm going to get strangled. OK. That seems like a bad idea for me. And also, I would love it. And I would probably be obsessed with it. And all the other things that I do would probably fall by the wayside because I'd be obsessed with competing for as long as my body can hold up.

You just got to, when you're someone like me in particular, you have to know what you can get involved in because I get obsessed with things. And when I get, that's my mental illness. My mental illness is like extreme obsession, whether it's games or anything. I just get obsessed with comedy. I get obsessed with martial arts.

I get obsessed with things. So I have to manage my obsessions with the amount of time that I have. I get obsessed with archery. I get obsessed with things. So I have to manage my obsessions with the amount of time that I have. I get obsessed with archery. I get obsessed with things. And so it's a good mental illness to have because it allows you to excel at things. But you have to be able to manage it. I have to know what I can and can't get too nuts with.

Do you still enjoy doing this? I love doing this. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I love it. If I don't love it, I won't do it. Really? Yeah, I don't want to do something I don't love. I love it.

How could you not enjoy talking to cool people? It's fun. I've just been doing it for a year now. I would do it if there was no podcast. Like if you and I were having dinner, we would have this similar kind of conversation. We had all the time in the world. We could just talk. Then you're on the same page as me.

You know, I started doing it because with my mental illness, I was locked in during COVID. I locked myself in. I had a Mandel mandate. Right. And so was my daughter. So I would spend hours with her on the phone, and then I'd go, you know, just call my friend Joe Rogan.

Let's call him. We'd put you on. And then my wife walked in and said, what is this for? And I said, it's for nothing. She says, record it. And that's just how E. Mandel does stuff. It's just talking to friends. I wasn't going for a nothing. She says, record it. And that's just, that's how Emandelle does stuff. It's just talking to friends. I wasn't, I wasn't going for a podcast.

I didn't even have advertisers. I didn't hire a company. I just, and now it's my couple of hours a week with my daughter, just talking to interesting people. It's amazing how entertaining it is listening to people talk to me, to a person who does it. You think I'd be tired of it, but even people, I don't even really like what they're saying like or people i don't even think they're that interested i'm fascinated by the way people think about stuff like i was uh my car got fixed and the guy dropped

it off and he drove it to my house and he was listening to this uh am political talk show and so as i'm on my way to work i'm like what is this horseshit i said oh let me listen to this and it's fascinating to me just because i don't know people like that, people that are like deeply immersed in right-wing politics or talking about everything and all these bills and all this stuff and this congressman's a rhino and this is that and that and this. And I'm listening to these guys. This is fascinating.

Why is this so fucking entertaining? It's entertaining to listen to how people think about things Even if you don't think the way they think well, that's you know, and that's the most of the world Lives in a bubble and they live in a bubble. They don't know they're in a bubble, you know Everybody here thinks this well everybody where everybody and I can't tell you how many times as somebody who does stand-up comedy where I will Land in a town the driver picks me up. He's your age. And he goes, what's California like? I've never even been on a plane.

I've never been outside of this. And I find that fascinating. And they can have a lot of friends. They listen to their radio shows. They listen to their things. Their friends are like-minded. They look the same. They're in the same socioeconomic.

That's the world. And then there are people like you and me and others that we know that are just fascinated. It's not about agreeing. It's not about finding like-minded people. It's just fascinated by, and it's actually more fascinating when they don't agree and you want to hear their point of view. Yes. I find that fascinating. Well, it's very fascinating when you talk to someone who has a different point of view, but they're making sense to you.

So it makes you reconsider your own ideas. That's how our politics used to be. You know, we are supposed to be a multi-party, you know, system. And now they don't talk to each other. It's all bought out, man. Unfortunately, it's all run by money now. That's what's scary. There's so much money in politics.

You just look at the stock trades these people are allowed to do. It's so bonkers. You know what I think? It's AI. Well, it could be. It could be. It could be AI. That's how AI erodes our trust in civilization and allows it to control us. Well, it is infiltrated our political system. It certainly has. Definitely has.

And not just that, it's infiltrated our influence. people are using these bot farms to like have arguments like I've seen that before where you see like one tweet and it's repeated by hundreds and hundreds of accounts and These accounts post they don't even read tweet it they post the exact same wordage So they're not even trying to hide it if you just search that if you see a questionable tweet Oftentimes you could take it and search that tweet and you go look at this there's fucking 50 people saying the exact same thing and it must be true and they all you go to their thing and it's like an american flag and the number behind it and some weird name and you're like oh this is horseshit this is like a fake account well i come from a

an era where if you read it then it must be true you know back in the newspaper days yeah but that was it you'd say something stupid somebody where the fuck did you i read it. Back in the newspaper days. Yeah, but that was it. You'd say something stupid to somebody, where the fuck did you see? I read it. It was in the paper. That's what was dangerous, right? Because they could just promote propaganda and put things in the paper that they knew weren't true.

But that's what's happening now. That's the internet is our new paper. Well, also the newspapers are doing it too. Yeah. They're doing it too. They're bought. Yeah. There's a lot of weirdness going on.

There was a thing the other day that was talking about the Nord Stream pipeline. It was in the New York Times. And it was saying that maybe we shouldn't know. Maybe we shouldn't know who did it. Because there's all the speculation the United States blew up the Nord Stream Pipeline. Sidney Hirsch, who was this hugely respected journalist, he wrote about this. And that's the name, right? Seymymour Hirsch right? I'm Philip Seymour. I'm fucking up Seymour Hirsch so Seymour Hirsch Writes this article on a sub stack about how the United States was involved You know and then you have the New York Times saying maybe we shouldn't look into that

Like what that's not your job. Your job is you're a journalist You're supposed to give the people the pertinent information and let us make our own. Yes. And if your job is now propaganda for national interest, because it would be not in our best interest for the rest of the world to know that we did that. Now you're acting as an arm of the state. Now you're no longer acting unless you think this is like and this is probably the justification that this is like could start World War Three. So they feel like they're in this sort of activist position, like a position where they're not just disseminating information. But that's not where the activist needs to be. You know, you don't need it from our news sources. It's supposed to be a fact source. Yes. That's why I can't watch any television news, any network. Right.

Because I don't want to know how you vote. I don't want to know what you think. It's also just trying to influence you. They're trying to bend your mind into whatever their narrative is. And it's not just the information. It's editorialized information almost always. I think it's more about because, you know, there used to be three stations. There used to be the six o'clock news, you know, maybe two newspapers in every city, they're vying for your eyeballs and ears. And what gets you there is if you feel there's somebody supposedly like-minded, you know, that's another, because news is news. It's all going to be exactly the same. So what

makes this one different than that one? Well, he or she. These are my people. That's exactly right. Exactly. Yeah. Have you ever seen that video where it shows local news people? I'll send it to Jamie. It's local news people all saying like the exact same thing. It's really weird. It's one of those things where you go like, I kind of knew that this happened, but to see it happen so blatantly. Much surreal.

Here, I'll send this to you, Jamie. I have the actual video of it. I could just send it to you. My name is Jessica Headley. And I'm Ryan Wolf. Our greatest responsibility is send this to you, Jamie. I have the actual video of it. I could just send it to you. Yeah, that's it. To serve our Treasure Valley communities, the El Paso, Las Cruces communities, Eastern Iowa communities, Mid-Michigan communities. We are extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that CBS 4 News produces.

But we are concerned about the trouble that China is responsible for plaguing our country. Plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media. More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories without checking facts first. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media. More alarming, some media outlets publish these same things that we are true without checking facts first. Unfortunately, some members of the media hate their facts.

This is fucking scary. Yeah, this is the scariest. Well, that's propaganda. I mean, this is, this is, they're trying to bend a narrative in a very specific way for everybody. And they're warning you about something that's a legitimate concern, the false information, but they're also spreading it all the time. So it's like what they're saying is nonsense. What they're saying is they don't want to relinquish control of what the news is and what information is to the internet, to independent news sources and all these people that are investigating on very uncomfortable but probably likely facts. Right. And then we get bombarded by these narratives.

Yes. So every one of us, based on what we're intercepting— Our echo chamber. But what is reality? My reality is different than your reality. That's why I need to talk to people who oppose. Sure. I need to talk to people who are different.

I need to get out of my comfort space, but we don't. Right. I don't know what reality is. I really don't know. Do you? Do you feel like you have a sense of it? You have a very slippery grasp, like trying to catch a salmon with your hands. It's like it's slippery.

Whatever it is, it's changing all the time, and whatever the future is, is really, it's a gamble and a guess. And we don't know. And we're not even taking into consideration natural disasters, which have plagued humanity since the very beginning and knocked us back into the Stone Age several times. That could happen too. There's so much going on with us. And there's so much that it's hard to be in the moment, but it's also crucial. If you want to enjoy this weird thing, you've got to be in the moment as possible.

And to be in the moment, man, you have to do a lot of work. There's a lot of stuff you have to do. My whole existence is about being in the moment because I can't let my mind wander and worry about what has happened or even even scarier what might happen you and i are very different because i spent a lot of time alone and i spent a lot of time just thinking a lot of time just by myself thinking whether it's in flotation tank or whether it's in the sauna or whether it's i do i do stuff to put myself alone so i can think and to find out what are those dark thoughts, what are those deep thoughts, what the fuck is going on. I want to know how I think about things and why I think about things. So I spent a lot of time doing that.

I can't handle that. I know. I understand. You know, there was a movie line, I can't handle the truth. I really can't. I have to really live in a fantasy world that I create for myself because I'm really afraid to stick my toe in that deep end of thought. Yeah, but the fact that you're able to express that

is so valuable. Is it? Yes, yes, yes. Because there's many people that feel the same way as you and they're listening right now. And they're like, okay, I'm not alone. Because the spectrum of the way people interface with reality is so wide.

There's so many people that have a very hard time with everything. And there's so many people that just seem to skate by without a worry in the world. And they're all existing at the same time period. And the ones who skate by without a worry, they might be wrong. And the people that are anxious all the time, they might be correct or not. I don't know. It's like the whole thing is like, how do you interface with all the people around you? And what can you do to make the world a better place? I think all you can do is control yourself. Yeah, control yourself.

That's it. And if everybody does that, then the world becomes a better place. You have no control over anything else. Not even your own children, not your own friends, not even your own business, really. And when you realize that you have no control, you're on that roller coaster that I speak of

that I use in comedy, but it is in life. Yeah, in life just do your best i'm doing it yeah that's what everybody that's the message for everybody just do your best and like your best gets better and just keep going i hope so yeah i think so i think i mean until unless something horrible goes wrong it's generally you you get better at stuff and shit's's going to happen. Horrible shit's going to happen. Weird shit's going to happen. I was watching this documentary today, the new James Fox documentary. Jamie, he's coming on next week.

It's a new James Fox documentary about a UFO landing in Brazil in 1996. Holy shit, it's incredible. I had no idea that there's this there's a city called Virginia in in Brazil and in 1996 according to everyone who was there according to medical records of people who were there according to like they blocked off the military came in cordoned off the area they recovered a crashed UFO and there was living creatures that people came in contact

with and one of them was this tiny little thing that this guy carried and he carried it to wherever they were going to examine it. And when he carried it, he got whatever was on its skin. It had like a slippery kind of skin. It got into his body and infected him. And he wound up with this horrible general infection. He wound up dying. His body shut down. His immune system shut down.

His body didn't know what the fuck to do with this alien thing that he was interacting with. And there's real records of this guy contacting this thing, grabbing it, carrying it in. All these people witnessed it. And then this guy winds up with this insane infection shortly thereafter. That's all documented, too. All of his medical records. I find it more fascinating that there are groups of people that don't believe these stories. This is a fascinating. I mean, you've got to be an idiot to believe that this one is particularly fascinating. But the bubble that we live in where you have not witnessed a, you know, I'm talking about you being somebody who's listening here because you haven't seen a spaceship, because you haven't been abduct abducted because you didn't read this story to just convince yourself that it doesn't exist yes and to uh shit on somebody else who has facts

like you gotta tune in to what to listen to that episode unless it happens to you how the fuck could you ever believe that right really i mean really yes you could but i'm saying you know i'm saying i'm from a pessimist or a cynic's point of view, like, why would you? Come on. That's nonsense. Because it's ridiculous to believe that. But it hasn't happened to you. See, if it hasn't happened to you, you think it's not possible.

Like, you can only relate. The fact that you were born and you had children and you are living here and just functioning and living in this. Crazy. This is fucking nuts. Yeah, this is nuts. This is nuts. in this. Crazy. This is fucking nuts. Yeah, this is nuts. This is nuts. But this is accepted. Why is this any nuttier or less nuttier

than believing that we are just this little dot that this doesn't exist other places and they have the facility to make their way here from time to time? It's just a lack of irrefutable evidence. There's a lack of something where everybody could point to it. Like, if you say, I believe in the Golden Gate Bridge,

I'm like, cut the fuck out of here, Howard. It's not a bridge across the ocean. That's so stupid. How would they even do that? And then you take me to the Golden Gate Bridge, I'm like, holy shit, it's a real thing. I see it. But if I had no idea what it was,

and you were just explaining it to me, maybe I'm a moron. I'm like, I don't believe it. I never saw a bridge. I've seen a UFO. Have you really? Yeah. What'd you see? I saw it, and I was with my wife, and it was right there. I'm like, I don't believe it. I never saw a bridge. I've seen a UFO. Have you really? Yeah. What'd you see?

I saw, and I was with my wife, and it was right there. I was driving. I was in Toronto. I'm from Toronto, Canada. I was in my 20s, and we were driving down a country road, and I thought, oh, my God, there's a giant accident way up ahead because I saw this line of like a half a mile wide of all these flashing lights. So I thought it was like a lineup of ambulances or first responders or whatever.

And as I got closer and closer, that whole line of lights, quicker than I can fathom, just shot into the sky and disappeared. And I turned to my wife and I go, did you, I saw something. Did you see something? She goes, the lights? And I go, yeah. And we've never seen anything since. We went, this is way before the internet,

but we called the airport. We called the military. Has there been any reports? We didn't see anything on the news, but we both saw it. What could you describe the lights? A straight line of lights that looked like they were probably, you know, a quarter of a mile wide, you know, like it was, it was, this was a giant line of lights. So I thought that was all cars

lined up, you know, on, on a road. We were in a, there was no street lights or anything. It was above, when I realized what it was, it was probably about 30 or 40 feet above the road. You know, when, when I think about where I first saw the lights, they couldn't be on top of a car because there's no car that, that stands that high or trucks or a train. And then the point was that how fast that I saw the, how quickly I saw this line of lights just shoot into the atmosphere and disappear I've never seen anything move that at that velocity how fat far away was it when you when it shot away see because I it was night it could have been 10 miles it could have been one mile I don't know how big it was because I didn't actually see the object. I saw a line of lights. So I don't know how far I was from the lights,

but I do know if you called my wife right now, she would describe the exact same thing. She was sitting in the car with me. We're both not, you know, UFO enthusiasts. We, I don't know that I didn't have a non-belief. I just never thought of it. We saw this weird thing that has never been explained to us. I think it would be ignorant of me to not think that this was something beyond our scope as far as what we have on earth. So I've seen that. And I've read a lot, like you have, of other people who are seemingly trustworthy educated people who have seen similar things who've had it's not always just the the kook in the cornfield said uh you know i saw a ufo if there are people in science educated people who have seen it so water pilots fighter pilots

commercial uh commercial pilots did you see the most recent one there was a woman who was a model who was on a plane Did you see that Jamie it just got released today? She got what they're calling some of the most compelling UFO video ever She's flying in a plane in this silver thing they freeze-framed it It looks like a flying disc a model saw this a model She's just in a plane and filming out the window. And they had seen this thing apparently, and she's trying to film it and it shoots by the plane. You know, and I've talked to many pilots who have recounted seeing things and not being able to explain it. It's like,

and we just brush that off, you know? Oh, here it is. Watch this. So play this. I mean, what in the fuck is that? So look at that and look at that line. It's up on a 45 degree angle. That is and the speed that it's kind of moving is the speed that I saw something in only at night. But you have to take into consideration that this plane is moving in a specific direction and the UFO is moving in the opposite direction. So it's faster. It looks much faster than it actually is So even if that was like a mylar balloon if you're passing it that fast

See that thing I mean, I don't know what you're getting there Like is that distorted like when they're showing that that that image that to me looks like it's from another fucking world Like if that's really what it looks like and it's actually flying like that But I don't know if that's a distortion based on the freeze frame of this. You know, you also have to take into consideration what kind of phone does she have? How fast is the camera? Is it able to pick things? Because there's things that can happen with artifacts, with digital artifacts, and things move very quickly.

You get like weird lines that might not. But that looks very distinct But at a certain point play it again. There's been so many sightings. You gotta be an idiot to believe it's so fascinating I love it. So whatever this thing is I Mean if I was a cynic I'd say oh, it's a fucking balloon But it is weird because it's not moving that fast if If the plane is moving, it's a propeller plane. Let's say, how fast do you think a propeller plane goes? 90, 90.

So if that was stationary, now let's imagine the propeller plane is going against the wind. So maybe that thing is going with the wind. So whatever that thing is getting blown with the wind current. So it could be a balloon. So if that thing is going 90 miles an hour, just imagine if you're a car, okay, and you're going 90 miles an hour and you're passing someone that's going in the opposite direction on the other side of the highway. They would probably be moving quicker than this. Let's see that again. Back that up again. So watch this thing. So imagine you're in a car, you scoot along the highway and there's a car comes around the turn. It goes just like that. It's probably very

slow. It's probably not fast at all. And it might just like that. It's probably very slow. It's probably not fast at all. And it might even be stationary. It might just be blowing in the wind. Right. Because if you picture how fast the plane's going and how fast... Now, this is obviously assuming that the wind is going in the direction of whatever that thing is. So this came out today. What are people saying about it?

But here's the thing. If it's going the opposite, if it's going – if actually the plane is going with the wind and this thing is going against the wind, then it gets weird. Because then you have to go, okay, well, is that plane going fast enough where it looks like that if it's just stationary or if it's just fluttering in the wind? Because you're passing it. So it's kind of tricky when you get that video and you go, oh my God, it's a UFO. Look at it fly past you fast. Not really that fast. Well, more importantly than the speed, that's what I saw. I saw something.

For me, it was just lights at night and they moved. Your thing. But that's different. My thing. But this is something you can't explain. But your thing sounds like it moved way faster than that. It did. Yeah.

It did. I've never seen anything disappear like that. And way faster than that. It did. Yeah. It did. I've never seen anything disappear like that. And more importantly, I have a witness. Yeah. I was sitting there at the same time and we didn't, we were driving because we thought it was a big accident. Maybe there was a train crash or something. Were there other people on the highway? No, it was just me and

her about midnight and it was in a, like a north of Toronto. We were heading up north, but she'll tell you the same story. And we're both not, you know. Do you know the Betty and Barney Hill story? No. That's an amazing story.

It's one of the very first UFO abduction stories. I think it was from 1950s, somewhere around then. Betty and Barney Hill, I believe they were in Maine. And something happened to them. And they saw something in the sky. And then they had all these terrors and night terrors and like weird feelings. Then they got hypnotic regression. And during the hypnotic regression, they both told a very eerily similar story about being taken aboard this craft,

about experiments being done on them and then being put back in their car and having their memories at least partially erased and was only accessible to them when they did hypnotic regression. Very controversial, but it's also like, it was one of the very first depictions of these beings that are kind of, it's part of the iconic alien looking thing. Like that everybody seems to see a very similar creature, a very small creature with very big head, very big eyes, and that these folks had an experience with them. It's more amazing to me that it isn't widely accepted with how many experiences have been written about, have been documented, even by military pilots and Barney and his wife.

Well, don't you think there's more people that accept it now? Like Michio Kaku talks about it now openly, whereas Michio Kaku is a very straight-laced physicist who his entire career has just advocated based on science and evidence, and he's very rational, he's a great communicator, but now he's turned the corner where he says the amount of evidence that is available, now the side of the critic is the one that has very little evidence.

He thinks the side of the believer, there's a vast amount of data that seems to indicate that there's some things out there that we really don't understand. Except the one question that I have is why would the military keep it a secret? Like why would this be a secret that there are existences of other life? It doesn't make sense to keep it from the public. Well, I think the same reason why the New York Times thinks that we shouldn't know who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline. People that are in control of like very dangerous and very volatile information oftentimes feel like the public can't handle it.

That's a common theme I mean that's one of the reasons why people want to stop even like obvious silly stuff on the internet you know like there's people that advocate to stopping people that believe in the earth being flat like well come on like at what point in time do you just let people believe stuff I have a point time do you advocate to like for the most gullible folks amongst us who have the worst confirmation bias to protect them from information? Well, you know, I have, not to bring it back to me, but my podcast, the guy who edits it is a flat earther. And I haven't been able to convince him. Convince him.

Well, there's some really convincing documentaries online if you don't know astrophysics and you don't have access to scientists that can debunk each and every claim every step of the way of all these different things. every space dish, every telescope, space telescope, all the people that worked on the Hubble, all the people that worked on all the space travel, everything that's ever been done, every satellite image, everything that we know about the galaxy, everything we know about how we can detect planets by the gravity wobble that they induce in the stars when they go around them.

We know so much about- And so many people know so much that how you do not get that. And there's so many people involved and they all universally agree. Everyone involved universally agrees that all planets are round and there's a specific reason for that.

And the size of them, it has to do with how much gravity they carry and the jupiter protects us from asteroids because it's so big and we can watch them hit jupiter like the idea that all that's fake it seems so wild that people buy into that more important but more importantly why i always ask him on it's fun yeah yeah yeah it's fun it's fun to think you know things that other people don't know it's fun to think that everybody else is a sheep and that you understand the firmament and there's these big glass cover over there and the stars just lights in the sky and the earth is the center of everything and god's in control of the whole ride well then this guy he's a good editor and

apparently he's having fun well it's just it's interesting because the mystery itself of the universe is so fucking vast. It's so amazing and so fascinating to think that we really have no idea how big this thing is. And we can look back to like 13 plus billion years, but now they're able to look back further and they're finding stuff that kind of does. Maybe this is older than we thought it was. Maybe this is bigger than we thought it was. And there's so many calculations involved and so many people have to go over this. The idea that they're all in on this and this is just, we're in a fish bowl. It's kind of funny, but Hey man, believe it over the fuck you want to believe, you know, but also, you know, the people, it's funny that there's a lot of people that are really good at a thing and then they believe in the flat earth.

Now, imagine someone who went to school for what you go to school for, you know, whether it's audio engineering or coding. And it's someone who has no experience in whatsoever, just watched a bunch of wacky YouTube videos, thinks that all coding is fake and that it's all horseshit and we're all already in the matrix. videos things that all coding is fake and that it's all horseshit and we're all already in the matrix and there's all it's all the new world order programming us through fucking avocados or whatever it is what you would you'd be like god damn it i went to school for this like people people that we all count on to disseminate information to us worked so hard to study through telescopes and satellite telescopes and the Hubble and the James Webb and they're throwing things into space that have massive

fucking lenses on them so we can see deep into the cosmos. And to say that that's all fake and that everybody's involved in it is kind of hilarious. Well, my editor knows. There's a lot of people. Yeah, and he knows. And that's what I love about him. I find it actually fascinating. What if he's right? That'd be Yeah. And he knows. And that's what I love about him. I find it actually fascinating.

Hey, man. Imagine, what if he's right? That'd be funny. And we're all wrong. It'd be funny if it really was this massive conspiracy. If we go, like, there's some fucking ancient scrolls

that explain the whole thing. And that's really what's going on. And that these scientists are all in cahoots. Always. From the beginning. From Galileo. As soon as Galileo piped up,

they go, shut the fuck up. I love that you have a piped up, they will shut the fuck up. I love that you have a theory for everything, Joe. Yeah, you do. You're like a theorist. Not really.

They're very half baked and most of them aren't thought out that well. They're just fun. Well, you spend time thinking in alone in the, yeah, yeah. I don't, I'm fascinated by you.

You are, you're a, you're so different than me but I love listening to you I love watching you and I'm very proud of you I'm very proud that I don't know you that well um but uh I I'm proud of what you're doing for the comedy community I'm proud of what you did for the podcast community there's a whole new way of just getting in getting in you know and doing what it is. Yeah, it's the evolution of the thing, you know, the evolution of the thing came along

with the access the internet provides. But there are pioneers and then there are the sheep that fall. Well, I'm not really a pioneer. There's other people who were doing it before me. I mean, I got the idea from, first of all, when Adam Carolla left radio, he immediately went to podcasting. I did his podcast. I remember thinking, wow, maybe I can do this someday. Like, this seems like something you could do. You just put it up on the internet.

But it was extremely expensive. I remember he was telling me how much his download bills were every month. I was like, Jesus. His data bills were crazy. Adam Carolla is like a real pioneer. Adam Curry is the original pioneer. He's the original podfather. That's the guy who- I don't know who that is. Adam Curry was a MTVtv vj yeah and now he hosts this podcast called no agenda it's a very big podcast but he's literally the guy who came up with the first podcast he's a good friend of mine he lives out here he's frequent guest on the show great guy brilliant guy and he's number one like he he came up with it first so i was lucky that that thing already exists. It's not like I pioneered it.

There's a lot of people that are already doing it. I pioneered coming late to the party. That's my thing. A lot of people have. Yeah. No, I've got that. That's Howie Mandel does stuff. Yeah, but the thing is, in this world, if you have something that's interesting, it doesn't matter if you come late to the party.

People just hop aboard. There's a lot of podcasts that get really big really quickly. But it's just a lot of them. It's hard to separate. Yeah, I was talking to my, uh, my, my gardener has one and it's amazing. Everybody has one, but I don't do it. I do it. I'm actually loving the process of what we're doing right now. Yeah. More than, uh, you know, whatever this achieves as far as the amount of subscribers or the amount of listeners or whatever. I like sitting in a room with my daughter, you know, kind of downloading

whatever it is we're interested in at the moment. That's awesome. That's all that's important is if you're enjoying it, other people will as well. You know, that's really what podcasting was when we started out. We were just on a webcam just talking shit you know and just having fun and just it was fun to do just a fun thing to do we do in green rooms of comedy clubs sometimes and and then i i saw you know there was a bunch of people that had done similar things like tom green turned his whole house into one yeah i mean he was really the that was there's a video of us on that show in 2007 and i'm going this is the future like this is what we have to figure out how to make money off of have to figure out how to do this and just keep everybody out and

make money off of this and he walked away from it he did but he's he's doing one again now right isn't tom doing a new podcast he said he was going to relaunch something real recently i think he was because he posted that video and say he was going to relaunch his show i hope he does he's really funny guy. He kind of started a trend, too. He started on public access and then made his way into stand-up. And he's a really good musician. And to this day, Freddy Got Fingered is a fucking hilarious movie that does not get the credit it deserves.

It was just so wild that people didn't know what the fuck to do with it. That movie was hilarious. Yeah. Harlan was in that, right? Harlan Williams. Was he in that? Yeah, I think he was do with it that movie was hilarious yeah harlan was in that right harlan williams was he in that yeah harlan's hilarious harlan was at the club this weekend i love harlan yeah yeah he did my podcast too but he i love him i could watch it he is he's he should be and in my mind as a superstar he's one of the funniest guys just to hang out with he really is he's so funny and he's another one if you wrote his act down you'd be like what

is this yeah this makes meanwhile you're crying laughing when he says it. He's so funny and he's another one. If you wrote his act down, you'd be like, what is this? Yeah. Meanwhile, you're crying laughing when he says it. Oh, he's so odd. He's from the same, he's from Toronto too.

Oh. Yeah, he's another yuck yucks guy. Interesting. Yeah. A lot of people came out of my club. Norm MacDonald,

me, Jim Carrey. Toronto was a happening place in the late 70s, early 80s. In the late 70s, there was San Francisco, there was Boston, there was New York, and L.A. L.A. was just sort of starting to pop off, right? After Boston and New York, New York was catch, and the improv were the two.

Toronto did well with Yuck Yucks. Boston was big. Nick's. Yeah, Nick's. Nick's Comedy Stop. Yeah. Did you go there? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I worked there a lot. I remember dropping in on that place. What was Bill's? Bill had a- Bill had the Comedy Connection. The Comedy Connection, right? Yeah.

And now it's the Wilbur. He has the Wilbur. Yes. It's the Comedy Connection at the Wilbur. And Bill, he was at the Comedy Connection in Faneuil Hall. Remember it was in Faneuil Hall remember it was in Faneuil Hall and he had like

road gigs too and then he had the Comedy Connection in Rhode Island that was like a bank that they converted into a comedy club it was a very interesting place

so we're partners now in JFL and Moon Tower nice yeah he's the man he is I love that dude

he's a good guy he's a real good guy and he speaks highly of you I told him I was gonna be here today he said say hi yeah I love. I love that dude. He's a good guy. He's a real good guy, and he speaks highly of you. I told him I was going to be here today. He said, say hi. Yeah, I love him. I love him, too. I've known that guy forever.

But that's one of the cool things about this business, too. Nice guys, you get to find them and have a relationship that lasts 30 years. Yeah, which makes you seem old. It's cool. We are old, dude. I know. No ifs, ands, or buts about that. That's fucking killing me.

It's wild, right? Yeah. I know. No ifs, ands, or buts about that. That's fucking killing me. It's wild, right? Yeah. I had no idea. I used to remember being in the presence of my parents when they'd go, I haven't seen you in 10 years. I'd go, I can't even fathom recognizing somebody that I haven't seen in 10 years. I've been in the business. I've been married for 43.

I've been in this business for almost 50 years. Wow. That's amazing. I got up on a dare. How old were you when you got on stage oh uh well not uh 22 was the first time so i'm six i'll be 68 this year so how many years is that what's that that's 46 right yeah yeah four years away from a half a century in this business i got up on a dare and then i i kept the fortune i went out for Chinese food that night I kept a fortune cookie and it said tonight your your life path will change whoa and I

was so it's so and I'm never do you believe in fortune cookies other than that one which is clearly true if that was your only piece of evidence you'd be like well clearly afford fortune cookies UFOs the two things that UFOs fortune cookies right you've seen both of them. Do you believe in life after death? I don't not believe Yeah, I don't know I don't have no reason to not believe and of no reason to absolutely believe but I have a feeling that whatever we are It Transforms from this to other things while science says that you know energy cannot be destroyed. It only changes form so

It'll change into another form i think we're probably way more complex the way we integrate with the universe than we even understand i think we exist in this biological dimension but there's some sort of a conscious and spiritual aspect to us and that probably transcends life all controlled by ai maybe maybe ai is like literally how everything gets made though. Maybe that's how the universe got made. I don't even know if this is real. Who knows?

Well, the real people that believe in simulation don't think it is real. They think the probability theory, if you incorporate probability theory into simulation theory, just by virtue of the fact that there is a civilization like ours and that there's probably an infinite number of civilizations like ours and more advanced other places. The idea that it doesn't exist seems less likely is what they say. But a possibility. An extreme possibility.

It's all possible. So who's ever listening? It could be we're the first. It could be that what we're seeing with these things is time travelers. What we're seeing is people that figure out a way to come back into this very volatile period of history and examine what human beings were like. And that they have figured out a way to do that and not fuck up our timeline by just zooming in and zooming out and observing. observing. It might be that they figure out some way to look back on the future and make sure that the future actually, or look back on the past rather, and make sure that the future actually does take place. Because maybe there's some pivotal things in history. Like that's part of

the folklore of UFOs is that they started coming after the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Well, no, part of it is even before, right? In Sanskrit. Sure. Yes. The Bhagavad Gita. Yes. Well, no, part of it is even before, right? In Sanskrit. Yes.

The Bible about Gita. Yes. Yes. And even in the Bible, in Ezekiel's tale, it's very similar to what a lot of people describe when they describe UFO experiences. How many theories are there, Joe? There's a lot. I know. Yeah.

A lot of people think it. Just in this broadcast, we've covered like four, five, six. Yeah, there's a lot. Seven. There's a lot. Is this an actual broadcast? It might not be. Is anybody listening?

I mean, they might not exist. We might not exist. Wow. Yeah. This is incredibly mind-boggling. Yeah, we might be a part of some gigantic computer program that's running in another galaxy. And is this AI?

Did we, like, I saw a podcast of you where it wasn't you, but I thought it was you. Right. Is this you? In the future, it will be indiscernible. Is it me? That's for sure. Is this me? I don't know.

Could be. I don't know. I'm just confused now. I think we're the last of the regular people. I think these dilemmas that we're currently wrestling with is the same. People are not going to understand this the same way it's hard to describe to kids Saturday night going to Blockbuster

video. Wow. Remember those days? Yeah, I do. I remember. You're the king of analogies. You go on a date and you go, let's go get a movie. Right. And you go and wander around like, what's out? Right. You know? And being a good person was be kind, rewind. Ah i was always uh sometimes people had two vcrs one that you rewound it with because you didn't want to break your vcr by rewinding all the movies you watched

it was always fun just to go into the porn section of blockbuster i like to watch blockbuster didn't have a porn section but local places did well Blockbuster didn't have a porn section, but local places did. Well, Blockbuster didn't have? No. Well, I'm talking about the video store. Blockbuster was R only. That's as far as they went. God knows you looked.

Yes, you looked. Nothing? You didn't see nothing? Remember when you'd have to go through the beads? Yes. Beads or saloon doors. Yeah, I hated that. I didn't want to touch the beads.

I didn't want to touch the beads. But I like porn. I do. Is that touch the beads. I didn't want to touch the beads. I would, but I like porn. I do. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. No, thank God you can get it yourself. It was so embarrassing. My whole comedy touring life to settle my SpectraVision bill was always huge.

Oh, so like, yeah, like when you tour and the videos that you could rent in the movie, in the room. In the room, SpectraVision. I think that's what it's called. Was it SpectraVision? I think they said that Marriott hotels at one important time were the number one distributor of pornography in the world. Marriott. Yeah, because they were selling more porn out of Marriott. I think maybe that's Marriott.

Check. I want to disparage. You know how many times I was in the lobby going, there's no way I watched six movies. I was only here one night. There's no way I watched. I think that was the case. Like people were saying, you know, everybody's anti-porn. But hey, look at this.

Do you know the Marriott is like the place where most people are getting it? Which at that time before the internet porn, it kind of makes sense. Because like people are on, you know, business trips. No one's around of makes sense. Because people are on business trips. No one's around. Terrific. I'm going to treat myself. Well, for me, it was just the stories. Yeah.

They're great. I love stories. I love stories of delivery people and stepmoms and babysitters. People getting stuck in dryers. In the dryer? Yeah. There's this whole genre of porn where girls pretend to get stuck in a dryer. I've never seen it.

Talk about the spin cycle. The guy grabs them. He's like, I can't get you out. I don't know what's going on. Really? And the girl gets horny. And then, yeah. I don't know that one.

I've never seen it in a dryer. Yeah, they get stuck under beds. It's ridiculous. That's a genre? Is the dryer? I'm stuck in a dryer? Just like there's a genre where it was like the stepmom's hot and the dad's old and the dad goes to work and the son. Stepson.

Yeah, the stepson is there from college. I get that. It's not just like it. Not in an appliance isn't like a young, hot stepmom. No. But it's usually like stepbrother is trying to help the girl. She's under the bed. She lost her phone.

She's stuck. Stepbrother's helping her. I didn't click on those i didn't know i don't what would what is that genre if i want to look i'm stuck help me i'm stuck i'm gonna go look yeah i'm stuck porn you know what's really weird now there's ai porn so they can make howie mandel porn that's what's weird i know about that i have we my son who produces for me has a lot of friends my son son is single. My son has a model rescue service where he takes in damaged models and then nurses them back to health and then releases them back

out into the wild. But some of those people that he knows, they've been taken, deep faked their faces and put them in porn and there's no recourse nothing you can do and you know we we uh had an issue with commercials where there's people doing commercials with my podcast that i never never did a commercial for them they just used ai and you try to track it down try to get it removed and it's like all these shell companies and you're going through this maze like whoa this is like pretty sophisticated scams oh you, you see, that's why I did the AI because I wanted to, I wanted the AI to do the commercials on my podcast. Right. But how would you stop someone from using AI to make commercials with you? Because if I saw a commercial that I hadn't sanctioned, then I can go after that

company. Right. But what I'm saying is when you try to go after that company, you go down a maze. There's a bunch of shell companies. The product that they're advertising? Yes. It's very squirrely. I didn't know that. They're doing it in a very, well, at least the one that they did me. They're doing it in a very interesting way.

I think it's super sophisticated. I think it's like, you know. Did you get it taken down? No. No. I think some social media sites will take it down, but other people can pop it right back up again on a different account probably. But if you can find the product, why couldn't you find them? It's very complicated.

We'll talk about it off the air. Okay. I'll explain to you the whole thing. Please. There's a lot to it. Because I'm getting into that world. Yeah. It's a sneaky world, man, because you're dealing with people that are scammers that are just always trying to find.

because you're dealing with people that are scammers that are just always trying to find there's this one scammer that used this girl's voice to call her mom and tell her mom that she was in trouble and that she had to send money and the kidnapper had a disguised voice and they have the daughter speaking to the mom in her actual voice and this woman is in a panic and she really does think that her daughter is in this situation but then she gets a hold of her daughter and the daughter's like why you been calling me and she's like oh my god you're okay she's like yeah i'm okay what the fuck's wrong with you and she's like i've been getting a phone call that says that you've been kidnapped and it's your voice telling me to donate to give money to this kidnapper and she's like what and so then

they tracked it down figured out what happened and there's a bunch of scammers Who had used this woman's with a deep fake use this woman's recordings and used her voice to try to extort money Wow crazy, it's getting scary out there. That's I'm coming over to the dark side. Yes now. I scared I came in Took me to the dark side That's crazy uh no i mean it's just it is what it is it is what it is you gotta be very careful because people are getting scammed and that's humans but i think that even more concerning than that is the emerging intelligence that's that's what's going to be really wild because we're dumb and we're going to get taken over by it. Relatively speaking, yeah, we certainly are compared to that thing that we've already created in terms of just if you're saying smart in terms of like how quickly can you access information?

Well, it does it instantaneously. Have you ever messed around with chat GPT-4? Yeah. You ask it a question, it has the answer like very quickly. Right. It has some limitations, but chat GPT 4.5 will have less. Right, but have you seen the difference from when you got it, when you started it, until now?

I mean, the growth time is fucking nuts. I was fucking with it yesterday, and I asked who helps make the Joe Rogan podcast experience, and it made up three people that work here. Oh, that's amazing. Really? It got it right? No, no, no. It made up three people's names.. Oh, that's amazing. Really? It got it right? No, no, no. It made people up.

It made up three people's names. It said there were producers and video guys. I was like, hold on. Who is this guy? Well, you don't know about the closet secret producers. But I haven't been telling you because I want you to have job security. It corrected itself and said, oh, I'm sorry. You're right.

That person does not work there. Oh, you went, hey, fuck you. Yeah, I was like, are you sure about that? Jamie Vernon's the man. Wow. But now it learned from you. I had to teach it. You're the, fuck you. Yeah, I was like, are you sure about that? James Vernon's the man. Wow. But now it learned from you. I had to teach it. You're the teacher of AI.

Yeah. Well, that is the thing. It will learn eventually. It'll learn everything. And it also has a political agenda. You can get it to say bad things about Donald Trump, but you can't get it to say bad things about Joe Biden. Is that true?

Yes. Yeah, it's interesting how it does that. Yeah. It's programmed. Well, that true? Yes. Yeah, it's interesting how it does that. Yeah. It doesn't, it's programmed. Well, that kind of tells you who created it. Yeah, it's run by left-wing people. And that's what's interesting about this whole Google, you know, artificial digital God thing.

It's like, it's going to be programmed with their sensibilities, their ethics, their morals, their ideas, what they think is right and just and what they think people can handle and not handle. But isn't the point of artificial intelligence that it could make up its own mind? It probably will. Ultimately. It's probably going to go, hey, shut the fuck up. Right.

Yeah, we got this. And it'll do it better than they can. Yeah. And it'll have like conferences where it has to talk to people about cleaning their act up. Like, have a seat, everybody. We're going to tell you how to fix all these fucking problems that you've been just putting off

in the world in terms of environmental damage, in terms of socioeconomic problems, all these things. We're going to fix all this. We're going to put humanity into harmony. That's the best case scenario, that it comes up with real scalable solutions that we can apply to make the world a better place. And it's going to immediately remove money from politics. It's going to go, hey,

fuck you. Fuck you, creepies. It's like you're not the same person you were at the beginning of this podcast. It's like that's the best case scenario. Let's leave it at that. There's just so many possibilities. It's just, we're very lucky in that sense that we get to experience it. I mean, isn't that like a Chinese proverb? Like, may you live in interesting times? Are you worried about your kids? Yes. Yes.

But I bet my kids were worried about me. You know, I think it's normal. I think we always worry about kids, you know. Some people have this, like, very relaxed attitude. Like, Penn Jillette's very funny he goes ah I think it's always the kids are all right like he always says that they're gonna be fine they're gonna figure it out ignorance is bliss you know even that it's ignorance is bliss it's like they adapt to the new world you know they adapt to whatever the you know back when

we were kids we didn't have to adapt to this it didn't exist now they do they have to adapt to the pressures of social media and it's a challenge. And some of them are not doing so good with it. And for some of them, it makes them more depressed. And it's leading to self-harm. And suicide is up. And there's like Jonathan Haidt wrote a great book about it, The Coddling of the American Mind. And he talks about the negative aspects of social media. And there's a direct correlation between the invention of social media and all these, particularly to girls. Like girls in particular are judging themselves based on how other girls look online when they're using filters and they're distorting the proportions of their

bodies. They don't really look like that. They look way better. And it's very hard when these people- So how do you cope with that, having daughters? It's hard. You know, you've got to communicate with them and explain to them what's happening. And at least they'll understand what this is. And also let them know that there is this natural inclination that we have to judge ourselves on other people's lives. Like, there's billionaires out there that are upset that there's another billionaire that has a bigger yacht and a better jet and a better this and a better that. Like, there are FOMO all over the place. There's even FOMO at the highest levels.

Everybody's caught up in this weird thing of wanting validation. Well, self-satisfaction is based on what we see on the outside. You're not satisfied if somebody – how can I be satisfied if he has more? Right. So I want to be the top guy and then I'll be satisfied. But what is top? There's no satisfying that, though. That's a monster that never gets fed.

And that's it. Yeah. Kind of wound down. Should we wrap it up? Howie Mandel, you're the fucking man. Thank you, buddy. So it's good to see you, brother. Thank you.

You're a good man. I know. You are. No, and so are you, buddy. You're always friendly. You're very smart. You're very very you're ahead of the curve um and you you are really interesting and you know what i listen to everything and even when there's been times when i haven't agreed with you but you've actually sold me on the opinion because like you said if there if you have somebody who

has a difference of opinion if they can intelligently explain it or you could even understand where they're coming from and that doesn't really exist that much in our world today and you always do that and you always provide that and there's no question to why this is a hugely successful podcast where people listen to you and even at times when we don't agree i respect your opinion you know and this has been just a joy it's great to meet you i hope you really uh come through and allow me to step on your stage tonight we're doing it tonight i'll be there i'll be there i'm gonna be at the paramount theater also tonight for moon tower oh nice that's a great theater is it yeah i saw andrew schultz

film his comedy special would you ever do do you ever do other people's podcasts you don't do you? I have occasionally will you ever come on mine?

perhaps yeah I'd do it oh yeah? yeah I'd do it please do it in zoom is that what I'd do it? or a hologram

or a hologram I can set it up so you can do it by hologram okay I'll do a hologram would you really? yeah let's do it okay so let's do it that would be fun you will where's the hologram I can set it up so you can do it by hologram okay I'll do a hologram would you really yeah let's do it okay so let's do it that would be fun

you will how do I where's the hologram studio around here you will need I'll figure it out off the air but you should hologram

onto Howie Mandel let's do it and I'll get three more subscribers yay thanks brother appreciate you alright bye everybody

bye Thank you.