The Joe Rogan Experience - #33 - Dane Cook

Episode Date: August 3, 2010

Joe sits down with Dane Cook.

We are live, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for tuning in to the podcast. Once again, my friend Brian Redband, of course, as always. And today, joining us, the wonderful and talented Mr. Dane Cook. What's up, Joe? How are you doing, buddy? How you doing, Chris? Before we get going, I have to thank our sponsor, The Fleshlight. Have you ever used one of these things?

I have not. Feel that. It's fantastic. Oh, my God. Oh, Brian. That's our delay in the background. Okay. You guys can't hear it, but my computer's volume is on, of course. But this is a sponsor of our show.

You're supposed to. There's a little button right in the middle, Brian, the upper level. A round thing. Is it off? Okay. Is it off? Yeah, it looks like it's off. Upper level. Is it off? Okay. Is it off? Yeah, looks like it's off. Powerful.

Anyway. The idea, first of all, why the fuck? Well, they offered to sponsor the show, and I said, why not? No, no, but why in the shape of the flashlight? No, no, but why in the shape of the flashlight? Why is it a flashlight? I guess that's what makes it easier to hold, so you can fuck it easier. Okay, and then once you're done and you ejaculate, can you open that? Yeah. Why is it a flashlight? I guess that's so it makes it easier to hold so you can fuck it easier. Okay.

And then once you're done and you ejaculate, can you open that to clean it out? Yeah. That's why I say you unscrew the bottom and release the crack of shame. Oh, no. It just slithers out. No. Into the sink. It's like something out of a... It is more shameful for some reason than masturbating.

It feels way better, but it's more shameful. Like, I always joke that as I'm coming, I'm regretting it. As I'm coming, I'm like, Does it also serve

as a flashlight? No, it doesn't light up in case of, it's not a flashlight. It should have little lasers, pointer flashlights

or something like that. Yeah, it's just a silly little piece of shit. By the way, talking about flashlights, they come in pink and last night you performed for Pink.

I did. What kind of a fucking shitty segue was that? Asshole. I did. How dare you subject my ears to that? Actually, how was that though? Was that pretty cool? She called me up and she asked me if I would do her birthday party for her boyfriend, Carrie Hart,

you know, the BMX guy and all that. And I haven't done a private anything in forever. And I was like, nah, I don't, you know, I'm a fan and stuff, but it seems weird, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I can't do that. And then she was like, well, this is what, you know, how much I can pay. And I was like, uh, it was actually a few weeks ago when the deal came together, I was like, if you, if you can do that and get me aide for Lakers-Celtics, which I thought was impossible. I'm like, I'm never going to get courtside last minute for the series.

She called back. She goes, I got you courtside for the last two games and I'll give you the VIG that you want. Next thing you know, I'm standing there. It was like the highest paying hell gig I've ever done in my life. Was it bizarre? Was it completely bizarre?

It was weird, man. How many people were there? 75. And they had Pink and Carrie were on stage and like thrones that she'd gotten him. And were you hired to do your act or to just talk to them and just say hi and fuck around? I pretty much could have done anything, but I knew they were fans of like, you know, my comedy. So I was like, all right, I want to go in and do well. But by the time I got up there, everybody shit-faced.

And it felt like the Boston or something back in New York at like 2 in the morning. Yeah. That's cool, though. I've been a big fan of Pink lately. Have you? Like her recent shows? Yeah, I know. She's an incredible performer.

Yeah, I wrote a whole blog about her. Brian, why am I not hearing myself? There we go. It was just that? It was just that? Yeah, just the volume for's an incredible performer. Yeah, I wrote a whole blog about her. Brian, why am I not hearing myself? There we go. It was just that? Yeah, just the Vine for you. Oh, okay. Yeah, dude, I wrote a whole blog about her performance at the Emmys that I watched,

and I was like, holy shit. It was perfect. Her voice was perfect. The way she carried herself was perfect. And then when she actually suspended herself and started spinning around, I'm like, there's no fucking way she's really this good. Yeah, and she's really singing. Yeah, really singing the whole time.

And even people on the radio were like, she was lip syncing. I don't think she was. I don't think she was. She wasn't. She wasn't. Doing that and singing anyways is ridiculous if she really was doing that. She just fell doing that shit. I saw that video. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's scary as fuck. But not only fell, but when she fell, the wire pulled her and pulled it to the very end until it was taut. And I thought, if that snapped, it could have cut her head off. Totally. Wow. And then it would have been the most popular video one. How crazy would that have been? Could you imagine watching Pink get her head cut off?

Decapitated. Could you imagine if that was a real viral video? Wow. And then the sales would go up because isn't everything posthumous like? Fuck yeah. Giant. Huge. Huge.

Yeah. Anytime you die, even if you were mediocre when you die, you were a little bit better than mediocre. Yeah. Everybody loves you. Everybody goes crazy. They're never going to hear you again. So they go nuts and buy your shit even though they forgot about you.

Right. Look at Michael Jackson, who's, by the way, incredibly brilliant, talented. But after he died, man, everybody went fucking nuts. Everybody went nuts to buy his shit. I thought it was fake for a bit. Did you really? Yeah, because I'm kind of like, I'm always like, all right, these guys. Spiracy theorist.

A little bit, man. It's like I thought that he'd pop out like six months later because he needed something. He needed the love back, man. There was a lot of people that were not feeling Michael Jackson for a long time. I don't think anybody's ever even tried to pull that death off. I think if you tried to die, and I think that's a federal crime. I think if you fake death. Is it really?

Yeah, I don't think you're allowed to do that. You know, I mean, even as a publicity stunt, you would have to have medical records. And if you have medical records, then people are going to find out they don't exist if you're faking it. True. I don't think you can do it. The whole Tupac thing is ridiculous how it's gotten so crazy. Fucking Elvis, too, man. Elvis back then, maybe you could pull it off.

They killed JFK. They could probably fuck Elvis up. Well, that was the whole thing is that everybody said Elvis faked his death to get away from the colonel to live a normal life because the colonel was like this megalomaniac. Isn't that hilarious? People are so romantic. They don't realize that when you get to be Elvis famous,

you are guaranteed fucking insane. There's no way you can get away from it. Elvis, this is back before the internet. This is back, you know, I mean,

terrible movies he was doing. He couldn't even leave his house. He couldn't even walk down the street. When people would see him, they would start screaming and fall to their knees. Yeah. My favorite Elvis story

that I heard was at the height of, you know of everybody loving and hating Elvis, those buttons came out. You know, I love Elvis. And then the I hate Elvis pins came out. He made those. Him and the Colonel came up with that. They sold more I hate Elvis pins.

I've heard of a bunch of people doing that or stealing that exact same idea. That's awesome. That's so awesome. You know, the Elvis thing must be so sucky. If you were a dude back then, how the fuck do you compete with Elvis? Your girl is screaming and yelling and you're fucking her and you know she really would way rather be fucking Elvis.

All you can really do is just play into it and just tell her you love Elvis and take her to Elvis and just try to make her Elvis fantasy come to fruition. Yeah, put on the fucking wig, the whole deal. Mutton chops. There's an Elvis clip when he was really fucked up. He was doing whatever drugs he was doing, and he was bored, and he was not remembering the lyrics, and there's a gig he was doing in Hawaii

where he's so fucking bored, and you watch this. He's not singing any of the lyrics right. He's just inside jokes with his band members, and then he does the thing where he slowly backs up, during this one song to his three backup singers and in the middle of the song he just turns and screams in their faces and scares the shit out of them like literally turns and goes and they're all like as they're trying to sing it's like he was gone yeah yeah he was gone he was way too big you can't get that big it's not it's not safe big and he was like so i i mean i'm kind of a huge elvis fan and there's one documentary that priscilla

actually did years ago based on what she wrote where she finally talked about how insecure he really was you know he had his buddies like living with him and shit and if they wanted to go out to a dinner and he was by himself he would freak out out. He would shoot TVs up. He had to have his friends around him 24-7. Wow. Joe, you kind of have that whole entourage. You want a gang of people to go to. This reminds us of you, Joe. Sounds like me.

You know how we used to always roll with huge groups of people? You can't be too problematic. Yeah, but you prefer that kind of. Well, it's always more fun to have a bunch of guys that you're friends with that like go to you in gigs but if you have too many and you have to manage them all then it becomes a pain in the ass it becomes like more of a pain in the ass of getting my friends to get downstairs in time so we can get to the fucking show and you know did you call this guy did you wake him up we gotta go to the fucking airport where is he and there's five different guys and everybody's got their own bullshit and then dudes start

arguing with each other and then it became ugly. Then it became like, okay, this is nonsense. So I had to cut most of it. It was like a reality show for a while. It was.

It was too much though. It was too much like that. There was too many people. You know, when it was Tate and Eddie and me and you and Larry and Mike Young and all these other dudes

and we'd all go out together. I mean, come on. That was ridiculous. It was a giant group on the road, man. Do you like touring with a bunch of dudes? Do you always tour with your friends? I pretty much have stuck close with the same guys that I started, like my graduating class,

Bobby Kelly, Al DelBene. I knew Burr when I first started and Patrice. Because we kind of came up a little bit after. You were a couple of years ahead, headlining around. Dane and I did a bunch of really fun little gigs for Dick Daugherty. The Comedy Huts, remember those? Comedy Huts. Yeah.

The Light Ships. Was it in Cambridge that we did Dick Daugherty's Comedy Hut? At the Aku Aku, yeah. At the Monkees. Dane was with a comedy troupe with Bob Kelly and him and Al DelBene. So it was a good comedy troupe. You guys were funny. It was good, youene. It was a good comedy troupe. You guys were funny. It was good.

It was interesting. You would do comedy sketches, and then each guy would go up and do stand-up. Right. And so we would work together, do these Dick Daugherty gigs. Those were fucking fun. Our sketch comedy improv group was so bad. We were so bad at improv. The first rule of improv is don't deny.

But we were so bad at improv that our first rules was denied so we were just come in and completely ruin scenes by like you're pretending pantomime I'm holding a baby and just Bobby can be back dude why are you holding a tire and you just it would just fall apart from there but we just had a boy you guys had some good ones you had some good sketches we had a couple of good skits it was fun I mean it was and it was experimental It was like you guys Were taking chances You were doing something

A little unusual At a comedy club And you were doing comedy too Yeah that was probably Actually better for us Opening with our stand up And then we just go Fuck around and do music

Or skits or improv Or whatever for You know whatever The rest of the hour To fill it up Do you still ever try To do improv Once in a while

Or do you just Only stand up now A little bit I've been bringing Al Cause Al's been hosting Down at the Laugh Factory And I'll bring Al up Once in a while or do you just only stand up now um a little bit i've been bringing out because al's been hosting down at the laugh factory and i'll bring al up once in a while and we'll do stuff at the very end just to you know whatever skit or dom or air and i will do some stuff once in a while where i'll just bring dom up and bat some stuff around but not like i used to not like you know sketch full-on sketch upright citizens brigade yeah yeah yeah i'm not

a sketch guy i really rather prefer watching stand-up i mean sketches are fun and everything like that but they're never as good at it though like just like shorts you did as much remember that movie you did that little short movie you did for kelly kirsten when you were talking about the cable bill and stuff like that it's like a five minute clip or something like that i just pretended to be my dad it was really easy well how did it go from i've always wanted to know because you were in Boston, and you were the first guy who we watched go from headlining to – then you're on TV, man. And it was like everybody was looking at you going, how do I do that?

How did you turn the corner? How did you get news radio? Total luck. Complete total luck. I did MTV's Half Hour Comedy Hour. Was that Mario Joyner or somebody hosting those? Yes. And Mario was like, I didn't even get to shake his hand.

He introduces you and he goes to the left and you go to the right. I was like, damn, I didn't get to shake Mario Joyner's hand. It felt like I wasn't even really on a show. It was like Mario Joyner back then was the shit, man. That's a guy where I don't understand what happened there. I don't understand how he just kind of vanished. Anthony Clark was hosting Kamikaze or something. Dude, Anthony Clark was the shit.

But I know Anthony, so I know he's troubled. So I know that's what led him to this weird place he is now. But I never understood the Mario Joyner thing. Right. Do you remember Reggie McFadden? I do remember Reggie. There's another one, right? Yeah.

Funny. Reggie McFadden? I do remember Reggie. There's another one, right? You remember Reggie McFadden was a monster. Absolutely. One of the few guys that I really would be afraid to go on after. Dude, I used to see him in the early 90s in New York, and I would watch him do stand-up, and I would go, fuck, this guy's going to be Eddie Murphy. He's going to be gigantic. He's going to be the biggest comic ever.

And then nothing. It was weird. It was the weirdest thing ever. Is he still even... Exactly. Exactly that question right there. Hilarious and charismatic guy, man. So handsome and well-spoken and a fucking really nice guy.

Like a real nice guy. And whenever you're around him, he's always smiling, having a good time. It's like, what the fuck happened? How does this not work? It's a very strange thing. It's a very strange thing. And it's a very strange thing when guys get angry that for some reason or another they don't get the respect that they deserve. That is one of my pet peeves. That's a weird thing when people do that. Well, it's because – I mean, I can't speak for Reggie, but it's like you go through this phase or period in stand-up where you're like, okay, I've committed my life to this.

This is what I want to do. I'm all in here at the table. I'm in my – for me, my mid-twenties, there's no turning back now. There's a bunch of those years where you're watching people go on. Some people are getting stuff. Some people are falling off. It freaks you the hell out, man.

It freaks you out hard. I don't think it's a very healthy attitude at all to look at someone else's success as if somehow or another it's bad for you. If someone's not paying attention to you, there's a lot of dudes are like you know i don't feel like my my act gets the respect that it deserves like it gets the exact respect it deserves there's no other way around it it's the perfect connection between you and an audience and if it's not getting a reaction it's because of one of two things either you've been very shitty

in marketing yourself and or promoting yourself or you or you're not seeing it the way other people are seeing it. You haven't found your audience. There's some people that have weird acts. Mitch Hedberg, for the longest time, had a really hard time on the road because he would go on and they would put on these super high-energy middle acts that would sing. I remember there was this black dude in, I believe it was in Ohio. I think it was at the Funny Bone in Columbus.

Damn. And Hedberg was supposed to headline, and this guy was fucking crushing it every night in the middle spot with singing and dancing and getting those Columbus, Ohio people into it. And then Hedberg would just, you know your folks. He's from there. That's what it is. That's your peeps. They're good people.

That's why I recorded my special there. But he would go out to them, and they would hate him. They're good people. That's why I recorded my special there. But he would go out to them and they would hate him. They would hate him. Well, was he in that phase too? Remember, he'd just go up and kind of, he would stand there. I remember for a while and his hair would just completely be covering his face. Like not even looking up the glasses, nothing. He was just like the top of his head.

And how do you go up after somebody is fucking doing juggling fucking chainsaws which is hilarious by the way and then yeah it is a weird thing right he had to find his audience and he had a real hard time with that for a long time that's always a tricky thing man when you're coming up in the beginning like there's guys who will tailor their material or tailor their act where they don't want to do this but they do it just so that they can get more people liking them and they can get like on a better track right you know I'm talking about? Yeah. Yeah.

That's like a real, it's like it's so hard to fucking, especially when you don't have an audience, to really find your own voice. You know, it's so tricky. Because, you know, you work at a club and if you offend someone, if you're like, you know, my act was always kind of dirty and offensive. And like, you know, when I was nobody, like they would get upset at me. Like you just, there's three people that want their money back you fucking asshole you know clean up your act for the next show

and you're like wow cleaning my act like this is what I like to do this is the stuff that I always like to see like I can't talk about what I think is actually funny so when you were doing

your stand up and you did finally leave Boston and hit the road where did the news radio thing finally even come from so I did this MTV thing and I got a development deal

right out of it with Fox to do a show called Hardball this terrible show it was MTV thing and I got a development deal right out of it with Fox to do a show called Hardball. It was a terrible show. It was really bad, but a bunch of good guys on it. And I had fun, but it was like, I don't want to be around actors anymore. I'm like, this is just too gross.

I would go back to New York, go back to comedy. But I fucked up and already got an apartment because I thought the show was going to, everybody thinks their show's going to go. Sure. Like, oh, the ratings are good. I think we're picked up for next year. Everybody thinks that in show business. So my stupid ass got this fucking cool ass apartment and i was like

all right now i'm stuck so then um right after that i got a deal with nbc and before i know when i was on news radio it was just like stumbled into one thing i mean i auditioned for news radio but uh the one it was kind of funny because the the one of the reasons why they liked me for the part was that there was no jokes in the in the script right like the first one they gave out there was no it was no comedy in it it was just like really straight and flat yeah and i was like wow i don't how the fuck do i play this i was like i'm just gonna play it as if i was really saying it like let me just go and do it this is there's no jokes in here so i don't know what they're doing they were just trying to weed out the hacks they were trying to read out the whole they were trying to weed out the hacks. They were trying to weed out the – They were trying to weed out the –

Exploding shoe guys, I guess. So I just got lucky. It's total luck. Total luck. Right person, right place, right time. Click, click, click. Yeah. All of a sudden, I'm on TV.

Fuck. Which was fun. But in the beginning when I was on TV, I was very shitty with writing new material. And I wasn't performing that much. I was just loving the fact that I was making all this money and just having fun and doing stupid shit and just no discipline at all.

And saving up for your first incredible car. Yeah. I bought the first car right away. What was it? As soon as I had money, I bought a 1994 Toyota Supra Turbo. Had one of those too. Dude, those were the shit.

Used. That fucking big crazy wing in the back, looking like a spaceship. Oh, I loved it. Loved it. It was my first really cool car. I think I went 85 Mustang GT with the T-tops. Did you?

Charcoal gray. She was a beaut. Nice, nice. Yeah, there's something fucking cool about buying your first cool shit. I bought a pool cue for $7,000. Bought this Ernie Gutierrez, this guy in LA,

makes this cue called a Gina cue. It's very homemade, really precise, perfectly balanced pool cue. Yeah. I was like, this thing's awesome. 7K. That's so stupid.

Do you collect anything? Do you have anything that you spend money on? I know we both get Steve Martin junk. We both collect Steve Martin stuff. I got a bunch of memorabilia. I went back and found a whole bunch of old vinyls. Lenny Bruce and Cosby and Newhart and Steve Martin and stuff.

So that was kind of my thing. I like finding stuff that's off the beaten path as opposed to like, all right, anybody can go out. I think for me, the craziest car I did in Aston Martin. Oh, yeah? And I thought, okay, I spent a quarter of a million dollars on this car. This is going to be the fucking craziest car, the best car ever. And it really ended up being the worst thing that I'd ever bought with my money. Dude, I had the exact same story with a Porsche 911 Turbo.

I bought a 911 Turbo and it broke down. I mean, it literally broke down where it needed a tow truck five times in three years. I think I drove you three times to that dealer. Just me. Yeah. Yeah. I spent, I was there like nine different, I love that we were complaining about our asses. But it's true.

They're fucking crap. They're crap. I have a Lexus. It never fucks up. Never. Never fucked. They're bulletproof. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They make them so well. There's never any problems. But if you have a Mercedes or a Porsche or something like that, you're going to have some weird light goes off. Like, what the fuck is this? This isn't working. Why is my headlights not coming on? Shit. You got to bring it in. Oh, it's the computer.

They wanted Windows 95 on those things. I bought the Aston Martin and then I bought the Casino Royale soundtrack and I just fucking drove around and I pretended I was a spy and I literally was pointing at people on the side of the road and pretending i was shooting them and like the problem with those too much time on your hands the problem with those cars is when they work they're intoxicating you know when you hear the sound of the engine that fucking powerful like well engineered engine

but but it was such a poorly crafted car inside that i was like why don't i just get a fucking ringtone of that sound and be happy with the fucking sound of the engine and get rid of this plastic piece of shit everything inside was crap it's an english car right yeah they've never been known for really making great cars i mean jaguar i guess yeah but the engine you're right it was worth that sound fuck up too before Ford bought them, right? Yeah. Yeah. English, you don't want that.

You want Japanese. They don't fuck around, dude. But my problem is everything's made by robots now for the most part. So even American cars are made by the same robots. It's not the same, though. It's the standards that you engineer the car to. That's what's important. And they're using much higher standards than American car companies are.

There's no doubt about it. I have a Ford Mustang, and I have a BMW M3. And the difference between them is so different. And Ford is high level as far as American cars go. It's better than GM. But still, you're inside of it. It just feels fucking chintzy, and things feel goofy. And the navigation system kind of sucks.

It was like it was engineered by an American guy. You know, it's just kind of quirky. Whereas the Lexus is like everything needs to be. That nav is the best, right? Yeah. Listen to us fucking dudes with money complaining about cars. How sad. Well, that's because we've also had –

The lamest podcast of all time. We've had nothing as well. That's the thing is you can actually – you can sit here, and you can tell these stories if you've been fortunate enough to have some success because anybody who knows who's done this for a living, when it's bad, it's fucking bad. When it's empty, it is at its emptiest, man.

So you get a little something or you have a few years of fun that I think it's kind of cool to be able to talk about. It still doesn't seem real to me. Success and money, none of it seems real to me. When I can go to the store and just buy things, like, oh, that TV looks like it would be perfect right there. Let's just get this thing. I can give you a piece of plastic, and you give me whatever you got.

Yeah. It's ridiculous. It doesn't seem real. Yeah, it is. It's crazy. It seems fake. Doesn't it seem? Yeah, it's a fantasy world.

Don't you ever walk around your house? I know you don't smoke pot, but when I do, I'll walk around my house high, and I'll just look at the house, and I'll just go, what the fuck is this? Like, this is my house? This is'll just look at the house and I'll just go, what the fuck is this? This is my house? This is where I live? This is so strange. You think about what it was like when you first started making money and you didn't have to worry about bills anymore. You know that feeling?

That's the fucking most liberating feeling ever. That's the big feeling. It's not being famous. It's not being rich. The liberating feeling is not have to worry about paying your bills. That's the most important one. It was like, wow. It was like all of a sudden it just lifted.

I literally physically felt lighter. I'll never forget it because I was always scratching. It was always like, do this John Shuler gig and maybe I'll have enough money for rent and then I can't eat tonight because I literally don't have any money. I have to wait until tomorrow when my check clears. Billy Downs still owes you $75.

Barry Katz was the big one. Is Barry still your manager? Yeah. And he still owes me $300 from one of those gigs. Those gigs, that was brutal. For people that don't know what we're talking about, there was a time where there was another entity that he had called New York Entertainment, right?

And they were booking colleges, and apparently it was costing too much money to rent the building where they were at, and they were spending more money than they were making. So they started spending the comedians' money and owing it to them, literally. Like, you would go to the gig, you would fly around the country,

go to these colleges, get your checks, send them in to Barry, and then, you know, you would wait. And then you'd be like, a month later, be like, what the fuck, dude? Where's my money? This is getting crazy. And then it would be like another time, you would wait and then you'd be like a month later like what the fuck dude where's my money this is getting crazy and then it would be like another time you would do it like three or four times there was guys that had like they had like a lot of money out yeah I don't know how it all got settled but it was ugly it didn't it didn't and there's still guys salty

about doing around every once in a while Barry will be like you want that 300 and I'm like no it's my good luck charm is you not paying me. You made me bust my ass. I had the I'll show him fucking theory going. Yeah. But I know for me, man, like seriously, it's like what put things in perspective. And some people know this or don't. It's like I hired my stepbrother, my half-brother.

Yeah, I know that story. That's a crazy story. And it was like, all right, so I thought I had this great nest egg. I bought a house. I did all that. And then he came in. And I can't talk too much that story. That's a crazy story. And it was like, all right, so I thought I had this great nest egg. I bought a house. I did all that. And then he came in, and I can't talk too much about it. It's ongoing. Well, let me talk about it since you can't.

So the rumor is, you don't have to say anything, that he stole like $11 million from you. That's fucking horrifying. Like five years. To think that your fucking brother, your blood, like someone you grow up with, is so fucking jealous and so shifty and plotting against you that they'll steal your fucking money. Allegedly. Allegedly.

That had been such a betrayal. That's it, man. It really was. I mean, first of all, absolute, complete betrayal and the way I deal with that with my family. But the thing that really was jarring in the best of possible ways was talking about okay i've been doing stand-up for i've been doing stand-up for 20 years um you know when when everything happened

i started in 1990 and then i looked and i was like all right this is gone i never had this either it was gone or whatever i went back on tour i did probably the biggest tour that i'll ever do last year i did 80 arenas i went out there i fucking just you know, you know, was hammering it. Yeah, the economy was shitty, but I kept going. I was promoting. My fans came out and it was that, I haven't had a moment

in a lot of years where really struggling, again, where you're like, I'm in trouble. If I don't do something and the ride is over, what do I have left?

What's there for me years down the line? And I was really, you know, thankful that the fans came out and supported it, but it was that moment where I'm going okay you know yeah i've bought some cool shit in my life and you know i've collected some albums or you know buy something crazy once in a

while but you can't fucking take somebody's creativity it always comes back to you'll have stuff you lose i've had things i've lost it many times in my life and all you can do is keep getting back on stage or fucking getting out there and doing whatever connects you to something. Yeah, that's what it is really for comics too. It's putting the new thing together, right? Yes. It's putting that new chunk and then the new set and preparing for the next special

and feeling these new bits come alive and the tags and the new tags. It's like what a burst you get every time you come up with a new tag. It's like this positive energy charge. Like, ah! And then sometimes on stage, in the moment, you'll pause and say the perfect shit out of nowhere, and it destroys, and that becomes the closer. I mean, that becomes the part of the bit that ends the bit.

It's the best feeling on earth, man, really. When it all starts to come together, you see that, you know, it's like you have a theme or a through line that starts to come through, and there's nothing better in the world, man. And right from the bat, right from the get-go, when you have your first good set, you become a junkie for that feeling. You become someone who needs to kill. You need to get up there and kill. And you don't want to do any new – you don't want to fuck around and do any new shit. That's the problem in the beginning because you're scared. Yeah.

And you want to make sure you get through the set good, and just just do the stuff that you know is gonna work don't fuck around don't fuck around right so it hampers your growth because you become this fucking junkie you just want that charge you just want to hear them scream you want to hear oh shit oh no he didn't know but we we also you know we came out of boston where you know i know the guys that i can't i mean i loved i love ste love Steve Martin and the guys that I always loved just watching growing up that I wanted to emulate. And then when I started in Boston, these guys were like

killers, man. What people don't understand about Boston is everybody knows all these famous guys. Everybody knows Billy Crystal. Everybody knows... And the very good comics. Robert Klein. Blah, blah, blah. Name the guy. Don Gavin was better than all of them. Yeah.

He was better than all of them. And this is not an exaggeration. And he was fucking squeaky clean. I mean, every now and then he'd say, fucking, fuck, fuck, a little this or that. But his bits were not dirty. It was delivery was perfect. It was perfect. Like, you would watch his economy of of words The way he set a sentence up

And you would just feel humbled You would be like fuck he's a master He's a master But he got caught up in this Boston thing Where there was all these great guys in this one area And they always drew a crowd And they always got paid well And then they would go on the road and they'd be nobodies

They'd be like why would I be a fucking nobody Back in Boston making some money And the next thing you know they're back in Boston And they're just doing the same gigs over and over again where everybody else takes a shot and branches off and disappears and becomes famous. But you really would watch these guys, and part of you would feel bad that they weren't getting over the hump,

but you felt so fucking honored to be opening up and standing watching going, I'm learning from the best. So when you leave Boston, it's like you had that these were guys like i always describe it like they had the energy of showmen but they were like men they were like men doing comedy yes yes and i you know i always really wanted to be there they always stood right at the fucking front of the stage they were really lenny clark is the perfect example yeah when lenny's a fucking man he's a guy this is what Lenny Clark said was we were at Giggles and Saugus

and there was this fucking table full of chicks they wouldn't shut the fuck up they were screaming and yelling he goes listen if you don't shut the fuck up

I'm gonna hire a nigga to fuck you in front of your mother it's like you're like what the fuck did he just say I mean it was me I think Chris McGuire

was there I think it was me and Chris I can't remember but we were like what the fuck did he just say? I mean, it was me. I think Chris McGuire was there. I think it was me and Chris. I can't remember. But we were like, what the fuck did he just say? He doesn't give a fuck. Lenny Clark did not give a fuck. He was just this big, gigantic, burly guy who would, by the way, he would beat your ass too. If you talk shit to Lenny Clark, he'll probably do a line and punch you in the face.

These were real hardcore blue-collar guys. But fucking hilarious. But it made us sharper because you were held up to a much higher standard. You had to go on after guys who were way better than average. And you had to be sharp all the time.

You had to constantly reassess your material. You did. I learned a lot watching Joe before us because the thing that happened with you, though, was you were the first guy that I saw from, like, the next young generation that when you started headlining, you were getting the respect for killing. But you were the first guy that I saw that had real backlash ever in my life. That people were like they didn't know where to put him. And people that he passed no not going to mention names but like they were just so fucking frustrated and they didn't know how to deal

with like okay wait a minute this is this is the next guy coming up there's that you know people are always going to resent and you're young good looking and every fucking chick in the crowd after the show is just like you know there's that there's the fighting thing too which doesn't make any sense at all. It's not supposed to, they're not supposed to coincide together. Yeah. The martial arts thing. It just seems like I'm not in the club, you know.

And I mean, that's what it felt like to me. Right. But people are, there's always going to be backlash whenever anyone's successful. I don't have to tell you that. Oh, yeah. And I didn't fight, which makes it even tougher. You know, people are always looking for some reason why you're fucked up when you are more successful than them. They're always looking for some reason why it's them or, you know, it's you and not them.

You know, people get upset at other people's success, you know, and you can feel it. You know, I mean, I got hate mail when I was on Fear Factor every day. There's no getting around it. You're always going to get someone who's fucking mad at you about this or you said that or you don't deserve this or you're short or you're bald. It's just constant. People you don't even know just want to – Before the internet, did that even exist though to a degree? I had a website in 1998.

I think it's the internet. It's just hate. There's so much hate. Well, it's not that the internet is hate, dude. The internet is an outward expression of how people feel. People are frustrated and angry. The internet is an outward expression of how people feel. People are frustrated and angry.

And look, we've been shown that we live in a place where we have a fake economy that is recognized as fake by everybody. But we're still pretending that it's real. We print up money. Nobody understands where it all goes. Everybody's fucked. The banks are making billions. We don't know how. There's a lot of frustration and anger in this world. And if you're anonymous, you're fucking McFuckstick on the Rogan board and you just decide

to be a cunt. You know, it's just so easy to lash out. You know, Dane Cook could suck my dick, you know.

I asked for questions and of course, most people, like on my message board, most people wrote cool shit. There were some interesting questions for you but there was a few

that were just so fucking douchey. It's just, you know, you're never going to get away from that. Those are people too that they really want so badly

to perpetuate a moment or something because they want to get away from that. Those are people too that they really want so badly to perpetuate a moment or something because they want to see the fucking battle. They want to see the battle and there's also this thing where they don't want to see anybody ever forgiven for anything they might have done in the past. Right, because they can't. Yeah, they can't.

And it makes it okay that they can't if you can't or we can't. I think I lost you on a couple of can'ts back. But yeah, no, totally. There's just a lot of people in this world that not just – they don't just feel shitty, but they're lashing out. They lash out at other people. They do it for no reason. Like I can imagine – like if you don't like a movie, like I saw A Serious Man last night.

It was fucking terrible. Why would you watch that? It had like all these stars on it. Don't you have Rotten Tomatoes? Four stars, five stars. Dude, I didn't go to Rotten Tomatoes. I should have. It was a Coen Brothers movie, too, and I love the Coen Brothers.

There were some really interesting parts in it, but there was a part at the end where I was like, oh my god, it ended. It just ended. It's just like, okay, now the movie's over. Soprano. Out of nowhere. Way worse than the Sopranos. I accepted the Sopranos.

I was figuring, this is a long story. It's over. That makes sense. This was just like, I don't even know these characters was figuring like this is a long story it's over that makes sense this was just like I don't even know these characters all of a sudden boom it's over

so I wrote on Twitter I was like a serious man seriously fucking sucked you know I was like well am I a hater am I doing that too but I'm like

no but I'm I'm a fucking reviewer here now I'm a reviewer now you fucked me out of two hours of my time I feel like I deserve

something back yeah plus you said it as Joe Rogan not fucking McFuckstick or whatever. Yeah, I think message boards would be – I tried it on my board for a while. I tried to make everybody put a picture of themselves. I said maybe we'd be nice to each other if we used our actual photo as an avatar.

But it only lasted for like a little bit. Everybody wanted to be fucking Darth Vader or some chick sucking a dick. That's like all the avatars on my board are all chick-sucking dicks. Somebody like Blizzard or somebody just recently tried to do that where you had to have your real name on their message board, but then all these privacy things went off. Right, yeah, Blizzard, yeah, those game guys, right?

You're a gamer, right? You do online gaming a lot? Not like I used to. I mean, I used to have PC stuff, and then I did console for a little bit. Takes up too much time. Yeah, man, not like i used to i mean i used to you know have pc stuff and then you know i did console for a little bit but takes up too much time yeah man not like once in a while i'll still do like call of duty or something but you want to play for 11 hours in a row when you do that i get so addicted to online video games it's they're so addictive when like quake like first person shooters i've talked about this many times I used to play

10 hours a day no bullshit that's how we actually kind of really first met that's how we met and bonded before the big the big breakup

but it was like I remember you were telling me about Alienware computers and all that shit so I went out and got one I basically got

the computer he told me he had which I didn't have the money for at the time but Joe's like I got this it's a rig and area 51 fucking i went and got it i was living in this shitty little studio on hacienda and all i had was uh fucking futon and my alienware computer and i don't really know anybody out here anyway when i first came out but i'd jump on with joe once a while and think, all right, Quake 3 or whatever we're playing.

He would just— Destroy, right? Not even destroy. It was not even fun. No, no. It was not even like— We've talked about this. It was just bad.

It was beyond rape. Yeah, he would do the kill me 99 times in a row. I don't even think I killed you once, maybe, in a three-hour period. I would start taking chances on you. maybe in a three-hour period. And I'm like, Joe, I need to stop. I would start taking chances on you. Dude, not only would Joe be plasma rifling me up my ass like every other hit,

but then I'd hear through his whatever headset, like he'd be doing something else, which made it even fucking worse. I could tell he was not even completely focused. And I'm fucking sweating and doing that thing where I'm trying to sound like I'm not fucking raging. I'm like, good shot, Joe. Turn off the mic. I'm like, good shot, Joe. Turn off the mic.

I'm like, fuck, come on. Quake is one of those games, for those who don't know it, it's a first-person shooter where you're running down these 3D mazes and you have all these different gun options. And it's one of those games that relies very heavily on playing it all the time so the mouse and the keyboard literally become like an extension of your mind. And you can get it to do what you want want to do because you're so comfortable with the movements

you don't think about you know it's w-a-s-d use the keys to move backward and strafe side to side but you don't think about it you just do it it's just like i'm going to the right when i go to the right i'm thinking to the right and as i'm thinking my fingers are moving and you get totally synced up with it you have to do it like eight ten hours a day day to do it. So I was obsessed. I'd go online, that's what I would do. And I'd be having conversations with my chick, and I'd be thinking, I could be playing Quake right now. So I would have to pretend that I wanted to see a movie with her.

I was a complete junkie. What was weird is that you were really competitive with the game. I would just hide in the toilet paper roll of the Unreal bathroom map and just sit there and snipe people, where you were more like kill, kill, kill, number, seconds. It's what's what you know my leftover martial arts days there's still some work to be done in the back of my head so i'm just fucking just running down hallways shooting people this thing is so satisfying it's so fun i remember it was over when i was at fry's

electronics trying to buy like shit that i didn't think he had. I'm like, is there a mouse that has every button already on? What can I do to fucking have one advantage? And guys would do that to me, by the way. Guys would do the same thing that I did to you to me. It wasn't that many guys, but every now and then you run into a Chinese virgin, some 13-year-old kid who doesn't give a fuck. And he's just every day, 15 hours a day, just staring through his bifocals at that fucking screen, blasting dudes.

Oh, man. Dudes would rape me. It would happen all the time. And I would be like, how the fuck? I thought I was good. Guys would gun you down and hit you with rail guns, impossible shots. You just showed up for a second, and you're dead.

You're like, motherfucker. Some guys are just on another level. And now kids have all the modded controllers. I'm just using a regular controller. So I'm like, I'm never going to have the advantage anymore. They've got these Wolfpack fucking sticks. I can't deal with the console. The console is just not as precise.

And they did a thing with Microsoft. They did a competition between console guys against keyboard and mouse guys. Yeah, but you'd never play that. You'd get used to the point. If everyone's doing the same controller, then everyone's on the same page, you know? But the same controller isn't as precise. Why would you use that controller when you've got another controller that's better? You can get really good at it.

But you can't get as good. Right. For what you like to play, you're kind of first-person shooter. Death! Destruction, son! Kill! You just want to win. You just want to blast them. You want to have the most connection between you and what you're doing.

But you know how fun it is to get on your Xbox and go, oh, Carlos Macias playing Call of Duty. Let's kill him a little bit. It's so fun. Do you ever kill him? I've played him once. Really? Yeah.

Is he any good? No, no. Really? Yeah. Kick his ass? I don't think – I think I was more just like watching him interact. You talk shit to him? See, like I said, I hang out in the toilet paper a lot.

Does he play like Joe? I'm a video game voyeur. You say like, nice shot, man. I went to his website the other day for something. Because every now and then I like to read his Twitter and go, what the fuck? It's just so strange. So I went to his website, and it said, one of the most feared comedians in the country. That's, like, on his bio on the front of his website.

Dude, he's the punisher. One of the most feared. Like, what a crazy thought. You talk about the wrong psychology for comedy. One of the most feared? You, what a crazy thought. You talk about the wrong psychology for comedy. One of the most feared. You want to be a feared comedian? What is that? What does that even really mean?

That's so strange. Do you collect comics? What the fuck are you talking about? We're talking about Carlson, Sidney, and Max. I know. Don't be changing gears like that. That's ridiculous. Wow.

We're talking about someone completely crazy. Yeah, I don't really know what that means. Who wants be a feared comic it's horrible it's a horrible way of thinking you want people to fear you who's gonna fear you the audience other comedians well he what he likes to do and you know he talked about on the mark maron podcast i thought it was really fascinating that yeah i heard that to it though when he called back what's that because he went he went in that was kind of you know know. It was weird. Marin was like, it was very strange. It was a very strange conversation.

But I didn't understand why Marin didn't understand that he's completely insane. Right. Carlos is like gone. He's like bipolar or something. Like there's something wrong. But when he started talking about the, during the podcast, what was it exactly? Oh, shit. Now I'm trying to remember.

Fuck. God damn it I can't remember what the crazy part was. Oh one of the crazy ones was did you tell me this one that he was saying that some

some troops that someone was thinking about killing themselves they read his shit or they saw him perform and they didn't kill themselves

was that you? No that wasn't me. Well, I'm making shit up now. Now I'm just giving them rumors. But he was talking about how he would go on stage in front of guys on purpose to make them feel bad.

Really? Yeah, he would bump guys and do an hour. And he talked about how he did it to Marc Maron. He talked about how he did it to, what's that dude's name? Steve Trevino.

First time Steve Trevino ever got the headline. Carlos went on right before him and did like an hour, an hour and 25 minutes or something crazy. But when he was talking about it,

he comes, like he's pained that he did it. That's the thing that I don't associate with. Yeah, it was fake. I had to, man, it's what I had to do.

It's like, why? I think he's like, he's broken. I think he's like a legit sociopath. He doesn't feel emotions the way everybody else does. And I don't think he feels when he's hurt either. He's got like this weird block going on.

It's very strange. I think you're talking about my brother now. I think I'm talking about a lot of people. There was a book written recently called The Enemy Amongst Us or something like that. Something along those lines. And it was all about sociopaths. About how many people amongst us really don't feel emotions. They just pretend they do to fit in.

But they don't fear the consequences of their actions. They don't worry about hurting other people's feelings. That's a fucking real problem. There's a lot of people like that. Yeah, I think I'm on the fucking complete other side of that, man. I'm one of those people, I feel like I feel everything. Well, to be a comic, you have to be fucked up, right? mean you will we would all admit to that you have to be sensitive you have to be you have to be insecure you have to be there's got to be something inside of you that

wants attention so badly that it's willing to go through those early days right because you know if you're not fucked up you're gonna find something better you're gonna find something that doesn't hurt so much you know but that need to to be special has got to be so strong that you're willing to get through the bombing. Right. Right. I just remember being so afraid because I was like the complete – not only introverted, but I was like – I had like anxiety. I had social anxiety. I still really do actually.

It's funny because I can do huge fucking arenas. If the meet and greet is 10 people, I'm ten people I'm like what are we doing but in high school was really bad and I remember feeling like that that first time I got a laugh that like broke up a moment and it was like oh that's the fucking weapon right there I want people to fear my comedy what what is that I first one I did out of anger I had this really shitty math teacher who was always mean and she would just you know would just treat you like you were really dumb if you didn't understand things. And she was a black lady.

And she was doing this thing on stage. Or on stage. She was doing this thing in front of the chalkboard. But she was writing something down. I wasn't paying attention. And she goes, Mr. Rogan, would you like to come up here and do both of these questions for the class? And I said, would you like me to do both of those questions? And everybody went fucking crazy. Like like dudes could not help it they just laughing and people slamming books down and then she kicked me out i got sent home for the day but i remember thinking like at

that moment like damn i just got that bitch yeah yeah yeah that's when the soundtrack starts man no i know i know after that it was like i was a little hellion. She was being mean to me. It was like – and I shut her down in front of everybody. I was like, damn, that was my first heckle. I just remember skipping school one day, and I was at Brigham's. Remember Brigham's? Sure. And I was just sitting there, and my – Mr. Hall, the guy who was like the house dean, came up. And all of a sudden, he just sat in front of me like I was busted.

And he goes – and I was starting to do like plays or like write stuff, and he goes, listen, man, he goes, I know school's not for you. He was the first person to like, he goes, I know school's not for you. I know that theater and, you know, making people laugh, you're kind of a cut up now. He goes, that's really what you should do. I know you want to be a comedian. That's what you should do. First person to ever tell me you should do that.

Yeah. So nice to have someone there to say something like that. I never had anybody tell me that. Everybody told me I sucked. My own mom told me she didn't think I should go into comedy because I wasn't very funny. I think that's more of a mom protecting her son. Oh, it was, for sure.

But for sure. But god damn, lady. My girlfriend does that. She doesn't want me to do comedy because she watches her friend do it, and it's embarrassing, and she feels bad. She's like, oh, you don't want to do that. She just doesn't want you to eat it. Watching somebody eat it is hard.

My friend Eddie, we've talked about that. I got Eddie to do stand-up nine times. He's a funny guy. He says really funny shit. Always. And I'm like, dude, you could totally be a comic. I'm like like within two years of fucking around and practicing you'll be open up for me on the road i'll help you i'll cut out

a lot of the time the development time like dude you could be a comic just listen to me i can help you it's like fucking yeah i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this and he just fucking this over and over the bombings were disastrous. It was so hard to watch. It's funny how people that we know that are funny and when they try, it's almost like they land on stage the furthest place from what really actually makes them funny and fucking interesting.

Yeah, well, they just don't know how to be perceived. They just get confused as to how they should be perceived. It's just they want to somehow fit this mold of what they think is going to be funny it's like the connection between them and the audience is so distant and fucked up and jagged there's barbed wire in the way they just it's for most people they don't understand that in order to be able to be yourself and get on stage and talk in front of somebody you have to like really know what the fuck you how you're coming off you have to really know yourself in the fuck you how you're coming off you have to really know yourself in a way that a lot of people aren't comfortable looking at themselves

yeah you have to you have to it's it's about being revealing and then finally not giving a fuck anymore that people don't like what they see and then you can slowly find the people that like what they see and build the last from there man and it's got to be a real not give a fuck it can't be i'm pretending to not give a fuck. You have to have mastered it to enough where you've understood the situation and you've assessed it and you've been objective about the whole relationship

between you and the audience over and over again so many times that you completely mastered it. And then you're comfortable with the experience. And then, only then can you go up there and just be yourself and fuck around and be funny. But until you hit that vibe, that one groove know you're just going up there going clunky do you make clunk you just please love me you're just like please what can i do to make a connection with you and

you get it like little bits oh it'll touch you a little but it doesn't grab you and hug you you know the beginning days like every now and then you would crack one bit that was like, ooh, it has something there, and people would laugh. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Like, I think there's something there. I think I'm touching gold. There's gold under here. Let me keep digging. Fuck, it's hard, though.

Do you listen to yourself a lot? Do you record your sets? I never used to until you make CDs and then you have to, which is brutal. And also, I remember listening to the first CD and I went, okay. At that point in my life, there was no real drama in my life. There was nothing, nothing dramatic about my life. It was pretty easygoing. A lot of my first stuff was very nostalgic and very kind of like,

this is the stuff I grew up with. Wee, it's fun. That's what I knew. And as I listened to that, I was like, all right, two things. First of all, when I listen to myself, like, I would say 40% of it, there's no words. It was just physicality. And that was when I started really getting passionate about vernacular and wanting to build up a, you know, language and paint better stories with words. better stories with words.

And not only that, but I started having things happen in my life, in my personal life, especially with my folks, that really were like, all right, you know what? I'm not a kid anymore who just goes up and talks about fucking or frat kind of humor drinking. It was like, I have real issues, real problems, but now how do I turn a corner and how can I, you know, it takes a while to be able to not reinvent, but like have a metamorphosis on stage with truth and like where you're at in your life. Do you feel that all the criticism that you've gotten, and I can say this for myself, all the criticism that I've gotten, even the stuff that hurts and even the stuff that was wrong and just, you know, hurtful, it helps me.

Absolutely. It's improved me. Even the douchebags have improved me because it's made me look at myself through their eyes and go, okay, do they have a point? What is it about me that's offensive to them? What is it about me that they don't like? And then you see it and you go, oh, okay, I can see how maybe I'm being kind of douchey.

Or I've had bits from my old CDs where I would like to go back and change it. I don't even want that being a representative of my thinking. I don't think like that anymore. Old specials that air and people just discover you and they're like, oh, is that what you do? Yeah. I go to England a lot and I love it over there,

but I had an old bit about just shitting on England, how fucking stupid it was, how the women are disgusting. And it was just a mean bit for no reason. I just met a couple English people I didn't like. I just wrote this crazy bit. But now it's like I want to say, like, I don't really think that way anymore. This is just douchey shit. Yeah, I definitely look back.

You know, no regrets because everything builds you up to where you're at. But for me, when it was like, okay, I finally hit and I crossed over. And I remember I knew I had a moment where I was like, okay, when all the DJs in the country were really talking about me, that's when I knew I was in trouble. That's when I really battened down the hatches and I was like, alright, I know what, two years from now, I know the way this is going to go, and I know the way it's going to come back. And you know what? I just took it. I took it all on the chin. I pretty

much fucking just kept showing up, doing my thing, because when the pendulum swings into the good area, it's going the same fucking direction in the other area, man. It's really... There's a real backlash for somebody who works hard to get attention. There's a weird thing about people. When you work hard to get attention, if you get attention and people like –

people love Dave Chappelle. One of the things they love about Dave Chappelle is he's very reclusive. He goes on stage like weird. He'll show up in a park with a fucking PA system and do a show. It's weird. But when people promote a lot and people get their name out there a lot, there's a backlash for that always. Why is that? I don't know, man.

What the fuck is that? I got that. I mean, I did that because in 1998, I was sitting around doing nothing for most of the day except waiting for sets. I'd just come out here, and I was watching a documentary on fucking punk bands. for sets. I'd just come out here and I was watching a documentary on fucking punk bands and they were showing them put up like, Hey, we're dragging face and like literally, you know, nailing their flyers to telephone poles. And I remember sitting there going like, this is what I need to do. Whatever the modern version of that is, I need to fucking build a fan base. I need to like some kind of grassroots thing. Cause I'm, you know, I don't want this to pass me by.

And then what do I have? I'm good at nothing else. I'm really shitty at a lot of things in this world. Really bad. I think that's the only way you ever make it as a comic. If I had other career paths, my other career path was brain damage. My other career path was kickboxing. What am I going to do?

Am I going to get brain damage for no money or I'm going to become a comic? Well, I don't have any other skills. I don't have a college degree. What the fuck am I going to do? I'm going to get brain damage for no money or I'm going to become a comic. Well, I don't have any other skills. I don't have a college degree. What the fuck am I going to do? I can't work. I'm a shitty worker. I would show up at construction gigs. I'd last two weeks, pocket the money, and then fucking quit. Fuck this. It's too hard. I would tar roofs and it was like half a day and I'm out.

In Boston, man, those people fucking work hard. You know that. There's an East Coast work ethic. Because of the fact that it snows there and it gets deathly cold in the winter, people are hard. Yeah. And you know that. There's an East Coast work ethic. Because of the fact that it snows there and it gets deathly cold in the winter, people are hard. Right. They fucking work, man. They get up at 7 in the morning and they're at work by 8 and they fucking work all day

in the snow, in the sun, 90 fucking degrees out, hammering nails. That's a hard gig, bro. Doing construction in Boston. And it's like, you know, you're doing that, but when you know those people are coming into your shows, probably why the guys boston and it's like you know you're doing that but when you know those people are coming into your show is probably why the guys before us it's like you better give them a fucking show fuck yeah you better get everything you got a really hard job where you come home tired and you've just been a guy who kind of went from college to comedy and kind of drifted through you don't appreciate people's attention spans true no yeah

people especially on friday night 10 o'clock show, they're fucking tired, dude. They're tired. Yeah. Those people worked all day and they've been drinking. Yeah. Comedy is such a fucking strange thing, man. It's so strange. It's like it is our connection with something.

That's what it is. It's like everybody's got their own connection to it. And everybody's trying to figure out how this guy connected and how is he connected. Yeah. But you're the best guy at connecting with the internet. You were the very reason why I started MySpace page. I read an article about you in People Magazine. I was at my dermatologist,

checking to see if I had a fucking staph infection because I do jujitsu. You get zits, you got to get them checked out because it might be staph. So I'm sitting there and I'm reading this article in People Magazine and it said you had 300,000 MySpace fans. And I was like, you fucking imagine. I go, 300,000

people. You could just send out an email with 300,000 people. I'm like, that's incredible. I'm like, that's fucking brilliant. So I started a MySpace page that day and I hired my friend Duncan to take care of it. My friend Duncan got a job and my friend Duncan's job was just add friends to the MySpace page and I'd send him blogs, and he put up my blogs and shit like that.

Right. I love it how attached you seem like you always are. It seems like you answer almost everyone's – like I've talked to so many people that you've answered like Twits or MySpaces or Facebooks. Are you really on the internet that much? Are you that – or do you have like a staff of dames? No, man. I never had anybody else log into my stuff ever.

It was always me, still. How much time a day do you spend responding to emails? Do you still use MySpace? No. Oh, even Dane Cook gave up on you, bitch! Sorry, Jerry. MySpace is over.

They fucked up. When Dane Cook gives up on MySpace, that's like tequila, tequila. That bitch is still on. She's still swinging. They fucked up, though. Isn't she? They don't take care of their home, man.

They don't. They don't. And they haven't touched it since. And there's so many stupid things like adding friend requests. It's too hard. They're not sexy anymore. Something else sexier came along that got it right. Facebook got it right by simplicity.

Not letting you put fucking glitter tags. And every time I go to your page, music starts playing. It's playing yeah and weird hearts fall that fucking freeze the page but you always had the best pages man like on myspace and just personally you do you do it your design yourself i used to do i learned html code man i bought like html for dummies because i literally had nothing to do all day and if i wasn't playing video games, I was fucking bored, man. I was bored and I wanted to – honestly, it was like, all right, this is politics. I need to shake hands. I need to kiss fucking babies because I want money and I don't want to live in this fucking shitty apartment with – I think like Don Barris lived downstairs for me.

Oh, no way. He would just be fucking screaming. Of course. Don Barris, for people who don't know, he hosts a He would just be fucking screaming at fucking the movie. Of course. Don Barris, for people who don't know, he hosts a thing called The Ding Dong Show at the Comedy Store

and it's all the most psychotic open micers. There's certain open micers that are like completely delusional and absolutely insane and their acts are just so bizarre that you can't believe they're real. Well, Don Barris puts on a show

specifically with those people and he's a fucking genius but he's always surrounded by nuts. And you were Polanski in Windy City Heat, right? I did, man. That was one of my favorite movies. That's one of my favorite things I've done. I just rewatched it.

I was like, holy shit, that's Dane Cook. Like, the first time I never realized it was you. I still have not seen that. I still have not seen that. Oh, dude, it's great. It's fucking funny. For people who don't know, they punked this guy for a whole movie, right? Yeah, Kimmel pretty much swept in, made a whole movie.

They pretended this guy was famous. The guy's crazy. I mean, they're basically taking advantage of a crazy person. He was always at the comedy store. The guy was always there. And they had this guy convinced that he was famous. And it worked. But basically, it's kind of sad.

I mean, they're picking on him. It is sad until you finally hear the stuff that wasn't in the movie and just how fucking evil he is. Oh, he's crazy. He's crazy. But I feel like movie and just how fucking evil he is. Oh, he's crazy. I feel like he's just a broken person. Yeah. Well, he's weird. He's a weirdo. He's broken. It's weird being a Facebook friend with him too

because he is still talking about that movie today. I want to read his crazy shit. I fucked up. I fucked up and Ted Haggard banned me. I was loving reading his crazy shit. I fucked up. I fucked up and Ted Haggard banned me. I was loving reading his crazy shit. Yeah, who's your favorite Twitters and people to follow on Twitter? Do you have any guilty Ted Nugents or anything like that?

I wish Ted Nugent was on Twitter. I tried to find him. He wasn't in there. Ted Nugent's not on there? No, damn it. Fuck. I got all kinds of crazy dudes on mine. I love it.

It's like a party that I put together with all these nutty people that should never be together. There's a thing called Flipbook now, too. You've got to get this app, man, on your iPad. What is it? Why? It's a fucking app that makes – you plug into your Facebook or Twitter, and it turns whatever your feed is into a magazine. Yeah. With the pictures in like a magazine.

So whatever the links are, it makes it like an article like Hollywood Reporter or People Magazine, and you flip through. Yeah. With the pictures in like a magazine. So whatever the links are, it makes it like an article like Hollywood Reporter or People Magazine and you flip through and then it's just like it'll be your fucking face with one of your quotes. You gotta see this, man.

It's cool. It's like some minority report type shit that's going on right now. It's cool, dude. You know what's also good is Pulse. I don't know if you've used that.

I got Pulse. Yeah, that's good too. Yeah, yeah. If you want it basic. I love the iPad. Great stuff. I've been working on an app too because that's the new thing, man. It's like, you know Yeah, yeah. If you want it basic. I love the iPad. Great stuff. I've been working on an app, too, because that's the new thing, man. It's like now everybody wants – you've got to be in somebody's pocket.

People don't even want to fucking log into a site anymore. It's like, dude, I don't want to mess with all that. Just be in my fucking pocket. We've got an app that we're working on right now for this podcast for Libsyn. Libsyn, the company that's hosting us, they make apps for you. So it's really cool. When they host your podcast, they'll make you an iPhone app.

Yeah, you have a couple iPhone apps or you used to have. I took them all off. I did have one with Zanl and those guys, which was great. They did an amazing job. But I got a company working on a new app now with just the whole push notification thing.

I mean, I think one of the best companies out there for when people are talking about promoting, how can I promote? I'm a musician. I'm a comedian, whatever. it's like these things like say now you know what say now that's a little you call up and leave a little voice message yeah but it hits everybody everybody who joins your say now if you send a text it's a hundred percent fucking guarantee everybody's going to get it you can go regional if you're going into new york do shows

you can hit new york with a say now voice message hey tickets today if you guys want to come see me it's last minute as opposed to myspace or whatever you're hitting like 0.04 percent of people who twitter like if they don't see that stream right 20 minutes later if you repeat it like and then everybody's like you're spamming yeah it's like promotionally when we want to get the word out that's like mailing list say now there's only a few people that i actually go to their Twitter page and read their personal tweets just to see. But you have to do that. You have to go back and like, oh, this is funny or this is a cool link. You have to go – there's no way you're going to catch it.

If you have like TweetDeck or something like that, there's no way you're going to catch it. How many people do you follow? Do you follow a lot of people? Like 70. That's it? Damn, I follow hundreds. I think I follow like 500 people. Yeah, I like to keep an interest to keep it more in it yeah and i was missing so much that like but now you can do lists i haven't done there's just so many people on there there's so many cool people

to follow right i love like seeing like religious people right next to porn stars yeah i love when they tweet back to right when it's all right there you're like this you feel like you're doing something to them by forcing them to co-work together. If this was a party, this would never fucking work if you invited these people to hang out. Yeah, I bring politicians and porn stars

and I try to just make it as weird as possible. Any fucked up person. Haters, I find a lot of haters and I add them too. All kinds of weird fucking people, man.

I will say this, I have every email that everybody's ever written me are you serious yeah i figured out like this method with mac mail years ago of like and i have everything in folders man it's kind of crazy but i have every military email i have every fucking like i have one called weirdos and it's just bat shit crazy you should publish a book on that i should man because i've had a couple of interesting stalkers dude i've had a couple of fucking really really yeah you want me to throw them a little shout out yeah like the story that we were talking about before the the uh we started

doing this that's one of the reasons why i won't talk about on the air yeah yeah them to know that it's that interesting right there's a bunch though they're sitting there right now going it's me it's that interesting. There's a bunch, though. They're sitting there right now going, it's me, it's me. My favorite was the Carlos Mencia mail that we got after that video. How much crazy, angry Mexicans. Oh, it was just terrible writing. I saved a bunch of them. I had a whole folder called Carlos fans.

It was just the most ridiculous messages that I got. They're shocking. Just shocking how dumb some people are out there. What's weird about the whole text messaging and everything, like somebody, I know,

I'm not going to say who it is, calls me all the time, never texts me. And I won't even answer the phone anymore because it's just like stupid questions.

I think the phone call is dying. I think to the point where, I would rather you text me. I like making calls in my car. Yeah.

I like it when I'm hooking up to the Bluetooth. I can have cool conversations when I'm driving for an hour somewhere. Just wait until you could text me. I like making calls in my car. Yeah. I like it when I'm hooking up to the Bluetooth. I can have cool conversations when I'm driving for an hour somewhere. Just wait until you can text though. No. Why would I want to do that when I can have a conversation? I like conversations in the car. That's silly.

You would rather text than have a conversation? Huh? Yes. Really? You're just some fucking weirdo. You are disconnected. My problem is I have a really weird creative head where I start thinking about something. If somebody calls me during that, I lose it.

I just disconnect my phone, man. Yeah, I know, but then I don't know. I'd rather be in this mode and go, don't do it. Then you're not committing. I told you that Right Room, that program that I use? This is what I do. I disconnect the phone. I shut off my cell phone. I tell everybody, leave me the fuck alone. I'm going to write. And then that's it. I go? Yes. This is what I do. I disconnect the phone. I shut off my cell phone. I tell everybody, leave me the fuck alone.

I'm going to write. And then that's it. I go back there. With Write Room, all you see is, have you ever used that? No. Shit, check this out.

Yeah, but like my mom. This is how I write. Listen, your mom is going to fucking suck it. Talk to my mom for 15 minutes. I want to shoot myself. Check this out. When you use it,

it makes it turn into Tron. This is all you see on your desk. Oh, that's great. All you see is green text and black screen. You can't access your task bar. That's smart. You can't do anything. The only thing you can do is you can quit.

That's smart, man. That keeps you focused. Totally focused. And I shut my phones off. Because if I write and I end up seeing shit pop up, ah. Yeah, or you just think, maybe i should just beat off and then you just go start checking out porn sites and spanking one off yeah i hear you're writing a book right now i'm trying yeah that shit's hard man that's one of the hardest things i've ever fucking taken on i'm writing one right now and

i won't let anybody help me you know people came were like, you're going to hire this guy and no one will ever know. And so and so used him. And I'm like, first of all, that's pathetic. And secondly, fuck. I want this to be the hardest thing that I ever accomplish. Yeah. I want to make sure that everyone knows that every word is in a certain order

because I wrote it. That's what it is. It's all of it. It's the best representation that I can come up with of my thoughts. But you're a great writer. I've read some of your stuff. It's like you don't need any help in that department. Well, thank you, but I think everybody does. I think you use, in the beginning especially,

you could use someone else's eye, someone else who sees what you're doing and has a different opinion on things. I think it's very beneficial. Yeah, I've given my stuff to friends or people that I trust to read it after the fact. So in that sense, they help. I mean, you get feedback. I think I'm definitely a better writer now because of all the feedback that I've gotten from people over the years.

It's like comedy in a way. But the thing is, it's like your connection with the writing. Sometimes it's such a hard thing to describe but sometimes the words come to you when you're writing you know when you're on stage you're performing and you know you know you'll you'll get in the groove and you'll bits will come to you out of thin air but there's something even crazier about it when you're writing because when you're writing sometimes i'll get through a whole paragraph then i'll go back and read it i go god damn where the fuck did that even come yeah yeah It's like it just came out of space.

It's like I'm in this weird semi-conscious state when I'm writing where you're just like so zoned into what you're doing. And as you're zoned in, the sentences just sort of form themselves in your head. And then they change their position and know this is in the beginning. And then you read it again and it offers you another perspective. It just all starts, it's literally like you're tuning into something that comes out of,

it's in the air somewhere. It truly is like the most incredible form of therapy that I can, I mean, after my folks passed away and people were like, you should go talk to somebody and I was bringing her on stage but I wasn't,

and then I started writing and then reading some of the shit that I was writing and realizing I don't even know i felt that because you just get in that fucking zen place where you're like i'm not even looking at the keyboard i'm just putting it out there and then you read back and you're like oh man i didn't realize that's how i connected those two things together or so i mean i love writing it's just writing a book is tough man it's very important for comics too there's a lot of guys who don't like to write. They just like to perform on stage, come up with funny ideas, which is a great way to do it. That way it does it.

But you're not going to get the best shit. Sometimes you're going to get ideas that come to you when you sit down and just write. And then you can take those ideas to the stage and fuck around with them and tweak them. But if you just try to go on stage, just come up with stuff on stage, it's not the same, right? Yeah, you have to have a little kernel of something. I mean, I can improv if I know what I want to go on stage, just come up with stuff on stage? Right. It's not the same, right? Yeah, you have to have like a little kernel of something. I mean I can improv if I know what I want to go up there with, but I hate getting caught just leaning. You know, when you're leaning up there going like, what else? You find it really hard once you do – I find it very hard once I do a special and then I know I have to do new shit and then I'm really like piecing it together.

And I'm always doing a million different things at once as you are too. Yeah. I'm always doing a million different things. So it's hard to fucking piece together all this new shit and then i'm really like piecing it together and i'm always doing a million different things as once as as you are too yeah i'm always doing a million different things so it's hard to fucking piece together all this new shit and then you got to do a new show and you're like fuck these people probably already see my special yeah you know just aired yeah fucking shit how much new shit do i got i got like 40 minutes of new shit bring that back it's 45 but i don't even like that bit you know you start picking things and i hate bringing stuff back that i've done before feels so wrong just feels rotten feels like you're a shithead you're cheating you're yeah you're robbing them or something like that unless they ask for it if people like scream for it and if i can remember it that's a problem like

someone will yell out like and nicole smith like i can't do it that bit's like seven minutes long and i don't even know i know i know some of the punch lines this may sound super fucking cheesy or something like bon jovi would do but during my last tour i would bring somebody up out of the crowd and i'd be like you know the fucking kool-aid bit because i haven't done it in 12 years and they do it they do it fucking thing and i'm watching them act out and they know the kick that i would do or the whatever physical thing and i'm just like this is crazy wow that's actually pretty fucking cool you know i started out doing comedy one One of the reasons why I did comedy in the first place was

reenacting comedian's bits that I saw on TV to my friends when I was like 18, 19. I remember there was a girl that I was working with. I was working at the Boston Athletic Club in South Boston and I was a fitness trainer. This girl that was working there had seen Sam Kinison on HBO.

She comes up to me and she goes, you've got to see this comedian. He's so fucking funny. He does this bit about – it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. She gets down on her stomach in the parking lot doing Sam Kinison's bit about the people having sex with – the gay guys having sex with the corpses. Yeah, yeah. And she's lying down in the parking lot at the Boston Athletic Club. And she's like, so here these guys are. This is how he does it.

Here these guys are. They're lying on the slabs. They're like, oh, my God. I'm going to go to heaven. I'm going to be with Jesus. And oh, oh, what is this? It seems like some guy's got his dick in my ass. Oh, you mean life keeps fucking in the ass even after you're dead?

It never ends. She did that bit for me in the parking lot, and I was howling laughing, and I instantly became obsessed with stand-up comedy and with Sam Kinison I was like I have to go I have to go watch this this is the craziest thing I've ever seen it took a long time to fuck I gotta get a VHS copy of it right and I finally got to see it I was like holy shit so that would you say with that that was obviously one of the moments that like defined your formative years in stand-up comedy yeah there was that and there was uh when I was a little kid, I was about 13,

my parents took me to see Live on the Sunset Strip. And Richard Pryor, yeah. Dude, my parents were hippies. And my sister was like 12. She went too, shit. And so we're in this theater, and I remember laughing so fucking hard, I couldn't believe it.

It's kind of funny about stand-up comedy, man, because Richard Pryor was one of the most brilliant ever for sure, but honestly, when you watch it today, some of it is very dated. It doesn't hit me the way it hit me back then. And that's the case with music. That's the case with a lot of things. Lenny Bruce is one of the greatest of ever.

One of the most important pioneers of comedy ever. It's very hard to laugh at his stuff now, because the culture changes. People's perceptions change, and comedy changes. And the comedy that you do today would probably be too shocking for people who lived it. It's like comedy is defined by its certain era. So if you go back and watch Live on the Sunset Strip today, it's not going to hit me like it hit me when I was 13. But when I was 13, I didn't know anything about comedy. I couldn't believe there was someone actually saying these things. And he was saying it so perfectly.

I was crying laughing. And I remember looking around at this theater. I'll never forget this. People were moving forward in their chairs and rocking back and forth. And I was thinking, I've never seen anyone laugh like this in a movie. And this guy's just talking. Right. I'm like, I was thinking about Stripes.

Because Stripes had been out at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is one of the greatest comedy movies ever. I'm like, it's not this funny. Nothing is this funny. Right. This the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one of the greatest comedy movies ever. I'm like, it's not this funny. Nothing is this funny. This is crazy. This guy's just talking. And that was the first big seed.

That was huge. That was just the seed of my fascination with stand-up. But until I got people that told me that I could do it, I did not think I could do it. I was teaching Taekwondo and fighting in tournaments, and these guys that I would train with, I would make them laugh in the locker room and on the way to tournaments, because everybody room and on the way to tournaments because everybody was

scared on the way to tournaments. We were all, we're going to get kicked and punched and shit. It's fucking terrifying. And a lot of guys got knocked out and you get to see your friends get knocked unconscious by getting kicked in the head. So there was a lot of like gallows humor on these trips, you know, we were just trying. So I would always be the guy that would like do impressions of all the different teammates having gay sex and all this different shit.

And that's how I got to talk to to doing stand-up comedy man but fuck it's um stand-up comedy has got to be one of the fucking weirdest jobs to ever enter in ever because no one could tell you how to do it yeah there's and trying to tell other people what it really is we could talk all day you just you know when you're you got to be in the fucking mix man when you're at the at your best when you're locked on on stage and crushing don't you feel or do you feel because this is how i feel i feel like i'm just riding it i feel like i'm a passenger you know i feel like i'm tuned into this whole thing yeah i feel like as everything's coming out and i'm hitting all the things it's almost like i'm just i'm just i'm on autopilot i mean i'm in some crazy groove where i'm getting to watch this and i'm getting to experience the words coming out of my mouth as they happen i have no idea how the fuck it's all

working so smoothly i really can't even take credit for it that's interesting because i like i can't speak anywhere near as flawlessly as when i'm on stage if i try to tell you a bit i will stammer i will fucking not remember and i can groove on stage sometimes like surfing where you're like i don't know how i'm staying up right in the wave for an hour just like there's that intensity that there's there's an intensity of communicating with people you know just like every cylinder everything in your brain just goes it just all fires up and it cranks there's that steve martin uh quote in born standing up where goes, I can feel it in my fingernails. I point out I can feel it in my foot the way it just moves and plants.

Every part of my body feels like it's emitting fucking stand-up. But yet he hated being a stand-up. Oh, my God. Well, what he hated is the adulation that came when he became immediately gigantically successful. And he couldn't get an honest response from people anymore. They would start screaming and cheering as soon as they saw him,

and he would do these gigantic arenas that he couldn't control, and they were just totally out of control. Which happens to a lot of guys when they get big. You know, Chappelle, when he was touring, he would be really frustrated after the Rick James sketch came out, because people would be yelling out everywhere,

I'm Rick James, bitch! He'd be in the middle of set-ups, I'm Rick James, bitch! And they couldn't kick out because people would be yelling out everywhere i'm rick james bitch he'd be in the middle of setups i'm rick james bitch and they couldn't kick out enough people it was just it was too nutty that's the that to me honestly when when dice was at his peak when i first you know was watching the hbo specials you know i watch young comedian specials and then he had that i remember feeling like how the fuck can i do this but not be a character how can i do this and be as real still be an entertainer still be on but be as much me so there's none of that fucking catchphrase right not to say people you you know everybody wants to be a little mark twain you want your shit quoted

yes but not like that right not like that not a t-shirt right do that weird feeling that, you know, it's also like when you are first starting out doing comedy. How old were you when you first got on stage? 19? 18. 18. You're looking at me. I was 21.

And I was not a fully formed person yet. You know? Right. So it's like, you know, when you're on stage and you're talking. I don't think I have yet. I don't know if I am yet either. I'm sure when I'm 60, I'll look back at myself now and go, what the fuck kind of shit were you talking, stupid? You know that feeling.

But I know that I did not have anything to say. There was no reason for me to be up there talking. I really didn't know who the fuck I was. I didn't know what I was saying. I could show you how to kick somebody in the face. I really didn't have any opinions that were valid on anything else i mean what the fuck what's my opinion on anything i could tell you something silly my girlfriend did once she was blowing me or something right i could you know that's it but other than that there's who the fuck are you

but you were and i threw off a little bit because you were saying like so then when chapelle started doing the bigger yeah shows because yeah even Steve Martin, he lost control of the fucking. Did you? How quick was the jump between you doing clubs and you doing these giant places, giant arenas? It was actually a slow but steady trajectory where when that web stuff. What happened was this. In 2001, my first real website that I put up in combination of Napster starting to get hot and me uploading all my shit to that with the link.

I literally uploaded clips with me at the end going, visit DaneCook.com at the end of every 20 second clip. Then Comedy Central, I did a half hour presents that I thought would air fucking twice. I'm like, okay. That was the one with you in the tank top, right? The tank top. Dude, I thought, all right, you know what? This will air a couple of times maybe.

I got to light a fire. I'm not wearing a bowling fucking shirt. I don't want to look like what anybody else did. I just want to do some crazy shit. Maybe people will fucking pay attention. Never realizing they were going to air it five times a week for like two years. It built my whole fan base. And almost immediately went from a few hundred, you know, Cedars to, you know, a couple thousand.

And then I'm doing all the college stuff in over three, four, five years. The emails, the instant messages, doing those schools, renting out the arenas at the schools, and it just built. How much time do you spend every day talking to fans, emailing, you know, Facebook and Twitter and all that shit? I'll tell you, man. I used to talk to everybody. I used to reply to everybody. That was at the beginning. That was like from 2000 to 2005.

That's really what I did most of my day. And then it got to a point where you don't need to read all the fucking crazy shit that comes back. There's just too many opinions and too much negativity. So it came down to I'm replying to troops if i get letters from like and i can check by the email somebody you know one of our troops writes or if it's like a kid i write back i've been trolling as a kid for years man don't don't assume don't assume you're talking to a real i've been talking to joe how great would that be if you pulled out a log? I'm writing a book. A 12-year-old gets advice from Dane.

No, but it took a while, man. It was not like everybody, there's that old expression, oh, it took 20 years to be an overnight sensation. It was a long time, man. It was not as instant maybe as some people thought. It's got to be satisfying, though, to know that you went out here and you did some movies and shit and some things didn't connect and didn't happen well for you but you did it all on your own.

Like everything was done through your own, you figuring out how to self promote. And you changed everybody's attitude about it. No comics are good promoters except, I mean there's a few. It's very rare. But until you came along no comics were really good at self promotion.

Totally changed my attitude towards you learned that from your father right i did man a couple things and i want to give credit to joe too and i told you this a long time ago like you were the first person to have a website not only a website but you had cool shit on your website man you had fucking cool designs and fucking and that is a direct result of my obsession with quake because i was obsessed with quake and i ran into this guy andrew who's this nut that i met online he's my quake clan this is how fucked up i was i'd have all these dudes online from like kentucky and oklahoma they would come and fly to california and stay at my house right this is when i was on news radio yeah i was on tv and dudes would come

over my house that i didn't know from that they were just my quake buddies and they would come over and stay at the house yeah i'm not bullsh, I'm not bullshitting. I had like five dudes come over to my house, and we had a LAN party. Wow. I was so obsessed with this that I put a T1 line in my house. Because back then, you couldn't get any fast internet. You'd get ISDN, which is not quick enough. So I said, okay, how much is a T1 line? It was $1,000 a month.

I'm like, let's do this. Okay, so they fucking have to install this business-grade internet line. That's why you beat me all those times. You're on a faster connection. You son of a bitch. That's why you beat me all those times. You're on a faster connection. You're a son of a bitch. That's it. That's all it was. I was completely wired to the gills.

We're on 33.6. It's your ping. Your ping time is what's important. You could be on 56K, but if you're really close to the server, your ping is fine. It's all really just how much you do it. Just become obsessed with it.

Sure. That's all it is. You start to know your frame rates and when you're going to fucking click and bounce. That's so dangerous. Getting really addicted to things like that, you will lose your life. Yeah.

Right? Do you worry about doing shit like that? Things that eat away your time? Relationships? Marijuana. Relationships? Marijuana doesn't eat away your time. How dare you?

No. Listen, for me, all I ever wanted to do was create. That's it. I don't have any other fucking abilities. You know, I really just, when I was a kid, I had that epiphany moment where I was like, all I really care about is being around performers, talking about performing, talking about, you know, making something from nothing.

And you brought up my dad. I was like, that's, my favorite conversations in life were with him because he was the kind of guy who would go, i don't you know you're a lot of talk dane i want to see shit and it was like he was just motivating man that's important man that's important having people that don't totally completely believe in you you know it is actually an important thing the mom was like oh i think you're the greatest you're the best she was so fucking uber supportive but my dad was like yeah you're I think you're the greatest. You're the best. She was so fucking uber supportive. But my dad was like, yeah, you're not really doing anything. In order for you to develop the kind of fortitude that you're going to need to get through the hard times,

you have to have something to prove. That's what I think. I think it's too hard if you don't. It's too hard to really push yourself. Right. If you don't have a chip on your shoulder or something to prove or some gap to fill, you're not going to do it. You're not going to get through that.

Think about all the guys that we started out with that were just as good as us. There was a lot of guys that were very commensurate. They were all really – And you think of them and you're like, what happened to that guy, man? What the fuck, man? That guy used to kill. He used to have this one bit and used to destroy. And I just could see that guy on Evening at the Improv.

I could see that guy headlining. And he just stopped. He stopped doing it. Girls, too. There was this chick, Leanne Lewis. I was an open biker with her. Do you remember her? Dude, she had some fucking good bits, man.

She was still trying to figure out how to go on stage. But as a comic, as a chick, too, especially, it was very honest and out of nowhere and well-written shit. I was like, wow, this chick's going to's gonna be huge someday she's gonna be like Ellen or just disappeared just fell off just where'd you go it's weird it's weird there's so many fucking so many slots so many people going towards these slots yeah

and some of them just it's just too far up the salmon ladder they just fuck this they just can't do it Dan you should use your Hollywood connections to get... John Hughes was just about to release the extra hour of planes, trains, and automobiles that they filmed right before

he died. What happened to that now? It's completely gone. It's probably all in the family. The family probably owns it, and they have to figure out the rights. If that's what he wanted, I'm sure they'll probably release it still. Why would they want to keep it? They've kept it for, what, 20 years? He wasn't going to release it ever, but then just recently he was thinking about it.

Oh, well, I don't know that. That would be so awesome. Unless it was in his will, who knows what the fuck's going to happen. I was telling you before that one Steve Martin moment that was really, because I had dinner with him a few months ago. He sent me a copy of his book. I was completely blown away by it. I'd never met never met him i heard all this stuff about him that he's kind of

like you know maybe not you know he's a little socially awkward all this shit and what a trip it is meeting someone that famous right meeting really your hero too which you don't want to do by the way you usually meet your heroes and you're like oh that was kind of sucked but with him i was like all right he sent me a copy of his book and i i i wrote back just to be like can i could i take you out to you know lunch and he agreed and so i sat down with him for a little bit and he's really really like i'm i can be shy i can i don't know about shy but i can still be like a little bit you know quiet but he's very much like he won't say a word i don't think if you don, if you don't start the conversation with him. Wow.

But he did say to me at one point, he goes, he looked at me kind of like perplexed, and he's like, you look like you really love it up there. And I was like, yeah, no, I really do, you know, when you're in the middle of it. And I started kind of, and he goes, yeah, I never had that. Wow. I go, never?

I go, not even at the, and he goes, I never had that. I never felt connected to stand-up. I thought that. Yeah never felt connected to stand-up. I thought that. Yeah. That's so strange. What I have least in common with Steve Martin is comedy. Isn't that crazy?

I wonder if he's just got some weird connect in his mind. Maybe he's depressed. Maybe a naturally depressed person. Well, if you read a lot of... I read a lot of the stuff in The New Yorker when he would write. Oh, yeah. It was depressing shit. Yeah, man. That letter to my father? Yeah.

That says it all, man. Read that. I was telling Brian this. I wasn't going to bring this up, but fuck it. When Phil Hartman was alive, Phil Hartman was really good friends with Steve Martin, and Phil Hartman was going to set Steve Martin up with what I call a coyote. What a coyote is is these really kind of

crafty, professional chicks that will fuck celebrity guys in order to try to get famous, try to figure out some way. This is pre-TMZ. Now it's like you really can fuck someone and all of a sudden become hugely famous. Like that girl, the Jesse James girl.

What's her name? Bombshell McGee, whatever it is. The Mel Gibson girl. Yeah, that girl. Exactly, exactly. And then all of a sudden that actually can parlay into some sort of a something. I mean, who knows what the fuck you can do.

But people have your name. They know who the fuck you are now. And she was one of those. She was just kind of creepy. She was like very insincere but really hot. Just really beautiful but, you know, just cunning. Put something vacuous there. And Phil was going to set Steve Martin up with her.

And I forget who it was. One of the cast members was like, that is the creepiest thing ever. He's like setting her up with a murderer. This is before, obviously, Phil's wife killed him. He's like, this woman, she's not into him. She's looking at it as an opportunity. She's like a little assassin. She's going to move in.

I was like, whoa, that is creepy. Then I started thinking of them as coyotes from then on. Because that's how coyotes look at your cat. They look at your cat and like, oh, look what we got here, bitch. I just got to figure out a way to get there. Those Sky Bar chicks.

You ever go to the Sky Bar? Once in a while. Cross the street from the comedy store. We would always go there because it would be really easy. You just walk across the street and grab a drink.

And there was always this conversation. Do you do coke? Sometimes. Always. That's the whole conversation. It's like producers trying to talk starlets into bed

and coyotes preying on balding Jewish men with money. I always hear, hooray for Hollywood. During all those fucking boring conversations. How much of a mindfuck is it when you actually met Steve Martin? When you're sitting there talking to him, isn't it like, holy shit, how does this happen? How can this be real? Am I really?

I met Gene Simmons. He came to my New Year's show. And I was like, Gene Simmons is at my show. This is insane. I saw Kiss a bunch of times as a kid. I saw them in the 70s.

My uncle used to work for Howard Marks Advertising, which was a company that did their album covers. So I got to meet Ace Frehley when I was like eight years old. So I got to see them when I was really young. I got to see them live in concert. Then I got to see them, Kevin James and I went twice in the 90s.

We were like, holy shit, two nights in a row, we're seeing Kiss. I mean, fucking huge fan. Yeah. So all of a sudden Gene Simmons is at my show and I'm shit in my pants. I was like really nervous for the first time in front of one of my crowds i mean everyone is there specifically to see me but fucking gene simmons is one of them i'm like an icon is going to be entertained by you i had to talk about it i had to talk about it right away i'm like if i don't get this out right away that's going to be fucking with my

head the entire time i'm on stage junior high school motley crew i was listening to you know shout at the devil and it was like, that was my anthem. And I fucking went and saw Motley Crue. And two years ago, I'm at the Laugh Factory, and all of a sudden, a madman starts fucking running around the crowd. It's Tommy Lee, and I found out he's my biggest fan ever. Wow. And here's the fucked up thing. I would go to Motley Crue and do Devil Signs, and I had the Sufi thing.

He's fucking doing what I was doing at his fucking show to me in front of the fucking laugh factory and i'm doing the same thing i'm going this is fucking wrong this is too fucking this is the matrix man i met tommy lee and i was so shocked that he even knew who the fuck i was i was like this is the weirdest he loves comedy man he's like he's into it no he's fucking he loves comics he wants to or he wanted to at the time, fight Kid Rock, and he wanted me to get him a trainer. He decided he needed to fight Kid Rock for Pamela Anderson's honor. Wow.

So he was talking to me about, like, who's a good trainer? I'm like, we can get you a trainer. Like, what, you want to do jujitsu? You want to kickbox? What do you want to do? You want to stand and bang? I mean, Tommy Lee and Kid Rock, that would have been one of the saddest fights of all time.

Didn't that happen, though? Like, at a music award? Well, I think somebody punched somebody. I think Kid Rock, that would have been one of the saddest fights of all time. Didn't that happen, though, like at a music award? Well, I think somebody punched somebody. I think Kid Rock probably punched him. Yeah. I think, I don't know who would win that fight, but Kid Rock, he's got that crazy white trash thing going on where you have to kill him. You know? You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Like, you know, you think he's down. You're like, we're done. We're fucking done here, right? Yeah, yeah, we're done. We're done. No! fucking done here, right? Yeah, yeah, we're done. We're done. No, and I fucking say something. Fucking hit you in the head with a bottle or something. He's out of his mind.

I would probably have to bank on Kid Rock there. Yeah, I'd go Kid Rock. But you know what? He's a scrapper. Tommy's a long, tall guy. If he's got a good straight right, if somebody teaches him how to throw it, he's a drummer.

Drummers have a lot of fucking endurance, man. All that shit, that's endurance. That's like a speed bag all day. Tommy might fucking box his eyes off. That might be it. You're right. He might stand in front of him and just, ting, ting, ting, ting. But Rock's a drummer, too.

People forget that he's a fucking drummer. Yeah. Yeah, but how much does he drum? He's a drummer like, you know. Not consistently. Like I play pool. Right. You know, he's not a goddamn professional.

He's not out there beating it for Motley Crue, right? No, no, no. He takes a lot of goddamn endurance to drum. You know? You ever try drumming? What are you doing? It's a fake sleeve. Such a silly fuck.

This is for the folks on iTunes. Fake Koi. He's got a fake tattoo. Is that a dragon? That was a stoner purchase. It was $7 for four different sleeves.

Oh, I got a whole shirt. I got a whole shirt like that. Somebody sent it to me. He's like, man, isn't this the fucking coolest? Like I would wear it. I was like, what are you talking about? It's tights. It's flashy designer tights.

That's all it is. It's like you're wearing a rash guard out. But I brought my falcon cuff. You know, like the Eddie Bravo falcon cuff. Joe, did you ever get to as far as just comics that you fucking dug coming up, did you ever get to do shows with like, I don't know, who your Steve Martin was or, like,

a Kinison or one of those guys? No. Dom Herrera is the closest. I got to do shows with Dom at the comedy store. That was big to me because I paid to see Dom before I ever did comedy. Okay. And for people who don't know, Dom Herrera, fuck. In the late 80s and the early 90s, he was a monster.

He's still a very funny guy. But for whatever reason, he doesn't get as much attention as I think his act deserves. But back then, he was really, really popular, and I paid to see him. I was living in Boston. I took my girlfriend to see him at Nick's Comedy Stop,

and I had never gone on stage yet. And all of a sudden, in Montreal at the Comedy Festival, I was like, I'm working with him. Holy shit. It was only like six years later, seven years later,

and whatever. It was really fresh in my mind. I was like, holy fuck, I paid to see this guy, and now really fresh in my mind. I was like, holy fuck. I paid to see this guy. And now I'm working with him. We're doing a show together. We're both on the bill.

It's like people are coming to see him and then they're coming to see me. Like, what? Yeah. That's great. But that's not like – he became a friend. He became normal after a while. But I never got to see my real – I got to see a few of my real influences live. I saw Hicks live.

I saw him live like four or five times. How was that? It was pretty wild. I saw him live when no one knew who he was. And here's an interesting thing for comedy historians. When Hicks, when I first saw him, he was very similar to Sam Kinison to the point where it was like he was stealing his essence,

I would say. Right. You know, like you would, you know, the Steve Trump thing. But it's a good, that's a good way of describing it. Right. When I first saw him, he was making Kinison-like noises and doing, like, sounds, like, in between bits. Like, the bit didn't go so well,

and he'd do this Kinison-like thing. I was like, wow, this guy has, like, connected the Kinsons-like thing. Right. And it makes sense because he was, like, one of the guys that opened with Kinison and followed him around the road. But he got out of that quickly. We all are influenced by other guys.

I know you had an Anthony Clark period. I had a Richard Jenny period where I stopped myself on stage and I realized I sounded like my cadence and everything was Richard Jenny. Because I was a big Richard Jenny fan back then. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I got to stop myself. But a lot of people don't know that Hicks had that with Kinison. was Richard Jennings. I was a big Richard Jennings fan back then. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I gotta stop myself. Ugh. But a lot of people don't know that Hicks had that with Kinison.

Everybody thinks it's Hicks, especially because he's dead, of this god who's an amazing comedian and very influential and very unique. But all of us have this weird thing where we want to be like someone we admire, and sometimes it sounds like it on stage. Yeah.

But he stopped that after a while. I saw him once, and sometimes it sounds like it on stage yeah but he stopped that after a while i saw him once and he had it like that and then i saw him again you know just like six months later and he didn't do any of that and he had a bunch of new shit i saw him do a headliner set at the comedy connection and then a headliner set literally like six months later and it was a totally new hour right and i was like wow he just it out, right? There's that moment we all have where it's like you just, something clicks and you finally realize,

all right, this is what I need to do or this is my voice or my truth or whatever the fuck it is. He, when you think about it, for a guy who's only, I mean, I believe when he died he was only 32 years old,

his ideas and philosophies and the validity of his opinions were so advanced. You know, for a person of that age, because really like most 25-year-old guys, he was 25 when he was doing a lot of his opinions were so advanced for a person of that age. Because really, most 25-year-old guys, he was 25 when he was doing a lot of his act, right? Most 25-year-old guys, you better shut the fuck up if you want to tell me how the world's running. Just stop. Just you don't know.

And don't give me any nutty fucking 9-11 conspiracy website bullshit. You're fucking, what are you, 24, dude? Really? Just don't. Don't. Don't tell me how to run the world. Let's grow a little. Let's get some life experience. Then give it to me from, you know, the perspective of someone who's actually seen something. But he was advanced, like 25, 26, 27, really relevant points and really good material. There's no bad period.

And when you look at his material, you know, it's like there was no period where it was bad. It got better and better and better. I think one thing that he really latched onto, and maybe it was after going through the Kinnison influence, was like, and I appreciated, was like this release of whatever emotion it seemed was going through him, he just allowed it to come out, even if it was mid other story or idea and i would just watch that and i i remember thinking that was like empowering yeah i was like wow this is a place where you can go up and you can fucking ring shit out and people you know with a joke i think it's like a good song sometimes you don't know the lyrics to a song you just love the fucking song you realize years later like i don't even know what they're saying here but it doesn't matter

and i think with some comedians it's like it's not even so much about what they're saying is how they're expressing something emotionally behind that those are the guys that i always watch i mean carlin of course prior it was like there was truth mixed with just humor just random ideas you know what i got to see too i got to see k Kinison become not so good. That was a fascinating thing. Kinison, who was my, the guy, remember I told you, that chick doing that thing in the parking lot, that's what got me into comedy.

I mean, literally, that was the bug. That planted it. I got to see him perform live after he had gotten really famous and really successful, and he would come on stage with the two girls and the whole thing, and it was like, I didn't laugh. He stopped being funny. He became like this caricature of this guy. You to louder than hell his first cd or whatever it was you listen to that still today and it's brilliant it's really good still but if you go and you know you look at like the stuff that he did like right before he died it's not good at all

yeah well he got caught up in that mtv wild thing You're right. It was like the trench coat became an out, like, it was like a costume. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Dice for a while kind of had the same thing going on too, where he became the Dice Man.

You know, the Dice Man was a character that he used to do on stage. Right. And he used to do these John Travolta impressions. Yeah. On the Young Comedian special. Yeah. Yeah.

That's where I really liked, thought he was really at his strongest. He was fucking brilliant. Likeable, charismatic. Yeah. I mean, when Dice burst onto the scene, I mean, I think I was right he was really at his strongest. It was fucking brilliant. Likeable, charismatic. Yeah. I mean, when Dice burst onto the scene, I mean, I think I was right out of high school. Yeah.

And I remember thinking it was the funniest shit I'd ever heard in my life. And then hanging out with that guy at the comedy store years and years later, and just like he's a normal guy. Right. But now he is the Dice man full time. It was a character, and now he's got this leather jacket on and the gloves on. It's full time now. I have a theory that it's like when you're a character, It was a character and now he's got this leather jacket on and the gloves on. It's full time now. I have a theory

that it's like when you're a character, not just a character, but look at any sitcoms or any fucking throughout history. If you play a character, especially with a weird name,

like if you're like a Potsy or like... A Bundy. Right? You like... But then you become, okay, I need to keep that hairdo.

I need to be recognized from that era. And you play into it. And that's frustrating when you see that. But it's why I never wanted to be a character, man. I was like, I'd rather change and not be as funny but still have certain fans. And I've had this happen. I've had fans go, dude, I like your stuff back when I first.

I know, but I was a kid. I was talking about kid shit. I was still new. It's like, if I didn't change, you would not fucking hang out and care at all what I was doing. Well, there's people that are going to like you at one stage of your career and not at another. And that's okay because that's where they are. They are where you were at that stage of your career. Exactly.

It's all right. Whatever. Sorry. I love that. Sorry I lost you. I got some new people along the way. I lost a few. I got a few stragglers.

That becomes what you crave, I really believe. Because at first you just want to keep my fans. I got to hold people along the way. I lost a few. I got a few stragglers. That becomes what you crave, I really believe, because at first you just want to, you know, I've got to keep my fans. I've got to hold on to them. I've got to make them happy. And when you let go of that and you realize somebody's going to check out for a while, and then I had a guy write me an email and he goes,

dude, listen, I jumped on the hate train or whatever. I didn't like you. I listened to Isolated Incident. I heard you talking about your folks, talking about shit that I've experienced. I'm back in, man. I'm hanging out. Back on the Dane train.

But that's cool, man. That's like people that can check in and out. Like, I respect that. You know, I do the same thing with music. I don't always like what somebody's putting out, but I'll always listen in. Chris Cornell is a perfect example of that. Exactly, man.

He was doing Soundgarden, then he was doing dog shit, and now he's doing Soundgarden again. Right. It's like, awesome. I'm still here, all right? I bought that other stuff. I just wasn't into it.

But, you know, go ahead. Take your chances. Who the fuck knows what makes the connection? If you don't take that chance, as soon as you start thinking about, like, wow, I have to do what they want, then you're fucked because then you don't even know what you're doing. It has to be what's inside of you. But that's how many guys do you guys see this?'s like that's why when people new comics come to you

out here and they're like what do i need to do i'm like get the fuck out of here you shouldn't come up here because you're gonna be like packaged and immediately like there's a stigma on you leave well there were so many guys at the laugh factory that became you um when you became became famous, when it was starting to happen, even when you were like packing Dublins all the time, I noticed so many guys that were like doing you on stage. I was like, wow, this is fucking crazy. It's like here's these guys that have noticed something that's working and they're just jumping on it. That's a fascinating thing to see.

You know, like a whole new wave. There's a wave of guys that came out of the La laugh factory, Joe Coy, that sound just like you. And Mitch Hedberg and Stan Hopes. There's all these clones of clones of clones. Yeah, yeah. Well, a lot of Mitch Hedberg guys, right? Yeah. There's a lot of guys that have that.

Oh, my God. And guys that were pretty good, good comics, but they're like, dude, you've got to stop doing that. Yeah, I know you're good. You have some good jokes, but stop doing that. I'm the cerebral. It's not just the cerebral. It like yeah yeah right it's like dude you're doing mitch headburn i'll tell you man it was it was fascinating to okay when it happened and it was like fuck i'm i'm famous i'm known people are talking about me when i'm not trying to fucking get something going and the dj

is like that was really they were setting this tempo. And then there were guys that you see come out, and it's a little flattering and weird when you're like, oh, this guy's kind of like me. And it makes you not want to watch comedy because you're a little freaked out by it. But then you know that, all right, a couple years down the line, as guys start getting frustrated, those same guys are the ones who would come out of the woodwork and say, oh, no, Dane fucking took from me. I was doing that shit.

That is true. That will happen. And guys will forget that they stole it from you. Right. That does happen. They'll forget that they got the idea to behave that way from you and they'll decide in their head somehow that they were doing it first. I've had guys that do that.

But you know, it's like you just nailed it. It's like you take that, you have a voice, you have certain people that you want to emulate, and then you figure out your shit and you grow out nailed it. It's like you take that. You have a voice. You have certain people that you want to emulate. And then you figure out your shit and you grow out of it. And I'm as kind of understanding and cool about that because I've been up, down, up, down. And it's like nothing's going to – But in the beginning, though, you don't feel that way. In the beginning, you feel like someone is stealing from you and you have to put a stop to it.

Because when you're not famous and you're struggling and you're coming up and you're just starting to do well and then you see somebody start ganking off you, you're like, hey, hey, hey, I created all this success at a hard work and you're just kind of like emulating it. You better stop doing that. You're doing what you saw be successful. You're doing a version of me. That's tricky, man. That's a tricky thing. It's a tricky thing because it just feels like someone – I mean, really, you got to

let them do it. I mean, look, if you become successful just through the merit of your own work, it's going to be really clear who's copying and who's imitating who. But it just doesn't feel like that in the beginning. In the beginning, when you don't have money and you're not, like if someone's doing me now, I'm like, look at this guy. Why are you doing that? I'm like, well, I guess that's what happens.

And it's kind of fucking flattering even though it's still, you know. But you figure they would be done with it. I mean, I was doing it when I was an open miker. I was doing it like it was a year in or two years in. I would hear myself sound like somebody else. But when someone is like doing it and that's their act on Comedy Central, you're like, okay, man. You took this too far. You have to do your own thing.

You have to have your own delivery. Yes. And you know what? It's funny because the first time in my life i ever ran in that was with you when we had you know it was like 1998 and joe called me up i remember i was still living in that shitty apartment and you're like dude there's a fucking bit that you're doing and it's it's like my closing bit i remember i was so fucked up by that not only because it was like you know i had a lot of respect for joe but it was like i don't ever want to be one of those guys

that gets you know put in that position. And I remember feeling like that was a defining moment for me because it was like, I need to talk even more about maybe not nostalgic things or things that are outward that I see, but things that are from me, that happened to me. It's hard, though, because especially if you're influenced by someone else and your bit is influenced by their bit. And even though you know it is, you know you shouldn't probably do it because everyone thinks that you kind of stole it. But it kills. And that's the problem when it fucking crushes. And it's all you have in life. And it's such a good bit. It's just you know you could go up there with this one and just fucking slam it in.

Yeah. But really ethically, it's almost like you have to find out what's good about that and cut it out and try to add it to something that you create. It's almost like you have to find out what's good about that and cut it out and try to add it to something that you create. You can be influenced by something and you're not even aware of it. You ever see where a lot of guys work together? We saw that at the comedy store a lot where guys would work together and guys would riff in the back parking lot. And then they would go on stage and it was like a battle over whose bit is this? Whose bit is this? We're sitting out like Stanhope had this fucking guy that was

opening for him this guy was a douche and he he would go on stage and they would whenever they would would fucking riff Stanhope would say a bunch of cool shit and this guy would go on stage and do Stanhope's cool shit yeah it's just like fuck man now I can't riff in front of you I can't just fuck around and come up with it but then when you're still two are doing it together and then you know you got to figure out well whose is this you know what's going on here you know or somebody like you you'll have an idea an original premise and someone will add a tag to it and then take your whole fucking thing and jump on stage they added a tag like no that's fucking it just came up with that to this day like bobby and al

because i've known i mean i've known al since i was a kid 13 years old bobby since i started uh bobby robert kelly and us three definitely i can hear it all the time bobby does certain things i'm like oh that sounds like me or all three of us because we started we spent so much fucking time together we formed our you know kind of comic uh cadences and all the tricks that you learned that those are the two guys that i can still watch and be like oh that's how we influenced each other. I have one friend when I come up with an idea, I have to walk away. I walk away and I say it in my head and I write it down.

But I don't say it in front of him because if I say it in front of him, I'm pretty sure that it's eventually going to go on stage. Oh my God. So I have to go away. I fucking really do that. Yeah. Yeah.

And the worst is the one friend that you have an idea and you start saying the idea and they try to top it and they start talking over you. Like, no, no, no, no, no. This is delicate. It's coming out of nowhere. It's coming out of outer space. Let me say it. Could you fucking imagine if, imagine if Oprah decided that she was tired of all this. Yeah, maybe she would do this.

Stop, stop, stop. Stop talking. If you talk right now, you're going to, I'm going to now, I'm getting a gift right now from the universe. It's like ideas, like crazy ideas sometimes will come to you like fully formed. But if you start talking and explaining it to other people and then someone jams in with their own shit, it's like, oh, it's lost now. Yes. Or if they start trying to get to what you're getting to because they kind of get a sense of it like they want to – Or wrong.

Territorial pissings. Or wrong. Or wrong. And you're like, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. And then like, fuck. I've lost all my momentum. Communication's dead. We should all text each other.

You're waiting that whole time for that? Brian, you're out of your mind. Chris? You just called me Chris again. Chris is your name from now on. Why do you think I'm Chris? The internet's going to call you Chris. You look like a Chris.

Is that MC Chris? Brian at the beginning of the show, Dane showed up and Dane goes, hey, Chris. And Brian's like, I'm not Chris. Why'd you call MC Chris? Brian at the beginning of the show, Dane showed up and Dane goes, Hey, Chris. And Brian's like, I'm not Chris. You always call me Chris. You always call me Chris.

I've been calling him Chris for like months. Very upset. And I told him, when you meet as many people as certain people do, you literally lose your space in your memory bank for people's names. Now you're Chris. If I don't see you for a month,

your fucking shit is gone from my brain. I don't know. You're that guy. Hey, what's up? We could have hung out, smoked a joint, went to a movie. I don't fucking remember you're Chris. If I don't see you for a month, your fucking shit is gone from my brain. I don't know. You're that guy. Hey, what's up? We could have hung out, smoked a joint, went to a movie. I don't fucking remember you, dude. Right. There's too many people in my head.

But they remember everything. Right? You remember, Joe? We met, and we hung out. It was the Galaxy Theater, and we all stood on the curb, and you're like, I don't fucking remember where this was. I have a friend who's famous who likes to fuck a bunch of different girls, and he's a complete pussy addict, and he doesn uh whole i mean he's a complete

pussy addict and he doesn't think it's a big deal and these girls aren't going to be attached to him i'm like do you not understand yeah i go you are you're in movies and people love you and they see you all the time and they they they're they're attracted to you and you're meeting all these people millions and millions of them and it's not a big deal to you, but to them, it's like, whoop! Like, oh my god, this is a guy who's in some big fucking giant movie, and his penis is inside my vagina. To them, it's like the greatest moment ever,

and you forgot her name already. Right. It's literally one of the top three things that they'll ever fucking want to talk about with their close friends. Yeah, I try to tell this dude, the reason why these girls go crazy is because they think you're in love with them. They think, you know, this is going to be like a love affair now

and you're just moving on to the next chick and, you know, you got to be careful of that, right? Oh, yeah. You're single? Girlfriend? I am, I am. No, I was with a chick for about five years

and about eight months single. So she was there for the big ride? For most of it, yeah. Wow. Yeah. What finally just drove the nail? Everything? A lot, man.

Yeah. Was she in the business? You know what it was? Yes, but I went through a lot of shit, man. My folks and then into my brother. You've had the roughest four or five years ever, man. Brutal, man. I'm surprised you're even functioning.

Sometimes I am too, man, because it really was – I lived to perform because my folks were just the coolest fucking people. But they got to see everything. That's what I've come to at the end of all the talking about it and figuring out. It's like they got to see everything I wanted to do. Do you find it's hard to date chicks in the business? Right now I'm just having fun. So I'm just kind of like doing whatever. But I would not want to settle down with a headshot, no.

That's it. That's why I have a no headshots policy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Seven-year period, a grace period. That's it, no headshot policy. After seven years, you haven't had a headshot in seven years? Okay, you're good. You're clear.

You're clear. You've escaped the spell. But there's Real Housewives of Calabasas, all these crazy bitches out there. They all wanted to be actresses. Yeah, man. I know I'm fucked up, okay? But I've figured out how to deal with my fucked up and make it work and be a fairly healthy human being. But I know that other people that are fucked up,

like the odds are, we're going to be able to talk and hang out and be cool with each other and make this work out and both be balanced. It's very hard. The odds are very, very small that you're going to have your shit together and we're going to have a healthy relationship.

Right. It's just like too many times over and over and again, you just deal with all these crazy people and all this psychosis involved in the, the auditioning process breaks people's souls. Right. Because this, getting this movie or getting this television show or anything they're

auditioning for could be the biggest fucking moment in their life. And they're freaking out and they're pacing around the waiting room and you get to see them go over their lines. Like it's, it makes, I went for for i read for a sitcom like six months ago i got nervous being in the room with all these people that were nervous right i was like i just want to get the fuck out of here like this is a terrible feeling you know i've got money i don't have to worry about shit this just seems like a bit of a fun job i'm looking at all these people like this is like their big fucking thing their big break And they're doing that every day over and over again,

getting rejected, getting rejected, needing that love, getting rejected, needing that love, getting rejected so close, but Nope. Final three.

No, no, no. And they're doing this for years and years. And this is already a person who's psychologically unbalanced, already a person who the reason why they want to be a performer in the first place is they want to be loved because they weren't loved as a child. So there's this incredible, horrible imbalance.

And they just can't quite connect. And then you start dating them, and it's like, look, man, you're not on a comfortable road. This isn't going to be smooth and relaxed and everyone's carefree. This is going to be constant psychosis. Do you think I'm good? Do you think I'm fat? Is this good? What, am I a loser?

Will you read lines with me? Fuck! All our friends are like that, though. Yeah, but I'm not dating our friends. Shit. Yeah, but they still have that same kind of fucking doing that five times a day, every day. Yeah, but they have success as comics.

That's the difference. Guys like Joey and Ari, yeah, they're going to auditions all the time, but they're also killing it on stage all the time. They're doing comedy all the difference. Guys like Joey and Ari, yeah, they're going to auditions all the time, but they're also killing it on stage all the time. They're also doing comedy all the time. And Joey's always getting acting gigs here and there. And Ari's always getting commercials here and there. They have an outlet. So Ari's doing well.

It's the people that are not making the connection. And girls, too. If you're a girl, man, it's a natural feeling, I think, for a girl to want some sort of male companionship and protection. For a woman to be by herself, comes here from, like, Omaha, Nebraska or something. Right. And she's going to be incredibly insecure, like a cork in the middle of the ocean, by herself anyway. Right.

Doesn't have any friends, committed to this acting thing. And then just rejection, rejection, rejection. And then it's just their whole childhood thing that dragged them there in the first place. Then you come along and you're like, hey, would you like to go see a movie? Like, you don't even know what the fuck you're getting into. Right. You're just their whole childhood thing that dragged them there in the first place. Then you come along and you're like, hey, would you like to go see a movie? You don't even know

what the fuck you're getting into. You're just opening up the door to hell. My ex was one of the classic cases of everything that I didn't know until after the breakup,

everything she always said she hated, she became. Like literally every fucking facet. That's why they hate. They hate, I mean what they hate actually is what they're afraid of in themselves. Right?

Yeah. But it's tough because then people go, you know what? Like people that are further along in this industry, when I'm always like, what's your gem? What can you, you know, what can I learn from you? And they go, yeah, you don't want to be with a girl who's in the industry. But then you're like, if somebody who isn't, how do they really fucking understand the bullshit that I then have to deal with?

Right, right. So what's that middle ground? Who's that girl in the middle? Well, you can find girls in the – I've met girls in the business that are really cool. It's just really rare. There's a lot of them that are just really normal. Yeah, I know one. They just like acting.

I am kind of dating a girl now. But after what I've been through, you're kind of more trepidatious because you're like, all right, if that's going to build up for that one. I like how you threw that in there. Trepidatious is a very rare word. Oh, thank you. Trepidatious. That was strong. Thank Oh, thank you. Trepidatious. That was strong. That was a strong move.

Charlie Murphy. Yeah, there's a lot of people who do think that you can't find someone in the business. But you can. It's just rare. You can't rule it out. But as a rule, if you're going to have an ethic, it should be a no headshots policy. Find some normal chick. I have a head and butt shot policy.

I like the way he threw the little gulp in the middle. That's Brian. He's always got to do something like that. Just to make you go, Brian, Chris. Now that you've done, how many specials? Four CDs, a couple of specials.

When you do it now, do you give yourself a specific amount of time? Like do you do a special and then say, all right, now I start fresh with all new material. And within like X amount of months, I do a new one. This is probably the first time in a while that I'm not putting a time limit on it. I mean I used to. It was like every other year and then you're preparing during that time. But it's like i'm just i'm doing it for the first time in a while really just enjoying it it's not a machine it's not like i got a fucking top as i gotta make my it's like i'm okay now i'm in a good spot my fans are happy i'm you know i'm happy i'm balanced

you know after some crazy you know years i'm just trying to have fun i'm just trying to enjoy it man yeah yeah because that's the thing you guys it's like i had this moment was like i had a good year when i hit where i'm like this is dream come true time and i really did enjoy it and then it was like i you know took care of my family and you know i had money and and then a lot of stuff happened so i you know a lot of stuff happened whether it was like internal from you know comedians or whether it, you know, a lot of stuff happened whether it was like internal from, you know, comedians

or whether it was, you know, my folks being sick or all the shit. Dog shitting everywhere. Yeah, dog shitting and getting evicted. It was like, I didn't have time

to just be a regular like person and process everything and so that's what I've really done the last year since I got off the show. Do you find that,

I find that it drives me really crazy when I come up with a bit and then I put it on a special and then right after I fucking film it, I have a way better tagline. Oh, man. It drives me nuts.

Yes. And I'm like, I let this go too quick. I should have worked on this. Part of the process of developing material is you got to do a bit over and over and over again

until you find the rhythm of it, until you find, you know, the natural order of the words. And it's never done. No, it's never done, man. That's one of the great things about those guys in Boston, the untold story of why they were so good is those guys had the same act forever. Right.

I mean, a lot of those guys, unfortunately, kept the same act for years and years and years and people actually grew to expect it. They would go see Steve Sweeney, who was fucking brilliant, but it was the same brilliant, you know, 20 minutes that you had seen 7 years ago. And they had it down. And they had their act and it was a fucking machete. And it would just slice through the crowd.

Like Terminators? The timing was just perfect. The timing was just deadly. There were so many of those guys then too. Yeah. If you come out with a bit and you don't really develop it enough, it's like maybe you didn't quite get it out the perfect way. People love new shit.

That's more important to them than anything. But you want to like, God, you want to make sure it's done. Yeah. You want to make sure it's really done. I kind of was like a few years back fell into this routine of like, you know, maybe it's never done and maybe it's always kind of evolving in something else and that's okay maybe it's just again more about who i am because i loved guys like even johnny carson growing up i don't know

what the fuck johnny was talking about half the time when i was a kid but it was like this idea of oh you're attracted to this this person and there's something glamorous about stand-up where you can't go anywhere else except for maybe what we're doing here today without somebody impeding on it and like editing it or some standards and practice. There's always somebody fucking with you except comedy is glamorous because you can say whatever it is that you want to say. And that's one of the things that I love about this podcast too is this is, this is so, look

how easy this is. Yeah. We just have a couch and a webcam and a fucking table and a laptop. That's it. That's all it takes. And a flashlight that you can fuck. And a flashlight that you can fuck and some microphones. And no one can tell you what to do.

And look, it's not polished. We don't edit it. We just fuck it. It's just a conversation. It's a conversation every week. You might like it. We hope you do. But no one's fucking with it.

And it becomes itself. Other people digging their fingers in it and that i'll take this over any like any even like whatever reality like everything's so processed and so fucking prepared right that why can't something be a little ragtag a little messy and real yeah and maybe a little uncomfortable and really you know have an amazing moment well for you i think this is very important because i think you're a very misunderstood guy and the ability to express yourself for long periods of time will get a chance for someone to see your real personality as opposed to this projected image that they have of you.

I get that. Yeah. So this is like a great medium because if you're doing like a fucking Tonight Show set or something like that, you're sitting on the couch, you're talking for seven minutes, to me it always feels like it's over. That's it. It's over. It's like I don't even know.

Who was I? Was I me? Did I get it out right? Did I fucking force this to try to be funny? I'm seven minutes. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah.

So nobody really, I mean, this is a fantastic opportunity that we have today to do something like this. This didn't exist for performers of other generations. I mean, the ability to let people really know who you are. Right. Warts and all. This really know who you are. Right. Warts and all. This is exactly who we are. And seeing comics and however many entertainers like

go from this to getting that fame or fan base or whatever it is without anybody in the middle of it, without managers and agents. And it's pretty incredible, man. Who's that kid, Bob Burnham? What's his name? Yeah, Bo. Bo Burnham.

Bo Burnham. Bo Burnham. He's like 18 or something isn't he a really young kid yeah I had him open for me in New Hampshire he's killing them

everywhere he did a bunch of shit on YouTube and people loved his songs on YouTube like comedic songs and all of a sudden this kid is fucking

packing places right I mean it's incredible just because of the internet no one had that kid that was on Ellen that kid that sang that paparazzi song

right the Lady Gaga song, was brilliant. It was at a school talent festival or something like that. And this kid was fucking brilliant. And now he's got a record deal. It's amazing. It's like you instantly can connect to people that just weren't available before you. Before you had to go through magazines.

But let's be devil's advocate for a minute. Because how fucking quickly is that kid fucked up now? Oh's done because there's no it's like he's out of that fucking plane no tandem jump for him no fucking let's do a thousand hours 11 right isn't he 11 or something like that so he's 11 that's the scary there will be a certain chew him up spit him out process with some of these people that you know that make it through there it's like people who win the lottery most people who fucking play the lottery are like fucking got nothing. And then you see that documentary on HBO, you see Lucky, about these fucking people that hit the lottery.

They're nowhere near prepared. People who are already rich know how to have money. People who have nothing and then get rich get fucking crazy. Yeah. Crazy. They get nuts. When I got my first development deal, my manager thought I had a gambling problem. Right.

And it was because I was buying lobster like every night. I was just eating like a king. That would be nice. I got a fat check and I just went off like a rocket. I was spending like 10 grand a month. And he was like, what the fuck are you doing? I'm like, I'm having fun, bitch. The first money I ever had and the dumbest thing I probably ever did was I logged logged in, and again, this is when the internet, like 56K modem,

I logged into like a poker fucking website. And I'm like, I'm going to play poker. I'm pretty good at poker. I lost five grand on my underwear in about six minutes. Literally in the middle of the fucking night. I remember pushing my IBM ThinkPad away from me going, I can never do this again. Wow.

Five grand like that. Wow. I love internet gambling. I love the idea. I'm scared that it's fucking rigged though, man. It's totally rigged. It's totally rigged. It's got to be, Joe.

Come on, man. I wonder because you can play guys on Quake and they'd be bots and they would never miss. They would just destroy you. Like literally 100 no, you would never come close to miss. They would just destroy you. Like literally 100-0, you'd never come close to them. They would know where you were at all times. They'd know exactly the right weapon to use because they weren't really playing. It was just a computer simulation that was playing perfectly.

These poker things, not only that, but who's to say somebody isn't playing and has a screen open of best odds on hands and anything else? Or hackers that just haven't been caught that are sitting there like Call of Duty behind a wall and watching your hand.

Oh yeah, for sure. I used to play chess online and I'm like, some fucking fag is going to have a chess fucking master thing opened up. And he knows 10 moves ahead already. You know what though, for chess you shouldn't even care. Let him cheat. Go ahead. It's only going to make you better. When you're playing someone in chess, worst is to play the tough tough people the

worst is scrabble everyone's addicted to scrabble apps and facebook scrabble there's so many websites you just sit there and you type in what you have what they what's been placed and they'll tell you the best word you know from the dictionary is 12 points so play scrabble play old school just a table and some people sitting around that's the way. We live in a society where people feel victorious when they figure out the best way to cheat. Yeah. That's victory. If I can figure out how to out-cheat you, I'm fucking great. I'm more amazing than you at something.

It's fucking insane. It is pretty interesting. But think about the Russian mom, how much money the Russian mom has made by cheating, made by getting people's credit cards, made by hacking things, made by doing that. It's like when you realize the actual numbers involved, like it's, you know, it's fuck. It's a branch of business. Yes.

I mean, it literally is a branch of business. Duping. Duping people is a branch of business. Ripping people off, ripping off their websites, hacking into their shit, getting credit card numbers. It's a branch of business. I mean, it's like this is sophisticated shit. You know, this is being, sophisticated stuff being done on a high level.

Whenever you're going to have any sort of a situation like that where there's kind of an open door and there's programs, you can run programs in the background, think about how many goddamn viruses there are. I mean, viruses and key loggers and just fuck, man. And everything's going into the cloud, man. Everything's going. It's Skynet, dude.

It's happening. Totally happening. Google is Skynet, right? Google is, I use it for fucking email. I use the Chrome browser. There's a whole bunch of websites dedicated to that, too. Everything's, that's kind of weird, man. It's freaky.

When you think about, like, pretty soon everything, access to everything, all the time. And computer power is exponentially increasing. So the kind of programs, the kind of things that computers can do is going to change drastically over the next few years. But I watched a thing on Dateline the other night. It was about a woman who fell for the scam of like, contact us. There's a million dollars in a bank account and yeah and i couldn't believe it it's like this woman was like oh i'm three hundred thousand dollars down because they keep writing me saying we need more money to get the money out who and i get those

all the time dude people are crazy you ever write them back sometimes i'll write them back just for the hell of it just to be like i'm in a whole email folder that says scams and it's just conversations that i have with fucking Nigerian terrorists. That's a book, dude. You've got to post that shit, man. It's fucking weird how many I get. I get at least one a day. At least one guy a day.

Good evening, sir. I represent the Bank of Newcastle. And we right now have a situation. They don't know your name, but they know dear sir or ma'am. And you're like, wow, this must be... If you could possibly help me, there's $3 million in cash here. I'm looking for someone who can come up with a small deposit

to get out the box. That's it. A lot of people get fooled by those Nigerians, apparently. It's a fucking lucrative business. A lot of people get fooled for those keys where you think it's Facebook and you type in your username. Every day, a new person on Facebook or something like that.

Yeah, phishing sites are big, man. Look, people are fucking crafty. You gave somebody my phone number, remember? Some dude you thought was really Cliffy B. Oh, that's right. I started getting phone calls. I'm like, what the fuck, Brian? I was like, I thought it was real Cliffy B.

That was a good trick, too. Well, it was not a good trick. You really should have looked at the address. Well, I mean, if it tricked me, you know, it's a little bit better. It was new. It was on MySpace. Somebody made a fake MySpace account. You became a Cliffy B fanboy.

Copying everything. You were a Cliffy B fanboy, and you didn't pay attention to the actual address. Whatever. He got you. They cloned his website. You got God. You got God, man. You got God, son.

At least I didn't Twitter my phone number. I did Twitter my phone number, but I thought it was- Last month. You thought you were DMing someone? DM to somebody, yeah. Oh, God. I fucked up. But I kept it as a fan line.

It's fascinating. I just turn it on in the middle of nowhere and just start answering calls. Joe Rogan fan line. Right. I just start talking to people. Get the fuck out of here. That's why you got to get Sane Out, man. Yeah, it sounds like an awesome thing.

It's the coolest shit, man. That app is great, man. I will get it. I will get it tonight. They can ring your phone. They never fuck out of here. That's why you got to get Sane Out, man. Yeah, it sounds like an awesome thing. It's the coolest shit, man. That app is great, man. I will get it. I will get it tonight. They can ring your phone. They never know your phone number. Really? You go live.

I do a thing. I go live. You hit a button, sends it to everybody, and then they can just call a radio station like this rolling. Are they located in San Francisco? Is their headquarters located in San Francisco? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah.

Because I met someone who was trying to get me to do that years ago, but of course I blew it off. No, you should do it. Yeah, no. I'm on it. What other things do you do for promotion? How many different things are you involved in when you promote yourself? Just a few.

Just a few, man. No, I do the, say now, obviously Facebook, the Twitter stuff, but not a lot, man. Those are like the, I don't do four, I don't know what Foursquare is. I hate that shit. Why would you want it to be that? That's ultimate stalker. What is that? Hey, I'm at Applebee's.

Here's the exact location. I am here right now. Oh, that's what that is? That's nutty. That's not going to happen. What is that My Location stuff? Why are people into that? Why would you want to do that?

There's an app on your iPad where you can just sit here and put your address in. It'll show you all your neighbors who have Twittered or at least who have said yes you can use my location that's in twitter you can see who's in your neighborhood is twittering right now it's ridiculous

yeah that's creepy there's like I just read there's like 45 apps right now in the app store that have code in it so that people can log in and get your contacts list

really? Jesus Christ yeah that's incredible a 15 year old kid put up Handy Light two weeks ago. Yeah, right.

Right? And it was a tethering. Yeah, it was a tethering program. There's like 45. That's how many they admit. There's like 45. You know what's crazy is what's even worse is Android. When I had Android, there were so many bad rogue apps.

Like, I downloaded a weather app, and it was just supposed to give me the weather. And it was like, this is going to take your contact list. You know how it gives you the warnings of all the things? It was like five different things. I was like, why? to take your contact list you know how it gives you the warnings of all the things it was like five different things i was like why this is a weather app why does it need my contacts this is how much of a fucking scoundrel i am right now when you're single again i had a girl call me randomly and because i know my numbers out there sometimes and people can you know people do post shit it's like you change your number once in a while so i middle of the night i'm like hello you know giggling and is this dane and i'm like

yeah yeah what's up where'd you get this number oh my god oh my god and then finally she sounded so hot that i was like like where are you guys right now i was like age sex location how old are you guys they're like oh we're 22 i'm like you are you guys in la what's up send a picture so when you're single again you're like there's hilarious there's no laws that govern me at this point why not right yeah

fucking take full advantage of this crazy magic trick you have doesn't it feel like a crazy magic trick yeah man it feels like as long as you recognize

it's a magic trick the real problem is when dudes who have the magic trick don't think it's a trick I think I am this fucking special yeah yeah yeah

you know that's an easy soup to start drinking right no I never forget and go I was the guy that couldn't damn, this fucking special. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that's an easy soup to start drinking. Right. No, I never forget and go, I was the guy that couldn't fucking get it done, man. I had no game. I had no fucking approach. So, yeah, I'm constantly reminded.

It's a very strange thing when people are under the spell. You know, when they're looking at someone famous and you see that their heart's beating fast and their hands are shaking. Yeah. It's like, wow. Just because they've seen your image broadcast somewhere or they thought you did something that they enjoyed. Oh, man.

That's how it would be with Steve Martin. If I ever met Steve Martin, that's how it would be. Yeah, Steve Martin. Be like Pantaleone in Matrix. You just want to believe that steak's real. Fuck it. I don't care if it's fucking that real. Still to this day, I'll go back and listen to Let's Get Small.

I'm like, fuck. Especially for then. When was it? Was it like 78 or something like that? Right before The Jerk, right? Wasn't that right before The Jerk? Yeah. Fuck, man.

And he told me I was asking about The Jerk. Because as much as I could, I was like... Once he warmed up, I was like, tell me a little about The Jerk. And he was like, I was just driving to the gig every day with Kyle Reiner. And we're like, is this funny? Is this funny? They were just doing what comics do. And then get to set and make it work.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. They were like, we had no clue what we were doing or how big that was going to be. I want to know what happened with him. Because there was definitely a point in his time, kind of after Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, around Grand Canyon times, where it seemed like he just stopped playing Steve Martin and started acting like an old man or something.

Like, no more crazy. He was forcing the crazy. What's your feeling on that? Don't a lot of comics want to be like, you've got to take me serious. A lot of comics go through that phase where it's like, I'm a serious human being. That can happen. Stop smoking weed. What about that weird thing where comics want to be taken

seriously and they start making points on stage that aren't funny? Yeah. i worked with this comic once i'm not gonna say his name but he's a political guy pretty famous guy and he did this line and then he said that usually gets an applause break and it wasn't it wasn't even remotely funny it was some silly fucking democrat versus republican point that should be obvious to anybody's paying attention. And it was just like, wow, you're going for that?

They lose this perspective and all of a sudden they start thinking that they're this voice of reason that people need to hear. They're like, come on, man. You're supposed to just be funny. If you don't have anything funny to say about a subject or if it's not setting up something funny later, I understand if you want to get a point across or give a perspective that may not be funny, but it gives us your point of view so I understand what you're talking about when you say some funny shit later. But if you start preaching, that's a fucking tricky thing, right? Yeah. No, no. How many guys have you seen do it though?

A lot, right? Yeah, yeah. And it seemed like there was a phase, not as much now, but a few years ago, where everybody was trying to do that. Where everybody was like, this is the point in my act where I'm going to dim the lights and do Bill Maher real talk. Right? It's like, ugh. Hilarious. No, I'm there for fucking yucks, man. I'm there to make you laugh your ass off.

I'm there to make you escape for a little bit. There's a lot of fucking guys that do it a thousand times better than me, but I figured out how to do it my way to where I can entertain you and we can all forget about the real hardcore shit for a little bit. That's all I'm supposed to do, man. Yeah. Really. If I can do some flicks, if I can produce some TV stuff, great. I love comedy that doesn't have to mean shit. Joey Diaz is one of my favorite guys to watch ever because everything is up my ass and my balls and my dick.

Shut up. Suck my cock. That's Boston. That's so Boston too. Everything ended up up the ass. If you had no end to your joke, it ended up up your ass. I appreciate like really deep thinkers and I appreciate people with really fascinating points of view. But for the most part, a lot of that stuff is not funny.

A lot of that stuff really – it's almost you're disrespecting certain topics by doing them on stage. I mean, you can kind of like brush on it and kind of like dabble in it, but if it's a really fascinating subject, it's something that needs to be explored and it's not going to be funny. But just for flat out funny, I like

stupid shit. Like a Joey Diaz type guy. That's the kind of shit I laugh at. I want to laugh at someone. I love good writing and everything like that, but I love just as much Joey Diaz. He's got this joke about transvestites. He goes, I love transvestites. They cook. They clean.

You can beat on them every once in a while. The cops come. Who are they going to believe? Me or some dude with a wig and a black eye. That's like just bang, bang, bang. It's just laughing about transvestites. It's a fucking tremendous joke. But you know what I'm saying? It's like that's the kind of shit that will make me clap and laugh,

and then hours later I'll be at the diner eating, clapping, and laughing. You know, it's like that's my favorite kind of comedy. I like just stupid shit. That's why I like old Steve Martin. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, old Steve Martin was awesome what are your favorite comics that work today

I just watched Burr again on Letterman I think Billy's just like he's one of the funniest guys out there and I think he's like he's an architect man he gets out there and he fucking figures out and he's just funny it's just about fucking being funny.

And he's not going to use his power to do that. Try to get later. Yeah, just a funny cat, man. It's all pure. I liked watching Chappelle before he kind of disappeared. I always appreciated watching Dave get up and just work. As a guy who's on the same level as him, fame-wise, does it freak you out that he doesn't fucking perform in these big places?

Does it freak you out? Aren't you like, why these big places? Does it freak you out that, like, aren't you like, why don't you, like, let people know where you're gonna be, man? Why don't you do more shows? Like, he's one of the best ever. One of the best ever right now, and it's so rare to hear him perform. Listen, I don't know Dave personally, and so, like, I don't have insight, but just from what I hear, you know,

he's just, he's got some stuff to work out, you know? So maybe he's just not in a place where he can face that head-on. I know I'm putting it rather delicately. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I mean, I heard that crazy story about whatever the hell happened on the airplane where they had to land somewhere, and the pilot thought that he was a hazard to the flight,

so they landed early. That's extreme. That's extreme stuff. I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I met him when I did the Kame Clubs in new york and i did this appell show twice and he says so he's been a cool dude but i never got to know him deep yeah i don't think he's like that though i don't think a lot of people know him really personally he's kind of you know living in fucking utah or somewhere and just i oh yeah yeah yeah it's strange huh yeah but you know

that's one of the things that i said also that I think people really love about him is the fact that he is kind of reclusive. He is kind of like the reluctant star. And one of the things that people will, like, go after you is, like, that you already have attention. So they're like, why does this fucking guy want more attention, you know? Right, yeah. Like, you're a fucking attention whore. Look at this attention whore.

Shut your mouth, attention whore. Yeah. You know, it's like that's what it is. It's like people think that, like, when you promote, if you're self-promoting, that somehow or another you're doing something to them. Sure. Do you get that? But it makes sense.

Stop fucking spamming me. But any level of success and what I've learned having, again, slow but short trajectory is like there's always more people that don't like what you do than like what you do. And that's it. And you just attract more, more of people that like you more don't like you will be attracted to you and tell you, of course. I mean, like I said, I'm totally hypocritical. I hated a serious man. And I went on Twitter and I'm like, seriously, fucking sucked. You know, if somebody could have seen me, you know, perform and, you know, did the same thing, but that's okay though. You've got to realize that there's a lot of music that I fucking love.

If Mrs. Rogan gets in the car with me, she's like, what the fuck are you listening to? I'm like, I was made for loving you, okay? You don't know this? You don't know this fucking song? Somebody like Chappelle, though, regardless of what he's dealing with. When Steve Martin did

Arenas, Steve Martin was doing also, he wasn't doing like when people say like arenas today yeah i'm doing maybe 20 000 people that dude was doing fucking 60 000 people in an arena where he was partitioned with no screens nothing man mike white suit dot on the other side of the place so you understand but with me it's like i have the most amazing like the guy that comes out my my road guy al dotley he did zeppelin he did elvis he's got all the gadgets we put screens we make you feel like you're in your living room i go in the middle not because i want to be a gladiator because it's four theaters at any point it's easier to be close to people from the middle. It wasn't like a thing

where it was like, yeah, by being in the middle, I'm the rock star. No, it's like, I need to be as close to people in these big shows as possible. I've only done one theater in the round show ever,

maybe two. Was it in Cape Cod? No, I don't think I did that. What was the one where the whole thing turned? Remember that round? Oh, yeah. What was that one?

That was a minute comedy tour. The whole stage was a circle and it turned. I think it was Phoenix. I think it was Phoenix. Yeah, I did something. It always weirded me out that people were behind me. This is strange. I'm performing and I'm not looking.

There's people behind me. I couldn't get past that. That was freaking me out. But it really is smarter, right? It's more dynamic. It's a three-dimensional approach as opposed to standing in this one plane facing this one way every time yeah when when people are behind you too and i always keep a little light on everybody there's a constant flow of energy by seeing other people

and feeling it's just there's something unique about being in the middle like they're seeing people not just you yes they're not just seeing a stage with you they're seeing people watching you and that isn't added oh oh, that's interesting. Absolutely. That's an interesting way to look at it. Yeah, like everybody's like, whoa, we're on this together. Are you just talking about on an energy level, if you want to talk about that? Like for me, it's like what you put out there, and it doesn't dissipate the way I feel it does when you're just launching it at them.

Like you're meant to look at me. When they feel like they're part of it, they're connected to it. It's a different kind of comedy, man. It's a different show. And the screens. Look, I got all four. So even when my back's to you, there's never a bad seat. Even if you're up top, you're looking directly out at a screen. So we figure out how to make it work. That's pretty fucking bad.

Yeah. It's got to be really strange to do shows for that many people. What is it like to do a show for 20? I think the most I've ever done is maybe six. Come out and do it, man. Next time I do a gig, come out and open. I'm telling you. No, I'm serious, man. I always have people.

People who have never done those size shows on the last tour, I just be like, dude, come out, come out. And it was great, man. And everybody thinks, oh, it's not going to work for me there. It's like, no, no. First of all, my fans are comedy fans. They're not the kind of people that get like, oh, we're just waiting for, they love comedy, most of my fans. And you never want to go back once you've done big shows like that in the round, man. It's amazing.

Yeah, I promise. Very bizarre. Yeah, no, you dig it, man. You dig it. I have a shiny bald spot in the back of my head. I do not. We powder you up, Joe. I'm telling you right now. I got all that shit. Are you kidding me? I'm thinking. No hat, man. 20,000 people. What is the biggest crowd you've ever performed? Gator Growl. Gator Growl. Pennsylvania.

48,000 in Florida. Whoa. Gainesville? Damn. 48,000. Yeah. Holy shit. That was pretty cool.

What the fuck was that like? That first laugh was like, it came across the field that's insane but i would never want to do that size in that like a stadium if i could do that again doing an arena it's compact everybody's right on you and um could you imagine eating shit on stage in front of 48 000 people could you imagine bombing can you imagine hitting joke, especially if you did a controversial joke and they didn't like it and they turned on you? 48,000? And maybe you've got to still do another 40 minutes? You better make sure. And trust me, I made sure.

My fans are showing up for this. I'm not setting myself up for that kind of fucking... Do you still look back and remember the first time you ever bombed? Yeah. Oh, yeah. A bunch of them. It's called New York. I just wrote a chapter in this book I'm writing

all on the very first time I ever bombed, which is a horrible, terrible disaster that I'll never forget because it was the first time I ever bombed while I was getting paid.

Oh, shit. That's a big difference. Bombing at open mic nights, everybody's bombing. There's like five people who are going to eat shit on stage and you're only up there for five minutes.

But once you do a paid gig, and I was middling. I shouldn't have been middling. I really didn't have the time. And the guy who went on before me fucking crushed. And there was this chick that I had seen the last time I was there, and she was super hot, and I fucked her. And she was in the front row, and she brought her friends. And her friends looked, and they were going to sit in the front row

when I went on stage, so I was panicking. I was like, they're going to be right in front of me. I was only like a year into comedy a year and a half at the most and this guy went up who was the MC was way better than me

he was already better than me and I was like I conned this fucking book into making me a middle I was like this is a cocky douche I was like

I can middle come on I can middle so he lets me middle and this guy goes on stage and destroys and he stopped doing comedy he was really too bad he was a natural.

I don't remember his name, unfortunately, but he fucking killed. And then I went after him and ate just dry bricks of shit with no water for 20 minutes. It was the most embarrassing feeling I'd ever had in my life.

I couldn't believe how unbearable it was. And her and her friends were like looking at each other and her friends would lean over and say something like, he has pain. Oh no. And then I could hear crickets and I'm trying to be like extra loud because I'm trying to like be trying to bring it back to my side. So like you like force the punch lines and the timing is all off and it sucks even worse.

And my only experience with being nervous before, my only experience with pressure had been fighting. So when, you know, fighting know fighting in tournaments you know if you're nervous you just turn inward and you say this doesn't matter i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna do this i'm gonna fucking explode i'm just gonna fucking go go go you're just terrified but you just get psyched up to go which is the worst thing you could ever do on stage to be nervous and aggressive and fucking and all introspective and turned into yourself i don't give a fuck what they think I'm just gonna go it's the worst mindset ever for comedy that's called

being Carlos Mencia I'm gonna turn it in I'm gonna explode the most feared I had to do did you ever do shows without microphones oh yeah

yeah bachelor parties ever do a bachelor party without a mic I did yeah I used to do like colleges around Boston where they'd hire me and I'd be like where this i'd be standing on a pool table

i did one in the cafeteria standing on a cafeteria chair uh table yeah rickety table like i couldn't move that was their their stage i did a place in uh in florida called the wrath skeller they hired me to come down and it was like one of my first road gigs. And it was the thing where it's like there's food being served during the TVs are on like all that shit where it's like the whole everything is happening and I'm doing stand up and like somebody threw a hot dog at me like five minutes into an hour. Those gigs are so important, man. All those shit gigs that Boston Comedy used to book and all those little weird fucking places in New Hampshire.

You would drive an hour and a half up to, you up to New Hampshire and do some weird bar with a tinny sound system. Yeah. Those are so good, though. When you look back at it now, how important were those for developing your ability to focus on stage and kill and cut the fat out of your act? Driving home from Orono, Maine once, I got a gig up there. And it was the first time that I...

It was a few years and I drove home and I'm like, all right, this matters. Even though it was horrible, I was like, this matters. This someday I will look back on tonight and know that, like, I learned fucking something here. Oh, man, but it was – you never want to come back. Yeah, you do those gigs, and you're just like, wow, like this doesn't even feel like show business. It feels like – I did a thing with this guy, Scott Papacuri. He used to book the Mattapoisette Inn, this little tiny shithole. But it was a great little room where I got to see Teddy Bergeron, by the way,

who was a fucking genius. One of the best comics ever. One of the best comics ever. Had one of the best Tonight Show sets of all time. Did you ever see his Tonight Show set? Yeah, it's unbelievable. Fucking genius. Maniacally good.

And another guy where you're like, how could this guy not be in everybody's mind as one of the greatest comics ever? Yeah. And this guy, Scott Papakuri, booked a gig for he and I on Block Island. And Block Island is like an island outside of Rhode Island, I think. Okay. And there's nothing there. It's just drunk, retarded fishermen

and they are dumb as fuck and they're so drunk, they are, all of them, there's maybe 20 people in the room, all of them are so drunk they can't even keep their eyes open. Their mouths are slagged like, what's going on here?

And we have to do comedy for them and Scott gets up and starts shitting all over them and he was not really, he hadn't been doing comedy that long then. Really probably shouldn't have been on stage in this sort of a situation anyway. And I went on after him. And they had already turned their backs to the comedy show, like half of them. They turned their backs and just started a conversation.

And we had a stay in a, it wasn't in a hotel room. It was in a supply room. They had two cots in a supply room with no shower. There was a bathroom you know we could take like you know a horse bath yeah a horse bath

and you know we stayed in this little fucking supply room until we could catch the boat back the next day oh man I did so many

of those little ones I mean colleges where there's no hotel I'm happy to do them you're psyched I got a gig I know at the time yeah at the time you're like alright I got a gig. I know. At the time. Yeah, at the time.

You're like, all right, I got a gig. I'm making 50 bucks or whatever it was. But, oh, man. Brutal. Bangor, Maine. I did a bunch up there. Yeah. I did a bunch for Norm LeFoe.

He had all these gigs in western Massachusetts. Yeah. Way out there where you had to drive 40 miles an hour because deer would jump in front of your fucking car every five minutes. You had to be careful that you didn't die. Like, you get to these certain gigs. Yeah, these Berkshire shows. Yeah, especially Western Mass, out near Amherst.

I remember there was a lot of two-lane roads where you would see dead deer all over the place. Right. Fucking wrecked cars. Yeah, I nailed one one night. Did you? Yeah, yeah, just his ass had just gotten past me. And I did the thing where I gunned it.

I'm like, I wanted to swerve but the voice was like, gun it! And I fucking hit him and spun him. I watched him spin off into the woods. Dude, you can die from that. A lot of people have died from hitting like,

especially if you hit a fucking moose. Yeah. If you hit a moose, you might be dead. That thing might come through the windshield and crush your fucking spine.

Yeah, right? I had a dream that Mike Goldberg, the guy I work with in the UFC, got killed by a grizzly bear and it was a very graphic movie

in my head like a very graphic dream where it was very realistic right and I woke up like literally woke up like whoa

like he was with his wife and his kids and they were in a river and a fucking grizzly bear came running through the bank of the river

jumped into the water and just fucked him up in front of everybody. Jesus. Yeah. Very strange. So Mike Goldberg, if you're listening, buddy, don't go camping. Don't go in the river.

Yeah. Stay the fuck away from bears. Do you think that's the future of, that's like 30 years from now, that's what fucking sport's going to be? It's going to literally be like a guy. Oh, yeah. Mixed martial arts verse some kind of hybrid DNA government experiment. It's like half fucking cougar.

The only reason why there's not sword fights on TV is because no one's put sword fights on TV. If they were, people would love to watch that. Two guys with samurai swords trying to hack each other's fucking heads off. I think we're going to produce our very first show together, Joe. I love it. The lions versus the Christians,

I mean, those people weren't much different than us today. How is that different than ghettogaggers.com? How is that different than some of the shit that you watch, like those Mexican drug dealers cutting that guy's head off with a small knife? Have you seen that video? No. Fuck, dude. Did you see the suicide jump off of that?

Yeah, off the fucking Hoover Dam. Where his head just splits open. Yeah, his head blows up like a coconut that got shot with a rifle round. I can't watch that shit, man. I can't. It's awful. You can't unsee that stuff, but you should know that it's out there. When you see someone really fucking

shifty when you go to 7-Eleven, you should know. This guy might pull out a gun and kill everybody. He might commit suicide. Who the fuck knows? You've seen so much fucked up shit on the internet. I think, to a certain extent, it influences people's behavior and it makes people a little bit more fucked up than maybe they could be because they have all this nutty stuff that they have

access to. But on the other side, you should be more aware of what is possible. You might be a good person who's always around nice people. You're a Mormon or something. And so you think everybody's mellow and predictable. And then all of a sudden, you're around some fucking gangbanger

and you don't know what the fuck this is. Right. You don't know what the rules are. You don't know what game he's playing. Yeah. And you know what? Most people don't realize in those situations you better fight your he's playing. Yeah. And you know what? Most people don't realize in those situations, you better fight your fucking ass off. When you see people going along with it, that's when you're like, oh, this is going to be bad.

Right. I saw a guy get knocked out. He looked like these thugs just found him coming out of what looked like a convenience store. They knocked him out, knocked him out unconscious. The guy falls, bangs his head off the concrete, out cold, arms up in the air stiff, and the dude starts

pissing on his face. Oh, man. The dude pulls a dick and pisses on it. Just decided to knock this guy out out of nowhere. Like, you need to know that there's people

like that out there. Right. But that's real shit. I mean, you can be paranoid and fucking, you know, and start dwelling on them and get all Second Amendment on everybody.

Right, but how do you get to know that person? Does he have a Facebook page? Hey, I'm into knocking people out. Then my wrap up is, my tag is, I Amendment on everybody. Right, but how do you get to know that person? Does he have a Facebook page? Hey, I'm into knocking people out. Then my wrap-up is, my tag is, I piss on you. It was hard to watch, man. Follow me on Twitter.

It was hard to watch because you see the dude half-conscious and the piss is hitting his face and just moving. That could be you. That could be anybody. Anybody who somebody decides to just steal on. You're in the wrong place at the wrong time, and some guy who you never saw coming decides to punch you in the face

and piss on your unconscious body. And on that note, ladies and gentlemen, I think that's the end of this fucking podcast. I'm glad you came over, dude. Again, we're sponsored

by the Fleshlight, fleshlight.com. You know, you and I have had our differences over the year, but I always respected your ability to market yourself

and I always respected your ambition and I think respected your ambition. And I think sometimes when people are ambitious, things don't necessarily work out the way they should be. But I know you're a good dude, and I know that you're always working on your act. I see it all the time. I know you're doing the right things, and I hear your interviews, and I know you're in a good place with your mind. And I think that's important, man.

And I think it's also important that at a certain stage in your know, you have to recognize when you've had differences with somebody. And, you know, it's not that I don't like you as a person. You know, it's just differences. And I'm glad that we put all that shit past and hung out. Oh, man, that means the world hearing that from you, Joe. You know, you've got a lot of integrity and I've always had a lot of respect for you, which is part of the reason that there was for me on my side when anybody ever came to me with anything, it was like, I have really nothing to say about it. I hope that time will just eventually figure that out. So I appreciate that. Good to be here on your show.

We'll do it again. Yeah, dude, for sure, for sure. And I think stuff like this, like I said, is perfect for a guy like you. So people really get a chance to see who you really are. True. No bullshit. Yeah. And I don't think anybody who was thrust into your condition

is going to come out of it without some scrapes. I mean, you thrust yourself into really like a stratosphere that very few human beings ever have to navigate. Comedy low hand. And you did it, yeah,

and you did it over a very short period of time. So I think people need to respect that. I think you did an awesome job. Thanks, man. I think you got through it and you're doing all the right shit. And I enjoyed how you did that isolated incident. I was telling people, like, I love how you did it all in one take. And you did it all like with one camera, like right on the stand. You could tell there was

no edits to it. I was like, that was really cool. That was like a cool creative choice. You know, I think you're doing some awesome shit. Thanks, man. Thank you. Keep up the good work. Keep a good luck with your writing. I'm going to get that program, by the way. Yeah, Write Room. Folks who are into it. I think it only works for the Mac, but I know that there's a version of it for the PC as well

that does the exact same thing. And it's just for all you creative types who are easily distracted. And if you're also easily distracted and you have a hard time writing, pick up this book called The War of Art. I think it's Steven Pressfield. Is there a guy who wrote it? Have you ever heard of it? No up this book called The War of Art. I think it's Steven Pressfield. Is there a guy who wrote it?

Have you ever heard of it? No. Fucking incredible. The War of Art? I bought a bunch of them, and I give them out to people. Yeah, I think I might have one. I'll give one to you.

It's an amazing book, and it's all about how you can overcome resistance and focus your mind for writing. Really, really brilliant book. I need that. Yeah, everybody does. With the book, man. He talks about it in the book.

I mean, here's a guy who really didn't become successful as a writer until he was in his 40s. Right. And he recognizes his own errors and what his own, like, bad patterns of thought. Sure. And he sort of addresses all of them that all creative types have in this thing. Cool. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, twitter.com slash Dane Cook. Twitter.com slash Red Band.

I'm Joe Rogan. Thanks for tuning in, you guys. And we will see you next week. Love you, bitches.