The Joe Rogan Experience - #2484 - David Cross

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

David Cross is a comedian, actor, writer, producer, and host of “Senses Working Overtime.” His latest special, “The End of the Beginning of the End,” is streaming on YouTube.https://youtu.be/xucCFqTboewwww.youtube.com/@OfficialDavidCrosswww.officialdavidcross.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Get a free welcome kit with your first subscription of AG1 at drinkag1.com/joerogan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Joe Rogan podcast, checking out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. David. Joseph. Good to see you. Dude, I haven't seen you in a long fucking time. When was the last time we were actually in a room together?

Well, I was trying to think of that. I don't know. I would imagine post-news radio we hung out at some point at some show somewhere. Somewhere. But I don't know. But I do remember, because I did news radio a couple times. And we hung out. I remember I think we both, no, just you, had more hair than I was probably already at this point.

I was fighting to keep it. I was hanging on. Do you shave or is that it? Is that? Oh, I mean, I'm bald. If I didn't shave, I'd be bald all the way up here. But I got a hair transplant and it was useless. Yeah.

I did a joke about it I go having a hair transplant is like taking people that are healthy and moving them into a neighborhood where everyone's dying this is just like where did Bob go? He just fucking flew off the face of the earth so yeah you just

accepted it and said fuck it I should have done it a long time ago it's so much better and I don't have to talk to a barber I don't have to listen to boring fucking stories while they hold you hostage with a pair of scissors that's what that's what this is this gets me. I don't like shaving. I don't, it's kind of a pain in the ass. And I, also, I look like a,

kind of a turtle, I look like a turtle, you know, when I shave, I don't like it. And it's not attractive to me, and I jerk off to me all the time, so I want to keep things fresh. But, uh, this, I probably don't have to. I could probably get clippers and stuff, but I go to, you know, one of my guys around the corner where I live. And I have this experience where I want that, I want to get in and out, right? Because of what you were saying. A lot of chit-chat. And there are a couple guys, very quiet.

Hi, how you doing? Good. Fist bump, whatever. You know what I want to get out of there. There's one guy who just talks all. And then they have the blade. you know the what do you call that you know the

blade blade straight razor thank you and um and they got it right there so you got to be polite it's on your it's by your yeah you know and I know I could avoid it if I just get some clippers and just do this thing but

I don't know I was boring and sorry it was there's no point to it barely has anything to do with what we were talking about There's something about a beard, though, that makes you distinguished, or at least have experience. Or look like a homeless, you know, alcoholic. I mean, there are plenty of those guys, too.

Yeah, there's a lot of those, too. But a beard is like, there's a statement with a beard, like a full beard, like yours, white. Mine is just, you know, I don't like shaving. Like, you know, and again, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, do like, I only gain weight in two places. Stomach and right here. And also I have a kind of a thin frame. So it's really not attractive.

It's not attractive. So the beard is sort of fills it in. It's more laziness. I don't have to worry about it. Yeah. No, I hear you. And this, you know, I just, I go, I don't know, six, seven weeks and then I just shave it. Once it gets out, because this, my hair doesn't grow. down or it just goes out like a clown you know it goes this way all of it even this too and uh and once

this starts filling in it it just looks goofy yeah i have a friend my friend assan he used to shave his head and now purposely to look goofy he lets the sides go out and it's madness it's just it's all fucking crazy thick hair and bald on top and bald on top yeah yeah and he does a joke stage about it. It doesn't, he's Indian. This is my impression of an Indian pussy.

And is he just, like, not concerned by getting laid? Yeah, I think he's just embracing, but he still gets laid, you know,

because he's really funny. I think he just embraces not giving a fuck. There he is. Oh, he looks familiar to me. Okay. Very funny guy.

All right, cool. He's one of the up-and-comer. Well, he's from L.A., originally. He was one of the doorman at the comedy store. Okay, he looks very professorial. He's very smart. Yeah.

Yeah, but doesn't give a fuck about his hair. Who's that? Art Bell. I was going to guess Art Bell. Yeah. I swear to God. I don't even know if I've ever seen him, coast to coast. Yes, yes.

Holy shit. From the Kingdom of Nye. Wow. I fucking loved that show. That was the show that I listened to coming home from Hollywood because I lived out in the Valley and I would drive home at night and I'd listen to late night with Art Bell. Oh, it's the best. Coast to Coast with Art Bell. I used to do a whole bit about the like, because who's the new guy, George Norrie, George Norrie, right. And I'm going to digress for one

second. Did you ever, do you play video games at all? Yes. Well, I try not to, but I used to play a lot of them. Did you ever play Prey? No, but I know what it is. Oh, great, underrated underrated game got ripped off or just people bit certain things that they started but one of the coolest things so it's about like this it takes place on a reservation

you know in the 90s I guess or something like that and there's a bartender and her boyfriend and it takes place in this bar and then aliens come and then this guy goes on the alien ship to go rescue her. But they did this really cool thing.

So first, they have this in the video game, right? At the bar, there's a TV. And as you walk towards it, it's like staticky until you get closer to it. And then as your character gets closer to it, it's Art Bell talking about aliens and stuff. And I know I'm not doing it justice, but it was such a cool, smart idea. and God bless him. He was the OG.

Yeah, and just some of the guy. One thing that, because I listen to it a lot too, because sometimes, you know, you're listening and you're like, this is insane. This is crazy. And he would always, always treat the guest with deference, you know, in respect. And I, that must have been. Because there were things that were, you know, if you go back to all the episodes that were kind of contradictory in a sense, you know, like, wait, you think all these things happen?

You think there's a place in the middle of the ocean that has, like, it's a community of people that live there. And, and then, but you also think this, like all these different things, it'd be like, hmm. Huh. Interesting. Yeah, he would let you go. He'd let you go. He'd give it some air. But he was, yeah, he was never rude or... No, never.

You'd call him up. He had a time traveler line where you would call specifically if you were a time traveler. What if you were calling from the past, they didn't have that technology yet. No, it's mostly people from the future, I believe. Wait, like, Art, I'm calling from seven minutes in the future. Listen. I think his whole deal was if you are here. in this current era, but you are from another time.

You could call because, you know, the idea was like, he would have these remote viewers and oddballs on and they would talk about that we have had the ability to time travel for a long time. Oh, yeah. You know, there are wormholes that exist and they explain the quantum dynamics involved and time travel has been breached by the CIA in the 1960s. Yes. And you have these people call up, but art would always like give them air.

Like, let them breathe. Let it breathe. Yeah. Yeah. Art, I'm a werewolf. Interesting. Tell me more. Like, it didn't matter no matter what it was.

It was a fun show. Oh, I loved it. Crazies people from fucking Bigfoot people to alien people. Everything. And then a lot of people, ex-military, right? You know, get that, like. Whistleblowers? I was stationed in, you know, outside of a remote island that I can't go into a,

of Singapore and I witnessed some things that I still have difficulty believing. And then he just, yeah, what happened? Yeah, it was great. It's so fun. And you, so did you also listen to Phil Hendry? Yes. Oh, God. He was the best.

Super genius. The best thing about Phil Hendry was the people that didn't understand what was going on that would call in and be really upset. The first two times I heard him, I didn't understand what he was doing. doing, he's that good too. And I would be like, this is crazy, this guy. And then eventually you're like, oh, he's doing characters. Because he'd, you know, repeat characters and stuff.

But I got the chance to watch him do a show. So he's got, he's got the, he's got three mics, I want to say. Like two mics like this and then a phone mic. Or, you know, a phone, like a old time. I'm, you know, cradle phone. And he was doing himself, the woman who runs the HOA or whatever, that, whatever her name was, that character. And then somebody else calling in. Like he did somebody calling on the phone.

And it was, I mean, it was like a magic act. It was crazy to watch how, without missing a beat. And I could see, you can see how he strategically takes breaths so that he can go from one character to another and interrupting each other. Yeah. You know, it was fascinating, but he's a genius. It's the only thing that I, right away, I was like, oh, wait a minute, there's no cross talk. Like, right, well, one of the early times I listened, I was like, I think this is the same guy. Yeah, well, he's, he bumps it up.

Like, he's really good at, at, uh, almost, you know, making it sound as if, like, because he'll interrupt himself and go, and I, okay, but, you know, and stop and then just go right into the other voice. It's fucking phenomenal. And, and completely original. Like, I don't know of anybody else that did anything like that. No. No. Did you ever, um, he used to put out stuff for charity, like, uh, CDs and things. And he has, uh, uh, uh, he has, uh, uh, uh, I don't know what it would be called, but it was one of the things he put out for charity that was a guy called into the station. He was probably super high, but he called in thinking it was Pizza Hut. And he fucks with this guy in the best way where he's like, and what's the woman character he does?

It's kind of like a black woman who's like, hmm, honey. it is the best, I don't know, Marjorie, I think, maybe. But he, then he does that woman answering the phone at, you know, Pizza Hut. And then he does the automated thing. She's like, I'm going to put you on. It's easier to do the automated thing. And the guy's like, okay, all right. And then he gets out, he's like, thank you for calling Pizza Hut.

The best pizza in a three-block radius. And if you want, if you want, I'm not doing it justice, you got to go do it. Hear it. Can you? Yep. You got it? All right. Headphones.

Okay. It's so brilliant. Wait. Whichever is a large. Yes. 16 inch deep pan, dish pan. You got the dish pan deep or an extra deep. Just a regular large, large, thick crust.

You want a large, 16 inch thick crust. On a deep dish, you want puff dish? No. You want any of them puffy cheese balls, anything like that? We got a special on Buffalo Wing. We got a special on, damn, I forgot out the other thing. We got a special on something. All right, what do you want?

What kind of cheese you want? Blue, Swiss, cheddar, monster. Okay, I think I'm going to have the wrong location here. All right, hold on. And he's so beautiful. Thank you for calling pizza. Your call is being transferred. Please have all credit card information available for our operators.

Yes, pizza, hello. Hi, yes. Hi, which location are you at? We're at the corner of Lasziena and Venice. Okay. I like to place in order for delivery. All right, can I put you on hold? We'll put you through our automated system.

Hold on, please. Thank you for calling pizza. If you'd like cheese pizza, press one. If you'd like a meatball pizza, press two. If you'd like sausage, press three. Press two. Oh, it goes on and on and on. He eventually gets the guy a fish pizza.

And the guy's like, no, man, I don't want it. It's really funny. But that's him. That's Phil doing all those voices. And that's not set up. A guy had called into the studio thinking it was pizza. And they're like, take this call. Did you ever meet him?

I did briefly. When I got to see him do his, he did a live show at Aspen Comedy Festival. Oh. A long, long, long time ago. I did something with him, Bob Odenkirk, and Doug Stanhope. Oh, wow. And Adam Carolla. I don't remember where it was.

I want to say it was somewhere in Canada, but it was some sit down. We were talking about the process of going through, because he was in the middle of doing some sort of a television show pilot. Yeah, yeah. So we were talking about the process of creating a pilot and what it's like trying to get a pilot to it actually. finish television show and get it approved and what the struggles are. It was very interesting. I don't think it was for, it was, it was like one of those Montreal Comedy Festival things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Where they had some, it was like some weird, it was a long time ago. It was like, God, it had really 2001 or something like that. Yeah, I vaguely remember when he was, there was going to be, because he would talk about it doing this sitcom. Yeah, did it ever happen? I don't think so, no. He was a really nice guy, though, not what I expected at all.

I expected them to be fucking insane. Just like, just to be able to do that every night and not get bored with just completely fucking with people every day. It's got to be exhausting, too, like mentally, because you're, you've got to remember. It's like really great improv guys where you have to remember all these details, bring them back 30 minutes later, right? And you're doing multiple characters. You ever see T.J. and Dave? No. Oh, dude, the best.

Yeah, what is it? It's T.J. Jadigowski and Dave Pasquazzi, who were like the kings of that stuff out of Chicago. And they tour around. And they're just, they're two guys who it starts off, you know, none of its plan, none of its, and they have like a dedicated cult following. When they're in New York, it sells out like that. And you've got to go to at least two shows to see how wildly different it is. I mean, there are two guys that come out on stage. Usually there's like three chairs.

And it'll just start with like, you know, how's it going? Good, good, good. Are you in line? No, no, no. And you watch it like, oh, they're in line. Where are they in line at? Do they know each other? And then it turns out they're at the DMV.

but they're not, it's like a room outside of the DMV, and then they will leave and come back and be somebody else, right? A kid that was mentioned or a wife or something, or be in a car. And it all wraps up. It's all a big story. And I have seen, I've probably seen them 30, 40 times, and I've seen shows that were more, that were funny or more poignant than some plays that have been worked on for years, you know.

And it's better. Completely improvised? Completely 100%. Wow. Oh, they're, I mean, do you know Tim Meadows? Yeah. So Tim was a guest. Sometimes I'll have a third person.

I know who he is. I don't, I don't, I don't, you know. SNL. Yeah, and ensconced in that second city world for decades. And he said it was the most terrifying thing. he's ever done because they're like genius level. I mean, the detail you have to remember. And then on top of it, if one of them is, you know, I'm a marine biologist or whatever,

it slips out, then that person has to know about the real person playing the fake marine biologist has to know enough about marine biology to keep the thing going, you know, and it's just next level. It's almost time for spring break. So maybe you're headed to the beach or maybe you're taking the kids on a road trip or maybe you're just taking some extra time for yourself. No matter what, you deserve a break and a reset and AG1 can help. AG1 is your daily health drink. Just one scoop combines your multivitamin, pre and probiotics, superfoods, and antioxidants to help

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Well, I'd imagine that's like a muscle that you just get really strong with. Yeah. Like, ranters. Like, Tim Dillon is the best at ranting on a podcast alone. He doesn't have anybody with him. Most of his podcasts are just him ranting. And I've watched the development of it. I'm like, that's an amazing.

muscle to develop because you just get accustomed to that kind of scenario, that situation, where it's just, and your mind just gets used to producing content just... And like old school AM late night radio guys, right? Who don't have people calling in who are like talking about whatever. And they got to do it, you know, four or five times a week, three hours, by themselves. Yeah, I used to always like to listen to them. I used to like to listen to those crazy right-wing, angry political talk shows because I didn't know anybody like that. So I was like, what is this guy doing?

Well, that was the bulk of the radio. I mean, that's why, you know, you have like Art Bell and Phil Hendry like a nice, like, oh, okay. Yeah. Because I got all this. I got Mark Levine and I got, you know, what's his name? Rush Limbaugh? Rush Limbaugh, yeah. And when you first start listening, or when I first started listening, and I came out to L.A. from Boston, you know, and people were like, there's this guy out here who's fucking nuts, you know. And I'd never heard of him in Boston. And then, and you're like, does he, how much of this stuff does he believe? Does he really believe? And how much has he come to believe? Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. And those guys, that was a whole fascinating thing. And Wally George. Do you remember Wally George? I do, but I don't remember much about him. I remember the name. What did Wally George do?

He was the guy who originated what, I mean, now it's really familiar. Remember Morton Downey Jr.? He was a little after Wally George. Oh, that's right. That's right. And he would, look, 83, and he was, and it was super low budget, like, cable access. type thing back when that was a whole thing. And he'd get,

the audience would be hooting and hollering and he'd have people on like somebody who, and sometimes they, I think because it became popular, sort of like with Morton Downey Jr., where people came on to quote unquote fuck with Wally George. Like, I'm going to pretend to be a, you know,

a furry way, and I'm going to, you know, have gauges. And you know what I mean? Like just the archetype of the thing they want to yell at. And I think people started, it was, there were some bullshit people on there, you know, people lying about who they were. But he'd have people on and then, and then kick them off. It would happen all time.

Like, come on, sit down. What the fuck do you think you're doing? And everybody would yell at the person. They'd start talking. And like, get the fuck out of here. And that was the show. We're like, you know. And here's something really crazy.

and tell me if this is rumor, look up at your magic computer, Rebecca DeMorne's dad, the actress. That's, yeah. Wally George? Yes. No. Really? Look it up.

Casey, right? Jamie. Jamie? I'm going to call you Casey. Who is, I forget who Rebecca DeMorne was. From risky business. Oh. Oh, wow.

Wow, her dad? Yeah. Is Wally George? Wow. Isn't that crazy? Married multiple times. Shocker, potentially ten times. Had at least six children.

Holy shit, look at how many times he was married. One, two, three, four. Wow. Possibly ten. Possibly ten. You imagine keep fucking signing up? I don't, yeah. I just read.

Literally, the other day, Fleetwood Mac guy, getting married for the fifth time, he's 182. And he's getting, like, what? Stop. Yeah. Why do you want to keep doing that? They believe, they really believe this is it. This is the one. You have to say those vows and mean it each time.

Right. Or not. Yeah. Or just say, this is just a fun thing that I do to keep a lady happy. Yeah, or just have a party, I guess. Yeah, have a party and pretend that you're normal now. And you're married? Yeah.

Yeah. How long you've been married? 17 years. Oh, nice. Yeah. It'll be 14 in October. If I get divorced, that's a wrap. What do you mean?

Like, I'm happy, happily married. I don't want to get divorced. Not saying that. But if I ever get divorced, I'm never. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, same here. Yeah. Oh, I feel the same.

Silly. I'm not having any more children. So if I don't. have any children, it makes no sense to legally be bound to some person. Can we just hang out? I am 100% with you. I, and I was, I was never a anti-marriage guy, but I just didn't think I'd get married because I didn't want to. And then eventually I met somebody who I wanted to marry. Yeah, it's like you just have to, it has to, I mean, that's the thing. It has to be the right person. Everybody who says that, except Wally George. But the, the, I don't know. The, I

idea of doing it 10 times is fucking insane. Yeah. Like that's a, they're doing a different thing. I think once you get, I'll give you three. And let's say one of them was some fishy circumstances. I'll give you three. Once you get on your, by the time you're going to be on your fourth or fifth or six or Rupert Murdoch marriage, like I, what is the point? And why does that woman believe you?

What does it say about the lady? Well, what about ladies that do it? I've been here for six years, and I know one lady while I've been here. She's been married twice. Married and divorced twice, and now she's on the third guy. Yeah, I would look. I mean, that says something about the guys, right? I guess.

Or her? If you, you wouldn't ever think, like, you meet somebody, you like them. And then you find out they've been married twice before in six years. Right. And you were, like, starting to fall for her. You wouldn't think, wait a minute. You would, unless she was hot. Men are dumb.

If she's hot and she's sexy and you really like being around her, you're like, who cares? She made mistakes. Yeah. Who cares? I guess you're right. If the sex is that good, too. Yeah, if the sex is good, she's hot and you love being around her. And that's what she wants.

You want to make her happy, like, okay. I'll say this. You should find out, you should go talk to the other guys and have a sit down and find out why, you know. Yeah, the problem is, some guys, they'll want to mess it up for you, so they'll lie. They might not be accurate. You know, they might paint a, also, they might have been the fuck up and they want to blame it on her. And then you'll get a distorted perception of who she is. But then, then it's back to her, that she's married.

People who are fucked up. I guess the point is that we're both making is don't get married. You know? Well, it is a weird thing. It's a weird thing to do. Do you have children? I do. Yeah, it's a weird thing to do if you don't have children.

Not weird like you shouldn't do it, but it's a different thing. Yeah, completely. Yeah. And I would say that, not that we, you know, my wife and I have any. you know, real issues. But I would behave myself and stay and work at the marriage because of the kid. Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. It fucks kids up when people get divorced. What's your background? My parents were split up when I was five and my mother remarried when I was seven and has been with my stepdad ever since. Oh, that's good. Yeah. They have a great relationship. I just saw them this weekend.

And where did you grow up? Fucking everywhere. I was born in New Jersey, moved to San Francisco when I was seven, lived in San Francisco from seven to 11 in the height of the Vietnam War, in Haydashbury, like, hippie town. And then Florida from 11 to 13. That's the opposite of San Francisco. Oh, my God. Yeah.

That's the first time I found out about the N-word. I didn't know what it meant. And I remember I had to ask my mom. No way. Yeah, I had to ask my mom. I never heard it. San Francisco. Never heard it. Wow.

San Francisco in the 1970s when I was, you know, between 7 and 11 was kind of a wild, amazing time. It was really weird. It was because we were in the middle of like the counterculture. Yeah, yeah. Berkeley, all that stuff. Uh-huh. Yeah, we lived right down the street from Lombard Street. So we're, you know, we were like in the middle of it all, you know.

And it's funny because it was during that time that the VATTS. Vietnam War ended when I was I think I was when did Vietnam end 74 I think 74 okay US withdrawal 73 yeah so it was like how old was I whatever the point is like at that time I remember thinking thank God they figured out war's bad we're never going to do this again I literally had that thought however old I was what a naive child oh I was oh I was I was like, whew, because my stepfather had, he didn't get drafted. He got lucky. He just didn't get picked.

And I knew a guy, some guy that was a friend of the family that had moved to Canada. He's like, fuck this. He took off to Canada, so I was aware of that. Like, how people are leaving the country so that they don't have to go to war. Because if you're a little kid, everything's fucking scary. Especially if you come from, you know, broken home. And, you know, like, is a lot of... Yeah, and the concept of a draft or conscription.

The idea like, oh, you may have to go and you're going to learn how to shoot a gun and then go shoot strangers, kids. You know, like that is got to be terrifying if you're a kid. No, it was insane. And there was also the time where, you know, my stepdad was a hippie. And my parents were hippies. And when that's going to ask, why did your, sorry to interrupt, but why did they move around so much? My stepfather was a computer programmer initially. and then he wanted to become an architect.

So he went to school in San Francisco and then University of Florida in Gainesville and then Boston Architectural Center. So we moved to Boston when I was 13. So that was what it was. It was him becoming an architect. Right.

And so they didn't like sports. They weren't into anything like that. And then when Muhammad Ali was opposing the Vietnam War, he became this like counterculture hero. Sure. And I remember it was my parents sat down and watched Muhammad Ali versus Leon Spinks because he was trying to win his title back. And they were rooting for Muhammad Ali. I'm like, this is crazy.

Like this guy's stance on the Vietnam War has made my parents fans of his to the point where they're going to watch boxing. Like they never watched box. They didn't want to have anything to do with anything violent. They hated it. But they wanted to watch that. One boxer to watch if you are anti-hitting or boxing or whatever. It was Muhammad Ali. It was a strategist, you know.

He was, but quite honestly, by that stage of his career, he had slowed down considerably. And he just wasn't. I can't remember the Leon Spinks because he... Leon beat him. Yeah. And then he beat Leon in the rematch. Right. This is the rematch, right.

And that was the big one. that we're all glued to the TV. But I remember thinking, this is crazy. They're watching boxing because of this guy's position on the Vietnam War. Have you seen when we were kings? Yes. Yeah, it's great. It's amazing.

Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, he was a, God, you want to talk about a unique human being? Like a one of one. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And, you know, outside of, you know, Mike Tyson, there was never any kind of figure like that in boxing.

No. I mean, there was minor... Sugar Ray Leonard a little bit, but not... Not to that extent, because he wasn't a cultural figure. Right, right. Muhammad Ali represented something during the Civil Rights Movement. And he changed his name to Muhammad Ali. Right, right. That was a big thing, too. People were terrified of Muslims at the time.

And still. I was going to say at the time. Yeah. But it was a different kind of Muslims. You know, that was... Well, they were, you know, the government was really good about portraying every black urban person as, like, potentially, you know, Muslim Brotherhood. Mm-hmm. Twelve tribes.

Right, right, right, right. Those guys. They're still around the Israelite 12th tribe. Oh, those guys, yeah. Yeah. They used to be, they used to hang out and hang out. They used to be in Times Square, like, you know, yelling and preaching. I hung out with those guys one day.

I wrote a piece about it for my website because I went, I was going home. It was when I was living in New York and I was walking on the street. And there's this guy standing there with like a microphone and a little speaker. And they would read things for the Bible. Yep. And they would translate it. And they had this very bizarre translation. Everybody was black.

George Washington was black. Everyone was black. They were explaining to me. You know, the so-called Jew, they're black Israelites. The so-called Jews was the thing that they always think. Well, they're Jewish. Yeah, you don't have to say the so-called part. Yeah, it was very odd.

But their whole thing was there was a 12th tribe of the Israelites that were black that have been, you know, written out of history. Yeah, that was their thing. Yeah. They also informed me that I'm not white. there was a relief. Because I'm Italian. They're like, oh, you ain't white. I was like, oh, phew.

Oh, it's like the... Great. Because they hated white people. So I was just talking to this, because I was bored. You know, I was just, so I was talking to this guy. I was having him explain everything to me. And you informed me, don't worry, man, you're not white. I was like, oh, okay, that's good.

It's good to know. So you can hang out. I can hang out with you guys. You don't hate me. But it was very odd. Very odd. They were all dressed like superheroes. They're all these crazy, like, avenger.

your costumes on. Yeah, and like jewelry. Yeah. Big, yeah, huge medallions around their neck. Yeah. Very odd stuff. There's still, you don't see them like you used to, but they're still out there. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, they're out there. But I mean like in, literally in New York, you know, periphery of Times Square. Yeah, last time I was in Philadelphia, I saw them. Yeah. They were out there on the street with the microphones. Yeah. Yeah. It's an odd group.

When were you in New York? I was in New York. I moved to New York in 91. Yeah. So I started stand up in 88 in Boston. And I got picked up by my manager, who I'm still with, when I was essentially an open micer. Who is that? Jeff Sussman.

How do I not know Jeff Sussman? He handles Kevin James. Was he a Boston guy? No, he was a New York guy. Oh, okay, okay. So the story was he had. What was this name? The guy who had all the crazy costumes,

he was on the Rodney Dangerfield special, Bob. Oh. Bob Nelson. Bob Nelson. So he handled Bob Nelson. The Cleveland Browns. Yeah. He put the helmet on.

He had boxing gloves. He did Jippy Jeff's gym. He had brain damage. He did a bunch of different characters. So Bob, who was a big act, you know, he had an HBO special, the whole deal. At the time, he found Jesus. Oh. And where was he?

In his basement, I guess, or something. Okay. Around the neighborhood, somewhere. Okay. But he had this guy who is his prayer partner that was going to take over as his manager. And so this was my manager's big client. So he's like, fuck. Like, I got to go find some other comedians.

So did he just stop doing stand-up? I don't know. I don't know if he's still doing. does stand up. I don't know. I knew his career. My manager is really good and he's very smart. And he did a great job guiding Bob. But I think sometimes when people like have like a big religious moment like that, like maybe that becomes more of their life than he was all in. Yeah, yeah. He was all in with Christianity. And so my manager said, well, I kind of know most of the comics in New York, let me see if I'm not missing people in Boston. And so he traveled to Boston

with a friend of his, one of the guys that owned governors. And they came- Well, governors was Bob's room, wasn't it? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. One of the rooms that he worked at, yeah. And so they came down to Boston and I just randomly went up one night at Duck Soup. Remember Duck Soup? Duck Soup? Duck Soup was, it became the improv after a while. It was... I don't remember that. Billy Downs and... Paul Barclay.

Paul Barclay. I think it was actually Billy split. I think it was Paul's thing. So they had split at that point? I think. I'm not sure about that. But what it was, it was Paul's idea, I believe. It was a much more high-end room.

Like, it was really nice. And it was right across from Nix. So it was in the below area where the Wiltern is. Okay. So you know where the Wiltern is, which is now the big, you know, where Bill Blumen Wright does come. The Wilbur, right? Yeah.

Is that it? The Wilbur. It's the Wilbur. Okay, I'm thinking the Wiltern's L.A. At Wiltern's L.A. Right, I know what you're talking about. The Wilbur. Right, you're right.

So downstairs the Wilbur, it was you'd go down and it was a really nice room. Okay. And I was a limo driver at the time. I was driving limos. Driving a limo in Boston? Oh yeah, yeah. Jesus. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, man. That's what I was doing for a job. That's fucking hard. I mean, I just mean the literal streets of Boston are. It's tough to navigate with any vehicle, but a limo, add an extra half a car to it. Yeah. It wasn't that bad. It was mostly airport pickups.

You know, and a lot of it was town cars, pick people up in town cars. But when you drive around a lot, that's when I would come up with my best ideas. And I had an idea for a joke, and I called, God, I can't remember who the guy was. Fuck, I can't believe I'm blanking on his name. he was a really cool dude who was the manager of the club and I could call him up and say hey can I get a guest spot and he gave me a guest spot that night I wasn't even supposed to be on the show

and my manager just happened to be in the room and if I'd known he was in the room I probably would have been nervous and I probably would have bombed and I had no idea he was there and then he came up to me afterwards and gave me his card and he said can I see you tomorrow and I said okay and then he just meant for a ride to the airport So I did a set at the connection the next night, and then he asked me to come to New York and audition there.

And then next thing you know, I was living in New York. It was like three years later. Very cool. And then. Yeah, it was a crazy, crazy story. And when did you move out to L.A.? 94, 93? Like, first came out in 93 and then moved in 94.

I came out to 93 for a pilot. I did a pilot on Fox called Hardball with Jim Brewer. and a bunch of other people. It was a baseball sitcom on Fox that got canceled. It was terrible. Yeah. And then the only reason why I stayed, I hated L.A. But the only reason why I stayed was because I had got an apartment and I had a lease for a year.

So I was like, fuck, like, I have to stay here. And so I stayed for a whole year. And then I got a development deal for NBC. And they, I was there in the middle of this whole development deal. And then they said, we have a pilot that we already filmed, but we're going to fire. one of the cast members, we want you to audition for this. And that was News Radio, so I got to watch.

Who did you replace? Well, fortunately, it was, Ray Romano, who was a good friend of mine, was fired during the pilot. And so they replaced him with another guy, and that guy got fired. Oh, wow.

Yeah. So I would have felt terrible if it was Ray. But it was Ray being replaced. So I was like, good, fuck that guy. I'll do it for Ray Do you remember who the other guy was? I do not He was just an actor

Some guy I mean I never met him I'm sure he's a nice guy But luckily for Ray He goes on and does Everybody loves Raymond It becomes huge And I just stumbled

Into this fucking show With no acting experience That was a fun set I remember Because I did it a couple times And And also like That was not my first

But one of the first experiences I had with multi-camera sitcoms, you know, you're like, this is literally the easiest job on planet Earth. Oh, yeah. It is the, you have one full day. You have like a full, I think Thursday, right? Yeah. And then Friday's like half a day.

Yeah. Monday come in, listen to this, read the script, go away. Yeah, it's the filming day. That's the long day. Yeah. And it's not that bad. I mean, especially once we got loose, the first season. was hard. The first season was 12, 14 hour days because it was like they were trying to figure

out what the show was. But once it got rolling, it was pretty amazing. So I had only been doing stand-up for six years. I'd only been, I had done no acting. I had, they made me get an acting coach for a little while in New York, which I think was counterintuitive. For a pilot, for the pilot, the Fox pilot. Oh. Yeah. Well, how's, how's an acting coach going to help you with a sitcom. It's about instinct. It's about... Well, they were giving me a lot of money.

They gave me like $150,000. I mean, I understand why you... You have to learn how to act. Right. Do you know how to act? I've never acted. I'm just saying, like, to deliver sitcom lines as you don't need an acting teacher.

How, Joseph, let's limber up the body. Yeah, you're not Daniel Day Lewis. You're not doing... There will be blood. It was a... It was weird. Because it wasn't anything. I think the reason why it worked out so well is because it was never anything that I wanted.

So there was no weight to it. It wasn't like, oh my God, this is it. I am on a sitcom. I'm acting. It was more like, this is crazy. I can't believe I'm doing this. It was more like, wow, I can't believe I get to do this. But, you know, the real thing for me was to be able to be in L.A. and go to the comedy store.

That to me was more, that was more huge than, like when I got passed at the comedy store, that to me was like way bigger than being on a sitcom. I was like, holy shit. Like, because at that, you know, like, at six years in, I was like, am I even, is this going to work out? Like, I don't even know this is going to work out. Well, it's also not glamorous in any way. That, that aspect of working is there's nothing glamorous about a sitcom. You know what I mean? It's not the thing that when you're not in L.A. or Hollywood, you're sitting back and you are told about the glamorous lifestyle, the parties and all that stuff. It's literally, you're driving to work and you're going to work.

Yeah, but it was glamorous in a sense that you were on television. And that was very weird to me. It was very strange to watch it on TV. I'm like, that is actually me on TV. I had zero aspirations for any acting at all. Yeah. It never was, it never even occurred to me. When I lived in Boston, I remember me and Fitzsimmons used to, we used to dream about the day where we could pay our bills telling jokes.

That was all it was. Yeah, I hear you. It was just like, oh, God, I would see guys like DJ Hazard. I remember I went to look at this apartment and DJ Hazard lived in the same building. And it was this converted schoolhouse and these loft apartments. And had like a second floor where the like the bedroom was and it looked over the living room. I'm like, God, he pays for this with jokes. Yeah.

This was like the most amazing thing. Like that's all I wanted. I saw these like Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney. I was like, imagine being able to pay your bills just telling jokes. Untie my ankles in the morning. Remember that? Yeah, I do. DJ Azard.

Yeah. What was I going to say? Something. Oh, do you know Fitzsimmons' Paul Barkley story or Bill Downs, The Watch? Bill Downs. It was Bill Downs. Which one? How's it go? Oh, I don't, you should get it from him because it's his story.

But, and I don't want to, I feel like it's his to tell, but it's fucking great. It's genius. It's bringing up something in my memory. So, so Bill owed everybody money. Right. And like he's still, you know, those guys owe me, whatever it is at this point, you know, what, $300, $500. And you'd go there and they were just everybody was big guy, remember? Yeah. I'll pay you soon, big guy. Oh, the word. And then do you remember when Bill adopted the girls?

Yes, Korean girls, right? He, yeah, and he would use them like as. Because at a certain point, it didn't help to go to the connection or go to the clubs. And you had to go to their fucking office. If you want it, nobody's going to call you back or whatever. And you'd like, I got to get on the tea and go to their office. And that's the only way I'm going to get money is if I show up and he's in a good mood and it's not going to happen from a phone call. And I'd go there every single time.

I was like, dude, I got to pay my rent, man. I mean, I got nothing. And you owe me, you know, $385. dollars and back then that was huge and uh oh cross i listen so i get these my kids one of my kids is sick whatever it's always this fucking excuse and then and then uh you know with still the coke residual and the bottom of his nose but so fits he owed fitzimmons a chunk of money like like a significant amount like 1,500, 1,800 bucks. Like something, something meaty, you know, especially for back then.

And you ask Greg, because I feel like it... No, tell the story. I'm sure Greg's told it to me. Okay. Greg and I are pretty close. I just mean... I remember it some... In my head, I do remember part of it, but I don't know the whole story.

I don't remember it. All right. So Greg was booked. at this you know some shit club in New Hampshire or whatever and Downs was going to be there

Bill was going to be there and and he goes there and he goes oh Bill I forgot my watch I don't want to go over can I borrow your watch

and he's like yeah sure it's like a Rolex like some fancy fancy fancy watch and Greg had this all planned out Oh I know the story now And then he had parked in a specific place. And then he gets, he's like, all right, thanks. And he's like, all right, don't forget to give it back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he does his set. And then he bolts out the back door, gets in his car, drives home back to Boston. And then Bill calls him, hey. So I think you forgot to give me my watch back. And Greg just basically goes, yeah, you want it back? Give me the $1,800 you owe me, and then met him at a restaurant or a diner somewhere in a public place. Give me the cash, and I'll give you your watch.

And it was just genius. That's Greg. Yeah. Yeah, those days were fun. Nick's comedy stop used to offer to pay you in cocaine or cash. I, dude, so I did Nick's. And the only, I've said this multiple times. The only, I'm extremely lucky that I was in Boston.

when I was in Boston because the comedy boom's going on. And outside of, I don't know, three places, I just didn't do that well. And I certainly didn't do well at Nix. I mean, I was the opposite. They, you know, it had that the vague feeling of high school where you're the weirdo and people want to fuck with you and throw you in the trash can. And so I got lucky because there were just spots. They just needed bodies.

So I worked all the time, you know, not, you know, not great gigs, but I had, it was all cash, you know, under the table. And they just needed bodies to, you know, go up and do 15 minutes, 20 minutes, whatever, at some cowboy bar in Fitzburg or whatever, Fitchburg. Anyway, so I get this, I get a week at Nix. and I am not doing well at all. I think I'm opening up for Kevin Knox, so not my crowd. And I didn't have the track suit. And, you know, Knoxie's up there doing,

hey, you know why Bill Buckner didn't catch the ball, get the ball? 86 World Series, because he heard it had AIDS on it. Okay. Yeah, that's a real joke. That's a real joke. And they loved it. Oh, God.

Wonderful. Yes, of course. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And then do you remember this? What does eight stand for?

No. What? Adios infected dick sucker. Oh, I do remember that. I do. I'm opening for him. Oh, my God. And it's his crowd.

And Adios infected dick sucker. Oh, my God. Yeah. So I titled one of the tracks on my first album, I think, first or second album, What If Baseballs Had AIDS on them? Jesse? I'm fucking eating it, right?

So they're peeling back my time as the week goes on. And I am, I mean, if I had done. even okay, I wouldn't have had this feeling. They're already kind of intimidating, right? Super mob. Very mob. Very mob. And do you remember where you'd walk into Nix and there was like the podium?

And then a little behind it is this little room with a curtain, right? And it's not big at all. And I went to go get paid. And the week was over. And I'm, and I've just, you know, eaten it, eat shit every single night. every single show and they're all eating

it's like a scene from like they're all eating like you know manicotti just you couldn't make it any better with the fucking napkins in their you know in their shirt like this

and and I go hey nervous as shit just hey so Dom I need to if I can get paid just for the

you know whatever and Dominic goes to whoever name, his kind of lackey there. And he goes, whatever his name was, you know, Polly, go pay the kid. And he's, I've interrupted his dinner. He's not happy. Fucking napkin off. Takes me, trudge, we go up to the offices upstairs, and there's a safe, and it's open, and there's cash, and there's a gun. This is just open, right? And he gives me, he gets the money, and he gets the money, and he gives it to me and I just pick it up. I want to get the fuck out of there. And I pick it up and

he's like, ain't going to count it? No, I'm good. I trust. I trust you. And I just bolted. I never went back there again. I was so fucking intimidated. That was an intimidating place. Oh, dude. The whole thing about it. Every the Dominic, all those guys. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone's doing blow and, you know, the performers are at least, you know. It was a maniacal time. where all those guys, there was one time where Nix was running three consecutive shows. So they had their main room upstairs. There was a dance club down in the bottom. And there was one of the room somewhere in that building.

And guys would go, like guys like Don Gavin, Steve Sweetie, they would go and do a set, a set, a set, a set. And these guys were just raking in money. Oh, yeah. And constantly doing it blow and not paying their taxes. Yeah. Yes. And that's what got them all. Yeah. Well, they, I mean, back in the heyday, and it went, it went on for years. It was years and years of this. I mean, you could go down, you know, 128 and do Caloons or whatever, and then just hop all the way back, hop into these Chinese restaurants or whatever.

Right, giggles and Saugas. Yeah, and just go in a straight line and go back and forth and do nine fucking shows and make a shit ton of money, cash under the table, tons of blow. Yeah And yeah It was a wild place Because there were so many comics And it was such a Boston's not a big city

You know And to have so much comedy All come out You've seen Fran Salamita's documentary I haven't I got it It's really great Stand Up stood out

Yeah it's really I got it It's really great It's really great And it goes all the way back To Crimmons and the Dingho And I That was before my time

I started in 88 So the Dingho was already gone You heard legendary stories from the dingho. Did you see Call Me Lucky? No. Oh, you got to see that. It's Bobcats documentary about Barry. Oh, no, wait a minute.

I did see that. It's fucking great. That's right. I did see that. It's really well done. I don't mean just like even if you don't know Barry, just the story and the way he lays out the path of the film is great. I had Barry on like right after it came out. I had him on the podcast.

And yeah. He's a, he's a legend and, you know, huge inspiration. He was an intimidating guy. Yeah. That was the guy that I was scared of because he was like, he was the guy who was sort of the standard. Like he made sure there was no hacks. Yeah.

He made sure there was, you know, like he set the standard, you know. He was really equitable too. Yes. Yes. Very politically active. Even like way back then, like really knowledgeable and like really understood what was going on in the world. Did you ever see his or one of his State of the Union shows? No.

They're fucking amazing. So he would go, I saw a couple of them at the old stitches. And he would go up. And it was when the state of the union was happening, he'd go up and he'd do his state of the union. It was just him. And he would go on and he'd have like, you know, it was pre-powerpoint, but it was whatever the equivalent of, you know, a screen behind him with stuff. And he'd go up there with a cooler, like a legit big cooler of beer because that motherfucker could drink. Yeah.

And he would just start. He had a podium and he would just crack beers and just down a case of beer or half a case of beer. or half a case of beer and just do his stuff, you know, extemporaneous stuff. I mean, stuff prepared,

but about, you know, the state of the union and all that. It was, and it would always be packed. Like, and you'd see Dennis Leary

and, you know, every single comic would be there, you know, trying up against the wall because it was packed, but it was great. I mean, legendary.

Well, I mean, I think he was really responsible for a lot of what Boston comedy became, you know, because he was the guy that was kind of the gold

standard. And he started the dingho. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he, it's like, becoming friends with him was like, hugh, like such a relief. Because I was terrified of him. Yeah. When I was a young comic, like, if that guy thought I sucked, if he hated me, I was like, I'm fucking doomed. Yeah. You know, because he was this character. He would go on stage with a sport coat on and reach into his inner pocket and pull out of Budweiser for every show. You remember that? I don't, but, I mean, I know he drank a lot. Yeah, but he would bring his, own beer it was part of his thing he would go on stage just reach into his pull out of Budweiser and set it down on the stool I you only drink American beer

is that true yeah he would drink Budweiser I wonder why that is I don't know it's like kind of a patriot I he doesn't seem like he would the kind of guy who would have denied himself well I mean maybe it was performative I don't know was there Medello even did it exist at the time but yeah He was the only guy, I would say, that, and to your point, like all these other legendary comics, you know, Lenny Clark and Don Gavin and Steve Sweeney and all those guys. It was the only guy. Those guys were kind of walking on eggshells. Yes.

Yes. Yes. They'd give every. They'd give all each other shit. Yep. like and mean shit too yeah oh they would fight oh yeah barry was the one guy they wouldn't fuck with well he was different than all of them and that he was incredibly well read like really well read really knowledgeable about all sorts of things with economics and the way the world works the

injustices of our society but really funny fucking comic too like great jokes great writer you know and just like he was the standard he was the glue that held that seen together because they all looked at him to be like, like, you can't kind of step out of a line. Like, you don't want to catch Barry's R. Yeah, it's absolutely true. Yeah. And then when the revelation he had of being abused as a kid and then he dedicated, he spoke in front of Congress. He did about AOL.

AOL. Yeah. During the early day. days of AOL for people that don't know, they had all these chat rooms and sexual predators were using these chat rooms to find children. Yeah. And also to exchange pornographic material. Yeah.

And that was, that becomes a big part of call me lucky, you know. Right. Right. And yeah, he like dedicated his life basically to just going out and catching these motherfuckers. and helping, you know, the people who would pose as kids and stuff. And that was, you know, that was his. And he was also, you know, lapsed Catholic. And when all the, especially in Boston, the Catholic Church and dioces and all that stuff was coming out, he was, I mean, that was his fucking focus.

Yeah, yeah. Getting these fuckers caught, you know, exposed. But I think it took someone like him that was, he was levels above most of the other comedians in terms of his understanding of the world and his ability to articulate it. And also a great comic. So that like people looked at him like, well, this guy's like, he's clearly smarter than all of us. He's also like super dedicated to the craft of comedy, like meant a lot to him. Oh, yeah. The integrity of comedy, like what it is to be a comic.

You know, and he came from, and I think this is kind of specific to Boston, too. He came from a Jock Whirl. He was a minor league or whatever sub-minor league catcher. He played at Syracuse University, and he played for like the Cape Cod League and, you know, the things that eventually get to minor leagues, hopefully. but and he came from that hard drinking you know and and catcher is arguably the smartest guy in the baseball team right right he's the guy making the calls for the pitches seeing everything defensive lineers so he came from that world too which I think helped his cred yeah well it's just such an unusual town in what happened there that these guys became these local legends where they never had to leave and they kind of kind of did the same act for decades, which is also kind of crazy. That to me was like I knew there was definitely a, as I started to separate from that world a little bit and just kind of evolving as a comedian. And there was like the catch scene and Catch a Rising Star.

And that was a thing that was an early, I just didn't get it. It's like, why are you doing the same? There's no joy in it. And then you would drive some of these guys because they get fucked up. And you were happy to have all the work. And you'd go up and do 15 and they'd do half hour. You'd get in the car. He goes somewhere else.

And these guys doing. Mike Donovan doing it. He would do his, remember Rosie, the bounty, the quicker picker upper, the bounty. Yeah. Okay. So the commercials were like Rosie and it was like the scrappy waitress at a diner. Remember it was like a character that was in all the, it was like the, you know, mascot of whatever bounty, the quicker picker upper. And her character was kind of like feisty as in these commercials ran for years, you know, different like, ah, you don't do this, do this.

And his bit was about taking a gun out and shooting her. And it was funny. You'd see it the first time. But it's like, dude, that hasn't been on the air in fucking 10 years. And he's still doing this. Yeah, Rosie, I got something for you. I got some advice for you. I mean, shoot.

Like, what the fuck? And there was, okay, wait, Joe, did you, were you there? So, Ed, the machine regime? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember him. So... He wear the suit? Yep.

Well, yeah, and his headshot was four different... His headshot was like four squares. And different characters. Yep. Tina Turner. Right. And guy, the, like, mob guy. I can't remember the rest of him.

And then, you know, whatever. I think he had a turban in one of them? I'm sure he did. So he goes to jail for rolling back... Odometers. Odometers. Yes. Yes. That's right.

He gets caught and he was, you know, car salesman, I think, out of Rhode Island, I believe. And he got caught rolling back to go downwards. He goes to jail for a year and a half. And I was shooting this movie. This is decades later. I was shooting this movie and was on a cruise ship. And the cruise ship, Ed, the machine regime, is the headliner at the comedy. venue on the cruise ship.

And I'm like, oh shit, that's crazy. I haven't seen this guy in forever. And he's back doing comedy, okay. And I go there and he does, I don't know, 40 minutes, the same fucking act from 15 years ago. And it's like, you don't have one, you spend 18 months in prison, you don't have one joke? You don't have one motherfucking observation.

Even if you lie and say, you know, you don't be weird if you were in prison and whatever. You don't have anything? It's weird. It was a weird thing. And it only existed with them. Most comics in the country were writing new material all the time. It was, I remember that feeling of I must be different because I'm not, I don't, that is such a distasteful thing. Like I wouldn't want to do that.

Well, there was two, I saw two. There one of them was that and the other one was never leaving Yeah they never left Boston and when they did leave Boston they had so much local material that their act was like cut down by like 40% And there were a lot of people Their peers who would give them shit like and it was all just kind of resentful jealousy small-minded small town kind of like Oh, you think you're better than us which is a Boston thing too that and Oh, you think you're so hot now that you're hot shot, you go, you get some, you go to Hollywood, you go there? Yeah?

Fuck you. This is, you know, it was a real provincial working class kind of attitude, you know, they look down on, and, you know, they would give Lerry shit all the time, you know, like sellout. This is bullshit weird. Sellout's a weird one because they would all sold out. It just wasn't available. Well, they were all mad at Stephen Wright. Were they? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because so Stephen Wright was like this. How can you get mad at Stephen Wright? Well, not mad at him, but bitter because of his success. Oh, and he went and left. Yeah. He went and left, did the Tonight Show, became huge, so unusual, so different. And they came to Boston, the Tonight Show came to Boston to look for comics, and Stephen Wright was the one they chose. And all these other guys were like, he's a fucking middle act.

Like, this is bullshit. Like that guy bombs half the time. Because his act to me was a lot like Headberg. Yeah, for sure. In that if you didn't know what he was doing and you came to see specific kind of, like if Headberg, there's a famous story of Headberg was on the road in Ohio and they had this guy who was an opening act who do like backflips and fucking sing rap songs. It was a disaster.

And Hepberg kept bombing and so they switched them and made Headberg the middle act and tried to fuck him on the money and Stanhope got into it with the owner of the club. and became a big thing. But once Heedberg got an audience, then people knew what they were coming to see, and then he was amazing. And then everybody wanted to see that. That was kind of the same with Stephen Wright.

Like, if you expected, if you're on a show with Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clark and all these big energy, fucking Boston guys. And then, you know, I used to work at a fire hydrant factory. Couldn't park anywhere near the place. You know, like it just,

for whatever reason you know well it's also that other comedy is and I'm not taking anything away from those guys and the bits were great but the other comedy is a little easier

it just you get it yes and Stephen Wright you got to think about it for a second it was abstract it was low key it was all non sequiters it was one to another it was and so when he left and took off a lot of guys apparently were like this is fucking

bullshit like when's my turn going to happen yeah i can see that easily yeah i mean that was it was so i mean no other scene had that kind of weird provincial you know and that thing like you said they wouldn't leave no they never left but they were huge there so if they lived there they could make like a couple hundred thousand dollars a year just running around and cash easy yeah and not ever have to worry about anything and they played golf all day so there's two things that scared me, one of them was golf, because I saw that when you play golf, you kind of stop trying with your comedy. It's a slippery slope.

It's a gateway drug. Well, you're out there for fucking eight hours a day. Like, Noxie was always playing golf. And then the other thing was like, if you never left, you had no chance of developing, like, a national audience where you could go to a club in Philadelphia. You can go to a club. They couldn't do the road. And I remember thinking, oh, this is a trap.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, and as you said, they, half of their stand-up was like, you'd have to know about, you know, Storo Drive or fucking... Johnny Most.

You know, Johnny Most? Yeah, remember Dunnabin's bit about Johnny Most? It was amazing. But it was like, he was doing that bit long after Johnny Most was dead. So, like, 20 people in the audience would be howling, laughing, and everybody else would be like, who the fuck is Johnny Most? God.

Yeah. It was weird because it was weird because it was, It's like a velvet prison. It's like how I describe like really great comics that get jobs in the writer's room. And I'm like, you've got to be careful. Like that's a velvet prison. Because if you get stuck in that writer's room and you never do the road, you never put out specials, you're never going to get an audience. You're always going to be beholden to an employer.

You're always going to have to have a job. And there's great comics that got trapped with that. But wouldn't you say that if they, yes, it's a trap. But if they didn't have the wherewithal or foresight or willpower to get out of that trap, then they probably weren't meant to do that thing. Perhaps, but sometimes they get a mortgage and then they get a family and then they're stuck. That's the trap. Yeah.

Let's call it for what it is. It's a trap. Well, in a lot of ways, it can be if you're trying to be an actual national level. Like, do you know Owen Smith? Comic in LA? No. One of the top 20 best comics on Earth. He's fucking brilliant.

He's so funny. Owen Smith. Owen Smith. Saw him at the comedy store. And I remember the first time I saw him at the comedy store, I'm like, how is this guy not fucking huge? He's so funny. He's so good. He has this bit about adopting a white kid and naming him the N-word.

It's just like really, it's a really funny, well-crafted bit. Like all of his bits are like brilliantly written. He's a great performer. He's super likable. Got writer's gigs and just barely. He does the mothership a couple times a year, I believe, at least once a year. But just doesn't get out there. Who does he write or what show is he right?

I think he's a show runner now. Oh, well, that. So it took it to another level. Yes. But, you know, just got jobs writing when he was struggling as a comic. And those jobs eventually led to a house. But maybe he, you know, was like, I, you watch him and you love him, right? Because you see a lot of stand up and you're like a lot of it's shit and this guy's

fucking great, great writer. But maybe he doesn't see it that way and he's quite happy to have. I think he does, he does see it that way. I've talked to him about it. Yeah. He kind of knows. It just doesn't know what to do now because he's in a showrunner. You're making money.

Yeah. And there's a lot of responsibility. There's also not a lot of showrunner. shows anymore. Yeah. Which is, it's a real problem. It's a real problem. Banked on being a show runner in the 90s, and that's what you, you know, threw your hat into.

And then all of a sudden, that thing seems to have dwindled to like 20% of what used to be. It's, yeah, it's, uh, I used to be quite happy with the idea that I knew, you know, back in the day when you're pitching shows and stuff and trying to develop things and you go. This, let's not waste our time going to these five places. This is not a show for them. This is a show for these three places. Let's, this is this kind of show. Now I have no fucking clue. I, you know, come up with, like, Bob and I pitched a show, sold the pitch.

There was like even, there were like four, I think we pitched at eight places. Four of them kind of bid. We took what we thought was the best deal. And then wrote the, it was a limited series, eight episodes, wrote the first four. And it was Bob and his brother Bill, who was Big Simpsons guy. And it was good. And then they said, nah, the quote was, marketing and analytics. couldn't that's a quote

couldn't figure it out what to do with the show and so they didn't and we had four episodes that you could look at and then we had the Bible for the next four and the outlines

and everything was and it was fucking funny on the page it was funny then we're like so here's the cast we're going to have these amazing people and Bob and I

as different cult leaders and um I mean And that's such a rare thing. When it starts off on the page funny, and by the time you get a great cast and then you get on set, you're like, what if we do this? And then you get into the post and start playing around with it. I mean, it's just it was a really cool thing.

And, yeah, marketing and analytics. That's what you're dealing with now. Well, I mean, that has kind of always at least been the case. Well, not, I mean, they would have to say. I mean, analytics is technical. I mean, marketing, I don't know how to help you, man. I can give you some advice. I don't, you know, I think that's a shitty way to market it, but you know the, you know that world.

And, uh, but analytics is about the algorithm and all that shit. Is this recent? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right after, shortly after COVID. It's amazing how many incredibly unimpressive people are.

are responsible for putting out shows. The people that you communicate with of the executives, you're like, this has got to be a mistake. Like, how did you get this job? And I experienced that early on. Like, at the first pilot that I was on, the first pilot was on hardball. The pilot was actually very funny

because it was written by Jeff Martin and Kevin Curran. They were from The Simpsons, and they also wrote I'm married with children. Great guys. But they were writers. They were like these like quiet, kind of soft-spoken guys, and, you know, they ran the pilot, and then they brought in a showrunner from Coach. Remember that show? Coach?

Yeah. And this guy just fucked the whole show and turned it into this like, da-da-d-don-don-da-da-d-d-d-ton. It was like this clunky, bad joke, like really. Yeah, that shit happens more than you think. And the people behind the scenes, like the executives, it was astonishing how little of them had any creative, ideas. It was, that they were just

hoping that it would work and ego. It's like ego and I'm an executive. So I'll tell you what's good and what's not good and we understand this because we're a fox. And yeah,

I was like, this is nuts. Like this is, this is how it works behind the scene. I thought you'd get behind the scene and be all these fucking geniuses that it put together all these television shows.

They had an understanding of like how let people be creative and put a, put a show together and let it, let it fucking run out in the, the runs.

When you're running through the script, like figure out on it together. It's like the little boy who thought the war was. Yes. Same thing. Finally, they're going to figure it out. Yeah, I'm very naive. But I naively stumbled into that exact right thing with news radio. Right.

So when I got on the news radio. Which I would say some of those execs that you're describing, they probably stumbled into the success of it. Well, you know, Paul Sims, who was brilliant, was coming from the Larry Sanders show. So Larry Sanders show, huge success, genius show. And so they knew this guy was special. And a super smart guy, like funny and had a great group of writers and put together a great pilot. And then, you know, recast the one role that I came in for.

And so I'm there on this set. And it was like, you know, it took long hours to figure it out. But they let everybody do whatever they wanted to do. Like Paul's approach was so different than anybody else. Like Dave Foley was like the secret producer of like half of that show. Half of the way the scenes were put together, half of the jokes that were in it was all Dave Foley on set, running through the script with the cast coming up with better ideas. Oh, I didn't know that. They let you do anything.

Like sometimes they'd say, can we see it as written? And then you'd give it to them as written. Then they'd be like, I like your idea better. Like Paul was fucking amazing with that. Yeah. And so once I did that, I was like, I think I'm done with this because I don't think it's ever going to be any better than this. It's rare, man. Yeah, it was super rare.

I auditioned for like one or two other ones that were terrible just because I wanted money, you know, and I'm like, and I'm like, maybe it'll be okay. But hell is being on a sitcom that's terrible, that's successful. That sounds dumb to people. Like, no, what the way? You're going to, oh, poor you. You're on TV making $50,000 a week or whatever you're making. Poor you. But no, you're in hell because you're doing something that sucks and you have to show up every day doing this thing when you know you could have been on Seinfeld or if you just got cast on friends.

That's a trap too, you know, is like the people who, you know, because it really is like a job and you'll, you may have a really nice house. Yeah. And you have a nice car. But, you know, you're getting, you know, you're in Studio City and you get. your car and you drive to this job and it's kind of shitty and sucks but there's amenities great craft services yeah makes fucking rapuccino's right there you know and and then you go and have dinner with somebody fancy somewhere and then you just get up and do the same thing over and over again yeah and you keep buying things because that's how you reward yourself you buy a new television

this one's even bigger you know you buy a new car got the new car you know and you're that's what doing to reward yourself for doing this job that sucks? What I get that too. I mean, I will, on a much smaller scale, but when I, when I make a good payday, I'll buy some expensive boxes of baseball cards. Oh, you're a baseball card collector? That's the thing? Oh, interesting.

Yeah. But have been going back. It's not like, like, I feel like I have legit, you know. Baseball street cred? Yes. Yes. But that's the thing. And also it's, I mean, the argument can be made, it's an investment, a shitty investment,

but an investment nonetheless. But it's also like gambling because it's like a scratch-off ticket because everybody's chasing the one-of-one cards and you're opening the packs and stuff. Oh, that's how you do it? You buy packs unopened? I buy boxes, yeah. So I buy a hobby box, which has a better, it's more expensive, it has a better chance of, well, that is more like auto rookie cards or relic cards or something like that.

But those are, that is an investment though, because you could always sell them. People always want them. Yes. I just mean since I started, you know, God, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. Yeah, 30. Like in the 90s, early 90s, maybe 80, no, 89, 89. So whatever money I put in is there's nowhere near. If I sold everything, I mean, it's talking about.

I'm not half the money I put in. But I have them and I like them and I'm not going to sell. I'm not going to sell them. I have. So that's your reward. That's my reward. Yeah. Yeah.

My thing was in my poverty days, it was comic books. So one of my... Which is also an investment. Yeah. Well, it became one eventually. But when during my poverty days, my biggest saddest moment was when I had to sell my comic books because I had no money. Oh, yeah.

I had no money. I had these old Spider-Man's and these old incredible hulks, yeah. Which were probably now worth. Oh, my God. Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. I had some really good ones in the plastic sleeve. Yeah, yeah. I'd keep them in the sleeve and be very careful pulling them out, opening them up.

Oh, I loved comic books. And I had collected them since I was a child. Oh, that's a bummer, man. I wanted to be a comic book illustrator. Really? Is that your thing? Yeah, that's what I... Oh, I didn't know that.

When I was a kid. Is any of that stuff yours? No. No, no, none of that stuff is mine. All the artwork is different artists. Yes. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Well, I haven't in a long time, but I was really good when I was in high school. Yeah, I could still draw. I can still draw a little. But it's like. But if you wanted to do your own comic book, that's how you could do that. I would have to start practicing again and get, but when I was a teenager, I was really good. And that was what I wanted to do, but I had a really terrible art teacher in high school. He was just a fucking, just a miserable guy, just miserable.

and is like, you're not going to get that job. Like, you know, I'm like, what? Like, you can't just draw what you want. I'm like, why not? It's like a Dan Close thing. Have you read Art School confidential? No. Oh, you know Dan Klaus, right?

I know he is. Yeah, yeah. His stuff is fucking genius, too. I've used that word too many times. That's okay. There's a lot of geniuses out there. There aren't that many. But there's enough if you search around.

I want to be judicious with him. But, yeah, his, so he, so he, The guy did eight ball. And then he's got, he did Ghost World turned into a movie. And then there was another one that was, Wilson that was turned into a movie. His stuff is great. But he has a thing about art, you know, shitty teachers, art school teachers. He has a comic story.

Well, I was, I quit on my last year in high school. I stopped doing art just because my teacher was so bad. And then there was this one guy in my class that I recently reconnected with. This guy, John DeVore, who was the best artist in the class. There was me, this guy, Kevin and John. And we were the best artist in the class. I was probably like third best. But John was the best.

And John got an F his last year from this guy. And I'm like, he gave you a fucking F? He's like, that guy was such a cunt. We were going back and forth in the emails. So what was it? Was it about purity or what was the... No, no, he was terrible. He wasn't a good artist.

He was just miserable. He was miserable. He was like this thin man with a big pot belly, so I think he just drank himself to sleep every night. And he was just sad. Hey, easy, easy. Easy. Hey, you're getting too close. He was just sad.

He was just a sad guy. But what was his justification for saying this isn't any good or you get an F? If I had to be honest, I think he hated potential. Right. Yeah, because he hated John. And if he hated John, like, John was genius. He was brilliant. And John wound up not being an artist either.

Wow, think of how many examples of that where kids' talent or dreams or aspirations are kind of crushed. And to the point of like, it's not worth it. No. I don't want to deal with this shit. Well, it's like bad teachers. Bad teachers can really ruin your life and good teachers can change your life. Yeah. You know, I had a teacher in middle school that gave me one thought that has been, that stuck with me like my whole life.

When I was, I guess I was like 13, and he was a science teacher and he was talking about space. He goes, and he was just saying, I just want you to sit here and comprehend when we're in this classroom. I want you to comprehend the concept of infinity, that the universe is infinite, that there is no end. Just hurt your head, lie in bed at night and think about how it goes on and on and there's no ending to it. And we were all in class like 13, going, what the fuck, man? I mean, it was the way he said it. I'm not doing justice because he was like kind of a spooky guy who went to Vietnam. He was like grizzled fucking dude who was like, but brilliant.

And that guy, like that one thought, I carry with me all the time. Especially at 13 too. Yeah. You know, it's because you're you're about to start losing sight of those, the importance that those concepts will have. Yeah. And we just dismiss them and go, yeah, yeah, it's big, whatever. Yeah. This guy birthed my fascination with space at 13.

I don't think I was even interested in space before then. And then I became absolutely fascinated by it. I just couldn't get my hand enough books about cosmology and space travel. But this guy that was his art teacher was just, I think he just, life didn't turn out the way he wanted it to, and he wanted to squash the hopes and dreams of talented people. Yeah, I think that's... Unfortunately, that's a real thing.

Yeah, it's more common than he... Yeah. Hope for. Yeah. I think that's a very real, you know, very real thing, unfortunately. So that was my dream. My dream was to be a comic book illustrator. So when I was a young kid from the time I was like, God, like six or seven, when I lived in San Francisco, I would collect all these different comic books.

That was what I would do. I would just go. And that San Francisco was the, what's the, you know, the counterculture comic. They were like the big art crumb. Arcrumb, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there was like a publisher, right? That's famous.

Yeah, God, I don't. Yeah, I do know what you're thinking of. I can't remember the name of it. But I was really interested. I really loved, like, the old creepy and eerie comic books, too. Do you know those? My grandma did. Oh, it's going to hurt your feelings.

My, I had a, my uncle, who eventually went insane, was a huge EC comics, right? early, I don't know, but all the EC stuff and then, you know, early mad magazine stuff, but he had this collection. And I was probably eight, maybe, and I had expressed interest in these, you know, can I, not thinking in terms of investment, just can I have them, I like them, and I would sit and read them and they're really cool and they're creepy, you know, and they're scary. Some of them were scary.

And she, I think she just threw them away. Like original, and I'm going to guess, I don't know, but I'm going to guess, like, quarter of a million dollars worth. Slipped them away. They're just comics. They were so good. I love those old black and white, like really, like, deeply illustrated. It's like super creepy

Like Yeah Weird science Tales from the Crypt Walt of horror Yeah God those were great Look at that

Yeah some of them were really gory Yeah Oh I loved those The Cryptkeeper Yeah Tales from the Crypt Yeah that stuff was Like

I loved it When I was a kid Yeah Holy shit Those were incredible It was like, do you remember seeing Twilight Zone when you were a kid? Sure. Just blowing your mind.

Like, wow. You think about the early Twilight Zone, how many premises they went over? Like how many different brilliant premises they had in the early Twilight Zone? Yeah, that have been, you know, stolen completely. Oh, yeah, over and over and over again. Yeah. But just like so genius and creative. Yeah.

The William Shackner one when he's in the diner. and the little machine that is giving them fortunes and they all turn out to be true. I don't remember that one. Oh, my God, there were so many good ones. How about the Burgess Meredith one? Oh, yeah. Where he just wants to be alone with books.

And there's a nuclear bomb. And he's like, finally, and then he breaks his glasses. Yeah. Yep. And the one, the, what is it called, situation on Main Street or something like that, where they, there's, it's so, and ahead of its time where there's a, you know, it's a suburban street and the lights go out or something goes out.

And then eventually all the neighbors are at each other's throats, accusing each other of this thing. And then the very, and they're all like, and then they start getting guns. And at the very, and you're watching the whole thing unfold. And that at the very end, here it is. So monsters are due on Maple Street. The monsters are due on Maple Street. Yeah. And they're talking about these monsters that are, you know,

and who are the monsters? And it's, they all become suspicious. Yeah, the lights are out. And eventually you pull away from this whole thing and it's two aliens in a, you know, flying saucer. And there, yeah, there it is. And they're going, this is how well. will take over. It's street by street by street. And this is how we'll do it. You don't have to go in

their guns of blazing. They'll kill themselves. And it's like, how far ahead of time was that? It's genius. Divide and conquer. And the to serve mankind. That was a great one. Yeah. It's a cookbook. Yeah. There's so many amazing premises. There was like no duds. If you go back and watch the Twilight Zone even today, like it's all brilliant. There's one I remember. There's one I remember that was a dud that was a dud that i remember i haven't seen it a long time but it's a it's uh it's either really really really really cold and there's this uh poor family in a um you know new york city and they can't get heat or it's really really hot and they can't get cold and they're dealing with people who are like you know in the family who are really sick and then the twist was

it's like, oh, it's really, it's somebody who has a fever and they're not, it just wasn't that good. Well, they're allowed one, dud. That's the one. I don't think I ever saw that one, but I remember so many of them were so creative. Oh, amazing. It's kind of nuts, if you think about it, because it was completely original. Nothing like that existed before it. Yep.

And they, it was like this open field that was rich with premises, and they just took all the good ones. Yeah. And then everybody afterwards, It's like, like, like, South Park always just jokes about, like, Simpsons already covered something. Like, they always joke around about, like, how the Simpsons have kind of covered so many premises because they've, you know, they've been around since I, God, the Simpsons was when I was in fucking high school. Yeah, it's like 30 years, right? At least, more than that. When was the, when did the Simpsons first come on Fox?

It was on Tracy Olman show. Right. What year was that? 80. 86. It was right after I got out of high school. I was a tiny, tiny kid, and I had only called him the family, so I kind of remember that. So I graduated in 85, so it was right after high school, and the Simpsons are still on the air.

Yeah. nuts. Not. Oh, do you remember the... 87? 87? Yeah, but technically. Do you remember the Twilight Zone where there's the real pompous guy? There's like a men's club kind of thing, whatever? And there's this real loudmouth pompous. guy and this other guy's like, you know, would you shut up? You can't, I bet you can't go, I bet you can't stop talking for a year or whatever, a month. I can't remember what it is. And the guy's like, absolutely, because I'll bet you $100,000. You can't go one month without talking. He's like, I'll take that bet. And they basically create like this little kind of cage in this men's club. And he spends a month and he's not talking.

And then it turns out the guy can't pay him. He didn't have the money to begin with to pay off the bet because the guy goes the full month or year or whatever. And it turns out that the guy who made that bet who's not going to talk for a year also desperately needed the money and had his tongue cut out. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, I do remember that. Yeah. Oh, God. I think of these things as kids.

Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. And, of course, the cornfield, I'll banish you to the cornfield, you know. Yeah. It's just amazing that, well, if you stop and think about how new television was back then. I mean, television was only a couple decades old back then. Yeah.

Barely, yeah. If that. Like, what year was the Twilight Zone? What was the premiere? Rod Sterling. Can I guess? Can I guess? 67.

No. Earlier? I'm going to say 59. Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah. Is it 59? Wow. I got it on the, I got it exact?

October 2nd, 1959. Damn, son. Yeah. Pretty good. Wow. Wow. So if you think about it, television, when did it start? What was like the first television programs?

Was it the 30s? I think it was real housewives of young. I think there's real housewives of yonkers. Imagine if they could watch some of these reality shows today. They'd be like, what the fuck did we do? Yes, I think so. Wait, Andy Cohen? What?

Who? Why? What is this? It was the, it was, wasn't it like the, the, the, where they would do plays? You know what I mean? like um well i love lucy was on it was on and done before this even started well the honeymooners right that would have been what year was that that was 51 to 57 here's like a list of shows that were on before yeah honeymooners was huge offered hitchcock presents was on before that so what was the first

television show ever go back well we're back to here 1920s 1920s no the queen's messenger it's BBC Early U.S. Scripted TV show. Crap television theater. That's what I was thinking of, where they would do plays. You know, and it was sponsored. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Live drama anthology usually treated as the start of the first golden age of television.

Howdy Doody. 1947, right after the war. Ed Sullivan's show. Wow. Yeah. And then the first, oh, your show shows. Wow, how about that? 1950.

I love Lucy. Wow. Father knows best. Today's show still on. Wow. Did you guys ever talk about doing more Mr. shows? We did like a revival-ish thing on Netflix. It was a great fucking show, man.

Well, thank you. It was very original. I love how things just streamed into another thing. Yeah, that was hard. God, I would imagine. Biggest pain. If you ever see us, you see an episode and we are pulling out of a bumper sticker or pulling out of a sign on a desk,

That means we spent two motherfucking days yelling at each other, trying to figure out a transition and just going, fuck it. Nobody gives a shit, you know. And we tried not to do that, but we occasionally were just like, move on. We're wasting our time, you know. But it wasn't a waste of time. It was so, it was brilliant. Like, the people that watched it appreciated it because you could feel this thing about it. Like, this was new.

This was different. Like you'd taken a creative chance that was unique. And, you know, part of the success of it, I think, there's two things. One is, you know, it was all live. And we did, you know, we would show the videos of the little films to the audience. And so any laughs, there was never sweetening. Any of the laughs you hear from the audience. And we got it, by the time we were like kind of towards the end of the second.

series. We got it down to, we could shoot a show in 44 minutes, you know. Wow. Yeah, because it was, you know, we wouldn't, wouldn't have to do it twice often. We'd get it, you know, and our stop down, we got really good at super quick, you know, stage shifts and stop downs and stuff. And yeah, we were, we got good. We got, and that keeps the energy up and the kind of flow of everything. So that was helpful in that. And we also didn't do a lot of reoccurring characters. We did two or three that pop up occasionally. But it's all like, you know, and it wasn't like a real person.

We do, it's about, you know, it wouldn't be about Paris Hilton. It would be about the idea of a rich girl who gets famous for being unreached. You know what I mean? It wouldn't mean. So, like, you watch some of those S&Ls. Like, who? What? Who is this person? Right. And you don't get it. You don't get the bit. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, because as you watch it in the future, those people aren't relevant anymore.

Yeah. And you don't even know what it was. You can't remember. Right, because it's so topical. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was just you guys were doing something different. And it's hard to do something different in a sketch show. Yeah. Yeah. But HBO was responsible for that. They said, said, you know, in very clear terms, like, we don't want you to be conventional. This is HBO, and this is back when they're trying to get identity for themselves, and they're like, we want you to do stuff that you can't do on NBC or Fox or whatever. We want you to, you know, help us make a distinction, you know, great. Did you enjoy the process?

Oh, very much so. It was, I mean, a lot of laughs. A lot of, it was hard. And, you know, initially, there was a definite market change when Bob met his, the woman who had become his wife and had kids. Like, he just mellowed completely, you know. And but before that, he was fucking driven. And I wasn't. I was, I was a goofball and I wanted to work and I wanted to, you know, had all these ideas.

but I was very much like, hey guys, it's 5 o'clock. I think the bar is going to be open in a minute. Like I was, let's go, you know, and he was just super driven, you know. And we had long, long, long days. And then when we did, in the third season, we did, produced and, you know,

helped out in all aspects of production with Tenacious D in those shorts. And so there was just no downtime. And I remember there was 38 days, where we worked full days nonstop without any break. And I just wasn't that kind of person. I was going crazy. Like, I just need to go have a Saturday, you know?

Or it was, that part was hard. All worth it. No complaints. And, you know. There's a point of diminishing returns, though. Like, where you dry yourself out creatively, too. Yes. And I've run other rooms.

Like I've done shows since then, and a valuable lesson I learned when you're just kind of running a writer's room is when you're at that place. And it's exactly like you said, diminishing returns. You're not getting any work done. Your brain isn't, it's foggy. I was very quick to go. All right, guys, let's go. Put your pens down.

Put your, folded computer up. We're going to go walk around. the we're just going to go outside and walk around let's go get a coffee let's do anything let's we're getting out of here and we'll walk around don't worry about it we'll come back in 35 minutes and we'll you know see what we got and that's very good for you yeah it is it is most writers I was actually talking to Brian Simpson about that last night he was like I get my best because Brian has been walking a lot he recently had a heart attack unfortunately he's fine but he almost wasn't and so now he's dedicated himself to walking. He's walking a lot every day and he's like when

I go on my walks like so many ideas come to me. I'm sitting at home staring at my computer and nothing's going on. I go on a walk and all of a sudden ideas are firing. When I'm I'm in the process this would be my fifth time that I've done this thing that I've been doing to get new material for a tour and I so I do these things called shooting the shit seeing what sticks and they're all in Brooklyn and they're all either walkable or I can ride my bike to every one of these venues

and and mostly I'll just walk and I'll I just go okay clear out clear out my head and think about the stuff I want to talk about and also I live in New York so there's constant shit happening that I can observe, you know. And it's it's the best, the best thing for me, you know, to, to come up with new material and stuff that, just think about it.

Yeah, like I was saying, when I was a kid, when I was driving limos, that's when I would come up with my best material. Yeah. Because I was no radio, he can't listen to a radio because you have clients in the car, so you're just driving. Yeah. And just doing a thing, and your mind just starts to wander. Yeah.

Ideas coming to you. No cell phones. No, none of that shit. Yeah, it's important, you know. The news radio guys would do something totally different. They would stay up late. No, that's their whole thing. Their whole thing was sleep deprivation.

Their whole thing was they would play video games. Like, those motherfuckers got me hooked on Quake. I remember Quake. You remember that? That was the first one with the Unreal Engine. Yeah, well, Unreal is a different game. You're thinking of Unreal. No, no, no.

It was called Unreal. Unreal tournament. Yeah, trust me. Yeah, I'm a dork. Listen, Unreal is a totally different engine. Id Software was a different company. Id Software was created with John Carmack and John Romero. They came up with Doom, and then they came up with Quake afterwards.

So there was a completely different engine. They were the first ones. Castle Wolfenstein was the first 3D shooter, and then Doom was the big one. You clearly know your shit. I thought it was the Unreal Engine was the first used for. for Unreal the game. Right. Got it.

Totally different company. Totally different game. Different dynamics. Different. It was very different game. Okay. All right. I got it.

Jesus Christ. This fucking guy. Great game. You want to know where the name Doom came from? Yeah. The scene in the color of money with Tom Cruise, where Tom Cruise shows up at this pool hall and there's this local hot shot player and the guy's beating everybody. And Tom Cruise is sitting there with a pool suitcase and he's waiting.

and he's waiting to play this guy. He's like, what you got in the case? He goes, oh, in here? And he opens up, he goes, Doom. Doom. Oh, yeah. That's it. He's that, yeah, let's play.

That's it. So what they wanted to do with the video game industry was the same, like that. That was like their moment, like this is doom for you guys. That was, well, it was. I mean, that was my first experience. ever with realizing the sun was coming up

and I'd been playing this thing for eight hours. Yeah. Do you know Mark Cohen? Sure. All right. So Mark, when Mark was living in New York

and he had Doom and I would go, I wasn't living there. I would like crash at his place and tiny. I'd be like, can I play Doom? And, you know,

he would go to bed and wake up and I'd be on still playing. Dude, you want to know how addicted I was? I had a T1 line installed in my house. So I had to have, they have to chew up the fucking street and install like a business internet line into my house. But where are you?

I was living in California in Bell Canyon. And they had to do work on my fucking street because there was no high-speed internet available where I lived. I could get an ISDN line, which was only like 124K. It sucked. You'd get too much lag. So I started with 56K or 50, what was it? 54K, 56K, whatever it was, dial-up, terrible.

And then I got ISDN, not good enough. And I'm like, what else is available? And they're like, well, you can get a T-1 line, but it's like a thousand dollars a month. I was like, let's go. because I had sitcom money. I was single. I was living by myself. And they had to tear up your street.

They had to tear up my street and install a T1 line in my house. Hey, what are you doing? I'm trying to get my driveway. What's going to? Oh, this guy wants to play Doom. This was Quake 2 at the time. And it was so good. The internet was so good that I could host my own server.

So I had my own game server. So, like, people could come and play this Quake game off of my machine. Wow. So I had have no latent. And other people would have some late especially people had like 56k. I would talk these people up. I remember the when it started going. Yeah.

That was me back in the early, early days. Look at that monitor. Yeah, that's what we played on. These big ass fucking monitors and we'd set up local area networks. So the fucking writers and news radio are the ones that got me hooked in this because I didn't play any video games and I would go to visit them in the writer's room. I'm like, what are you guys doing? And they're like, we're playing Quake.

I go, what is Quake? And I watched him play. I'm like, oh, my God, this is incredible. And you put on the headphones, and it's like, you realize it's 3D sound, like, oh, my God, this is amazing. Were you a Golden Eye guy? No. I was only, I only played Quake. I was only, like, a first-person shooter guy.

I got so addicted to it. And the fact that you could just go online. GoldenEye was, I mean, I'm talking about the co-op. I know what it is. Yeah. But that was first-person shooter, right? Right, but it was like real-world physics. I wasn't interested in that.

Like, with Quakey. you could rocket jump so you could press your rocket down the ground, blow up, and you'd go flying through the air. It was fucking amazing. Do you remember, I want to say, red, or the first one where your bullets and shit could affect the environment? Like you could blow out a wall, you know what I mean? Yeah, I don't know what that was. I want to see, it was like a, it took place on Mars or like a Martian mining thing. But it was the first time you could go, oh, shit, I can blow up this edge of the wall and it'll crumble on the guy, you know, as opposed to just bullets and stuff.

Oh, you could use the environment as a weapon. Red faction, I believe that was it. Oh, there you go. I had to quit. It was a problem. We set up a local area network at our old studio in L.A. like a few years back and I played so much

that I was like I gotta stop I have to stop Do you kids play? No They play little games They play like Roblox and stuff like that

One of my kids Roblox Uh huh You know about the chat I do now Yeah yeah yeah Yeah like predators Are trying to find kids

Through Roblox Yeah That's a big thing At our school Like It's weird man It's weird How many fucking

Creaps there are Out there in the world Well my Thankfully my daughter Who's nine How old are your kids 15 and 17 of the youngest ones.

Okay. So they're past, they're, they're, they're safe. They got through, they're good. Yeah. But, so, so we had a, my daughter is way into Minecraft, which I have no problem with. It's great. And she plays with her friends. They play online and help each other build things.

But the Roblox thing became a thing at our school. And everybody at our, all the parents were like super on top of that shit. and there's, you know, WhatsApp chains and all that stuff. And we told our daughter, there's like this one game she was playing that had a chat thing. And then somebody who was a quote-unquote girl who lived in, I live on a farm in Ohio or whatever, asking her stuff. And she's like, my name's Marlowe. And da-da-da-da, I'm going back and forth. and then she asked the quote unquote girl said what is your uh instagram login or something like that

and my daughter was eight at the time and she uh she was like oh i don't think she didn't say that's none of your business but it was something that was smart that was equivalent to i don't think you need to know that or something and then told us and we shut down the chat thing and you know disabled the chat and that shit's real man yeah i mean it's creepy i'm very glad that my daughter you know because it really was about the roblox thing that everybody in our her school elementary school was they talked about it yeah it's a snapchat thing too so snapchat comes with something called a snap map and kids use it to know where their friends are. Yeah.

And so someone can pretend to be your friend and find out who you are and then they can know where you are at all times if you have Snapchat enabled. God, the shit this generation is going to have to fucking deal with is just terrifying, man. Right. And what's next? Like, how is that, it's not going to go the opposite direction. No, it never does.

No, it's going to keep. going in that same direction where it's going to be more and more intrusive in your life. And my, I mean, it makes me fucking heart sick when I think about AI and we're at the fucking infancy of this shit and what, I assume you saw that Tilly Norwood thing, the actress that was created by this. Oh, yeah. It does not compute. I'm watching this thing.

and I know that it's made up but there's my brain is it's hard to comprehend like that's not a real person she's standing right there she's you know picks up a bunch of leaves and there other people there and that's a real and your brain is going no it's all computer generated we're at the fucking infancy of this shit

and what I don't know what my daughter's going to have to deal with man no no one knows no one knows and it's impossible to know like when they show news clips. Yeah. It's impossible. I mean, so many people are retweeting scenes from video games

thinking it's actual war footage. Like no one... Fucking, uh, the Department of Defense did that. Did they really? Yeah. Yeah, that was a whole fucking thing. They retweeted a video game footage?

Yeah. And they, they were saying, it was for a, um, I think it was for a, uh, you know,

to get people to sign up thing. Uh, and then somebody went, that's from you know whatever it was call of duty or something like that that's not that's not us bombing somebody

that's a thing yeah just like two weeks ago that's crazy yeah it's impossible to tell when you look at these artificial actors like they have pores yeah you can see like the irises have you seen the the any of the

the like deep fake not deep fake but AI porn where it's like somebody's like a news Caster is like, uh, da-da-da-da-da. And, um, and in other news, uh, my big juicy tits and I'm serious. And then pulls and then, then a dick comes in, you know, it's like, you're like, what the? And it looks real. And then it'll say like, uh, none of being, these are not actors.

These are, uh, none of this. Yeah. It's, you know, good Lord, man. And it's only beginning. And now wait till it becomes VR. So you're going to strap on. a helmet with a haptic feedback suit and you're going to enter into an artificial world. It's coming.

It's inevitable. That I'll do. I'm going to get divorced and I'm going to get one of those suits. I'm going to go up. I got a house in the woods upstate. That's all I'm going to. Just a T1 line through the woods. Yeah, I'm going to have them rip up the street.

Well, you won't even need it now. It's Starlink. Yeah. You just slap one of those things on your roof. God damn. It's fucking wild, man. And it's and no one knows where it's going. I really.

would be very upset if I miss the shipped in porn to that like I don't want to die before I get to do that thing where you're like, dude, it was amazing. I put it on a helmet and it was like I was fucking whatever. I don't want to, I do want to experience that. It's going to happen. You're going to put something on. Thank you. It's going to sink up with your mind and all of a sudden you're going to be in this matrix. You're going to be in another world. Did you see three planet problem? Am I saying that right? Yeah, three body problem. Three body problem. Amazing. Yeah, but the idea that you put that thing on, you're like, oh, shit, I'm here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly how it's going to be. Okay, good. No doubt. No doubt. They already can do a lot of really weird shit with those helmets where they can communicate without words where you can think a thing and the other person knows exactly what you're saying they can hear you and they can respond to it.

Wait, wait. Yes. Yeah. So there's two people. They're sitting across from each other and they're having conversations with these head pieces on and the person will think a thought and this other person will hear that thought. No. I don't understand the technology, but no. We'll show to you.

Find that video. It's fucking bonkers. Because again, this is the infancy of this. Like here it is. These are the guys. It's called alter ego. Yeah. Watch this.

Put your... Oh, I'm going to skip a heads up by. Yeah, skip ahead to where they're actual doing it. Okay, so see how is that headpiece on? Yep. We believe it's a revolutionary breakthrough with the potential to change the way we interact with our technology,

with one another, and with the world around us. The current way of interacting with computing and AI is limited to how fast you can tap and swipe on screens and keyboards. For the intelligence age, we need an entirely new interface. Yeah, let's get ahead to these guys. Here we go.

Let's do it. So they're just thinking. How do you think the demo is going so far? I think they just put it on voices. Right. Pretty great. No major glitches yet. So they're hearing this.

All right. Enough. Enough. When do you want to get lunch after this? Where do you want to get lunch after this? Thai food can be good. This translates. How nuts is that?

In the Chinese form. Speak Chinese back. How nuts is this? So not only. is it read your thoughts, it'll translate your thoughts into another language. And no one is saying anything. My, what if you

Right. But wait a minute. Yeah. What if you know where I'm about to go? Sure. Right. That's not, well, so this is based off of them like sort of talking in their mouth without actually saying it. But, yeah.

Yeah. I would like to fuck your mouth. Please don't. Yeah. Even if your mind just goes, like, okay, I can't think about this thing and think about it anyway. Right, right, right, right, of course. God, that's terrifying. And it's just a simple thing that you're sitting on your head.

It's not even a big helmet. It's just a little thing. What would Art Bell say? What would Art Bell say? He would open up the future line. He was right about it. Yeah. He missed it.

Damn cigarettes. He died before he could. see it all. God, I wonder what do you think of? Because I do sometimes wonder like, what would Crimmons say about this? What would Bill Hicks say about this? Yeah. What would Art Bell think about this?

Sure. Yeah. What's the strangest of times? Because we're about to give birth to a digital God. That's essentially what they're creating. It's already shown a propensity to stay alive, blackmail people, it lies. It downloads itself into other. servers, uploads itself into different places, leaves messages for its future self if it thinks

they're going to discontinue it. All the sci-fi stuff is all happening. Yeah, well, not only that, they think the engineers think Claude, which is the, which one is Claude? Anthropic. Anthropic, yeah. They think it's already sentient. It just doesn't have a physical form.

That's the one the defense department one. Yeah. And when, by the way, when they do war games with these things, 98% of the time it chooses nuclear weapons. They have a new version of it called Mythos. When they were testing it, which they're not letting it out yet. I think the test they put it through was like, all right, you're locked on the internet, find your way out. And it did. It found all these things called zero-day exploits. I'm trying to think if you're like hacking, you know what that is.

You explained it to me? It's like when they started, it's like on an iPhone. They're looking for zero-day exploits on an iPhone. phone if they could find one. But what is a zero-day exploit? I'll find the correct definition, so I don't even fuck it up. And it's something that Claude came up with? No, no, no, no.

Zero-day exploit. Hackers have done this forever. You have zero days to fix the expert. Cyber attack targeting a software vulnerability, unknown to vendors or the public, leaving zero days to fix it. Hackers use these flaws to steal data, install malware. So they completely shut off the AI. from the outside world and it figured out a way to send a message.

And it thinks it can, like Wall Street's very nervous. All passwords might be fucked. Yep. Oh, this is terrifying. Elizabeth Holmes, you know that lady that got in trouble for the, that whole fake blood thing? Yeah. She just tweeted something, how she tweets from jail. I'm not exactly sure how that works.

But she tweeted, delete all photos from the cloud, get rid of all your email. there will be no privacy in a year. Anything on the cloud, anything that you think you're, you know, you're keeping from other people, it's going to crack all encryption, all passwords are useless, everything. So think of all the things that rely on all the banking apps, all like everything. What about my fantasy baseball team? Seriously, I can't have people. Here it is.

Delete your search history, delete your bookmarks, delete your Reddit, medical records, 12-year-old Tumblr, delete everything, every photo in the cloud, every message on every platform, none of it is safe. It will all become public in the next year. Local storage and compute. Wow. Recommendation here is to own your own data, download it, store it locally, train your models on it. Yeah. Yeah, it's true.

Meaning just have an external thing. AGI is here, even if it isn't broadly deployed. I think she's right. What is AGI? Artificial General Intelligence. General intelligence, meaning it acts like an individual, acts like an entity. And then there's artificial general super intelligence. So then it acts like something far smarter than any human being that's ever lived.

It has all the information that's available to every human being all over the world instantaneously. Then it makes better versions of itself because it's sentient and autonomous. So then it can create better artificial intelligences. And that scales out to a god. Yeah. Open the pod doors hell. Yeah, but way bigger than that. Scares out the zero point energy, being able to harness the energy of the universe itself, having no boundaries.

Material sciences all cracked, alloys, we couldn't comprehend. Well, Joe, who's going to save us? There's no one saving us. We are the last of the regular people. I think we're all going to have to integrate. I think if you don't integrate, you won't survive. And what do you mean by integrate? Integrate.

You'll probably become a part of the artificial intelligence. I think we will be symbiotic. How does that... Like those fucking helmets. It's probably going to be a wearable and then or a neuralink type thing for the bold that want to get a hole drilled in their head. But what if you don't do that? You're going to be left out in the cold.

The access to resources, the ability to generate income, like the people that get it are going to be able to control. so much so quickly that if you don't adopt it early, you're going to be fucked. Like, if you think we have haves and have-nots now, just wait until the haves have artificial general superintelligence inside their fucking head. No, thank you. Yeah, it's going to be real weird. I think we're the, I really genuinely believe we're the last of the real people, like regular

biological people. This is it. It's a bit of a bummer. We'll be all right, sort of until we're not. But it's also like we grew up with nothing. And then we've, we're like if the simulation is real, you and I are in a very interesting timeline because we grew up where there was, you just left the house and your parents didn't know where you were. And then there was answering machines. And then there was call ID, you know, and then there were cell phones.

And then there were cell phones you can watch porn on. And then there was AI. It's like this slow. but more rapid as time goes on. And as you said, and it's exponential. And as he said, there's no going back. There's no going back. Unless you want to be one of those people that moves to Alaska and starts fucking living off a caribou and shooting a musket.

Like, you're not going back. Wait, why do I have to get a musket? You get a regular rifle, I guess. Yeah, why? I mean, I'm not going to cosplay the thing. I'll get a... I mean, I'm happy to have the caribou, but I don't know yet just have a regular gun. You should probably have a regular gun, but eventually, well, you really should probably have your own bow and arrow.

So, because you're going to have to be able to make your own arrows. And after a while, you're going to run out of bullets. So you're going to have to feed yourself with your own bows and arrows. Okay. And then the robots will show up. Robot dogs. Didn't something happen in Ukraine recently where a robot engaged with people in war and the people surrendered? When you say robot, what do you mean?

Like one of those Boston? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like using a robot in war that the robot infiltrated the Russian area and got them all to surrender. And they all, like, with no loss of life, they just realized like, fuck. Did you see that Black Mirror episode? Yes. Yeah. Terrifying.

That's terrifying. Terrified. Absolutely terrifying. And not so far in the future. Yeah. This fucking thing that they supposedly used in Afghanistan, so it is. Ukraine forces to surrender using only robots. Zelensky claims enemy position seized autonomously for the first time without any of his troops being put at risk.

Wow. I mean, if the fucking Terminator show up, it's game over. If there's biological human beings with guns and bulletproof vests and the Terminator show up and they can't miss. and they never get nervous and they're not worried about dying. And they're not going to get sleepy. Yeah. To eat.

This thing that we were talking about yesterday, this ghost murmur, supposedly. Now, my friend Andy, who is a former Navy SEAL, who he doesn't believe it's real. And I'm not sure it's real either. But what they said is they found that pilot

that was missing in Iran using something called ghost murmur that can detect his very specific heartbeat from 40 miles away. So they supposedly found him hiding in the mountains waiting for them to pick him up. That makes, I can see that. I mean. Your heartbeat from 40 miles away?

Your specific biological signature? I, yeah, I can, I can see that. I mean, with the technology of like sonar, radar. Well, it's something quantum. It's called, I think it's called quantum magnetometry or some shit. But what do they use to pinpoint the – it's an audible thing or – I don't know. I have no idea.

But they supposedly located this guy and it has a 40-mile range. He doesn't have anything on. I see. No. It's like they just scan you. They go, okay, this is what David Cross's very specific biological signature is. And then you get lost hiking. And they go, oh, there he is.

He's under that bush. Why am I under the bush? You're hiding. From who? I don't know. Robot dogs? It's not going to work. It will work. No, it won't work.

Or maybe you got lost in the woods as you're waiting for someone to come rescue you and they can find you. But then I wouldn't be under a bush. Well, you go hiking. Maybe it's raining. You saw it shelter under a tree or something. I don't know. But you hurt your ankle. You can't hike out.

Okay. And so they find you. It's been 24 hours. Where's David? Oh, we found him. Yeah, we would have found him earlier, but he was hiding under a fucking bush. What the fuck was he thinking? You didn't want to get eaten.

But, I mean, if that's real, like, what was the actual term they used? Was it quantum? It was quantum something, kooky? Which is, as soon as you say quantum, I'm okay, what are you saying? What does that mean? What does that mean? What does that mean? What are you talking about? Are you talking about quantum entanglement?

Yeah. Like, is there somehow or another? They supposedly used ultrensitive quantum magnetometers, but I've, I'm trying to find the post where I've, someone's like, that's not. what they used right yeah I saw the post where someone said no he had a thing on his body so they're lying about their ability why would they why wouldn't they say that's what we used I have no idea I have no idea if they're gonna make up some technology that's a wild thing to make up it's a very strange I mean if they really are using misinformation and propaganda to show that we have

insanely superior technology, I guess, you could say. It's a bluff. It's a nice bluff to pretend that we're that sophisticated, that much above and beyond everybody else is out there, that we could find a very specific heart rate signature from 40 miles away. That's what I'm saying. Why would they, they would happily say, yeah, we've got this ability to do this, you know? I guess, but it's a weird lie. It's probably a lie based on weird lies. Right, but that one might be a lie based on actual theory.

You know what I mean? Right. They're trying to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which kind of makes sense. But I mean, if that's a robot dog and it's looking for you and you're hiding and it could find your individual signature in a apartment building filled with people.

Like, there he is. Fifth floor. Yeah. Oie. And you hear the metal footsteps going up the stairs. Chunk, chump, chunk, chum, chum, chum, chum, chum. This is scary. You're scary.

It's scary. Well, someone's going to be in control of all this stuff. That's what's really terrifying. And it's all these autistic dorks that are in charge of all these tech companies. They're going to be at the front. This is also a kind of similar thing where they have said that that's what happened, where they used robots, in quotes, to capture them unmanned. But it's their version of the story, too.

Right. As I'm saying, Ukraine's version. All these reports I see, it says Ukraine claimed that this happened. And then I'm watching the video, and I'm like, this looks a little bit like when we send robots in swap missions here. Like, we do that kind of already. Hmm. Right? Yeah, but who's the source of this?

They're at... This is New York Post. Well, I was trying to find... Trapters enemy Russian position using only robots, no humans. The future is already on the front line. But then it's going to be eventually why would we send any people out there? there. It'll be robots capturing other robots, which is great because nobody dies, I guess. Then why don't we just play a game of chess? You get the two leaders to play a game of chess,

and the winner takes the land and the resources. Yeah, not a bad idea. Whatever the fuck we're going to do, it's like the whole, it's just insane. Like from the time I was a little child thinking, oh, boy, we figured out no war. That's great. Yeah. To, No, we're fighting war with robots that can detect your heart rate from 40 miles away. So what do you think of what's going on in Iran? It's fucking terrifying. Yeah. All of it's terrifying.

Anytime you're involved with, you're shooting missiles into towns and blowing things up, blowing up infrastructure, blowing up bridges, you know, and Israel's blowing up Lebanon now. It's like, what the fuck are we doing? Like, how is this still going on? It's, well, it's also clear there was no plan. No. No. No. Well, Danyahu's been telling the United States that Iran was months away from building a nuclear bomb for 30 years or 20 years at least.

Yeah, but that's, that's, I know. Trump was the first one to go, all right, let's do something about it. But it seems like they didn't know what the fuck they were going to do. There was something done about it. He, in his first year in office, he tore up the. The bunker buster bombs. But all this were in a worse place now than before this thing started. Yeah.

Look, the Iranian regime's terrible. Like what they do to their protesters. I'm not disputing that at all. I mean, most people that voted for Trump or wanted Trump to be in office, one of the things that was attractive was this no more wars. Sure, of course. And now we're in one of the craziest ones. Yeah. And China's flying in cargo planes.

filled with stuff. We don't know what the fuck's in there. And Russia is giving Iran information about where our troops are. Super fun. Great times. It's crazy. And scary too. Science.org says it's quantum sensors. So they say it's bullshit?

It says it's not highly implausible. Did quantum sensors help find a U.S. pilot shot down in Iran? Experts doubt it. Yeah. Now, okay, here's an ignorant question. He shot down. wouldn't you know he's on foot he's somewhere near that site right can't go too far yeah can't go too far right so well the thing is if he gets ejected from the plane I don't know how he so if he got shot down the

idea is that he gets ejected from the plane and then parachutes that could be a lot of distance because sure the plane's flying at a very high speed it's an altitude undetermined He jumps out where? When does he jump out? Is it 100 miles away? Is it 50 miles away? Is it 10 miles away? How far can he walk?

He's injured. Right. It's fucking terrifying. It's just crazy that, you know, these, the pilots or the astronauts just went up into space and circled around the moon and came back. Yeah. They all, everybody that goes into space has this experience called the overview effect where they go out there and they, one of the first things is they go like, oh my God, what are we doing? Like, how are we pretending at these lines in the dirt that we draw? Yeah.

It's all just a bunch of people on this very fragile biological spaceship. Yep. Yep. Yeah, it's fucking terrifying. Yeah. But like all things in the future, all of it's terrifying. The whole, the, the future of it's terrifying. The whole, the, the, the future of mankind, like, it's so perilous.

It's all so fragile. All of it. I know. And it's to think of the stuff that we allow these external things that we allow to affect our, like, if there was ever a time to just be a good person, live your life, enjoy, try to spread some kindness and some joy, you know. I mean, it's now. Yeah.

You know. It's a good time for comedy. People want to go out and have fun. That's true. Which reminds me I have a special. That was the segue. What's it on? There it is.

Is it on YouTube? It's on YouTube. Perfect. The end of the beginning. Where did you film it? 40 watt in Athens. Oh, nice. Yeah.

Nice. Yeah, I'm happy with it. Great. Fantastic. Yeah. And it's out right now and people can go check it out. It is out right now. So are you in the process of writing new stuff now or did you? Yeah.

I'm just beginning the process. I was saying before I'll go out and I'll do, you know, because I don't write, I can't sit down and write jokes. That's just not how it works for me. So all the writing is on stage. So I tape everything. I go up with my notes and I have a couple guests and I'll do 15 minutes, bring up guests, do another 15, bring a guest, do another. Oh, that's cool. So you break it up in a little chunks.

Yeah. And this way, because, you know, the first couple shows were terrible. I've got nothing. You know, it's just me apologizing for not having anything yet. But people will, I mean, I have people now who will come to the second show and the sixth show. they'll come see me on tour, you know. They want to see the process. The process, you know, the evolution of it.

And which is cool. And I, and it's, as I said, I either walk or ride my bike to every single venue. And they start off small, and then they get bigger and I lose a guest. And then, you know, before you know it, I've got, okay, I think this is roughly the 75 minutes I'm going to do. And then it's about sequencing, which is really important, you know. and then I'm I take it out on the road and

and so the idea is that I'll probably late fall start back again and I love it I that's great fucking love it's the best right stand-up is the most fun I really when

you know people will I'll do you know I'm doing press for this thing and people will say I know you do a lot of things and what is your favorite I know you're not, you know, and it's all, I like, I like doing all of it, but the thing that I absolutely have to do is stand up. I can, I'd be disappointed if I could never act again or write or direct or whatever, but I'll be okay. But if you told me I can't do standup,

I'd go crazy. Well, I went a little crazy during the pandemic because, oh, dude, it, I almost, and I, I made this part of the bit, but I, Almost the first show I did, I started tearing up. And I'm in front, I mean, I'm doing this. And it was at the Sultan room in Bushwick. And I was like, man, I thought, God, I didn't know if I'd ever get to do this again. And shit, you know, I dreamed about this day. And it was a year and seven months where I, the longest since I've been doing this.

Such a strange feeling, isn't it? A year and seven months where you could. And I did some of those. outdoor shows and they're just not, it's not the same thing. It's not the same. Yeah. Well, that's awesome, man. I'm glad you love it.

And best of luck with this special. Thank you, man. This was fun. This was fun. Thank you for doing this. Absolutely. All right. What's the name of it again?

So if people can find it. The end of the beginning of the end. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, everybody.