The Joe Rogan Experience - #2523 - Ali Siddiq

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Ali Siddiq is a comedian, author, and public speaker. His new special, "My Father," is now streaming on YouTube. See him live on the "Custom Fit" Tour.https://youtu.be/XiSewRUOVygwww.youtube.com/@AliSiddiqComedywww.alisiddiq.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Don’t miss out on all the action this week at DraftKings! Download the DraftKings app today! Sign-up using https://dkng.co/rogan or through my promo code ROGAN. Get 30% off + 2 free gifts at https://ARMRA.com/rogan 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. What's happening? Good to see you. Same. We were just talking. So I had a pause Jamie before the podcast.

So you were telling me that LeBron James is not going to go back to the Lakers. How is he now? 41. 41? Yeah. What is the oldest that an elite athlete has been? Tom Brady is 44, I think, NFL QB. That'd be pretty high up there.

How old was Karin? That's a good question. Holes, Kareem when he retired. Bernard Hopkins, I think, would be the next. Bernard Hopkins is number one. Yeah, Bernard. We were talking about how he beat Kelly Pavlach at 42. But Bernard had a couple of years to incubate a little bit.

Oh, yeah. Well, you know about that. Yeah. Not take damage in. steal up the mind. He had the most intense discipline. That guy never got out of shape, which is also a giant contributor

to longevity. Never was building back. He wasn't like a 42-year-old who was like, you know, he took six months off. I haven't been in the gym. No, but no, no. Every day, it was running, nutrition. Everything was always on point.

Never buried. Cream was like 42, I think. So he might be the oldest of the past guy. but this was before all the science, right? Yeah, science changes things. The science. So we were just talking about the science.

So, Jamie, what are they allowed to take and not allowed to take? I don't know. It's like the NBA used to, like, I think for like weed stuff, they used to say that it was like, they'd get tested, I think, like October 1st, which is like right when preseason starts. For weed? Yeah.

And so like if as long as you were clean on October 1st, then you're good because they wouldn't test the rest of the year. That's ridiculous. But now, I know in the NFL, if you have a crazy game, you're going to get tested the next day. They're just going to check you for what was going on with you yesterday. Yeah, why would you play good? Ridiculous. I don't think the NBA does that specifically, but I don't know, honestly.

So what are the rules in the NBA in terms of marijuana now? I thought that was part of the thing that they negotiated in the contract to make sure, because a lot of players like to be high when they play. I think they might just have just stopped testing for it as all. I want to mention names, but I'm friends with some guys, and they tell me they can't play unless they're high. That's the same thing with pool players. I know a lot of pool players. They like to get lit before they get on the table.

Yeah, pool. You should be lit playing pool. Yeah, you feel things better. Here we go. NBA can randomly drug test each player up to four times during the season and two times in the off season, with additional tests allowed any time there is reasonable cause, but marijuana is no longer part of the standard test. testing panel. Yes, sir. Yeah, so they can smoke weed, which makes sense. Let them, it's not, what are you doing? It's not hurting anybody and they play better with it. I think, leave them

alone. That's what I think. Unless they're doing, unless they're doing meth, unless they're doing, you know what I mean? They also had another big betting scandal is kind of broken recently in the last 24 hours there. Oh no. Where a player has been called out for throwing at least four games. And then where that's going to go from here is kind of being speculated online. I'll tell you where that goes. If people find out, it goes to bullets. That's the problem. The problem with someone throwing a game is somebody bet on that fucking game.

A lot of people bet on that game. The two cases I've seen, though, are like the over. So, like, they had player props, and, like, he needed 4.5 rebounds, and he has four, and he's just trying extremely, extremely, extremely hard to get that extra rebound, which is like, no, it's wrong. Wait a minute. That means he's playing well. And the other one, which was he was fixing a spread in the last second.

Like he sprinted down the court to get an extra basket with like three seconds on the clock when they were down by 10 or seven technically to beat the eight and a half point spread. Yeah, but so what? He's just scoring. How can you ever? It's just when you watch basketball enough, you go like that doesn't happen that often. Why would you do that? That's gross. Yeah, especially.

Yeah, you used to people throwing the ball and just throwing it down there. Not you running down. I know, but if you can do it and score, why wouldn't you do it? I don't even understand why anybody would question that. You're down by 10. It's five seconds to go. The game is over. Fuck you. I want that ball in the net.

Fuck you. Man. No. Why? Because that's not going to change. Oh, we lost by eight. Well, it just means you're competitive to the end. You never give up.

And you, even though you know you're losing. And no starters on the floor at this time. You down by 10 is. is five seconds ago, no start is on the floor. Yeah, but how, but it's not like he's missing on purpose. So it's one thing if the guy's like missing on purpose, but if he's scoring

on purpose, leave him the fuck alone. All right, so similar thing World Cup just happened like two, three nights ago where they just got under the knockout round, you know, so the big tournament was every team plays three games to figure out where you end up to play the next part of the tournament.

Ten teams get eliminated. Uh-huh. Third place team for the first ever can make it through. And so there was a, I think it was Algeria, and I forget the other team, sorry.

But if they both tied, they both move through. If one team wins and one team loses, one team goes through. And then they're like, with four minutes to go in the game, they're kind of just passing the ball

around, the score's tied, and one team goes ahead and scores. And it kind of starts a fight on the field where you see the other team yelling at the other team like, fuck you, like, I don't know exactly what they're saying, but like what, like,

and then it was like, Two minutes to go, the other team sort of just stops playing defense and kind of seems to like let them score. Oh, God. It's like, I don't know if it's a big collusion or if they just sort of like made the agreement. How do, don't they have mics on those guys? It's such a crazy. They have to have mics on somebody. They have strong mics now and they have people that can lip read.

They can pick up, hey, motherfucker, you're supposed to leave this a tie. If that happens, like, you can't play anymore, right? Like, what happens to those guys? They have to get suspended for... That'd be the entire... That'd be both teams, the coaches, it'd be everybody. Oh, my God. I don't really know how it's going to pan out, but it was very...

What a conundrum. Yeah. How could you do that? Like, I hate that. This is what I don't like about sports betting. Not that, because that's about advancing. But about sports betting is the even the consideration that a person is playing a certain way because they're worried about a spread or because...

they've been paid off to not score or they've been paid off to foul. You know, like there's the problem with these things is you could bet on anything. You can bet on anything. Anything. Anything. So if you're a crooked and what has been like the most crooked aspect of the fucking human race over the past like 100 years other than the legal system? The most crooked aspect has been sports betting.

It's always crooked. Sports and politics. politics. They damn their. They're all the same. Yeah, they're the same. It's the same. It's money. It's anyone, anytime there's money involved and decisions can be shifted, influence can be used to make something happen. But it seems like that with, with most things that people, you know, have some type of,

you know, hierarchy desire for. They, they, they're going to put something in, you know, like even with like awards in, this is a, who can promote, the best and who can if you can take all the people that vote to dinner and you know smuse them at dinner it's going to be a thing where who's going to beat you when you have all the voters right or you have a situation where you have people that work for your company that can vote you're saying who how are you not going to vote for the project that the company put out right

We got 60 voters. We at least got 60 votes. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result?

Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments. and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. I think you said it best when you said the hierarchy. That's really what it is. It's in anything that has any kind of a hierarchy.

Politics is the ultimate example. Politics is the ultimate. Ultimate example. But there's that hierarchy shit in everything in the world. Everything. And it trips people up. But with politics,

it is a little more detrimental than with sports. You know, sports is, you know, you gamble. and people trying to win things, but with politics, it's like, if you're not, somebody that's not qualified can be in a position where, you know, they make a decision on the masses of people's lives. Not just that.

They can appoint judges. Which is. And they can appoint crazy judges. Like, there's obviously judges, like, they have disputes. Well, why do they have disputes? Because they're ideologically captured on both sides. There's people that are like, you know certain right-wing judges. You throw some case out there that's a right-wing case, abortion rights, whatever it is, immigration.

You know how they're going to vote. Same thing with left-wing people. Like hardcore left-wing people, you guarantee trans women in sports. Trans-women are women. Let them play in sports. That was a recent Supreme Court order. Three judges said that trans women should be able to play in women's sport. The rest of them said, fuck no.

The other six canceled it out, luckily. And, you know, those people are not taking to account the sport. Like, it's a difference. If you were originally something and now you're playing there's something else, your strength is different. Everything's different. And, you know, you don't feel that until your daughter gets knocked out the ring, where she's supposed to be boxing somebody that's the same gender. And then now she's, her whole side of her face broke from, you know.

It's insane. It's insane. And it's not cruel to not let that happen in sports. That's what Title IX is about in the first place. Give women the opportunity to play in an equal time as men. That's a good thing. Having men that think they're women play with women is fucking crazy. It doesn't mean, you know, you need to castles people out of society.

It doesn't mean anything. Live and let live. I agree. But get the fuck out of the women's room. You have a dick. Get the fuck off the team. You're running track at a literal women's Olympic. level and you're 15.

Why? Because you have a dick. This is crazy. You're not really a girl. This is nuts. You know, that's the, that's the world we live in and, oh, well, that's, I'm not even going to say, that's the world we live in. That's the world that's being presented to us at this point. That's right. You know, and it's, you know, there's a lot of things

that's like this, man. You, this is why in comedy, I choose not to go the current, the current affair or the political route. because I don't have time to separate the room. I'm too busy trying to do things to bring the room together,

and that's more of a righteous aim for me. Well, you, I said this before, so I'll say it live publicly. What you've done is very extraordinary because you've made a giant following online completely organically. It's very inspiring, because all you do is just do your thing

the best that you can and put it out there, and it just keeps growing. It's amazing. I appreciate it. very cool. It's very inspirational and it's you should be proud of it because what you've done, like I said, it's totally organic. Like you don't have a bunch of production companies pushing you and trying to make you more popular than you are. No, it's all just putting it out there and getting this gigantic following just from your work. Just the work.

Appreciate it. And then, you know, even with that, you still have some type of responsibility to not see things the same as other people. Like, I just got all this flack about me talking about how this business of people inflating things has caused depression in comics. You know, that we're supposed to be a happy craft. But now it's this big push about, if you're not on social media, you're not on this,

you're not on there. A lot of these comics are, you know, going through this mental health thing, they always sad about their numbers, you know, or this and the third. Like, yo, man, it is a, it's a thing. And some people inflate things. And everybody wants to be on the same level. So sometimes you can't be, oh, you can, but people look at it as a certain way where

when you're proud of the steps that you've taken. And if I play them in the G League, that's not the NBA. so I wouldn't say that I was playing I played in the league because I know what the league means I know you know I know this says this the G league but when I present myself yo you know I play in the league

people automatically think the NBA you know it's not it's not the G league is not and not knocking the G league but that's not the first thing that comes to my mind you know you know it's just a plan for the Washington

Generals is not the NBA even though you played against the globe trotters, they were great players. But we know how this game goes. But that's how people see things now. Well, the number things is real. The numbers thing is a real problem with people because it gives you a quantifiable measure of whether or not you're doing well.

And if you already have anxiety, which a lot of comedians have, you're already like socially awkward, which a lot of comedians are. You don't feel accepted, which is how a lot of comedians feel. And then you look at those numbers. you're like 2400 I only have 2400 followers I've been doing comedy for seven years Why don't I only have 2400 followers

And then you go to someone's page That you'd never even heard of They have 1.2 million You're like, what the fuck? And so this is about Being grateful In the position that you're in I remember when they were

People were pushing me How you need to get on the internet You need to be on social media Okay But I would see those people That had all those followers And that same year, the year before that I did a half-hour special with Comedy Central. Then year 2018, I did a full-hour special with Comedy Central.

I had 500 followers on Instagram. I had 300 followers, 300 subscribers on YouTube on a page that I didn't own. I had to fight to get this page. I had less people on Facebook. but I was efficient in what I was doing. So the numbers didn't, they didn't pick me because I had these numbers. They picked me because I came and I did what I did. And then they, oh, he's great.

So then we started going, you know, a route to build it up, but we were already getting things prior to the numbers. Right. What year is this again? This is 17 and 18. Okay. So the difference is that in 17, and 18, people were just starting to be aware

of the power of social media, and then they were really concentrating on different comics that had a large social media following. You know, I think that was like right when it first started happening. Dane Cook had blew up before that. That was a, yeah, that was a MySpace thing. That was a MySpace thing, another internet thing. That's true, that's true, that was different.

But the difference is, like, he had gotten so huge just from that, that he was already doing like arenas. Yeah. And when they, so he was already huge, and then they just went with him. Like, but he was like super popular. Now it's like super popular on social media is one of the most important things. So now, now moving up to this, because I have a strong argument with this. So I have a million followers here, million followers there, all these specials.

I still didn't get invited to the BET Awards. I still didn't get, I still don't get invited to a bunch of things. I still get looked over for things. even though I have numbers and success, but I don't worry about it. I'm just in my, I'm not watching to judge myself against what somebody else is doing.

It's guys who have less everything, but they're in this round where they, they had everything. I see guys that's at everything with no, with no specials and no proven thing. They just around. And I'm like, okay. But it's, I'm not,

I think the point that I'm not judging my, up against what somebody is doing socially. But that's also easier when you're successful and you're successful. You're very successful. So the difference is like when you sell out these shows and you put out these specials, like I've seen your specials have millions of views. So it's like obviously you have a following. If you didn't and you were doing the same thing, then it would be a problem.

But then also that would, it's like comedy in a lot of ways, not always, but a lot of ways is a meritocracy. if you're good people will come. It's that simple. Fight Night is here. Title shots, debut killers, and the rising contender. Nobody's talking about yet, and only Draft Kings has you covered every step of the way. The Draft Kings app is now available in all 50 states and includes all markets,

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Availability varies. Bet to get bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get $50 in predictions dollars that expire in one year. Issued every seven days via click to claim for 21 days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. Predictions offer void in New York. And July 19th, terms at dkng.com slash audio. But I also have no desire to inflate things and compare myself to somebody else or make myself seem like I'm more than what it is.

Like guys are, hey man, I got, I'm at this room. I got 50 tickets sold. Okay. How much the room seat? Oh, the room seat 300. Okay, cool. You have 50 people more than you had, then if you didn't play the room. You know, because who knows you in Utah?

You're built, it's a building thing. Yeah. Like, I got all of this, all of this going on. But if I go to Utah, I'm in a comedy club. It doesn't matter what happened the night before. I was just in the arena. But in Utah, it takes me back to, on trading places. He said, hey, man, this is, he gave all this elaborate what this watch is.

And that man said, this is what this calls in St. Louis. Like, I don't care about you ponding the watch. Right. And so I don't have that. And I'm not, if I, it's like you, you own a club, okay. It's guys that can come to your club and sell your club out. And then it's guys that come to the club and you pay for the room. Okay.

Then there's guys, like when you're in the theater, some, you can scale a theater down. Some theaters hold 4,600 people. But you can scale it down to 2,000. But then the, I'm not going to say if the room holds, 4,600. I put 2,000 tickets on sale. I didn't sell out the theater. I sold what I put on sale.

It was saying, because I'm not to the point where I can get the 4,600 yet. If I could sell the room out then, I would need to relish the real accomplishment versus the lesser accomplishment. Inflating, yeah. And that's, and because I don't have this thing where I'm, in competition with what happened before me. With other people.

So I'm in San Antonio. We at the theater because people can make you feel bad about anything. If you, a person that feels bad, just think, Minnesota, it's all these

people that's on the team that play for the Boston Celtics that are millionaires. They already millionaires. They play in the league. Austin traded seven people to Minnesota for one person. Kevin Garnett. They got rid of seven human beings for one person. So it's like if I was a person that felt bad about my career,

this would make me feel bad. Like the first person that they asked, okay, I'm going to trade this person for that person. They're like, no. Well, I'm going to give you two more people. They're like, no. And then I'm going to give you four more people. people. Okay. And a lottery pick. Okay. I'm going to feel horrible. They traded me for seven people. Y'all didn't even want me. Realistically. So Boston went. They got Kevin Gornet. I mean, yeah, Kevin Gornet and seven other millionaires. They got all this money. They got all this. They went to Minnesota. It was saying, so if somebody wanted to make you feel bad about something, you know, they could if that's how you are.

So I'm in San Antonio. The line is around the block. The place is sold out. It's the same sellout, no matter who comes there, it's sold out. That lady said to my face tomorrow, you should have saw it when Matt Rife came. I was like, in my mind, I was like, and I asked, I say, was it a different theater? She said, no, same theater. So when Matt Rive came, he sold it out.

I sold it out two nights, I mean two days in the same night. But her thing was, you should have saw when Matt Rive came. I was like, okay. She probably wanted you to feel bad. I was like, but I'm not. Good for you. But good for you, but the thing is a lot of people would. That's what it is.

A lot of people are in competition with other people. I think you should be inspired by other people. You know, if you want to compete in that way, be inspired. But the moment you turn it into a negative, it's like, You're a fool. You're being a fool. Competing charity. Also, inspiration is power.

It's fuel. You see someone doing well. So you see someone set and you like it. That's fuel that makes you want to go work. Makes you want to get some shit done. It gives you energy. Or it could cripple you if you're a dummy. If you're a dummy and you get angry and you get bitter and then you just put all this negativity on the person who's doing better than you, which is a lot of people do.

that's a weird that's a weird dynamics in this business when you know that it's going to be people no matter what you're doing it's going to be somebody doing better than you when i was in comedy clubs i remember being there and they were paper in the room okay i wasn't saying i was selling out they was paper in the room i know out of all it's 300 people in there And 240 of these people came because it was free. They sent out to email blast. But then what I looked at was they wanted to come. Yeah.

They wanted to come. They're probably comedy fans, which is why they're on the email list in the first place. And then those people, you give them a great show, they'll come back. Then the next time I came, they didn't pay for the room. They sold the tickets. That's how it used to be, man. That was the old days before social media.

you would build a market. So you would just show up at Philadelphia once a year. Show up. Do your homework. Like make sure you got a tight set. You've been practicing. You're ready to rock. You fuck these people up and then leave.

And then they're like, can't wait until you guys are back again. And then next time you come back, you know, all right. I've built an audience now. I can't disappoint these people. I've got to get fired up. And that's what it used to be. It used to be a totally organic thing across the whole country. Is it a thing?

Is it a difference? in your opinion between me bringing my audience to a venue from whatever other thing that I do versus people coming that don't know anything about me and me winning that person over versus the person that already know. Yeah, it's a different thing. You know, people are coming to see you specifically. You've already won them over. That's a different thing.

Or they want to take a chance on you. That's a different thing. because I've heard about you, but when, you know, that's a completely different thing, because that's your, you have an audience now, you have fans. When you are just performing at a club and it's a papered room, you have an opportunity. You have an opportunity to turn these people into fans. You have an opportunity to give these people a great night and have a good time. And also, you're doing your fucking thing, which is the most important thing of all.

Everybody is results oriented. I try to be process oriented. with everything I do, I'm process-oriented. I think about there's a goal that you've got to reach, but how do you get to that goal? The way you get there is not thinking about the goal. The way you get there is thinking about what you're doing. What's the process?

The process is writing bits, performing them, tweaking them, getting them tight, knowing, reviewing tapes, going over your material, going over your writing, talking with friends, and then every day it gets a little bigger. Every day it gets a little better every day that knife gets a little sharper That's the process that that's the process that leads you to become whoever You are and then you add other little pieces in that process I'm like I was talking to Bobby Lee and me and Bobby Lee talking I said

Bobby you don't realize what you met me at and he's like well is this a good is going to be a good story It's a bad story Bobby's got a lot of bad stories I said you you met me at at the Houston Improv, and they called me and asked me, did I want to host? A room that I already sell out, you know what I'm saying? They asked me that I want to host. I said, cool.

So I came and I hosted, and I was not trying to, but I was destroying his feature. I'm just hosting. Well, you should not be hosting, especially at the Houston Improv. But my thing was, this was years ago. But I say, Bobby, you didn't understand when I was hosting at the Houston Improv, I was doing something that most people didn't understand

why I was even doing it. And they would see, like, why would you be hosting? I said, because I'm not going to be in front of Bobby Lee's audience. But it's people that live in Houston that his audience, that I have no idea who I am. I said, Bobby, but before you, I say, I was coming to the Houston Improv hosting for multiple people

and I was just winning over fans that would never had seen me if they wasn't coming to see you. They wouldn't be coming to my show. I said so before that it was you were last Bobby. It was you and the week prior to that it was Monster Bronte.

And the week prior to that was my girl Angela Johnson. Angela Johnson and before that it was some random white guy. I said, I just came. And I want to do, I'm a comic.

So me hosting was no big deal. I wasn't working. So I said, well, let me just come hosted. That's what they want me to do. So I gained fans from four different audiences in a month. So when I came back, they was like, yo, I saw you at Mars Gibney. And so I came back to see you when you put your show up. I'm like, cool.

So my process, that was a part of my process. It didn't matter who I hosted for. And I was like, okay, cool. You know, let me go, like, when I hosted for Bill Burr, Bill Burr was like, this is crazy. We in Austin at the Paramount, and I said, I said the worst thing about this was that at the time I was wearing all black. And I went to the show, and when I walked,

on stage the first thing I said is hey I do not work here. Don't like eight people ask me where's the bathroom? I don't know I don't work but it was like I look like an usher. Like yo I'm like yo this sucks you know but it was a cool gig. That's a smart approach I mean that's a great way to build especially if you're already headlining. Yeah I think I think that thing about about concentrating on the process, people should try to apply that to everything. You know, my friend John Dudley, who taught me archery, he's a big believer in that, being process-oriented. Like, so you get better at archery, and he used to compete all over the

world, travel, compete in archery tournaments. I think that's the, I think that applies to everything. I think that applies to music. I think that applies to everything. The more, I think One of the things that trips people up about social media, a lot of these young guys in particular, young people in particular, is that they are thinking about other people and they are comparing themselves to other people and they are looking at those numbers. And you're spending all of your energy, if you haven't allotted 100 units of energy in a day, you're spending a disproportionate amount on things that don't empower you and actually kind of fuck your head up. Not good for you at all. Instead of saying, wow, I am chasing the fucking dream, right? I am out here being a professional comedian, and I have a real chance to develop a real following. If I put my time in, I put my effort, I really care and I really work hard, I could sell out of theater one day.

That's possible. Like, that's a goal. It should be a goal just like getting your Ph.D. in chemistry or whatever the fuck it is, your goal is. But the process is what's important. The process is, like, appreciating what. what you're doing, why you're doing it, and just bearing down and doing your best. That's it. That's it.

And other people, look at them as inspiration. Other people that are kicking ass, you know, don't become a hater. That shit is so bad for you. I know so many dudes who have, like, hater tendencies and they never excel. Never. It's the counter thinking of an excellent person is a hater. Someone is always trying to diminish people and downplay people. and look at someone in the least charitable way

and the worst possible way. Just somehow, I know they're trying to make themselves feel better, but it doesn't work. It does the opposite of work. It robs you. It robs you of your self-esteem. It robs you of your self-respect. You're spending so much time thinking about this other dude.

Like, why? It's a lot of energy. And my dad, this is one story that I did not put in the special that I should have. And my dad had all these these thoughts. And he was, I literally say he was a crazy man, but when you think about the things that he would say,

it made sense. My dad, and why would you be telling me this at the age that, but he just gave, I think I was like 11, and my dad out of nowhere to say, you know what I'm, people spending the same time

and money on being fake when they could put that same time and money into being real. Yeah. And I'm like, I didn't know, I understand what that meant. But as I got, older, if you spend any money or time faking something, you could probably spend that money and time

being real about something. Yeah. You know, why go buy a fake necklace to act like you rich when you can go buy a real necklace if you're saying at some point, if they're saying, and, you know, be actually be rich. You know, if that's what, if you compare it to necklaces, but I just didn't understand it at the time. But then as I got older, I understood, like, why I put this time in to pretending when you can put that same energy in and then become real at what you do? It doesn't make no sense. My uncle Vinny, when I was six or seven years old, I was staying at his house with my cousins.

And we were, we were supposed to brush our teeth. and I didn't like following rules, period. And so I wouldn't brush my teeth. Instead, I would take toothpaste and smush it around on my teeth. And so that when they smell my breath, they would smell toothpaste. And my uncle explained to me, he goes, I understand why you're doing it. He goes, but the amount of time that you're spending, pretending to brush your teeth, you could have just brushed your teeth.

And I thought about that when I was six. I was like, damn. I was just a little kid. But I was like, ha, he's right. Why am I faking, brushing my... I was six years old. I was like, I was like, I'm like such a... My Uncle Vinny was like super patient, super calm.

Out of all my family members, he was the strangest. Out of all these wild, crazy Italian people, like, he was an artist, and he was like very soft-spoken and never got angry about anything. I'd always speak really rationally. I was like, God, he's so smart. It's just so peaceful. He just... But he just...

laid it out when I he didn't say hey I know you're not brushing your teeth you little fuck what's what's that it was the time you're spending pretending to brush your teeth you could have just brushed your teeth it was like sometimes adults will say something to you like that when you're six and it just gets in your head you're like whoa okay that just saved me a whole lot of time like I can just brush them just brush your fucking teeth stop pretending stop faking it doesn't help anything it does the opposite opposite. Does the opposite.

And, you know, people, the truth sometimes is, is hurtful to people. The truth doesn't feel good, you know, to a lot of people, unfortunately. But, you know, you have to look at it. You have to have perspective. But that's the ultimate hate right there. That's the ultimate hate is for me to give you a falsehood instead of tell you the truth. Right. That's the ultimate, it's the ultimate hate.

Especially if you're making up a background for yourself. You're making up a story about your life that's not true. You're pretending you're somewhere in life that you're not. You know? Oh, man. Just do the thing. Just do the thing. Yeah, but it's hard for people.

It's hard for people. And then there's a lot of people that think you just fake it until you make it. And then you hear stories of this guy. I had $500 in my bank account, but I told them I got this. I got that loan. And next thing you know, my business is making all. this money and you go wow he faked it until he made it and it worked and you think it's gonna work it doesn't work most of the time that's so few and far between then they never tell you that that guy

goes to jail later for fraud yes 100 percent a hundred percent you know the fans busted my house three years later and took everything you're like okay exactly like when they arrested carlspancia recently for like all those counts of tax fraud i was like okay i don't want that to happen to him but There it is. Right? I mean, that's what it is. I'm not laughing at Carlos Mnitia. I'm just laughing at the fact that you're like, yeah, when they even busted, go.

I mean, I didn't, I wasn't bring me any joy to see that. I don't like anybody getting arrested for taxes. I think, I think taxes, until they have an accurate account of where the fucking money goes. And until you completely eliminate all fraud and money. waste. What the fuck are you doing locking people up for not paying taxes? Like you guys should get locked up

for not doing a good job with our money. So what do you think about all the new purchases and redoing the White House and all this with tax dollars? Did they do it with tax dollars? How much money did they spend in tax dollars to do the ballroom?

Let's find out. What's that? They need a ballroom though. That's how that guy snuck in with a gun because they tried to do that White House correspondence dinner in a hotel, that dude who got arrested a few months back. What's this resolution, the pool, something full of algae right now that we spit on the pool? Yeah, I don't know about that. That's something about making the pool look nice. That whatever that is, reflecting pool. Yeah, the reflecting pool. Reports indicate the new White House East Wing Ballroom is projected to cost about $600 million with roughly half, just over $300 million coming from taxpayer-funded government account.

despite earlier promises that it would be taxpayer-free. 300 million sounds like a lot until you find out how much money they spend on other things. When you find out just how much fraud is in NGOs, how much fraud is in nonprofits, how much fraud is in insider trading and propping up companies so that they can get better deals. The whole thing is fraud. The thing is, if you're not... spending, I understand how much money goes and other things, but if you're spending any money that, that that's my money, that I don't know that, that I need it, or that's not really

the aim, the goal. You should be able to vote on it. You should be able to vote on where all your tax money goes. How much money is, how much tax money is being spilled on getting smart people in place, or getting smart, making smart children? That's the big one. That's the thing. The big one is, if you look at it.

our country as a community, and that's what we're supposed to be doing. We're supposed to be the United States of America. All that bullshit aside, that was the one good thing that happened about 9-11. When 9-11 happened, after that, we were all united. It was crazy. It was crazy. We realized like we are actually on a team. So if we're on a team, why do we have these deeply impoverished neighborhoods for decades and decades at a riddle with crime and drug abuse? Why? Is it impossible to fix? That's crazy. That's not true. It's just no one's true. It's just no one's tried to fix it. No one's done any effort to fix it. And if you did fix it, you want to make America great. Here's the best way. Less losers. And how do you get less losers? More opportunities for people.

More opportunities, more support, more education, more everything that you need if that was your neighborhood. And if we did that, we'd have to switch the way our system runs, but that could be done, man. You don't have to have losers, not that many. That's the thing about making. America great, right? If you're trying to make anything great, don't you need intelligent people to do that? Of course. That's the number one thing.

So when we have all these divisive people that's on a lower vibration, how is that making the country great if we're putting people in position that don't have the experience or the education

in those things. And then we're just saying a bunch of divisive things. You know, you know, it was, if I'm watching the extravaganza

that happened in the White House, what was the thing Michelle Obama is a man? Like, how did that help? How did that help? That guy says that every time he does a speech. But what is the thing?

First of all, it's really divisive because you know that a large portion of the country's going to take this, it's going to have a problem with this. You know, clearly she's not a man, you know, but it makes no sense, like, to, I've never seen this many people say so many damaging things about a past president. It's like he's still on the forefront, and it's not like we have a president that's doing the greatest job for this, this country, you know, which is,

which is weird, a weird thing to me, and people are going to ask, is that what the belief? That's the real belief of people That's the real thing Well listen there's some crazy people That believe the world is flat There's a lot of dumb beliefs There's probably people that do believe Michelle Obama's a man

What that guy does He's like a pro wrestler Like he's got a character Called the Incredible Hulk It's very corny In a lot of ways Sometimes it's You know cringy

But the point is he gets a lot of attention A lot of attention Because of all this That's what he's doing So what he's trying to do is maximize the amount of attention that he can get for a very short window of career. This is not how he really feels, how he really thinks.

When you talk to him in real life, he's very reasonable. This is an act that he does, like a pro wrestling act. But what he can do is fight. He's really good. And that's what's so confusing about it all. So you got this guy who's created like this fake persona where he puts on an American flag bandana, comes out to Hulk Hogan music,

does all his interviews with sunglasses on, has a bunch of crazy, silly rhymes. and says ridiculous shit, just trying to get attention, the most amount of attention. It is very divisive. Don't get me wrong, but that's by design. So he's Hawk Hogan and Randy Savage in the same person. But an actual fighter.

But an actually fighter. A really fucking good one, man. He just knocked out Derek Lewis at the White House. Derek Lewis has the most knockouts in the history of the sport. Don't do that. Don't do that, Joe. Don't do what? Don't say that's so excited because Derek Lewis go to the same gym,

on Main Street boxing gym Houston. I'm very close to that. Dude, I love Derek. I don't like the fact that Derek Lewis lost that fight. I think Derek of 10 years ago would have been a real fucking problem

for that dude because Derek of 10 years ago you couldn't hold him down. He would just get up. There's a whole compilation of people trying to hold Derek Lewis down. He just gets a hand on you

and just who, his grip, they did that UFC grip thing where they test the grip. Everybody's like 140, the strong ones. One's like 160, one-night. Derek just squeezed it casual,

218. And they were like, what the fuck? So you see how problematic this was for me. You already beat my friend, then you turn around and say... He beat a 40-year-old Derek Lewis. A 40-year-old Derek Lewis, then turned around and say Michelle Obama's man. I was like, okay, you know something.

I know what you're saying. I'm pissed. Listen, you're right. Listen, you're right. But I'm telling you, if you met that dude in real life, you would get it. He's just a dude. He's just a guy who is a competitive wrestler, played in the NFL, and he's like, I got to do something to figure out how to get people to pay attention to me, because it can't just be fighting. It's not enough.

If you look at Connor McGregor, you look at Sugar Sean O'Malley, you look at these guys that have these flamboyant personalities, these big personalities. Cassius Clay is the original example. They get an immense amount of attention, and that translates into much more money and much more opportunities. There's no fucking way that guy would have. have gotten that fight at the White House if he couldn't fight. Because the fight that he had before that he fought Curtis Blades, who was a top 10

UFC heavyweight, huge wrestler, and they went to war, dude. I mean, he put it on him for three fucking rounds. Like, Curtis just has an insane heart and survived it. But that guy can fucking fight. But just that alone's not enough. You got to get attention. I don't agree with it. I wouldn't do it.

It's not my thing. I don't like it. But I get it and it's smart. With Muhammad Ali, though, he was very respectful in his in his, in his, in his act, you know, to get attention, you know, just like. No, he wasn't. Yes. I mean, he wasn't with other people, but he would show up at fucking Sonny Liston's house and scream about him on his fucking front lawn at four in the morning. He did wild crazy shit.

He did a lot of why. He was just all about getting your heart rate up, getting your emotions in there. He was so fucking smart. He knew before. everybody, that you could just get somebody into a frenzy, and they wouldn't be able to sleep. Their whole life revolved around fighting you, and I can't let this guy beat me in the fear of losing. He's going to keep you weak. It's going to keep you.

You're not going to be able to eat as much food. You're going to feel nervous. But you see what happened when somebody called him Cassius Clay. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Who was that? What fighter was that? He kept punishing him saying, what's my name?

Your mama name, Clay. But that didn't work out for him. No. He beat the sleeves out of him, and he carried him. He carried him while he was beating his ass. Dude, he was a special, special guy. You know, I'm not comparing him in terms of his cultural significance to Josh Hokka, because, you know, he was, my parents, my mother and my stepfather were hippies.

They never watched fighting. But when he had a rematch with Leon Spinks, that's how much of a cultural figure he was. They wanted him to beat Leon Spinks. Oh, my God, he's got to win, he's got to win. Hippies sitting in front of the fucking TV in like 1970, whatever it was. Oh, crazy is they have Italian hippies. Because I heard it. It was like, my family was, I thought they was Italian.

It was Italian. Well, they were hippies, but, you know, my grandmother went to jail for running numbers for the mob. So it's like there was a lot of, uh... Okay. There was a lot of real Italian in that past. Yeah, grandma went away for a little bit. She wouldn't rat him out, so she did some time. I was at a show one time, and I said,

where all the Africans in here? And this Italian dude, he's from Sicily. He raised his hand. And I said, and the people were like, why is he raising him? I was like, he knows. He knows. He knows.

It's a really good reason why Sicilians have darker hair, curly hair, darker skin. He's like, yeah. The Moors. And that's all I said was he knows. And people who got it, they was like, okay. And at that point, it's like when people don't know that you have some sort of level of intelligence. Like, he gets some information. They're like, oh, okay.

It's a big. But that's funny, though, Italian hippies. But my brother also. Well, you know, there was a lot of hippies back then, man. And I think the original idea behind it was great. I was just watching this thing today about the CIA and LSD and what they did. It was really funny, man. It was a...

That's a video. Yeah, that cute Animal Day. Isn't it dope? See if you can find it. Put it up because it's kind of cool. There's conveniently an M.K. Altry hearing going on right now. Oh.

How convenient. Listen, bro, that they... I got it right here. Jamie, I'll send it to you. They 100% are still doing that. No if, ands or buts. If you think they did that in the 60s and they 100% did, if they're doing mind control experiments on people

and their influence in people's opinions and half of the reason why people are at odds with each other all day long online is probably government intervention. At one point, there's some government's intervention. This is... If not ours, Russia and China. This is wild that...

The CIA created the hippie movement, and your mom's favorite band probably helped them. In the 1950s, the CIA bought up the world's supply of LSD. They brought it to the pharmaceutical company, Eli Lilly, who reverse engineered it, giving them an unlimited supply and a complete monopoly. Then the testing started. One early volunteer for these tests was Ken Kesey.

Kesey wrote a book inspired by this experience, which became a bestseller. Then Kesey went on to host events, which he called acid tests. And he wasn't charging anyone. He just wanted people to show up and do acid. For these events, he hired an unknown house band called The Grateful Dead. These events became wildly popular and with them rose the popularity of the band. So the Grateful Dead begins touring and Kesey follows them around in a bus from show to show. And everywhere he went, he brought a vat full of Kool-A laced with LSD.

This guy had a seemingly endless supply, exporting the hippie culture all around the US. Meanwhile, the CIA is flooding college campuses with LSD under the guise of research. And the Grateful Dead was just one of many bands in this movement. At the same time in Laurel Canyon came a wave of musicians with something in common. They were all children of high-ranking military officials. The biggest names in music, Jim Morrison of the Doors was the son of an admiral. Frank Zappa's father was a chemical warfare specialist. Even Crosby, Stills, and Nash.

Yeah, all three of them. And all of these bands as well. The theory is the CIA orchestrated the hippie movement to steer a very real anti-war movement into something a little easier to combat. Descent without teeth. The hippie slogan was literally, Turn on, tune in, and drop up. In other words, do acid and remove yourself from society.

And a lot of them did drop out of society to go live in communes in the woods. This intersection between hippie culture and the CIA could all be a great big coincidence. Maybe military brats naturally want to rebel. And maybe the CIA was giving away acid because they're chill like that. Maybe the CIA created the hippie movement. And your mom's favorite band probably helped them. Yeah. Isn't that wild?

That's crazy. That's wild. I also had a big influence on gangster rap. Big influence on promoting gangster rap. Oh, for sure. 100% proven. 100%. 100%.

Yeah. They wanted to fill prisons. You want to push that over anything else. You know, because we can look at how rap music changed and get changed in 1992. Yeah. At the 1992, they was like no more positive rap. Well, it was whenever straight out of Compton came out, because I was in Boston at the time. I would remember to the day it happened.

But straight out of Compton wasn't a drug-filled-induced. It was, if you look at some of the songs, you look at a lot of the songs that was on that album. It was rebellious songs against the system, you know. Fuck the police. And then 1992, man, when they decided, yo, we don't want no more De LaSoul, we don't know more Tribe Carquest.

We don't want no, you get them leather men. medallions off your it's like, yo, we need like, yo, like self-destruction and,

West Coast All-Stars, they was like, what? They coming together? Hell no. You know, we need this to be divisive. We need them to separate.

And that's crazy that, that, the biggest times that I've experienced this country being together was the, the Olympics when the dream team came 9-11 and COVID that's the biggest time that we the three biggest times I've ever even seen us together yeah because we need something we need something that's real

that we need some sort of an event that makes us realize first of all the fragility of life that's important and we have to realize that we're all supposed to be a part of a team and and And you can't play on a team if your teammates don't think that you valuable. Not only that, you can't play on a team if your teammates are poisoning you. If your teammates are allowing you to eat rotten food so that you can't play and maybe giving you inferior gear on purpose and maybe keeping you in a place where you can't get sleep so that you're not going to evolve.

You're always going to be tired. You're going to be fatigued. So you're never going to get better at whatever the fuck it is you're doing. you're never going to advance in life. You're going to be tired. You're going to be on drugs. You're going to be poor. This episode is brought to you by Armora.

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Most stuff falls off, but I am still taking this. If you want to try, Armora is offering my listeners 30% off plus two free gifts. Go to armora.com slash Rogan. This is how I see. That's not a good team. This is how I see with parenting. It's hard to parent if your number one goal is survival. Right.

You know, it's hard to parent. Right. You know, you got a parent. from a comfortable space. You can't parent from nervous chickens really don't lay eggs. That's true. So the thing is,

you, if, like, the way I parent now versus how my mom, my mom was strictly survival. So my thing is survival first. Right. I was saying, then the rest of it. You know, I don't remember going to, on vacation with my parents,

you know, like vacation. What? Your mom working two jobs and going to school trying to better, she's just taking care of you. So I'm not in the, my kids go on vacation. You know, it's different.

You know, so I see things from both sides all the time because I'm, which makes me grateful. I'm grateful that I can do the things I can do with my family. I'm saying versus just parenting from a place of frustration. Yeah.

You know, but I understand this, this, this frustration thing. You know, I'm trying to take care of you. And, you know, and then sometimes I look at my kids like, you know, it's something, you have had it really easy because if I wouldn't have washed them dishes, my mom would have destroyed me. Because her mind said it's, hey, I'm trying to take care of y'all. Y'all got the help in this. You know, with me, it's like, we have a, how much?

housekeeper. You know? The housekeeper coming here four days out of the week, you know, and now I'm like, so you're just going

to throw that stuff on the floor and you're making it hard for the housekeeper. You know, the reason why she's there four days a week is so to make your life

easier, but you're adding on to... By being lazy. By being lazy. Like, I don't... There's a balancing act, right?

You want to protect your children, but you don't want them to develop soft. You want them to be able to take care of their own problems and you want them to be able to understand the consequences of their actions. So this is like fine line

of like encouragement and punishment and like explaining to them how your life was different and you have to appreciate this life. This is very unusual. You're super fortunate. But I think ultimately what they learn from

is how you behave. That's a giant. part of being a parent that people I don't think are totally aware of until you start doing it that they understand you whatever the fuck you say is one thing that's great what you do what you do is what they really see and if you're a lazy fucker who's always making excuses your kids are going to not have respect for you they're going to know like real early on you're kind of full shit this is the craziest thing though you know how hard it is to put some out on punishment and then say hey pack we're going to cabo Am I on punishment when we go into Cabo? You don't get your iPad for 16 hours. When we get the Cabo, you stay in your room and overlook the ocean. And think about your consequences as you order room service. They're drinking Coke and cola, eating French fries.

Lamb chops coming to the room. He's like, yo, you don't punish me, dude. So I can't have oysters. You hear the birds chirping. And you look looking at the waves. Like it's, it's rough. And it's a certain part of success that you almost can't punish because it's like I'm not staying at home because you don't punish me. See, my mom would, she, ah, it's just different, you know.

It's different. My mom was going her room and turn on Nassland in the dynasty. And I'm in my room with no TV because it was only one TV. It's a TV in every room. The punishment was coming here and watch Falcon Crest with me. What? I don't want to watch no Falcon Crest. And then you start watching Falcon Cres and now you love it.

You're like, so when is it going on again? You get addicted to the new character. That's why I like MASH. You know what I would be in trouble. And you're watching MASH and Bananza. And all of a sudden, you love MASH. I cried with MASH when I was like that. Do you remember the dude who dressed up like a girl in MASH, Jamie Farr?

Yeah. He was my neighbor. I was a neighbor? Yeah. Wow. Back in California. He lived right next door. Two houses down.

Wow. Klinger. It used to be just me and him. Then another guy built a house in between us. He was cool. Very friendly guy. Played a character. Played a good character.

That was a good show. Yeah, Mash was a very. a very good show. You know, and I say this other day to a friend of mine, I said, like, I listen, I used to ride and take my kids at school and listen to morning shows, you know, really Tom Joyner, you know, listen to Tom Joyner. And this is something I can listen to with my kids. Now there's no morning shows that I can listen to with my children without them putting

in a different element that I don't want my kids to be a problem. part of. And, oh, that's a weird thing that they're cursing on radio and doing all this other stuff. Well, they can't curse on radio still. Oh, yes, they can't.

Can they? They change it? They'll drop a B word in a minute. Oh, a B word. Yeah. But that's it. You can't, you can't say fuck. No, but the rest of it, you know, my you know, you got daughters, you're in the car. Right, right, right, and you're hearing some shit. You don't want

them to hear. Like, that's, that's weird thing. So they go to school and, you know, and they say, you're watching the B, you're like, damn, that was the ending

of the show. Right. So now you just, we ride and listen to Kichol. You know, then with no talk. Oh, I listen to NPR. I listen to

urban, urban network, you know, for them to listen. Now they got all these political questions and, you know, and your five-year-old, like, so why aren't we voting? I mean, oh. It's because you've been listening to Karen Anna. It's the whole time on the way to school or from school.

So it's weird how you, what shows would you sit down and watch with your kids now? You know, they have to watch the shows that I grew up watching. You know, you got to go back. You got to watch Perry Mason and Family Matters and, you know, the Cosby Show, you know, different world. We had to go back and watch good times. You know, we can't watch the current things, you know. So, you know, even with comedy, I took Hassan to a comedy show with me to see some friends. And it was 14 at the time.

And we left because it was no, it was nothing. the things that were being said it kind of made me go back to when Cosby did the story about his son going to see Eddie Murphy and he's dad he said these things and I was sitting there like after the first two minutes I'm like yo we got to get out of here

how old was he at the time 14 14 that's too young and I'm like yo man but I mean the guy who's doing comedy is doing comedy for adults that are drinking in a nightclub right No, we were at an event where it was all these bodybuilders, the gym next level, had did a show for all the people that work out there and the trainers. And I'm thinking, okay, this is at a ballroom, you know, it's probably going to be pretty cool. And I stopped in, you know, we sat in the back, and then it went left. And I was like, hey, man, let's get out of here.

And he's seen me. And so he's like, no, this ain't, this ain't the same. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going for a certain type of laugh. I'm not doing shock value, you know. So he's watched almost all the specials, you know. So it's not the same for him. You know, and he knows a lot of comics. So it's not, this wasn't conducive.

I was like, Hassan, we out. We're out of here. He's like, but it's some comments you can go and you can watch

their whole show like a Marcus D. Wiley. He can get an understanding of at least marriage, you know, how marriage go to give you some fuel. But I think the,

the landscape of comedy is different for different people, not knocking the people who do shock value or a lot of sexual content. That's their stick. And they probably, young and at some point they'll grow hopefully they'll grow and it'll be more things in life to

talk about people like well how do you have this many specials um because i have a life you know i had a life before that i talked about and then i have a life a current life that you know i'm still experiencing things so i'm going to talk about things that that's that's a little different because I'm living and I'm not stuck in sex is not the number one thing. I remember when I figured that I was, sex wasn't that big when I went to, you know, they had the thing Netflix and Chill

and I actually wanted to watch the movie. Get your hand off my leg. I'm trying to watch this movie. You know what I'm saying? So it's a thing about the development in this game or how you grow and what you think about Well, I think comedy is just one of the problems with the label is that there's no genres. It's not like blues, comedy, rock and roll comedy, comedy, hip-hop comedy, EDM comedy.

It's just comedy. You don't know what it is. It's just different people's perspective on things. And there's different kinds of comedy that people like. You know, some people are giant Richard Pryor fans. Some people are Sam Kinnison fans. Some people are Jerry Seinfeld fans. And some people love Bonnie Raid.

and some people love, you know, whatever, James Brown, fill in the blank. There's a lot of different styles of music, and there's a lot of different styles of comedy. And all that I care is that you enjoy what you're doing, and you're doing it because you enjoy it. And if you're doing that, I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck what you're doing. I don't care if you have props. I don't care if you write signs and hold them up for the crowd. I don't give a shit what you're doing.

I don't care if you do impressions. I don't give a fuck what you're doing. That was a huge. So when talk about the scope of comedy, you know, I can start with Carol Bennett and I watch that. But the guy who I watched on HBO a lot, I knew I wasn't going to do that type of stand-up. That was just a whole different thing. But Gallagher was crazy to me. Crazy.

That was the craziest. Everybody wore plastic. Garbage bags around the neck. In the front, what, six rows. Yeah, just getting splattered with watermelons and pineapple. and coconuts and whatever the fuck he was cabbage. He was ridiculous, ridiculous. But he also had some good jokes.

He had some solid jokes in between then. Dude did a ton of specials. Yeah. You know the craziest story, the Gallagher story. His Gallagher retired, and his brother took over. His brother was Gallagher, too. So he had a brother that kind of looked like Gallagher. I remember that.

I remember Gallagher, too. And then somewhere down the line, Gallagher decided he wants to start doing comedy again. And he's like, hey, Gallagher 2, the gig is up. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm making money. I'm Gallagher 2. I think there was some sort of a legal dispute.

Find out if that's correct. There was a legal dispute between them. Gallagher's younger brother, Ron, who shared a strong likeness to Leo, asked him for permission to perform shows using Gallagher's trademark sledgomatic routine. Leo granted his permission on the condition that Ron and his manager clarified in promotional materials that this was Ron Gallagher, not Leo Gallagher, who was performing. Ron typically performed in venues smaller than those of which Leo Gallagher performed after several years. Ron began promoting his act as Gallagher 2 or Gallagher T-O-O-O-O-T-O-O.

In some instances, Ron's act was promoted in a way that left unclear the fact that he was not the original Gallagher. Leo initially responded by requesting only that his brother not use the sledgomatic routine. You can't use the fucking, you can't use the sledgeom. sledgehammer, Ron nonetheless continued to tour as Gallagher 2 using the routine in August 2000, Leo sued his brother for trademark violations and false advertising. The court ultimately sided with Leo and granted an injunction prohibiting Ron from performing any act that impersonated his brother in small clubs and venues. This injunction also prohibited Ron from intentionally bearing likeness to Leo. What? Imagine you can't look like your brother?

You can't. Cut your mustache. Yeah, you've got to change your mustache. You've got to get rid of the beard. That's crazy. So did Gallagher continue with his career after he kicked his brother out? Did he come back? Probably did.

Was that part of it? I think, I don't know. Nobody means does it say it there? Didn't say it here or not. It doesn't say it. Not specifically in this paragraph now. When did Gallagher start performing again? Put that in a search.

See what it says. Because I think he did start performing. Yeah, he says it's, uh, he was rushed to the hospital after performance in 2011. Oh, so. Okay. And what year did he sue his brother? 2000. Oh, so he did start doing comedy again.

So that's it. Yeah. So he's like, hey, motherfucker. Yeah, he had a special in 2007 and 2014. Yeah, you can't be doing that with Gallagher 2 running around, siphoning off of your crowd. You know, people are like, honey, you want to spend 50 bucks and see Leo? Or do you want to spend 20 bucks? See basically the same shit.

See Ron. See Ron smashing fucking cabbage. You know, then you had carrot top. And imagine saying, yeah, you could perform, but you can't use a sledgehammer. I would use a mallet. What about a matter? Can I use a mallet? Can I use a baseball bat?

Can I just have someone pitch me things and I smash them into the crowd? Yeah. You can't own that. that's a different thing I'm handing out oranges and tomatoes in the audience yeah I honestly

I don't give a fuck what you do as long as you like what you're doing it's like I love certain kinds of music that's completely

opposite to other shit that I love I mean I like all kinds of stuff I don't think you should pigeonhole yourself with anything but I would not take my kids especially when they were really young

to see someone who's like very sexual or really rowdy or really raunchy You know, the caveat to this is he was in the green room and they were looking right at him. Like they entered the light and I'm like, tell, tell me what you're, like, I didn't know they act. Oh, so he didn't say, hey, bro, you got young kids? Yeah, hey, man.

Because I would say, hey, man, tonight, you know. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's at an event, bro. Oh, I would definitely do that, especially if you were another comic and you brought your kids out of, bro. Yeah, because Juan Villareel used to bring his kids. We got to... Like, yo, you got to get him out of here.

They don't need to know about all these techniques. Yeah, so that's weird. Yeah, that is weird. But you know what I mean? It's like time and a place. Like, who was he doing it for? I mean, they probably knew what he did before they hired him. They probably wanted that.

Someone's a fan. Which is fine, but just don't invite kids. And like I said, I didn't... All I did was, hey, how... son, let's go. And that's it. I didn't, hey, y'all should have been. I'm like, hey, man, do what you do.

But I'm getting my kid out of here. And then you get the phone call. Hey, man, why you leave? You don't really want to know why. I'm leaving because you are terrorizing my child's age. So, yeah, it's no. But I definitely wouldn't take my girls to, like, I'm like, none of these guys are not.

They don't need to see that. They don't need to see that early. Not, not at all. My wife got mad at me when I think why don't. One of my daughters was six, the other one was eight. I had them watch the movie Alien. You ever see that movie Alien, the original movie? Yeah.

Fucking terrifying. And I was, this is too young. This is too young. I fucked up. You know, I think Hassan watched Annabelle when he was young. Oh, Annabelle's creepy. It was, he was traumatized. He watched somebody else's house.

Oh. And with some other kids, and they were like, I guess they understood. But Hassan was, it was a whole problem. Like, you're talking about sleeping with all the lights on in the house. Like, I want all the lights on, and I'm sleeping in your bed. Do you ever go to that place in Vegas? It's a haunted me, Zach Baggins, haunted museum. He has the Annabelle doll there.

Wow. Yeah. There it is. Which one is one on the right? Oh, hell no. That's the real one? That's the real one? That's right.

Is the one on the left the movie one? Yeah. Oh, really? Interesting. Wow. So that Annabelle is both on creepy as hell to me, but... Well, there's something kind of extra creepy about the one with eyes like a person, the left one. That's insane.

You believe in ghost? Yes. Really? Have you had experience? No. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I have. Let me go back.

Let me say that. I do believe in ghosts. So my old house, when my mom say that now, it's a girl that lives there. You know, I don't know what happened at this house, but it's definitely a girl that lives in the house. But she would only come from, like, the hallway bathroom to the kitchen. And I remember doing the pandemic. Wait a minute. You say a girl.

You mean a ghost. Yeah. That's a girl. Okay. She's definitely a girl. and I remember doing the pandemic I was in the den

and I was working on I was working on something and literally I just turned to say so you up huh and because I can feel her and I was like yo but and I had to go back through my family

a lot of people in my family have experiences with past relatives that passed on my uncle said he saw his dad was my grandfather in his shoes and my mom said she saw my grandfather before and that lived in that died in the house that they had in Mississippi but yeah I believe in ghosts I believe in unsettled spirits but definitely had a girl that lived in the house my grandmother the one I was telling you

about before she was very interesting and she she really strongly believed in ghosts and there was a guy that stayed with them for a while they had a like an upstairs area that they weren't used once the kids left and so they rented out like it was like an attic space that they had converted or so i forget exactly what it was anyway they rented out a room to this guy wherever whatever the circumstances were and he died and my grandmother swore that that dude stayed in the house yeah i believe it i think it's possible that if something happens to you that if you're dying it's a very traumatic experience and i have a feeling that we don't totally understand memory.

And we assume that memory is something that only human beings have or that only animals have or that only creatures have, living creatures have. I don't think that's real. I have a feeling there may be a type of memory from particularly traumatic experiences that stays in a space. And I think this is one of the reasons why they have to disclose within a certain amount of time someone's been murdered in a house in a lot of places before you buy it because people don't want to live in a house that's got that energy in it.

Because I think things keep energy. I think they do. I think there's something more to memory than just as simple as, oh, remember when we were five? I think there's something else there. I think that's our memory. But I think there's a type of memory in things. That's what I think.

I believe in the unseen world. So I believe in genes. You know, I believe in angels. He was saying. So it's an unseen world that's not, you know, our thing. But it was things, that was things here before us, you know.

So. I think there's things here with us. Yeah, definitely with us, for sure. And people who don't think that haven't smoked DMT. But I definitely believe in Jen. Get a hold of some DMD and you're like, okay, I don't know shit.

There's things around me all the time. There's things that are influencing you all the time. And this is like, when we talk about like good energy and bad energy, one of the things you experience in psychedelic states is a clear recognition of like good things that you've done and bad things you've done. The good way of thinking,

the good way you think about things, a positive way, and bad. Like I remember having negative thoughts in an experience once and there was all these like dark fractals. And then I realized it was trying to show me that these dark fractals, these crazy geometric, these like scary patterns that I was saying

was because of my own thoughts. and then I released them and it turned into beautiful geometric patterns over and over. And it kept saying like, look at this and look at this. And I was like, oh, it's actually the way you think changes the world around you. It has an effect. It might not have the ultimate effect. It might not be 100% of what happens to you and in your life. But it has a meaningful effect.

We just can't measure it. And there's things that are out there, whatever they are, they have, They have some kind of consciousness that are around us all the time. We just don't have the senses to take them in. Just like when you wave your hand over an earthworm, it has no fucking idea you're doing that. We don't have the senses to understand that there's things around us. And people have been writing about these things for so long

to discount them all. They're all liars. They're all delusional. They're all crazy. I think that people discount them due to thinking that they were on drugs. well they probably were but it doesn't mean they're wrong it doesn't mean it doesn't mean it wrong

you know like like a drunk a drunk really don't tell a lot of lies that's a drunk a drunk don't tell a lot of lies they can't even I'm drunk I can't remember all that I'm just saying what it is

right it was saying but when you when people like LSD you know you halluciners you know or mushrooms or these things.

People were like, well, you only saw that because you was on this. But maybe that's the portal on how you see certain things. I think there's certain things that we block ourselves from being able to see by our own protective instincts. We protect our thoughts. I mean, this is why people, I think, get paranoid when they smoke weed. One of the things that weed does is it dissolves all these artificial barriers that you've put between you and the thoughts of real danger. They're all there. You realize your vulnerability.

you realize who you are. So just think of how years ago, how weed was viewed, how marijuana was viewed. It was taught that marijuana is a gateway drug to crack. Right. I didn't believe that. Like, how did that even correlate? But it's for those who are trying to find an ultimate high.

Maybe you just smoke weed, and that's all you ever did, you know? And you wasn't trying to. to find another high. I think some people try to find another high like now, man, a lot of these young people are on so many different things at the same time. Like, what are you searching for? You know, they're popping pills, doing coke, drinking lean, doing everything all at the same time. Like, what is, and drinking? Like, what, what are you trying to escape or what are you searching for? You know, and I just know people who just smoke weed and still smoke joints.

They don't smoke the... I know people who grow their own bud. They're not even trusting what's going on now. Now they're finding phytanol and all this marijuana, you know... And pesticides. Pesticides. Horrible pesticides. Because what people don't know

is that a giant percentage of all the drugs or marijuana, rather, that people are buying in places where it's illegal. They're growing them in national forests in California. and the cartel's doing it. And the cartel uses a bunch of pesticides and herbicides that are illegal, like real toxic shit. And they find them doing it all the time. They find these grow-ops in the forest all the time because it's a misdemeanor. So because marijuana is legal in the state of California, growing it is just a misdemeanor.

So you could have a full-scale grow-op in public land out in the forest. And these guys find them there all the time. A friend of mine found one in a... ranch that he works at. He followed these PVC pipes and he realized that some guy was diverting water into this little area that was on a Tahone Ranch, which is a big ranch outside of Bakersfield. But this

dude that was on my podcast before, his name is John Norris. He wrote a book about it. He was a game warden. And it turned into a tactical unit. They had to get like dogs like Belgian malmaws and shit with bulletproof vests and they're going in there having shootouts with the cartel. Because the cartel It's set up these marijuana grow ops in the woods. And it was his job to police that area. So like, okay, I guess that's what we're doing now.

And then they, it's a crazy story, man. It's sound like moonshine. That's why you were doing moonshine. Exactly. Exactly. And this thing, moonshine, moonshining developed into NASCAR. Exactly. Exactly. They had to outrun the cops.

Yeah. Yeah, that's what NASCAR came about from. It's fun. It's, I mean, listen, also it's Al Capone. You know, it's all the mob. They were all running alcohol. And there's a lot of people that were connected to them. You know, some people believe that JFK's dad was involved in alcohol, but that's disputed.

But the point is, like, a lot of people were making money selling alcohol, and they were all criminals, all of them. And so what are you doing? Are you stopping people from getting marijuana? Nope. What you're doing is you're empowering a criminal empire, and you're giving them an immense amount of money. and they're probably going to have to kill a few people because people get in the way. They're probably going to have to rob a few people

because people are competition. There's a little bit of a problem over here. We've got another guy growing. When we live in a society where the bad guy is definitely romanticized. Right. So how do you stop people from wanting to be the bad guy when it's so romanticized in everything?

It's romanticized to the point where John Wick is a good guy. Yeah. John Wick is a contract killer for the Russian mob. He kills who knows how many fucking people, and he's the good guy. But you got a problem with the

Ice man. Right. Right, right, right. The ice man was a terrible person. Right. You know, but... He did it with poison. John Wick, at least looks sexy in that suit.

But you cannot wait for John Wick six to come out. I love those men. Well, the John Wick movie, though, like, he had a reason. They killed his dog and they stole his car. They fucked up. They stole the wrong guy's car and they killed the wrong guy's puppy. And so you're rooting for him.

You're rooting for him to kill all these bad Russian guys. But you don't realize like that guy's been a contract killer for the Russian mob. For who knows how many dads is he assassinated? How many fucking people that have families that will never come home to them because of John Wick? And yeah, and sometimes, a lot of times, you know, people don't care. We don't care. You know, that's weird. Well, we're weird.

We're a weird animal. We're a weird animal in a constant flux of thoughts. And, you know, trying to figure out what's the right way to think and the wrong way to think. And people will join religions for it. They'll join cults for it. They'll join political movements for it. They just want to find a way to think that makes them feel better than the way they think right now. You know, with the need to feel better outside of yourself, you know, or your family,

you know, or being, you know, great to society. I think that's detrimental to this society where I just, I personally need to feel better, but I don't want the community around me to feel better. And in my mind, if everybody around you in the community feels better, I think it makes for a more harmonious, you know, environment. than me just being the only one. Yeah, but that's because you're a wise person. The problem is there's a lot of people that aren't wise

and there's no one wise around them. And that's the real issue. Is that there's an extreme lack of like a good direction book of how to lead a solid life. You're not taught at school. School you're taught to sit down and learn some shit that you don't give a fuck about learning. Memorize this.

Do good on the test. You got to get a job. What's a job? Well, you've got to sit there and do it. do some shit you don't want to do to get some money. And with the rest of your time, you can do whatever you want as long as you keep showing up every morning at the same spot. Okay.

And then that sucks. And so what do you want to do? I want to escape this suck. So what do I need? Cold syrup? Okay. Give me some of that. What do I need?

Weed, give me some of that. Adderall? Ooh, Adderall makes me like the job. Okay. I'll take this shit every day. Now I don't give a fuck. Now I'm trying to get ahead. Next thing you know, I'm moving up the corporate ladder.

And I'm a fucking animal, bro, because I'm on Adderall. You're basically on meth. You're on a well-designed, slow drip, anphetamine, and you're out there fucking sleeping four hours a day, getting shit done, you know, driving a jaguar. And this is the problem of society. People don't have a real, there's a lot of people out there that don't really have a purpose. They don't have a real feeling of purpose in their life. You are very fortunate because you've found a thing that you're really good at that you love to do and you make a great living doing it. A lot of people don't have a thing,

and they never were taught to pursue a thing or they never saw anybody else do it, and they realized they could do it too. And then next thing, you know, they're married, and they have kids, and they're in their 30s, and then they're in their 40s, and they feel like shit. Ask you a question. You have a team, correct?

In terms of what? Team of people. Sure. Okay. Do you think your team is happy doing whatever they do for the team? If I didn't think that, they wouldn't be working. Okay. So you don't want to be the only one happy on the team.

No, that's terrible. And you don't want to also have someone on the team that is one of those people that just never happy. That's a problem too. Yes. That's a problem too. There's people out there you can't fix. So with, like, I produce other people's specials now. And comics that hit me, hey, man, I want you to just.

do my special. I want you to do this for my special. And the hardest thing, because I'm a small company, the, the hardest thing is when I have to explain to somebody why it's a no, you know, on this particular special. And it's not just my no. It is for other people's no, because I tell people, and I explain this, if we're doing a special with you, you have to get the approval of all five of us. Because we all five do different things. And I want everybody who's involved in your special to want to do it. Not they have to do it because it's a part of the company.

No, I want them to want to do it. And I say, I'm not putting you through a process that I'm not putting myself through. And I've tested this team with me. giving them a special that I knew that wasn't special. And I'm the head. I'm like, I sent it out and they, we brought it back to the table. And it was a lot of silence at first.

I'm like, so what are we thinking? And they was like, I know. Like, I think this is horrible. I'm like, I'm just listening to everybody's, you know, opinion on it. And they was like, I don't understand the direction. I don't understand when you're going with this. I just, you know, we're going to have to fix a lot of it. I'm like, and I'm just sitting there listening.

And we took the vote. And when we turned the vote in, it was five nos. And it was like, so did, what was your take on? I said, I knew it was a no from the beginning. I just wanted to make sure that y'all wasn't going to try to fluff me with the, because he's the head. We're going to say yes. And I'm like, good.

So anytime we do a project, it was, then I put it on the table, just like I put anybody else's project on the table. And you got to get all five people. If you want me to finance, you got to get me. Then you got to get the marketing person that's going to market. Then you got to get the director. You got to get the manager. You got to get everybody so they can feel good about pushing your project.

I don't want anybody pushing a project that they don't like it. It's very smart. Yeah. So you make it a democracy. It's smart. So if you got all five of us, then. And now we're ready. Right.

And now I'm going to feel good about somebody coming to me and say, this is going to cost this. Right. Because I know they're doing it out of, hey, man, this is what's going to cost. We're going to figure it out. And I'm like, cool. But even when I do a special, man,

they, it is a lot of, you don't want to talk about this part. Like, no. It's like, we should talk about this part. And it's been some decisions that have been made that was, it was my call at the end, but it was somebody else's idea, like with domino effect.

It would have never been a domino effect two, three, or four if I would have stuck with the name that I started with. The name was 1983. Mm. So what was going to be? 83, 86.

Right. It's like, and I rugged, which won, what, three Rebby Awards, rugged was the original name was I'm not handy and Eric called me

was like no we're we're I've listened to it I watched it so many times I think that we should go with this name and he he gave me the name

and I sat on it for a day and then I called him back I was like yeah you're about right that's good that means you got good people and I think that people should put like right now I'm on the custom fit tour

well I'm I'm off into August because I'm going to take six weeks of vacation. But custom fit is not going to be a special. It's just the tour that I'm doing now because the specials that I'm writing are different than what I just wanted to take this time to just do some material. I didn't want to be working on a special. But the theme is about people think custom fit is about clothes. It's not about clothes. It's about tailor-making the people around you.

I'm saying? You can be a benefit to it. It can be a benefit to you. I'm saying? Not just having these people around. Because, you know, sometimes people have a bunch of people around that secretly despise them. You know, and secretly despise their success. And that's detrimental to anything.

Haters. Yeah. Sometimes haters will get real close to you. Stay next to you. It's a problem. I mean, when you're in a position like you're in, too, when you're producing other people's specials, you're going to get a bunch of people that come to you that you don't want to do their shit. It's just like owning the club, the same issue.

The way I bypass that, I put all the power into Adam. Adam Eaget decides who's there and who's not there and how the club gets scheduled and, you know, who passes and who doesn't. And he's really good at it. You know, he's really good at it. I trust him implicitly. don't have to think about it. And I like it so that when people say, I want to work your club, I'm like, well, you get to talk to Adam.

I just perform. I might be the owner, but I just perform there. I don't think about it in terms of, like, how the scheduling is. I often have to check the website to see who's there. I don't know who's there. You know, it might be mine, but I got a guy who does it, and he does it really well. So why would I get involved in that? It's easier to not.

When I had a club in Houston, I couldn't be fine. in the club at all. Why not? Because I was actively working the club. So I'm on stage and I'm worried about so many other things, you know, going on. Like, yo, did you just drop a glass on the ground? Like, I didn't have enough help. You got to get the right help.

I got very fortunate in that a lot of the people that I took to Austin, they were from the comedy store and they were out of work. So the comedy store closed because the fucking stupid government of L.A. They wouldn't even allow them to do outside shows. You couldn't do an outside show in the parking lot of the comedy store. They wouldn't allow it. It's so stupid. They were closed for like a good solid year and a half. They couldn't support paying all these people. So they had to get rid of them and I moved here and it's the same time. It just by chance. It happened at the same time. And so they were all out of work and I said, hey, let's get the band back together. again. Do you guys want to move to Austin? So I paid for everybody to come out here and I paid for

them. I gave them a full salary with everything for like a year and a half or so, maybe even more, maybe two years before anybody had to go to work because the club wasn't open. So I was like, I want to give you a job. So you could settle in, get used to Austin. You're going to get paid like you get paid like you're working, but you don't have to work. But I love you. I know you. know come here very admirable with with the store I just performed at the store main room for TDE they had a thing before BET war so I popped in and the the comedy store has a certain politics to it that you know I like the other one a little more you know all they serve is the improv no the other

other comedy store oh La Jolla yeah La Jolla is the shit Which is... That place is the shit. What a club. They just don't have food. No. You popcorn drinks. I don't believe in food in comedy clubs either.

Yeah. So... But it's just a different environment. La Jolla is like very nice, beautiful place. That club is awesome. I love performing there. And with the store in L.A., it's like you get there and it's very, it seems very, you know, segregated. This is now?

To me, that's when I... How long ago was this? I just performed last week, last Wednesday. That's sad to here, because it wasn't like that before. It seemed like the main room in the room around the corner and the belly, all these rooms are different spaces. And that's to me. And it may just be that feel because I'm not there a lot, you know. But when I come, before I came that time, but the management walked up with,

very pleasant. What do you mean by different spaces? But obviously the different rooms, what do you mean? What do you mean? It seemed like the main room is different from the room around the corner. Well, it is different, but what do you mean by feels different? It feels a little different. Well, I mean, just by its design, it's a big show room.

It's brighter. The ceilings are taller. And then you get into the original room, which is just tight and perfect. The original room is like, that's where you find out what's real. You know, I've seen a lot of people. have rough sets. They were real confident going into that room.

That room is a truth serum. I like a tight room like that. Well, then there's the belly room. The belly room is the ultimate true serum. The trying out new jokes and the belly room is the place. Because, you know, only seats 70 people. Oh, that's that.

You can't bullshit those people. That's the, that's the, the crimdala crimp is a tight small room. The belly room is spectacular. Such a good room. I came from small audiences. They're the, It's the best. It's the best for finding out if jokes are real. There's nothing like a small crowd. Like in our club, we have the little boy. Our rooms are named after the bombs. They dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And little boy is only 110 seats. It's a super low ceiling.

This is when, you know, it's those times in comedy when you knew that that's what you actually love to do. And I remember I was in San Antonio at this, just, just. place called Santa's. He literally owned the whole strip, the club, the watch interior, the corner store, everything. The guy named Santa. I didn't know that he owned it, but it was like a rainstorm or something.

The show got rained out. And it is literally three people in this room. It's two ladies and it's Santa and I don't know that this is him at the time. And we had to go on to

get paid. The promoter was like, I'm not paying nobody who don't go on. We're still doing the show. I'm like, okay. So, this is $100. He's getting paid $100. And he was like, who going up? I'm like, I'm definitely going up. And

I'm going up first. Like, I don't care. I did like an hour and 30 minutes for three people. And I was like, because I kept looking and like, anybody else going over there? It's like, no, we're good. I'm like, I and Santa, I remember he finally revealed that he was the owner of the club.

And he was like, well, let me take you to the back. He took him to the back and he gave me like $700. He was saying for performing. He said, yeah, man, you wasn't scared. And me and my friends had a good time. And it was like three people. It was literally the dude named Vance put the show on. It was like three.

Vance to tell anybody. So he was like, this is when I knew Ali was different. when he went out three people, he went first, and he's like, I went 30. And he was like, and it didn't look like he was coming down. I'm like, yo, bro, I'm here. This is what I do. I don't, and I need that $100.

So that's definitely some extra motivation. That's crazy that no one else wanted to go up. They was like, no. And another time I was at Wiley, it was a Wiley college, and Marcus was performing, and the mic went out. And it's like all these people in this auditorium.

The same place they shot, Denzel shot the movie The Great Debate. So we in this auditorium and the sound goes out. And they start ribbing Marcus and I was in the back. I was like, what's going on? And it's like, the sound went out. And I walked out. I was like, what's happening? And I said, hold on, Marcus.

Let me ask him something. Wait a minute. I know damn well, y'all not in here trying to get somebody in a problem because y'all got us in, we didn't bring this sound system, got us in fair east side high before it's broken clock. And so I say, listen, Mark is set down in the back. I was like, yo, this is what we going to do. I'm going to talk.

Y'all going to laugh. Then I'm going to talk some more. But y'all can't be laughing all long because we're going to have no sounds like. I'm not supposed to use my real voice in this. So I'm at like 45. And then I look back at Mark, I say, hey, man, you want to come back up? Mark was like, no. Like, you got it.

It's like an hour and 20. He's like, you know, Ali's nuts. I'm like, no, this is what I do, and I'm going to figure it out. We did a show with the improv once in Hollywood, and the power went out, and they were going to cancel the show. And we were sitting there talking, and I said, why don't, can we light the stage somehow? And they said, yeah, we can get an emergency light attached to like a generator,

and we could put a, you know, run the wires through the, and put an emergency light on the stage. I go, that's that, we'll do that. And then we'll just do stand-up with no mic. And we did the whole show with no mic. It was the opening, middle, and then me. I did a full hour. It was amazing. Everybody had a great fucking time.

It felt special. It felt very unusual. Yeah. You got to see what it's like, like when you don't have a microphone, and you're projecting to the back of the room, changed my pacing on things. But it was great. It felt cool. It felt like you were doing something.

felt like you were doing something and the audience was into it. I go, look, we're going to have fun, right? Like, fuck it. Who cares? This is never going to happen again, probably, ever. I've been doing comedy 30-something years. I've never had that happen where I did a show with no microphone except that one. So this is the thing.

These are the experiences that as a comic going through the trenches that some comics have. Right. Because they didn't come up that way. And you have a different set of chops when you come up a certain type of way. I've come up and just joking had to be the craziest place. Because some nights you're coming in and it's like nine people. But these nine people are into comedy.

And Alice would be like, you got to do the show. Like it's not a, we don't have a limit. We got to do these people that's here. Because the thing is that whole idea that the show must go on regardless, regardless too. Well, I learned that from Paul Mooney, too. And one of the things that I said, I did a show at the comedy store. It's like the first time that Mooney ever complimented me. And I was always scared of him.

Because, like, Mooney didn't like he was terrifying. He was a legend. He wrote for Richard Pryor, and it was like the way he carried himself. He didn't like you. And I was 20s happened. You know, I was young and stupid. and I went up because I would always go up last or late I had late spots and there was like 15 people in the room but I did my act and I heard in the back of the room oh oh he was laughing having fun and then he grabbed me afterwards he goes you're a real motherfucking comic he goes that's what a real comic does he goes all these other motherfuckers they went up there and they did oh where you're from bitch I know where I'm from tell me some fucking jokes do your fucking act and that's what you did you did And I was like, wow, Paul Mooney likes me.

Me and Paul had a different type of relationship. Did you and Paul not get along? One, I have to always say, I love Paul until I met him. It's like, Paul was on so bullshit when I met Paul. Man, I was at the improv and I was featuring for him. and the improv it got me the feature for him and I was like cool I'm excited I get to meet one of my idols in this game one of the people who changed the course of my pacing because it my my lineage just sitting down I passed through Paul so it's when I first started I was a crazy man I was all over the place that thought that you had to have all this energy and then this guy named Des White walked in to the club one night I was there and Desd stood in the same exact place.

He never took the mic out of the stand, put his drink down on the stool, and Desd just stood there, and he was destroying this room. Never took the mic out, the stand. And he always said, people say, Des, why you don't take the mic out the stand? And he's like, because there's a stand.

Let it hold the mic. Some of my favorite comics don't take the mic out of stand. Ron White. Ron White just stands there with a drink on a stool, sometimes with cigar, just killing with the microphone in the stand. Oh, man. Joey Diaz. Joey Diaz keeps the fucking Mike in the stand,

and he makes me laugh harder than any fucking human being that's ever lived. So I'm going to go to, I'm going to go to Ron. So what did he do, though? So I'm in the green room, and at the old empire where they had a, the downstairs you would come through the, it used to be a rainforest cat. Right, right, right.

Yeah, so it was spellbinders at first, and then it changed. So I'm sitting in the green room, and, like, it's a main part, and it's the smaller part. He walked into the small part and said, hey, go count the room. And I'm like, what?

Yeah, go count the room. I was like, I don't, I don't work here like that. I don't count the room. And he's like, yeah, all right. Then he walked out. And then he came back, like maybe 25 minutes later. Yeah.

Tell you and your little white friend that is packed out there, and I want my bonus. What, like, what white friend? What are you talking about? Raymond Cook is the manager of the club at the time. He was talking about Raymond. And I was like, yo, Paul, I don't count the room. I'm the feature. Why would I be counting the fucking room?

Like, and then he says something else negative me And I'm like, yo, Paul If you say something else to me, I'm gonna kick your ass, pal. Like, what is wrong with you? So I called D.L. I'm like, yo, I'm about to fucking beat up Paul Mooney. He's like, you can't beat up Paul Mooney. He's a legend.

Even if you beat him up, you're still not gonna win. It's like, it's gonna be a loss loss. So I'm like, yo, so then another time, Oh, and then late on that same weekend He had this lady with him And she was sitting at the top And I was sitting up there And she got up and she left her purse

So I didn't want to leave and leave the lady's purse there So I grabbed the traveling I got the purse like this I came in and I'm like, hey ma'am, you love your purse And Paul turned on it What are you doing with her purse? I say she left it And then the only thing in my head is deal

You cannot beat up Paul Mone. So I just walked out. I'm like, I'm gonna fuck Paul up. What year was this? This is like three years before he died. And this was the old improv. This is what I heard just for clarity. He was struggling in the last years of his life.

So you probably didn't get the best version of Paul Mone. So then we're here in Austin. We performing at the theater that's right next to the Paramount. it's another theater that's connected to the Paramount the black heritage the black art something and both of us not knowing

that we had art so I'm in my green room and the lady comes in hey she's very nice hey Ali Paul Mooney's next door and you like to meet him and I was like no I'm cool

and then she goes Paul Ali's next door you know I don't know if y'all want to meet each other and Paul's like no I'm cool and I went up I'm in my green room and the host is on stage and Paul was getting ready to go up

and this was his apology he walked by the room and came back like on Purple Rain came back and leaned in the room to want hi Ali and then I mean Paul's fucking nuts man

yeah but he that's you got to take that that you know there's certain people are just eccentric That's Paul. I mean, I wouldn't have counted the fucking room either.

I would have been like, that's not my job. Ron White, I was in Orlando. Manager Orlando called me, say, hey, Ali, I know you have a, I know you have a feature.

But Ron White would like to, you know, feature for you. And I was like, I don't know, no person named Ron White. And she's like,

you don't know Ron White? I'm like, wait a minute. Like Ron White, Ron Wright? I think it was like some other guy who's using his name or something. Like his name happens to be Ron White. Ron White? Ron White? He's like, yeah.

I said he wanted a feature for who. He said, you. He called and asked. I was like, the fuck. I said, hell yeah. So I called Marcus. I'm like, yo, Marcus, you're going to go up and then you're going to bring up Ron White. When was this?

This was like maybe four years ago. That's crazy. And Ron shows up in this huge tour bus. Like, I'm walking to the club and I'm like, who buses this? And I'm like, oh, shit, it's Ron's but it got the tequila brand on it and all this. And he's in his bus. He's not even in the green room. Then I get knock on the door and his manager.

He's like, hey, Ron would like to know can he come in the green room? I was like Ron White he can come in the Green Room So it comes in He's like yo man I just want I love what you do

I just want to do some time Ron went up there And was destroying this room And I couldn't wait To get up Because I wanted to just talk about

Fucking Ron White This pizza for me And I'm I destroyed this room And Ron He sat out and watched He was like You're fucking amazing

And my mind Is I'm still in all that Ron White wanted to fucking... Wanted to work with you? I was like, that shit was crazy to me. That's so cool. Well, you know, when he's working on new stuff,

that's what he likes to do. He likes to go around and does a lot of sets. He's constantly active. He's at the club tonight. We're working tonight. He's one of the main reasons I moved here. Ron moved here before the pandemic. So I called him up in like 2018.

I'd love having him at the store. So he started coming to the store around 2014. teen-ish, something like that. And oh, my God, we had so much fun for years and years. And he had a beautiful place up in Beverly Hills. And then he just got sick because he's always traveling. He just got sick of the long flights and the traffic. And I called him up.

I go, why'd you move to Texas? He goes, Austin's amazing. The food's fucking great. Everyone's nice. It's in the middle of the country. If I want to fly to Florida, it's quick. If I want to fly to Florida. Can I live in Texas?

And then the shit hit the fan with COVID. And I was like, I got to get the fuck out of California. This place sucks. They're telling me what to do. This is not what I signed up for. You tell me I can work. You tell me I have to wear a mask. Fuck you.

I'm getting out of here. And when I came to Austin, it was one of the main reasons where I was willing to move here. I'm like, if we never do comedy again, at least I can hang out with Ron. That's amazing. Yeah, and then everybody else came. And then once, I mean, so everybody says that I got everybody to move here. Sort of, I got a lot of people to move here, but Ron got me to move here.

That's the most important thing. Like, Ron got me to move here. And then I realized how nice people are here. and how disconnected they are from show business. And I was like, oh, this is so refreshing. Everyone's just normal. My neighbor's a normal guy. Everyone's normal.

They're regular people. Just people living their lives, having a good time. You know, it's like, and for me, you know, because I love hunting, everyone hunts out here. Yeah. It's like a normal pastime. I tell people I bow hunt in California. Texas is, Texas, we have been a gym for a long time. and we just let other people feel like they, the upper echelon.

We were like, okay. Texas ruled forever. I mean, you've got to think Kinnison and Hicks, two of the greatest of all time, came out of Houston. Yep. And when I was coming here all the time, I knew it, right? So one of the things that was good about doing comedy is a lot of people that moved during the pandemic just wanted to get out of California, but they had no idea what the rest of the world was going to be like.

They had never been to Nashville. They never been to Austin. I'd been here a couple dozen times. knew I loved it. So I was like, look, this will be all right. Like, I'll be fine. Like, it looks like I'm never doing comedy again. I was like, it looks like comedy's done.

It looks like they're going to fucking make us just stay indoors, especially in, like, blue cities. Like, this is crazy. You have to have a Vax card to eat at a restaurant in New York City. I'm like, this is fucking bananas. None of this shit makes any sense. I remember you guys came. Mothership was coming.

The next thing I know, Creek in the Cave was here. Creek in the Cave was here first. Yeah, it was. I'm saying how I heard about it. I'm like, oh, they were like, creaking the cave. I'm like, damn, okay, creaking the cave. It's coming from New York. And then mothership is here.

And then, but they had rooms. You know, the main thing was the room that was so hard to get in there first. It was an Austin Comedy Club. Damn, I forget the name of it. Valvita Room? No, no, it was the actual comedy club. Cap City? Cap City.

Yes. Cap City. That place was always packed. Yeah. I almost bought that place. Yeah, I heard that. Yeah, I almost bought that whole mall. But the guy who was trying to sell it to me wanted way more than it was worth.

And then he got roped up in some FBI investigation. I was told while it was going on and he was being investigated. And I was like, oh, okay. And then he wanted to get arrested. But that building was for sale. The whole thing was for sale. And I went in there. I thought about how many shows I'd been there.

How many shows I'd seen there? How many shows I'd perform there? I'm like, I could own this place? Oh, my God. Cap City was the first place that I did on the road with D.L. That was a great club. You know. Fucking great club.

Perfect club. That place was amazing. Such a fun place to work. I think that people didn't realize how the rich history of Houston, Dallas, Austin. Laft stop. San Antonio. Bro, Laftop in Houston. and River Oaks, one of the greatest clubs of all time.

Somebody told me that that building still exists like that, that it's still set up like that, that there's nothing in it. Is that true? There's nothing in it, though. But it's still the same room? Yep. Man, we might have to do a mothership Houston. Yeah, that's, yeah.

See, if there's another city that could support, like, a large group of talented up-and-comers, Houston's one of them. Yeah, so, you know, we have a secret group there. have on. They had the other Cap City that was upstairs. Remember they opened up the second one? They closed that one and they opened up another one. You're talking about laughs.

No. Cap City? Yeah. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Laft stop. Yeah. That was the laugh spot. Oh, no, no, no.

They had that already. That already existed. No, the laugh spot had went upstairs on wall. They had moved. I thought that was the laugh stop. I thought it was the same group that, no, it was the same group that owned the laugh stop in River Oaks. The laugh spot was another place.

I knew that because when I was working at the laugh stop, Ralphie Mae was working at the last spot. And we got together and were hanging out and eat dinner. But that was the old spot. Then there was the other laugh stop that they put upstairs. It was a new, but it didn't last. It was only for a couple years. Yeah, I didn't go to that.

It was a good spot. Then it went under. Yes. Yeah. Ari Shafir did it with a Hitler mustache once. He trimmed his mustache to look like Adolf Hitler. Ari is, Ari is by far the craziest person that I know.

Like, I thought my Uncle Mac was the craziest person. And then I met Ari. I'm like, this is the craziest person that I know. Yeah, he's awesome. Yeah, and... He just moved to England. I'm like, brother, going to stab you. He moved to England.

They will fucking stab you. They stab people there. Don't get stabbed. Ari is nuts, but he's such a cool, dude, but he's fucking nuts. I went to go see him at the creek in the cave

when he was getting ready to film his special. And I'm like, yo, Ari is so crazy. If people took time, just go through the many looks of Ari Shafir on the internet.

The one that killed me was the half. He was just bawled on one side. I was like, yo, He's doing two-face. Like, he's insane. He did two-face for Batman. Yeah, he's out of his mind.

But that's really who he is. You know, he's not trying. Yeah, he's not trying. He's not trying. That's what he is. He's out of his mind. He's fucking maniac. Complete maniac.

When he tore up Bert, what I heard about him tearing up, Bert's check, it was like $25,000. He's like, you all just made $25,000. He just tore the check up and, like, they'll write you another one. I'm like, are you insane?

Like he's the craziest person but he's fun I've had some great conversations on the phone with him and he's just and I was very fucking smart dude I was very smart dude when he called me to do the um his last the endless and oh I was like that's cool to say because that that's where that's a pivoting point or major point in my career when I did um this is not happening yeah Yeah, that was a great show, man. It was a great idea. I remember when he started doing it. He started doing it at the lab at the improv. So, do you remember the lab? Yeah. Another little room.

Cool, pretty room. Cool little room. They should have never got rid of that room. They changed that place and they fucked it up, in my opinion. That's the room, the main room, still awesome. But the lab used to be in the back. And it was like there wasn't a big bar there. I think it's still there.

It's different now. Yeah, Dion Cole. Last time I was there, Dion Cole. Yeah, but it's different. It's not the same setup. It used to be you went through a door and it was like another small room. And in that small room, it was separated from the front door.

They moved the front door and now everybody went in through the parking lot, right? And so they went into the lab through the parking lot. So the front door was back there now. And when you would open it, it was all this noise from the street and they had a curtain to block off the noise. And you'd hear people talk. They were like right next to your stage where they were buying tickets. It was annoying. And then there was the bar, which was just right there.

It's still a cool little small room once everybody settles in, but the original setup was way better. And Ari started doing it there. And I was like, what are you doing? And he's like, I'm going to do a storyteller show. I was like, whew, the fuck is that? That's what I thought. I was like, why are you doing that? And then he said, well, it really helps you without, like, having to have, like, punchlines and setups and have everything really tight.

You could find the beats in a story. And I was like, oh, well, actually, that's brilliant. That's pretty fucking smart. It's a good alternative sort of way to develop bits. You know, you develop bits by working it out, but into a more loose format of telling a story. And I didn't even know that that was the premise behind it because when I got it, it was like you go on and you tell a true story.

And I was like, okay, cool, that's my thing. Right. You know, and I had just won Comedy Central's Comic to Watch in, like, 2013. So you get a package, you get an album, you get a half hour, and you get a chance to go on one of the shows that's already on Comedy Central. So they was pitching me at the Adam Devine show, and I was like, I don't like it. And it was another show. I was like, no, I'm cool.

So every show that they would say that they wanted me to go, I was like, no, that really ain't my thing. So then Chase DeRuso, young comic called me and said, hey, listen, you might want to go on, this is not happening. I was like, what's that? He said, is a show start on the Internet? You know, I went on it, I watched both, I think both seasons of it on the Internet.

And I was like, yo, this is the one. So I called Ann Harris that comes. I was like, this show that I want to do. And R.I didn't know me. Ari is like, I don't know him. But Eric Abrams is one of the co-creators of the show. He's like, I know him. So he's pretty good.

You should bring him on. And Ari was already telling anybody. He's like, I didn't know what he was going to do. But all I know it was a true, all you had to do was tell a true story. And I was like, perfect. Eric thought that I was going to do the story that I did on the second time that I was on. And I was like, when I got there, I was listening to people's stories. And I was like, no, I'm going to do a lighter story because the second story is Mitchell.

It's like when I was going to kill the CO. And I was like, no, I should do a lighter one. And then I did the prison ride, which is affectionately known as Mexican got on boots. And Ari is like, the best fucking story I ever heard. And like, me telling the story about a riot, a prison riot. And I was telling what happened. And I only did like 16 minutes of what happened. That was a whole, that was a whole ordeal.

Like, it wasn't a 16-minute riot. It was like nine hours. Like, the whole thing is like nine. I only told the beginning part of it, which was, you know, pretty cool. You know what happened? I already lost the show, right? Yeah. Yeah.

And so that, so when the show came back, it's where Roy Woods. They called me to do it. And the loyal spirit in me, I called Ari first. I was like, hey, they want me to do this show. I'm really not fucking with it. And he's like, no, no, do it.

I was like, what? He's like, I heard about all the stuff. He's like, man, do it. Eric is still shoot. shooting it you was saying so you should do it because we wanted you to be the host but they didn't they didn't want you to do it you know they got roy which is cool i don't think they wanted anybody affiliated with ari to do it yeah so they were punishing arie so when they asked me we should tell people why so for people that don't know um they already got a deal he got an offer to do a netflix

special and he wanted to do it and um they wanted him to do the special on comedy central And he said, well, I don't have to. It's not in my contract. They said, well, if you don't do it, we're going to cancel your show. And he was like, wow. I can't believe you would do that. And that ain't what you tell, Ari. Nope, no.

So we were trying to figure it out. I offered the hosted for free. I said, I will come in and host it. I'd already done it. So I'll come in. I'll host it for no money. I go because he wanted to make sure that everybody was paid. He was going to take out a loan.

And Ari was going to pay all the grips, all the camera people. Because they, you know, these people, they chart out their year. They're like, oh, I'm doing this is not happening for the next six weeks, and then I'm doing this for five weeks, and that's their year. And that's how they budget their life. And Ari decided that he was going to take out a loan to pay everybody. And I'm like, wow. I go, listen, Matt, they go tell Comedy Central that I'll host it for free.

They weren't interested. They weren't interested in anybody affiliated with him. He tried to, he offered up a bunch of other comics. Yep. They weren't interested. So I was in that group of the bunch, because I know it was you. It was Joey, me, Bert,

and they just got me to do it. Once Ari told me it was cool, he was like, man, do it. Yeah, Ari would never try to stop anybody from working. So what I went on and did in my protest of, you know, you didn't want Ari. So what I did was told a story about Ari. I just told it like, okay, cool. My story is mushroom story, which is an R.A. And I thought I was, you know, second season I did this show,

Ari gave me mushrooms. And I went to the whole thing of what happened when Ari gave me the mushroom. I ate the mushroom. I didn't know that they were mushrooms, mushrooms. I thought they were something else. And it was like I ate an eighth of mushrooms. And it was a long day.

What a rude thing to not tell you to not eat all of them And I remember Janice was my assistant And I remember I had to fly the next day And I'm still gone I'm out of my shit So I get to the airport and I call Janice I said Janice

People are going through This machine And then I'm not seeing him anymore And it's like he's nuts He's going, like, and Janet said they probably go into various places. I was like, but I don't want to go to various. I want to go to Houston.

So then when I get up to the TSA 8, I said, hey, I'm seeing a lot of people go through this machine, and then I'm not seeing them anymore. Where are they going? The man said, man, various places. And I got out the line,

I called Jan, I said, you are right, they are going to various. Dan's like he's nuts Like he's losing it I'm like yo I was so toasted And just getting on the plane Still full of mushrooms It was I just

I wanted to just close my eyes But the shit just wasn't working It was out of it I never Mushrooms is a crazy thing It's a crazy thing And that same week Because I was there for a couple of days

Joy Diaz gave me a black star and I remember calling somebody and he was like, yo, don't you eat that shit? If you want to lose it, don't you? This is an episode of I'm on Joy Diaz. This is back when I was smoking. I took an edible with the blind Jew. And me and him, it's like you literally see us.

I was fine at first. And then you, Joy is the only person that's in this studio. that's still together. And you just slowly see us just melting. We both... And then I know I was speaking very good English at one point. Then I was... And it was like, yeah.

Joey was like, I understand. I don't understand what I'm saying. The church of what's happening now had some of the greatest overdose on weed moments ever in the history of the internet. Just Lee, just seeing Lee Syatt

just melting. He can't keep his eyes open, he's just melting in his chair. At first I was like, yo, he's tripping. Then all of a sudden I'm like, this is not happening to me. Like, it was crazy. Joey Diaz doesn't give a fuck. And then... It was I want to see

the devil. The other side of the story is another comic with me named Billy Serrell. He had taken some edibles, but he ain't on the show. So he's outside. He didn't just melt it outside. Like, he's just sitting on the ground. outside the studio. Like, yo.

Those black stars are 500 milligrams. Yo. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different. Locked in. Loyal. Invested. They're called fans.

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That worth it. Yeah. I saw Joe eat two of those ones. You just chucked down two of them. I'm like, that is so crazy. That's so much. You know, Jamie doesn't feel it. Edibles don't work on him.

Jamie's got some weird fucking biological condition. Throw it at me. I'll try it. Yeah. I'm not afraid. He doesn't give a fuck. He's not scared of edibles at all. I've done two different types of mushrooms.

I didn't know that there were. It's like the ones where I was really on one. That's the one that's already gave me. And then there's some other ones that made me very talkative. Look at Lee. Drool on his shirt. He's in another dimension right now. He can't keep the headphones on.

He doesn't know what to do. Joey's the best. They're back. They're doing it again. They're back? They're back together again. Oh, man. They're doing it out of New Jersey?

Is that what they're doing? Yeah. He's the best. I remember I called Moses Malone for Joey, because he's a big Moser Malone fan. Before Moses died, I called it. He's like, you know Moses Malone? No fucking way you know Moses.

I'm like, yeah, no fucking Moses. Moses was nuts, too. Moses Malone was a fucking nut. Have you heard about these new mushrooms that make you see little tiny people? Oh, no. No, I haven't. The targeted ones were, like, I called a lot of people on my phone, and everybody's same report was, you know, you call me like three in the morning,

someone you want to talk to me about my life? Which ones are those? What did you take? It's not psilocybin? It's something different? Yeah, it's something different. It made me very talk about it. I told delay about them.

What that would be? His comedy name, DeLay, I told him about him, because I called him, and I talked to him for, like, hours. Just about, so then he ended up taking the same mushrooms. He called me, and I knew what it was. I was like, go ahead, just talk. He was talking his ass off. I had put the phone out and went to sleep. I woke up, he was still talking.

I was like, yo, this shit is crazy. What is it? Man, I got to. Jamie, put that into perplexity. I got a call. Put that into our AI sponsor and find out what mushrooms make you talkative.

Yeah, I know who gave them to me, so I call her and ask, hey, what was them that you gave me? Because she went and bought on it and, like, I was a fucking talk of this.

I don't know what that is. I've never heard of that before. Most of the time when people take shrooms they can't talk. And it's like, oh. No, I was on one.

That's crazy. I wonder what that is. Because the ones that already gave me. It's just as it's magic mushrooms just in general. Huh. Some people's response

to it. Yeah, but it seems that there's different responses to different ones. I know I'm saying on the screen says what I just said. Huh, I don't need this is enough research for perplexity to have an educated answer. Right? How much research are they doing out there? Talkative social on magic mushrooms, but there's no specific mushroom reliably proven to make you talkative. All right, ask if there's a mushroom that makes you see little people.

Yeah, that's different. I know. I know, but I want to see what perplexity has to say about it. What does perplexity say? Ask it about is there a mushroom that makes you see little people? Let's see if it really is up on its psychedelic science I repeat the articles I just pull it. I want to see what it says though.

It's just a question to see how it handles this. Yes. A specific edible mushroom called Lanmoa, Asiatica, has been reported to cause very vivid hallucinations. You say hallucinations. Maybe they're really little people right there. Of little people when it's undercooked, a phenomenon known as Lilliputian hallucinations.

The thing is, how do you know it's a hallucination? Maybe you're just now can see these things that people have been writing about for eons. How ignorant are people? And how arrogant are we? That we know everything that's going on all around us all the time? We don't.

People have always thought gremlins were real and gnomes were real. And fairies. Studying that. since the 60s. Of course they have been. I'm studying it right now. Let's study.

Let's go study mushrooms. Man. Yeah, they've been studying it, but like the real problem is there's got to be a bunch of, I know for sure there's other strains that are much more potent because I know a guy who's a mushroom guy. He's like deep in the world of mushrooms. And he was explaining to me, though, there's one that's like 10x stronger. And there's one, there's new ones that they found. I think they found a new one. I want to say in China.

They found a new hallucinogenic mushroom. But this one, this liliputian one is weird because it's not psilocybin. This is no way it's cooked. This has something to do with cooking it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once you normally are supposed to eat them raw? No, it's, I think this might be the Chinese one. Because I think it's a, is it?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. So this is, I conflated it too. So they eat it. If you cook it and you do a real good job cooking it, you don't trip. But apparently some people have not cooked it and eaten it and go, oh, wait a minute. What are we cooking out of this? When you're, you might be cooking out whatever the mushroom is giving you to let you see the spirit world or see the fairy world or the gnome world or whatever it is.

You can get in restaurants. Let's go. I'd be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Undercooked my. Just put it on some salad dressing. Set that shit out. Let's go. I don't have a, unfortunately, I don't have a problem with mushrooms.

I think that. And I just like being. Unfortunately, what do you mean? Because, you know, some people would like, you shouldn't be on them. But I don't have a problem with mushrooms, especially if I'm in a safe environment. But being at the lows on mushrooms, that's not the best place to be.

Also trying to fight it. If you fight it, you're fucked. If you start going and you start, no, I don't like this. Like, uh-oh, he's going to get dark on you. Trying to wrestle with it. I've had them in chocolate, like a little chocolate. squares and it's been

it's been a time I don't it's been a time but sometimes it can get rough to see little people I definitely want to be somewhere I don't I just need to be somewhere safe

Brian Simpson has a hilarious story about someone gave him a mushroom chocolate bar and he put it in his freezer and forgot forgot that it was a mushroom bar and they just ate the whole thing and just went to Pluto he's like Dr. Manhattan sitting on Mars, a fucking lotus position.

This one's kind of strange. It says it doesn't matter who you are or what you do, you're going to have the same experience as everybody else who's done it. Okay. At that point in time, when do we start to say maybe there's something in this substance, this compound, this molecule that lets you interact with something that's real, that's around you? If it's repeatable over and over and over again, if all these people see the same thing, over and over

and over again, and people have been writing about it since the beginning of time. They've been writing about elves and fairies and gnomes and magic people in the woods. What do you think they were doing? They were probably eating these fucking mushrooms. So, it's this show that I watch that I still

don't know what this show is about. But I've watched, I'm on season number four. And I have no idea what the... What shows is it? It's called From. Ah, I've been watching it. I love that show. I'm in the middle of season for it right now. And so you know he's

taking mushroom. The one guy did. Yeah. Well, you're spoiler alert. No, but you know but you know. Spoiler. I know, but the people are listening don't know. Hey, the people, it's still going to be fantastic. Don't fuck this up. It's good. No, it's on MG. No, they're moving. They're moving it. One of these new shows that's been talked about is getting moved. No, no, no. That's still

on Paramount. Yeah. I think it's MGM. I think it's an MGM. Yo. Great fucking show. Yeah. Very original. I still. From is officially on Netflix. There it is. I'm saying.

Oh, damn. Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. Maybe it's on Netflix as well. Yeah, that's all I was saying. Oh, that's what it is. It came on, it debuted on epics. But you watched all these seasons.

Good show. But you have no idea what. There's no rules. And so I call my director and I say, hey, I want to make a show that is about whatever we're doing and he's like well give me an example and I say watch from like I've watched all for a

I cannot tell you what this show is about it's like I just know that this shit is good for people that don't know that want to watch it it's people are trapped in this town they all the same circumstance there's a down tree in the road they can't go further

so they back they turn around and they find themselves in a loop that keeps leading them through this town to the same town over and over and over and over again. And no one in the town can escape. And at nighttime, monsters come out. And they look like people.

They look like a male man. They look very normal. That scary-ass milkman. Oh, that milkman is insane. That old lady, the old lady that knocks in the window. Terrifying. It's a terrifying show. It gives me anxiety, and I know it's all fake.

It's like, it's a crazy show. Yeah. And season four is even, more bizarre. Yeah. Like, everything that I'd be thinking, I was like,

yo, I think this is what it is. And then it doesn't be that, but then it'll come and it's like, see? And like, but I'm like, see what?

Like, what am I? Like, I don't know the freak this show is going. They don't know. No one knows where it's going. But it's like lost. The same people that made lost

made that show. Word? Yeah. That's why. It has that same sort of feel. Like crazy, doesn't make, nothing.

You can't predict what's going to happen. You cannot predict. Nothing makes sense. Very entertaining. Lloyd tickles this shit out of it. Lloyd is mad about every guy. But it's so, it's a crazy, it's crazy, but it's very interesting.

Like, I don't miss it. I love it. Yeah. I've been binging it. So I started, I guess me and my wife started about a month ago or so, and we burned through the first three seasons. And now we're into the fourth. Yeah, it's good.

And I think the next season's coming out in 2027. But I don't only... I think the next season is the last season, unless they decide to keep it going. Finaly. It's the finale? They just announced that it's going to be the last season. Maybe when that money comes wrong, then...

But the thing about this kind of show is you can do whatever you want. Yeah. You go back in time. You can do wild shit. Like, I don't want to give anything away, but there's no rules. You can make anything happen. You can make anything happen. It's a very strange show.

But it's very interesting. It's very entertaining. It's a very entertaining show. Yeah. But if you want to just sit at home and watch it and not do anything, man, you never picked a better time to be alive. You can waste your whole life just staring at a screen. When I ask people, because my palate for what I take in is different than a lot of people. And I turn people onto a show, like when I turn my boy on the pinky blinders, I was like, yo.

Pinky Blinders is a great. Great show. I was like, yo, you got to watch Pink Pine. He called me and was like, yo, this is a great show. And I remember my boy, D.L. got so invested in what was the first show, the motorcycle show that I turned him on to. I know what you're talking about. I never watched it.

What is that show? That motorcycle show that everybody liked? You know what I'm talking about, Jamie? That's it. Sons of Anarchy. I turned them on to Sons of Anarchy. And it's a person on there that you kind of get invested in. and I remember he called me

and said something about him and I was like, yo, who? Like who? What, what did you say? And I'm putting on my shoes and then I noticed are you talking about the person on Sunday Agon? He said, yeah, that's fucked up what they did.

I was like, yo, you're a crazy man. He's like, no, I'm so invested. And like, I was like, yo man, you are a wild person. But you know, Sons of Anarchy, Pinky Blinders, I was big on Yellowstone

and now the two spin-offs of Yellowstone, Marshals and the Dutton Ranch, I can't not watch it. Like, it's some good shows out there. And I just can't watch the typical stuff.

I got to watch something that has a little more to it than what normal people would watch. Because I like to see normal people in shows, like something I can relate to. That doesn't ranch, you know, being Texas, this, I don't, how ranching is, this is how I always experienced how ranching goes with cows and, and how you keep your land and all

these different fights that people have over land. I'm like, shit is pretty interesting. It's very interesting. Taylor Sheridan's a friend of mine. The guy made that. He was on here the other day. talking about it. But the other show that I love is Landman.

Same kind of deal. It's all about the oil industry. You just realize like, oh, Jesus, is this how all this works? Yeah, it's other things happening in life and it's way more notorious people than a drug dealing show. This is, man, crude oil is a business.

So it's such a big business. Of course, you're going to get devious shit. You're going to get shit happening. Has to. Yeah. The real world of oil must be nuts. It must be nuts. I mean, that's why we're in war right now.

And you have to be ruthless, you know, with oil. Like, that's a big thing. And I don't understand fake meat. Like, why would people be giving somebody fake meat? Well, because they make money selling fake meat. That's why. That's what a lot of people were trying to push while they're saying that cows are bad.

Cows of methane, the environment, man. It's bullshit. All they're doing is trying to, someone is pushing this idea that we need to stop eating meat because they're profiting off of us not eating meat. That's what it is. It's all it is. It's not bad for you. It's good for you.

You need it. Protein. It's super healthy. One of the best foods in the world for you. There's just a bunch of horseshit out there saying that we need to eat less meat for the environment. No, we need to figure out how to not pollute. That's for sure. But regenerative farms aren't polluting.

You're full shit. It's not true. You know, if you want to say we need to stop doing factory farming, okay, maybe. Yeah, that's probably a good thing to do. But you need to figure out how to feed all these fucking people. You've developed a system that's entirely reliant on massive amounts of animals moving through. The amount of chickens that people eat in America every day is crazy. Yeah.

It's cool. What are the amount of chickens that get consumed in America every day? Let's guess. 20 million. At least. at least I'm gonna say 50 million 50 million chickens a day how many million chickens a day get killed oh okay how many do we eat how many millions of chickens do we eat every day in America because I know I can account for three in my house 22 million chickens every day son that's nuts

that is a crazy amount that's way bigger than the entire residents of Los Angeles if every person was a chicken. We eat that amount in this country every day. That's crazy. In my home alone, if we roasting chicken, if we're going to get a roast chicken, we're going to get three of them.

Because it's going to... I didn't even know that I could eat a whole chicken by myself until I did it. It's like, yo, man, it's this Muslim grocery store. They sell them in there. It's already roasted.

And you get two. garlic sauces with each chicken. And once you dip a piece of that chicken and that garlic sauce, it's not going to survive. It's like I bought three of them because I know if two are going to make it home, I have to eat this one by myself. And they put it on a piece of pita bread. It's already roasted.

And it's insane that I would eat a whole chicken by myself. Estimates suggest 24 to 26 million chickens are killed every day in the United States for meat. So if you, Don't want factory farming. You got to figure out a solution where you can get 26 million chickens a day. Or you convince people they need to stop eating meat. But if we look at, like, say if I'm looking at a show, Game of Thrones or House of Dragons, when I would see them sit down to eat, it was a lot of meat on that table. Yeah.

Variations of meat. It's a whole. I've never seen the king sit down. it wasn't a whole entire pig on the table. And then if you, most people haven't bought a lamb. And you think that a lamb is enough. It depends on what you, on who's there. If you, if we, if it's it and it's after the fast and you put a lamb on a spew and all these Muslim families come in your house, that's, that's not another, you need another lamb.

You need two lambs. Like whole lambs. Like, man, this meat is delicious. It's great for you, too. Don't let anybody tell you any different. Oh, and they can, but I'm not really listening. Like, when somebody tell me about a vegan situation, I listen to you, but none of it is going in.

It's like, you know how I say something comes in one day and go out to other? It's not even going in the ear. It's like, I've already made my decision. Like, okay, I'll feel you. But I'm not. really listening to you. I'm eating the lamb. Go, I'm eating it.

Life eats life. It's just the factory farming thing is the uncomfortable part. That's the gross part. And if you just were on a ranch, it's natural. If you want to get overtaken, just let the animals

just do their thing. Chocolate. And see how many, see, don't you see a, I am legend taught you that. It's like, yo, how many antlers ran through a play. It was a stampede.

So even like with the thing that happens in the ocean, sardines, right? So all these mass sardines come one spot, then the whales come first, then the sharks come, and then we still get sardines. After all these, this ecosystem is eating, we still get sardines.

You're not running out of natural if you let everything do it. do its thing. You know, do you know how many jellyfish? Somebody should start eating them. You know what?

Because that is a crazy jellyfish can mob out. Like, mob out. And they can kill you. And they can kill you. Yeah. Somebody eat them.

Something eats them. You can eat them at Chinese restaurants. I've had jellyfish before. Was it good? I don't remember it being good. I don't remember where I ate it. But I remember someone

cooked a specific type of jellyfish. And I was like, okay. I didn't even know you could cook that. In Texas and What kind of jellyfish are edible? Find that out. In Texas and Louisiana, the amount of crawfish that we eat in two months is literally insane.

Imagine if they didn't. Imagine any crawfish would be. Imagine. I know I can account for at least 50 pounds by myself. Like, I know. Think how many crawfish there would be if people weren't eating them. Like when I was a kid, I grew up in Florida for a while. We lived in Florida in Gainesville, and there was an alligator.

Gainesville, Florida. But they were protected. Wow. Back then, the alligators were protected. Like the Everglades? Well, it wasn't the Everglades quite here. Okay, hold on. Edible jellyfish.

Best known edible species in using Asian cuisine. Oh, boy, try to say that word. Ropelema Escalentum, often referred to as the Japanese edible jellyfish. That's a lot easier. Salter than jellyfish. Yeah, so there's a few different species of jellyfish. Anyway, my point was when I was a kid, alligators were protected, and they were at this lake, and you could see them, and people would throw marshmallows in the water, and the alligators would eat them. And then now there's too many.

Like, there's so many alligators there now. Like, they can't get rid of them. They're in every body of water. Everywhere you go, there's alligators. Yeah. The entire Everglades is filled with alligators, golf courses, filled with alligators. I remember when the kid got eaten. Oh, Disney World?

Yeah, and I was like, yo, that's insanity. Because I don't trust a puddle of water in Florida. No. A puddle, it could be a puddle. I'm like, it's an alligator in there. But what they removed, 400 some odd allegations from Disney World. Oh, they remove them all the time.

They have to check every day. They have to go back there and make sure that there's no alligators. It's like a huge number. It's a huge number. Like maybe 24 this year, 4, 4,000. year, 40 or something this year, but it's 400 and something overall. Like, that's insane. You know,

Disney World has a bass fishing lake. You can go bass fishing at Disney World. There's like a little trip that you take. You go there. 414 alligators removed from Disney World since Toddler's death 10 years ago. Monsters. It's a lot of monsters, man.

They're legit monsters. I remember when I was in Guam. I was in Guam doing a show. And I think the military they moved there and it was a bird that they was trying to protect. And so they killed all these snakes. And this is how when you change the ecosystem

to something, something happens. So the snakes, not only were they eating that bird, but they were eating and controlling the toad population. So when they got rid of the snake, we were coming back from the show and it's like, it's literally

hundreds of thousands of fraud. They come out at night. They everywhere. It's like you just see them flat in the street where you, because you can't not, you can't miss them. They, it was hundreds of thousands of frogs on Guam. And I was like, yo man, people fuck up everything. They gotta do something, man.

People meddle. Yeah, they gotta bring the snake back. Yeah, gotta bring the snake back. Stop. Stop, stop your bullshit. People just metal. I mean, there's so many countries that are infested with animals that people brought in to kill other animals.

You know, like Australia has a giant feral cat problem. They brought in feral cats, I think, to kill it. I forget what species. I think it was a toad they were trying to kill off. My neighborhood has a goddamn cat problem. My neighborhood is like, one cat has some babies. And my family had something to do with it.

We fed the cat and then shit. Of course. You want to be nice. Meanwhile, they're killing billions. of birds every year in this country. Cats, I love cats. I love cats too. They kill billions, house cats. Kill billions

of birds and mammals in this country every year. You don't have a bug problem if you have a cat in your house. Because we had these water bugs. They call them cockroaches. But I've watched it. Before I left, the cat that's just outside, he was just slapping one around. It's like five of them dead out there. He was just slapping one around, like,

just toying with him. I'm like, but I don't mind because then they never, make it into my house. It's like cats. I don't know about the four pest campaign that happened in China. What is that? What they do? It explains it to you in these little four. Under Mao aimed at exterminating rats, flies, mosquitoes, and sparrows as a part of the Great Leap Forward. It was framed as a public hygiene and agricultural protection drive meant to reduce disease and protect grain from being eaten or contaminated mass mobilization methods included trapping and poisoning rats, swatting flies, mosquitoes and organized efforts to scare and kill sparrows.

Before you get to the end here, they had one little problem, so they introduced something else to fix that problem. That created a new problem, so they introduced something else to fix that problem. Yeah. It ended here with tens of millions of people dying from a famine because they didn't have the natural ecosystem to. This is great. So sparrows were targeted because they ate grain seeds, but they also consumed large numbers of crop eating insects. their near extinction caused an ecological imbalance leading to insect population booms, lower crop yields,

and contributing to Chinese famine, the great Chinese famine, which tens of millions died. Wow. You got to give something to get something. Yeah, man. Don't think you're smarter than nature, you dumb fuck. You got to give something to get some. There's a balance out there, and we don't totally understand that balance.

What's this fish that we have now? Asian carp, the one that's infested, all the different lakes, and then the snake head, that's another one. Then that jolt, that torpedoes up. Oh, that's the Asian carp. They fly through the air when you're in a boat. Yeah.

They just, for whatever reason, when you're in a boat, they just try to throw themselves onto the boat. They're like, give me the fuck out of this lake. There's so many of them. And they don't have a natural predator, and they bring them into places sometimes to clean up the algae,

and then also, you know, now you have a carp problem. Now the carp eat all the algae. They eat everything where your whole lake looks like a swimming pool. There's no algae left. Look at these fucking things. That is crazy. That's the Illinois River.

I mean, this is just hundreds of fish just flying through the air everywhere they go. How nuts is that? You ever see people, they shoot them with bows and arrows? So they wait from the hop up in the end. They try to catch them in the air with a bow and arrow. With the string on it. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a bunch of people do that.

That's a very popular sport. Is this fish edible? I don't know. I've never heard of anybody. I know people eat regular carp. I don't know if Asian, is Asian carp edible? Yep. There you go.

It's lean and nutritious? Clean, mild flavor. So I would just have a net rolling behind me. Filet fish. There you go. Don't you guys need product? There you go. Get out there with bows and arrows and get it done.

How many crawfish does Texas and Louisiana to consume in crawfish season. That's a good question. I guess you would have to do it in pounds, right? Would you do it in pounds or millions of actual crawfish? Because they don't measure them in individuals. They may by weight, right? Because they're kind of little.

Yeah, they go by weight. How many pounds of crawfish do you think? Texas, just say Texas and Louisiana in a year. 50 million? I have to ask again, but it did give me 90% of the farm crawfish comes from Louisiana. Yeah. 90%. How many pounds?

I didn't give me the answer. How many pounds does... I went way too high. How many pounds does Texas and Louisiana consume in a year? I'm going to say two million of a balance. No, we've got to be more than that. Really? Two million pounds is a lot.

It's fucking way more than that. What is it? What is it? What is 70% of the consumed amount is eaten in Louisiana, and the total is a... upwards of 150 million pounds. Yeah, I'm trying to... 120 to 150 million annually.

Whoa. Yeah. Just in Louisiana. 70%, which is almost 100 million pounds of that is just in Louisiana. That's crazy. Between crawfish boils and crawfish egg through faith, that is...

Fucking delicious. Hey, that's delicious. That is a crazy thing. Texas doesn't have a number. It's just tens of millions. Well, all we need it, we've got the Louisiana... I would have thought they'll be double with the whole country

ate that's crazy like Maryland actually thinks that they are big on crap and we just be shaking out here like okay I think we ship crab to them

like the Chesapeake Bay cannot outdo the Gulf of Mexico no Gulf of America now by the way it is we still we still we still

Gulf of Mexico I don't think Mexico agreed He's like, no He's like, I don't think they did either He's like, no, you know This is not the Gulf of America We still, like, we're not saying that That's hilarious

Well, hey brother, it's a great talk to you again As always, it's always fun Very good to do Thank you. Do it more often Man, I'm here Okay, let's do it It's always fun

Tell everybody if they want If they want to consume all your specials All of it's on YouTube Is it? All of it's on YouTube but you can go to Ali-Sadik.com the new special

My father is getting busy right now it is a it's a great this is a great special it really is Where did you record this?

That was in Detroit Beautiful Like I said I love what you do I love the fact that you're so prolific and you know that you've built this whole thing

just on the hard work So congratulations I appreciate you Thank you very much It was good to see. Oh, no. Bye. Bye.