The Joe Rogan Experience - #617 - Brian Regan

Episode Date: February 25, 2015

Brian Regan is one of the top stand-up comedians working today, find him touring all over the country at http://BrianRegan.com

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Hello, everybody. Brian Regan's here, ladies and gentlemen. Longtime friend slash stand-up comedian extraordinaire slash international man of mystery. That's how I look at you. Wow. I look at you. Wow. I like that intro.

When I'm working with people, I'm going to start asking them to go with that intro. Plus, you're the only comic I know that works outside of Vegas but lives in Vegas. Yes. For everybody else, it's the opposite. Right. Or they live in Vegas only because they want to work in Vegas like a carrot top type individual. Yes. I do life and show business backwards.

I want a long commute. I want to go to an airport and get on a plane and fly more than a thousand miles away from my home and do my work. But you work everywhere, though. Do you work in Reno? Yeah, I'll do Reno. You'll do Reno. Yeah. You won't do Vegas. I mean, I might at one point, you know, I mean, like those residencies seem kind of intriguing, you know, Carrot Top, Rita Rudner. I think she's doing another one. I'm not sure. Yeah. The people that, but not yet. You know what I mean? I still like being on the road. I, To me, for now, that's what I want to be as a comedian, as a traveling comedian.

Yeah, the residencies are very strange because they're intriguing in some way. I had a conversation with George Wallace about it. I ran into him at the Comedy and Magic Club. And he's done with his. He used to do one. And the way he described it, it sounded like a lot of fucking work. Like a lot more work than you would think. Like you would think, well, hey, for him, it's great.

He just has to stay there and he just kind of like does his show there. It's no big deal. Now, you know, they call it four walling it, I guess, you know, so like you have to fill that place and you have to fill it all the time. So you're always doing promotions. You're always doing this and that. And, you know, like I don't know how much of that he has to pay for But I believe a lot of it comes out of his pocket And so he's constantly trying to fill the place up and constantly trying to you know Put billboards up and keep the place popping and he has to do things in order to get people to remember him because he's not

Out there like when you're on tour you're out there. You know you're in Cincinnati you know Brian Regan's in Boston Brian Regan's in Maryland you know when you're in Cincinnati. You know, Brian Regan's in Boston. Brian Regan's in Maryland. You know, when you're in Vegas, you're just in Vegas. Right. And there's a lot more clutter, you know, when you're in – because there's a lot of comedians doing that and a lot of other shows in Las Vegas. I didn't realize it was that much work. So I'm changing my mind. I never want to do a residency.

Yeah. I'm out. I've thought about, like, a partial to do a residency yeah i'm out i've thought about like a partial not a never a residency i don't really want to live there but a partial sort of a situation where you do like a once a month show there i think a once a month show there would be kind of fun yeah yeah i've been doing the mirage pretty recent pre-regularly like i did twice in january um but that's just because i'm there anyway for the UFC. Right. Well, George Wallace has a big billboard up. It says, Best 10 p.m. Show in Las Vegas. Yeah. And I love the qualification

on there. If I did a residency, I would put a billboard right next to that. Best 1005 Show. Or 1003. Best 1003 show in Las Vegas. Yeah, that's a weird qualification, right? Best 10 p.m. show by some silly magazine. It's always like Vegas best magazine. Like, where do I find this fucking Vegas best magazine? The Las Vegas Review-Journal every year polls everybody in Las Vegas to ask them what they think the best everything is in Las Vegas, the best Italian restaurant, the best Mexican restaurant.

And Las Vegas is kind of like a hodgepodge of people like from all over. And it's not the most cultured place. So like the best Mexican restaurant is always like I'm trying to think of. I mean, it's not Taco Bell, but it's like. A bit shaky. Yeah. You know, it's like a chain. And the best Italian restaurant is like something you go, no, that's not the best Italian restaurant.

So the Las Vegas Review Journal always has to say, well, these are great choices, but here's some suggestions we make. Like they're trying to push the culture a little bit. Oh, that's good. Yeah. They have some pretty decent restaurants in Vegas. That's one thing that Vegas has by far that's the most impressive is the restaurants they have in the casinos. If you get a steak in Vegas at a big casino, it's going to be a banging steak. I've never had a bad steak.

Like a Kraft steak or a strip steak, the places in MGM and Mandalay Bay, or Nine at the Palms. Some of the best ste takes in the world. Yeah, I haven't done a lot of those deals. I mean, I'm pretty much like a home guy. I mean, I'll go hit those places every now and then if I've got friends in town. But I'm not a guy that really knows Las Vegas inside and out. It's embarrassing when friends come into town and go, where are we going, Brian? And I'm like, well, there's a Chili's down the street.

They got a happy hour there. And then we'll go get a draft somewhere. You know, yeah, I'm not that guy at all. Yeah, when we were at the UFC this last month, was it January? Yeah, January. And you almost looked like out of sorts. And like, this is where you live, man. Yeah, that was my first UFC fight ever.

Hannibal Burress was in town and texted me. And I had seen him out on the road six months ago or something like that and said, hey, you want to go to the fight tonight? And I've never been to a boxing match or a UFC fight. So I was like, sure. You know, it seemed like something fun to do. And I started Googling what boxing matches were in law. I thought it was a boxing match that he invited me to. Oh, that's hilarious.

So I couldn't find any boxing matches. I'm like, I don't know what fight he's talking about. And he said, well, just meet me at the will call window. It's at the MGM, right? Yeah. So I meet him at the will call window. He gets the tickets. He goes, let's go inside.

I didn't know until we were walking in when I saw that cage. I didn't even know what I was walking into. I was like, oh, man, it's one of these deals. It's one of these deals. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah. It was fun, though, man. It was really fun.

It was so much different than what, I mean, I've only seen like little, I don't follow that. You know, I've only seen like what I've seen on sports, you know, stuff. But there's much more art to it than I expected. I was thinking it was just going to be a brutal, like a brutal match. You know, just two guys just going at it until blood starts squirting. Right. But it's actually, there's art and there's a science to it.

You know, it's more interesting than I think, somebody who's not a fan wouldn't realize that there's more to it than what they might think. Yeah, well, there's definitely a lot of technique to it. Yes. But the ultimate goal is the first part, the brutal stuff. Yes, but they don't just go out right at it. They have to figure each. It's chess and fighting.

Yes. Yeah, that's a good way to describe it. Both of those things are going on. They're not just, the bell doesn't ring, and they don't just start running at each other and start pounding each other in the face. They're waiting. Sometimes it goes like that, and sometimes they're waiting

and looking at each other and figuring out, well, what's this guy? Is this guy going to be on defense? You know what I mean? There's more mental stuff than I think people might think. I would like to watch it as a completely uninitiated, untrained person. I would like to see what that feels like because I've been watching it so long I kind of have lost touch with what it must look like on the outside. But to see, like, I would like to sit down with you and watch it.

You know, because I was nowhere near you. I was over by the commentator booth. Right. Well, I was in comedian row, man. Yeah. You had Tom Rhodes in there. Tom Rhodes, myself, Hannibal Buress, Russell. Russell was there.

Russell Peters. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of cool. And I appreciate the tickets, man. Oh, no problem, brother. Russell's there all the time. He keeps a place in Vegas because he's there occasionally. And I guess it's one of those tax deals. Like Vegas has some pretty sweet tax deals.

You know, if you live in Vegas, you pay no state taxes, right? Correct. So, like for your state taxes, right? Correct. So, like, for your income, that's pretty big. Yeah, when I moved from California to Nevada, I didn't do it for that reason, but it was certainly a nice byproduct, you know? It's weird when you think about it, because that's like a lot of money. You know, I think it's 10% of your income, right? Isn't it something nutty like that? What, state taxes? I don't know.

You don't even know? It goes from 8 to 7, depending on where you live eight to set goes down around i mean it goes anywhere we're up to 10 but average it's around eight is state income tax state yeah yeah okay yeah so that's that's a lot of money if you're making good money you know that's uh that's's a big percentage. It's like having a manager. The reason I know that there are no state taxes is at night, you look in the sky over at the airport, and you see a string of pearls. There's about 15 little white lights. They're all airplanes. And they're all coming in, and they're landing. And they're landing one. And every one of those little white dots is filled with people. And all of their pockets are filled with money. And they're coming to leave it in Las Vegas.

Yeah. I mean, it's it's amazing. Whenever I'm flying home, flights are usually packed. People want to go to Las Vegas. So they're bringing, you know, most people are not going to win, you know, So money just keeps coming into that town. Yeah, it's ridiculous in that way. I mean, it's one of the only places we could think of where you're guaranteed you're going to have a bunch of people that are going to be risking their money and then spending it. It's a weird place when you think about it that it's based on gambling. Right. And I saw an ad for a slot. You know, some casino was saying, we give 97% of the money back on slots.

And that was like a selling point. And I think, can you imagine if your bank told you that they would give you 97% of your money back? We only take 3% of your money. Yeah, like that's a good thing. That doesn't make sense. Come in here and we'll give you 97% of your money back. How do they

say that? That's not true. Because it's just not true. I mean, there's no way they give they only make 3%. There's no way. I don't know if they could you know, I'm sure they can't lie, so there's probably some technical way that that's true. I bet it's technically true. I think it's one of those

like, you know, there's like a house advantage, you know, like the house is like a 54% advantage. You know, like a 54 to, you know, you're 46. You know what I mean? It's like one of those deals. So that's probably how they get away with saying it, you know? I don't know. But, you know, even if that, even if it was only 3%, that's still

guaranteed money for the casino. Right. You're going to lose 3% of your money every time, which is... Not every person, but I mean overall. Yeah. If people bet $100,000, they only have to give $97,000 of that back. There was a weird case recently in New Jersey where a bunch of people, it was ruled they had to give their money back because they won a lot of money playing this game and the dealer had forgot to shuffle because the cards had come pre shuffled and so somewhere along

the line these players realized that the dealer had forgot to shuffle and so they just jumped their bets up higher and higher and higher every time and then they wound up winning like over a million dollars well and then it was revealed that the dealers had made a mistake in some way, shape, or form, and that the players, by realizing that the dealers had made this mistake, were somehow or another, it was invalid that they won, which is fucking hilarious. Yeah, I don't get how some of that stuff is fair. Like the counting cards thing.

I don't understand why you're not allowed to do things in your head. You're not allowed to think. You know what I mean? First of all, how do you know what I'm doing in my head? Exactly. You know, just based on my betting. And even if you're correct in what I'm doing

in my head, why can't I do that in my head? That blows my mind that you're not allowed. They can just come up to you and go, no, we can't I do that in my head? That blows my mind that you're not allowed. They can just come up to you and go, no, we don't want you in here because you're winning and you're smart. Yeah, you're smart. You're thinking. Ben Affleck did that,

right? I think he got kicked out of a place for counting cards. Well, Dana White, the president of the UFC, gets kicked out all the time. He doesn't even count cards. He just wins. He just bets a lot of money. If he wins too much, they kick him out. They kick you out if you win.

Like, wait a minute, if I lose, you're cool with that. That's why there's no state income tax. That's also why those places are fucking gigantic. When you walk into, you know, whatever, the Venetian, you know, name a casino and you see how opulent it is and how beautiful all the decor and that's a lot of money man they spend a lot of money on those

fountains that you're passing they're shooting water a hundred feet into the sky a beautiful show of wealth i um i like watching occasionally they'll have one of these you know tv shows where they show how people cheat at the casinos. And one I thought was pretty intriguing. The dealer was, it was like at a blackjack table or something. The dealer was in on it with his friend who showed up. And his friend. His friend was a cheater. They were both cheaters.

So his friend put a cup of black coffee down on the green felt, right? put a black a cup of black coffee down on the green felt right so the dealer who's got a black chip or two in his hand in the palm of his hand puts his hand on the top of the cup like this and drops the black chips into the coffee cup and says you can't put that drink here and hands it back to the guy and the guy goes oh okay and then takes his coffee cup back, bets $5, loses, wins, whatever, and then walks away. That's real cheating, though. That seems to be like cheating. No, no, of course. Yeah, that's outright cheating. Yeah, that's outright

cheating. The counting thing being cheating is fucking ridiculous. It's like, what is the game? The game is, there's 50, what is it, 52 cards? Yes. 52 cards. Okay, you got 52 cards, you're watching the cards that get dealt. They get all shuffled up, and you just do like a mathematical calculation of probability in your head. That seems to me to be like a thing that you should do all the time in life.

Well, of course. Yeah, what are the odds if I run this red light, what are the odds I get hit by a car? Well, it's 3 in the morning. There's not as many people driving. It's probably... It's absurd. Yeah. It's like going up to a golfer who just stitched a shot from the fairway and said, hey, you knew that was 148 yards. You thought about that. Yeah. You figured out that that was 148 yards away. You're not allowed to do that. You just have to guess.

You hit it as hard as you should for 148 yards and that's bullshit yeah yeah you're not allowed to be knowing that stuff i just i mean i've never been uh into gambling i like gambling on sports like i like gambling on fights particularly that's the only sport i really gamble on i don't really know i have no if i gamble on a baseball game it would just be like who should i bet on you know detroit okay. But it makes it exciting, you know? I really think it should be legal everywhere. I really do. I think gambling should be legal everywhere.

But I think you should be able to count cards. I mean, I think if you're smart, you should be able to count cards. And if you can count cards, you're going to win. And that's the fatal flaw in the casino system. Like, you're going to win consistently. Well, I think what little I know about it. I don't know how to count cards, but what little I know about it, you have to be perfect. You can't make a mistake.

You have to count every card. You've got to know exactly what's going on. And then you might end up with like a 1% or something advantage or 1.5% or something like that. You have to be absolutely perfect. I would think, I'm guessing, I don't know the fact on that, but because it's already a pretty even game, Blackjack. Yeah, it's pretty even as far as all those games go. They say that the games that people really like are like Craps and Blackjack

because Craps is just like fucking chaos. You're just rolling those dice and who the fuck knows. You've got to kind of know how to bet and when to bet and when you're feeling hot and when it's going your's going your favor i was i i i've only played craps a couple times one one time was uh there were a bunch of comedians in las vegas including drew hastings okay drew hastings was he brought us over the craps table and he was going to show me how to play craps and i'm standing next to him and i bet on something that what little I knew I could tell that it lost you know sort of right you can tell but the guy didn't do the the stick thing to pull it like he left it

there and I was like confused so like a moron I I yelled to the dealer to explain to him that he should be taking my money. Right. And I said, excuse me, excuse me, hold on a second. And then I feel this pressure on my foot. Drew Hastings is stepping on the top of my foot, like, really hard. And he's trying to tell me to shut up. What is... He knows what I'm doing, so he's, stepping on my foot like, would you shut up?

What was wrong with what you were doing? Drew felt they made a mistake. I should take the money back, even though I had lost it, or just leave it out there and bet on that same thing the next time. It's their error. So it was an error? Yeah. They were supposed to take my money, and I was trying to explain that to them. I lost that. Fair and square. Take I was trying to explain that to them. That I lost that fair and square.

Take it away. Oh, that's funny. I thought you just didn't understand what was going on. Because craps is one of those weird games where I've sat and I've watched people play craps for like 10 minutes. You know, just as an observer. And I had no idea what the fuck was going on. The hard, soft cum. I still don't know.

You can cum? What is it? There's a cum, right? That's a bet. I don't know you can come like what is it like like there's a come right like that's like that's a bet i don't even know what does that mean i don't know what i don't know what any of it means i know sevens are good elevens is good right seven and eleven but then they become bad if you get a seven on the first thing it's good but then you roll an eight on the first thing now you want to get an eight before a seven. That's all I know. How do they assume that people know how to play that fucking game? How do they get new kids involved?

You know, like there's certain games that like used to be like super popular with the old folks, dominoes and shit like that. How do you get people involved in craps? Maybe that's why they have these big giant fountains is because I got a bunch of people like me making sure that they take my losses away. I don't think that's how, but I think that there's some weirdness to that game that just like, it seems way too complicated. Didn't Richard Jenney used to have a bit about craps? I think he did about how no one knows, like everybody thinks they're an expert at certain games. What

he likes about craps is no one knows what the hell's going on you know everyone just concedes that no one knows what the hell's going on richard jenny has an album that just came out obviously he really yeah he you know he i think it just came out when did he he died about five or six years ago right yeah something like that so i don't know if somebody had some uh soundtracks of some stuff that he had recorded, but I downloaded it and listened to it. It's really good, man. He was great. Yeah. I took that one hard.

That one bummed me out a lot. Yeah, I didn't know him that well. I knew him like, hey, man, what's up? How you doing? You know, blah, blah, blah. Last like month before he died, like that month, somewhere in there, I was with him on a plane just randomly. And he just happened to be sitting right in front of me. We chatted a little bit. Yeah. always pleasant, but I know he was troubled.

That one hit me hard because when I was a kid, he was a big influence. He was one of my favorites when I was first starting out. He was on Tonight Show back then. I believe it was Johnny Carson. It was Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. And I used to watch him on TV on all those evening of the improv type shows or whatever it was, or HBO. And then I got to see him a couple times live. He was really good. Yeah. Really, really such a good joke writer.

And when he died, it just bummed me out. It bums me out when people don't feel appreciated and you think they're awesome. And he was one of those guys. He always wanted to be like Jim Carrey. He always wanted to be like some Jerry Seinfeld type guy that had his own show. Instead, he was a big time headliner on the road, selling out theaters and clubs, doing a lot of the stuff that you're doing, essentially. But for whatever reason, he wasn't appreciated or he didn't feel that he was appreciated. You know, but it was depression that led to what he did.

And it's hard to know whether it was a career related depression or just something so much deeper that people who don't have depression can't even relate to. Yeah, that's a good point. Because when, you know, you see someone that's getting depressed about their career, are they really depressed about their career? Are they really depressed? I mean, his career is successful as hell, right? It's like, why would he be depressed about all that success? I mean, look at Robin Williams. I mean, you could not have a more successful career than Robin Williams, and he kills himself because of depression. So clearly, it's not necessarily career related. It's a much deeper

thing that people have difficulty understanding. I don't, I don't understand it. Yeah. He was another one that was like, wow, how is that possible? How is it possible that Robin Williams wanted to kill himself? Like, I just, I can't imagine. And you remember good morning, Vietnam and Popeye and like this guy was on top of the fucking world. Did you ever meet him? Yeah. I mean, it was weird how I met him. I didn't know I was meeting him until like five minutes into our conversation. He came to the improv to see me, and he was in line with everybody else to take pictures. He had a baseball hat on and a beard and glasses. And he came up to me, and he was talking to me about a very particular bit that I did,

about how much he loved it and this and that. And a couple minutes into talking i'm like holy shit this is wow you didn't even know that i had no idea i just thought i was talking some nice guy wow you know we were talking and um you know he but he was like real specific i was like wow this guy's a real comedy fan you know because he's like really into like the specific aspects of the joke oh that's how he knows comedy he's. He's like, I love how you really put yourself out there with that bit. It was like the way you did it was so this and that. And I go, oh, thanks, man.

I'm glad you appreciate it. Oh, shit. Wow. It was like. I met him. I was nobody. It wasn't like he was meeting me, but I just met him at the improv in New York when there were a number of comedians around. And I met him at the Outdoor Comedy Day in San Francisco, you know, when there's like 20 comedians on

the show, and he was one of them. Outdoor Comedy Day? It's, I don't know what it's called, but it's like a big comedy festival in one of the parks in San Francisco, outdoor comedy or something. But he was very, like, sweet and low-key and unassuming. Like, so different from what you know of him on stage. You know, like, he was almost, like, reverential to other comedians, it seemed. Yeah, he was.

That's how I felt when I met him, too. And he's a guy that had this horrible reputation as being a joke thief. And, you know, I think in his case, you know, to talking to people that were victims of what, you know, of him doing that. In his case, that guy just had this deep desire to be loved and deep desire to please and deep desire to kill. And like some comedians, they just get kind of addicted to that, that the killing. And they are just trying to figure out what are the buttons I have to press to get this audience to learn. Right, right, right. As opposed to, say, a guy like Pryor who, what he was trying to do was express himself

in this way that you would think was funny. Now, are you saying Robin Williams or Pryor now? Pryor. Okay. Pryor was trying to express himself. Right. He was trying to get whatever it was in his head Whatever thoughts that he had whatever feelings that he had he was trying to get you to understand them

So you would see like what what was so funny about this crazy tragedy or ridiculousness of it in his life I was like a completely different need you know like both guys Every comic wants to be loved every comic wants to be appreciated for what they're doing. But I think with Robin, it was, I don't think, like, when you hear him talk, I don't think he had the same sort of attachment to what he was talking about as the guy prior did. And so in that sense, it was easier for him to just incorporate other people's ideas, just trying to push those buttons, trying to push those buttons. Ha, da-da-da, da-da-da-da. You know, and that was his style, It was just like trying to get you to.

And I used to feel bad for Robin Williams whenever he was doing little interviews, whether it was on the local level, you know, or promoing a movie. I think he felt like he had to be funny in every moment. in every moment. And I used to feel for him thinking he's created this monster that when he's doing little local, not that that's a bad thing to do local interviews, but whenever he was being interviewed,

I felt like he felt he had to have his foot on the gas 100%. And it's like, I kind of wish he felt he could just be real and calm down and just answer without having to go you know what i mean yeah um so i i don't know that just and that's why i like the the way things are progressing i love this podcast concept i love the fact, these kinds of atmospheres are allowing people to relax. You know, you can be funny within

not having to be funny. You know, and I think up until this transition started happening, there was a lot of pressure on comedians, you know, doing morning radio and stuff like that, to just, alright, lights on, be funny, you know what I mean? Yeah, well, it's also when you do morning radio and no one that to just, all right, lights on, be funny. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Well, it's also when you do morning radio and no one knows you and you're going into these local stations, like how many times have you done a station where they go, okay, what bits do you want us to set up? You know, like, say, Brian, I hear you just got back from the zoo. Why don't you tell us about your trip to the zoo? Right. It was so forced. Yeah.

It's a fucking, man. I've been on, I was on one just a couple of years ago. It wasn't that long ago where this fucking guy, man, this producer guy came back and I would imagine what it would be like to be a young comic and to deal with this guy. So the guy comes back with a clipboard. He said,

all right, the guys want to know what bits you want to set up, what topics you want to discuss. I go, dude, I'm not doing bits. He looked at me like, what are you planning on doing on the radio? I go, I guess we're going to talk. Is that okay? Have a conversation in these microphones?

And he just rolls his eyes and walks out of the room in disgust. Like, look at you. Look at you, you silly bitch. You're living in 1991. You have no idea what radio is these days. And sometimes, I did a radio interview a long time ago, and I was trying to play the game, and it's

like I set the guy up on a bit, and it was just this old bit I used to do, saying I went through the Burger King drive-thru, I felt like an idiot, I ordered a cheeseburger. They said drive around. So I drove around for about a half an hour. All right, that's the joke.

All right, so I'm in the radio station. The guy goes, I understand. You like to go to fast food places, you know. I was like a southern guy. So I said, yeah. I said, I went to Burger King the other day. I ordered a cheeseburger. And So I said, yeah. I said, I went to Burger King the other day. I ordered a cheeseburger. And the guy said, drive around.

And he went, ha, ha, we'll be back after this. And I'm like, wow, that's going to move a lot of tickets. There's a lot of good guys. That's going to sell a lot of tickets out there. There's a lot of good guys out there doing radio. There's a lot of good guys sell a lot of tickets out there there's a lot of good guys out there doing radio there's a lot of good guys they're just they're cool they like they're happy to have you in there they're happy to but there's also a lot of shitheads that wish they were comedians and there's a lot of shitheads that like they kind of like they they

either wanted to be comedians they didn't have the balls to do it or they're judging comedians like whatever it is But you'll see them like trying to fuck with you while you're on the air It's also some people to think that there's only the only one way to get attention is to conflict Get those guys to I've been on those morning shows and it's fucking God It's just like but that's just what happens when you're out there on the road when you're you know You're doing these local shows trying to pump up your performances. And everybody has different skill sets, you know.

That was never my skill set. You know, I'm not a go toe to toe kind of guy. And if I get into an atmosphere where I feel it's adversarial or they're trying to, I don't know, push buttons or see if I can, you know, come back at like little lighthearted insults or whatever. I just I kind of shut down. You know, I mean, I just like to be a fairly decent guy. Nice guy. Do my comedy. You know what I mean?

I don't want to hurt anybody and I don't want to be into those awkward situations. Well, some people live off that. Like, that's their whole thing. Their whole thing is conflict. Constant conflict. They'll create artificial drama. Like, hey, hey we're gonna get into one of the i had this one guy like we're gonna have a fake fight about oh this guy it was about carlos mencia we're gonna have a fake fake fight i'm gonna pretend that i'm taking his side and i'm like okay well let's

see how this works go ahead we're gonna do a play yeah exactly like we're doing an improvised play it's just like god yeah it's it It's just that whole genre was so limited. Like, the genre of radio itself is so dead. Like, when you have instant access to podcasts on your car, like right from the car stereo, like right from the factory, which you're starting to see now with, like, Stitcher, and you're starting to see these integrated apps. And I know I'm pretty aware that there's quite a few other companies that are interested

in getting into it. They're starting to prepare to integrate themselves with radios. And a lot of cars come with Wi-Fi in the car, like cellular Wi-Fi. Like I've rented a Cadillac, one of those Escalades. Yeah. Loved it. Big fucking giant American monster. Really comfortable and handles really well too i was really impressed the new one is pretty badass but one of the things

that was crazy was the guy was explaining to me that it has built-in cellular connection for wi-fi so you could set up a wi-fi hot spot in your car you could work from your back seat with your car acting as a wi-fi spot so like if your kids are in the backseat They you know if it has a rear entertainment system or if they have an iPad they want to download Apps or a movie or whatever you can download it from your fucking car as you're driving. I Don't I don't all this technology stuff. I'm starting to just get further and further away from understanding What's going on? You you have a flip phone? No, no, no.

I've got an iPhone. I've got an iPhone. David Dell and Ari Shafir both have flip phones. No way. Wow. Ari just recently went back to a flip phone. I don't think Dave ever left. Well, the car I just got, you know, the guy was explaining, you know,

the phone becomes your radio through Bluetooth. I don't even know what that means. So easy. That's so easy. I do that. So I get in my car and I'm driving off the, you know, the lot. And then my radio starts ringing. You know, like, I don't know.

It was my phone. It was my phone. It was my phone through the Bluetooth. Wait a minute. How long ago was this? Yesterday. Was this yesterday? No, no, no. A few months ago.

A few months ago you didn't know that your fucking car can ring? No. Through Bluetooth? No. You're not that old, man. This is crazy. No, I figured out. My mom knows that. But I didn't know how to answer it. I didn't know how to, you know what old, man. This is crazy. No, I figured out. My mom knows that.

But I didn't know how to answer it. I didn't know how to, you know what I'm like. Just start yelling. Hello! That's what I did. I just opened a window. Whoever is trying to communicate with me, I'll meet you at the next red light. What did you do?

I just kept, I was looking at the steering wheel and I saw a little thing that said, that had a button with a phone, like a phone icon. So I just press that button and I'm like saying hello. It felt weird. I'm like saying hello out loud in a car by myself. And then I hear somebody talking to me and I'm like, God, this is strange, you know? So I had a conversation, had a conversation out loud to somebody that wasn't there. Yeah, those Bluetooth microphones are getting pretty goddamn good now.

Some cars, like really like high-end cars, it almost sounds like you're talking to someone just on a regular handset. But I had an old one, man, it sounded like I was in the middle of like Madison Square Garden and my phone was like 50 feet away and I was screaming at it. That's what it sounded like. It would be horrible. I'm going to record you so you can hear how bad you sound to me.

Is it normal to you now? Do you use it every day or do you still are scared of it when it rings? I've still only had like two or three phone calls that way through the car because you're know, you're supposed to activate. I don't turn on the Bluetooth part on my phone. Sometimes I think of it and sometimes I don't.

So usually I don't even have that on. But every once in a while I'll go, oh, I'll turn that Bluetooth thing on in case I get a phone call. And then I'll hope for a phone call because it's like, now I'm ready. Well, you have to pair it to your car. I picture you driving like a 1978 Seville, one of those big long ones, nice and slow, waving to everybody. No, it's one of those modern SUV deals. You drive a regular car? Yeah.

Yeah, okay. Anti-lock brakes, the whole deal. Navigation system, you use that? I don't know. You use maps? MapQuest, print it out still. He doesn't print that. No, he gets one of those goddamn Thomas guides.

That's why I need red lights. That's why you stop and go, where is such and such? Remember those Thomas guides where you have the fucking G2? You sank my battleship. You had to fucking go down. People would tell you on the Thomas guide where the address was. Do you remember Triptix where you get a AAA and they print out your whole entire trip? If you're going somewhere and you turn the page,

like, I got five more pages left till I get there. I remember the first time I rented a car that had that GPS thing when it was first coming out, and it showed, like, on a map while you were driving, it had, like, a little triangle which represented your car, right? And then it's showing a map as you're going, and I had never seen that. This was, what, 15 years ago when those first came out?

And I was like, wow, that's amazing. And I wanted to see what would happen if I drove in circles. So I got off the highway and went into, like, a Holiday Inn parking lot and just started driving in circles because I wanted to see if the triangle went in circles or if the whole map shifted, you know. And I forget what the answer was. It's either or. I mean, depending on how high end the navigation system is.

You can actually change it. You can change it so it follows the direction you're traveling or where the map is always facing north. So if you're taking a left, your arrow is going left, but the map stays straight. Or you could do it so that no matter where you a left, your arrow is going left, but the map stays straight. Or you could do it so that no matter where you're going, the arrow is going straight. And then the world adjusts around you. Which I like. I like the world to adjust to me. I just, I remember

I'm going that way. It's about me and my travel. And this world needs to factor in where my arrow is going. This planet needs to suck it. Yeah. Some of them are really good, man. Like the Cadillac one that I

just rented was amazing because the screen was a laptop. It's huge. The Cadillac navigation screen and the screen that's on the dashboard screen, it's not a dashboard anymore. It's an LCD screen. So all the different shit like your TAC and your speedometer. It's not a dashboard anymore. It's an LCD screen. So all the different shit like your tach and your speedometer, it's not real.

They're virtual. So it's all flat screen and you're looking at a digital image of a speedometer that shows you. It looks like a circular analog speedometer. Right. And it goes like you could see the dial moving, but it's not. It's all digital. Yeah. A lot of cars are doing that now. It's all just. It's all digital. Yeah.

A lot of cars are doing that now. It's pretty hard to fuck with, like, Waze, though. You know, I don't know if you use Waze at all. Oh, yeah, yeah. Waze is great. I mean, that's saved me so many, like, oh, shit, there's a cop ahead. Well, Tony and I rented, when we were up in Portland, we rented this Cadillac. And talking to the Cadillac, I would start screaming at it, you fucking bitch, you know what I'm saying?

Like, you know, there's a button, like, take me to Helium Comedy Club. It didn't know what the fuck to do. But I go, check this out. Navigate to Helium Comedy Club. I just press Siri, and Siri goes, navigating to Helium Comedy Club. Bitch, you're the best! And I throw my phone down, and I just listen

to the phone. Like, fuck this navigation system in the car. They're just not as good. I want to try Apple Play, which is where it pretty much just takes your Apple screen on the GPS. So you have all the Spotify or whatever you have on your phone. What is that? It's called Apple Play. It's in some cars already. You could also do, like, I'm thinking about getting an old Ford Edge.

And they take out the screen and they put in, like, an iPad in it. So then it's just an iPad. Ooh, who's doing that? A lot of car places are doing that nowadays. Really? Like, those custom car places. They just throw in iPads. That's way better.

Yeah. So what about the, you mean separate from where the speedometer and all that stuff and the gas gauge. The middle part. The middle part where the navigation is. Yeah, like, mine is, like, 2008. And the thing in there is just so outdated and stuff, so it's pointless to even have it. So they just take that out, put an iPad in there with 3G or 4T LTE or whatever. And so you have internet.

You can make hotspots. You also have an iPad in there. That's way better. Way better. The problem is a lot of those things, they have a lot of shit integrated into those screens. They have your heat. Mileage and stuff. integrated into those screens like they have like your your your heat yeah no you're like you're you're you know like the the temperature of the car and air conditioning and all that jazz like

all that is integrated into the screen use of the phone bluetooth this that the other thing like they have these adapters now for like cars so like a lot of like like mine has uh like my health reports are built into my stereo so so we're like... Health reports? It's like, you're dead, bitch. Yeah. No. You're not good. You look green.

Right. Where it tells you you need, like... Because you're driving. I don't know that I want a health report constantly. You look like shit, son. You got AIDS. Turn left. How much...

Did you sleep a minute last night? Is this real? How much cocaine? What? That's crazy. Yeah, it takes your blood from the steering wheel. It gives you a little pinprick. That's coming, right?

Like when you're grabbing on the steering wheel, it should have your heart rate already displayed. Well, they're going to be able to give you a scan with an app, you know, like for sure. They're just going to be able to have an app where you can scan someone to find out what's wrong with them. I mean, it's not going to happen tomorrow, but it'll probably happen within a decade. There'll probably be something you have to wear. You know, like people wear those Fitbits, those wrist things, and the wrist things tell you, like, how much you slept.

Like, they'll tell you your sleep cycle. Like, people are really into those, man, finding out how deep they slept and how much REM sleep you got. Yeah, and those things are pretty slick because they show up on your you know your computer you can like read the readouts like this week i've been getting much more sleep and my heart rate is lower and this is then my fitness level my body fat all that jazz you can add all

that stuff in and and you you know you look at like your life it's like you can look at your body like the health of your body like you would look at the analysis of a car. When they plug a car into a computer now, if you go to get a tune-up, a lot of these newer cars, everything is done by computer. So they're doing everything. They're checking your smog. They're checking the way the engine works. All that shit is just being analyzed by a computer. You talked about the Cadillac Escalade.

being analyzed by a computer. You talked about the Cadillac Escalade. I had one of those as my previous car, and somehow on my email, I would be sent a monthly status report of my car. Like if a tire was low on pressure or something like that, it would come in an email. How about tell me now? How about not email me?

I thought that was amazing, though. That is pretty cool. You know, it seems like technology, things get easier to use, like more user-friendly, and then they go to another level where they get more challenging again. You know, like when computers first came out, you couldn't work a computer unless you took a computer class and figured out how to work those deals. And then they became user-friendly, where they're very visual and you just click, click, click, click, click. But talk about televisions. Televisions have gotten so complicated, I don't even know how to work my TV. Yeah, like inputs and shit.

Every single thing, you know, it's like, why is there like nine different configurations of the screen? Do you want letterbox? Do you want widescreen? Do you want normal screen? Do you want 5 to 2 ratio? 3 to 7 ratio? I don't even know, why isn't there just one thing?

Why don't you just plug the TV in and it comes on? You know why? Because there's a lot of people that are real tech geeks. They love that shit. Like when they do that CES show in Vegas. Have you ever gone to that? No. You need to go to that.

You want to blow your fucking brains out? I don't need to go to that. I need to not go to that. Well, it's fascinating. It's fascinating to see all the gadgets that they're working on. One of the podcast sponsors, what is that? Jamie, pull that up if you can that that one thing that won the CES best show smart things it's one of the sponsors for this podcast and it allows you to do everything from your phone turn your lights on change your

heat it's fucking crazy you do it from your phone when you're not even there i have i have something like that smartthings.com this is uh one ces uh best new whatever the fuck it is best app just some some badass award this yeah it's pretty slick yeah we're in the future right here this podcast in the future like if i asked you to put something up here you just fuck it up dude we're in hd too can you put a see that tric? That thing crashes every 10 shows. It's powerful. It's really does crash every 10 shows. So is this something that, like, plugs into, like, an outlet that has, like, a Wi-Fi connection to it so it turns on and off? Yep, it does everything. It does everything.

I'm setting up my whole house with this. They sent it to me. I'm setting my whole house up with this. So it all works from an app. It's fucking sweet. And then someone can hack it in the middle of the night. Your house turns into a fucking disco. They strobe you.

And they start playing like Taylor Swift, really. Shake it off! And you can't stop it. Shake it off! It is pretty crazy. Like Dropcam, those little cameras, I put one in my bed so I can record myself sleeping to see how many times I

wake up because it's got motion control so it will show when you move or when you make a noise. And it's crazy how many times I will wake up and say something and then go back to bed. That's your body fighting off death. Wait a second. There's 24 hours in a day. Eight of them you're sleeping

and another eight you're watching you sleeping. So that leaves eight to actually try to accomplish something. No, he's not trying to accomplish shit. You don't know Brian he's just having fun, but the That sounds like one of those poltergeist movies like you would see the fucking ghost hovering over you in the middle of the night fucking your face while you're sleeping What is that rewind it like one of those paranormal it is crazy paranormal. It is crazy because I talk a lot in my sleep, I guess. And when you do talk, it's like somebody else is talking but using your mouth and voice.

And you have no recollection. You weren't doing it. Somebody else is controlling your body is what it seems like. What are they saying to you? I don't know. I'll wake up and just be like, why do I hate myself? What for? And I'm just like, then I go back to sleep.

But yeah, it's weird. It's creepy seeing yourself not awake and talking. This whole sleeping is very fucking strange. Kelly Starr is one of the guys who's been on the podcast before. He's a fitness expert. He's sending me this thing. You're supposed to, it's like a pad that you put under your bed. Or you put under your sheets. uh you put under your um your

sheets and it it chills you down to like it chills your body like it's it's very cold like you're sleeping in it and i think it gets down to like 58 between 58 and 62 degrees you plug it in yeah and you sleep like essentially air-conditioned and uh i'm like i'm looking at like why the fuck would you do that like I want to be warm what's the purpose apparently you your body gets the deepest sleep if it's a little if you're in a chilly environment Joey Diaz always said that Joey Diaz sleeps like you go into his room I've gone into his room before like when we're on the road together and I'm like what is fucking

penguins waddling out of here it's ridiculous like he takes his AC and he cranks it to the bottom he will take it like if you go to a hotel and it gives you like 30 degrees or he will literally try to get his hotel down to 30 degrees he's fucking crazy I've always thought because he's you know he's very overweight and I always say like it was probably like if you're walking around everywhere wearing like 10 jackets, like you would want everything to be colder in your room. So that's what he's doing. He just he's covered in, you know, I think it's a fat bizarre that the human body needs this weird recharge mode, the sleeping thing, you know, for like a third of the time you're alive. You got to be in some bed.

Yeah. Just regrouping. Yeah. And, you know, I wonder if medical people at some point would ever be able to eliminate that, you know. They've worked on that. They're very close. There's actually some various work that's been done on creating some sort of a pill that makes it like where your body completely resets and you don't need it anymore there's a bunch of different options that the

people have worked on but i don't think they totally understand what's going on during sleep yeah i think people that don't sleep like they've done some some tests on people where they've forced them to not sleep for like three or four days in a row, you become psychotic. You start seeing shit. You hallucinate. You become completely out of it. But that's what you're doing when you're sleeping. You're dreaming. You're seeing things that aren't really there.

So it's either going to take place while you're sleeping or if you don't sleep, while you're awake. I wonder if it's the same effect. I wonder if they measure your chemicals, the chemicals in your brain. I wonder if it's the same thing that's wonder if they measure your chemicals, the chemicals in your brain. I wonder if it's the same thing that's going on when they do those sleep deprivation studies. Because people just get close to heart attacks. They're ready to die.

You will die if you don't get enough sleep. Yeah. I just wonder what the—I'm sure there are dream experts who work on this, but I'm fascinated with what's going on when someone's dreaming. What is the purpose of the dream and what is it helping you with when you're awake? You know, if you have a dream that has anxiety in it or if you have a dream where you're being chased or, you know, any of these typical dreams that people have, I just wonder, what is the purpose of that? Your brain and your body is doing that for a reason.

Well, I have work-related dreams sometimes. I do too. Those work-related dreams are almost always related to actual concerns that I have in real life. I'll have work-related dreams that I'll forget my material, and it might be because I haven't been working. I took a week off or something like that. and it might be because I haven't been working. Like I took a week off or something like that.

And although I know like externally, I know like, or I shouldn't say externally, like I know consciously that like if I'm going to do a show like say on Friday and I haven't worked for a week or so, I'll do a few tune-up shows. I'll do a show on Wednesday or a show on Thursday. I'll go over my material, listen to recordings, but my brain doesn't trust that I'm actually going to do that. So if I haven't worked for a week, my brain will be like, dude, you don't even remember your new shit. You're on stage.

A bunch of people hate to see you. You don't even remember this new shit you're working on. And in my brain, I'm like, I didn't remember my new shit. Stop. I got it written down. I got recordings. But your brain doesn't want to hear that. Your brain's like, listen, fucker, you better stay on the ball constantly.

Any little weird thing that you might have in the back of your head that could possibly go wrong, that'll be brought to the forefront while you're sleeping for some reason. I have a lot of dreams about shows, but they're always pre-show. They're never me on stage. It's always assessing the situation. It's always looking at the crowd, looking at how the tables are set up, looking at the lighting. And it's all pre-show. I don't know why.

I don't know why those are the dreams. I never hit the stage in the dreams. How many dreams do you have of pre-show? I've probably had, I don't know, gosh, 100 in my life. Really? That's strange. And they're all pre-show, you know, walking around while the other guy's on stage and peeking out the side and trying to see if people are focused. And yet in real life, I don't really have that anxiety.

I mean, you know what I mean? It's not part of my, maybe a little bit, but not to the degree that it happens in my dreams. That's so strange yeah they have those dream dictionaries or bibles where like if you're flying that means you're trying to reach something in your life that's you know hard to get to and stuff have you ever looked at one of those and tried to i don't buy that well some of it i do kind of do you and the flying one i do but drowning maybe i i and i i used to have the flying dreams, which I don't have anymore. When I was young, I used to have this very bizarre recurring dream that I was the only one that figured out how to fly. And it was all about, no, no, no. It was a very gentle flight.

It was trusting a gentle breeze. So bizarre. I was the only one that knew it could be like a three, four mile an hour breeze. I knew how to face it and trust it. I had to lean forward into it and then just lift my feet and then I would just start kind of going up

like a balloon very gently and everybody would go, what the hell is going on here? That's so strange. But I was the only one that knew how to do it. Like, no one else could figure it out. But it was a trust thing. I had to trust that I could do it.

That's so strange. What a bizarre dream. Yeah, I always had the flying one, but it was always very violent trying to do the old. Oh, trying to stay up there. Yeah, trying to do the bird flapping wing type thing. Yeah. So. Yeah, everybody wants to fly and everybody wants to be able to breathe underwater.

Those are two big ones. I don't have that. You never had that? I don't have the water one, no. I've had that one. I've had the flying one and the breathe underwater one. Hmm. Yeah, those are like recurring archetypes or themes to dreams.

The other one is sex. There's also, do you guys have reoccurring like houses? You get that soundtrack in your dreams? Always. Whenever I'm about to bone. Do you guys get reoccurring like houses that you don't... What's that sound? Do you guys hear that? Did I do something?

Yeah, what is that? What happened? You don't hear that, Jamie? Okay, that's not good. I think that's your... It's a TriCaster about to shit in our mouth. You're about to have a sex dream, and it's a soundtrack starting to warm up. Whoa, that's an awful sound. Is that coming through?

What'd you just do? It's that. Move your laptop. Look at that. How weird. Nope. Your laptop's on the microphone Cable That's weird

Yeah It's on the mic cable Makes sense Do you guys have reoccurring What the fuck did you just do there? Did you hear that? That crackle? Whoa

Was it only on my side? Whoa Yeah I didn't hear that one We got a ghost in this fucking studio Maybe that was your spine i just started like this crazy crackle uh do you guys have reoccurring places in your dreams that that don't even make like i have a place that every time i go to i'm like oh i'm at this place again but it's not my house it's not a place i've been to it's just a reoccurring environment

like what does it look like it's a uh hotel that's really, really tall, and the elevator is really fast. And it's just like this old haunted hotel. And I always go to this same hotel. And it's not a real hotel that I think of. But ever since I was a kid, exact same hotel. And I'll have that dream like once a year where I go to this weird hotel. That hotel is in my dream, but I'm gently floating past on a breeze. And I just look over and I kind of wave at you down there.

And you're flying up and down like Tower of Terror. That's right. It's like Tower of Terror at Disneyland. You're terrorized. I can see you terrorized over there, but I'm just gently enjoying life. Have you ever done that, Tower of Terror at Disneyland? No. California Adventures. It's fucking awesome. That's what it is. It's a haunted hotel

elevator. Which sounds, yeah, that's what I was thinking when you were describing it. That's the Tower of Terror. It's a dope elevator ride, if you've ever done it. Yeah, it's really fun. It's not the haunted mansion elevator where it stretches. No, it's Tower of Terror. It said California Great Adventure.

California Adventures, whatever the fuck it is. And you get on this elevator, and it tells you this story. It shows you, it's Tower of Terror. It said California Great Adventure. Huh. Or California Adventures, whatever the fuck it is. And you get on this elevator, and it tells you this story. It shows you it's like some Rod Sterling-type dude pretending to be the Twilight Zone guy. Right. And he tells you the whole story about these people that got zapped by electricity, and a lightning bolt came and hit the elevator and killed them and turned them into ghosts, and now they're fucking haunted, and the elevator's haunted, and you go flying up, and now they're fucking haunted and the elevator's haunted, and you go flying up, flying down.

Yeah, your ass comes off the seat. You have to strap in, but your ass literally comes up off the seat because you go down so quickly. You go down faster than gravity. Yeah. You should do that. No, I don't want to do that. It's fun.

What if dreams are the real world and this is the actual fake world? What if ice cream is actually hot? Joey loves what ifs. What are you talking about? What if? That's a dumb one, though. What if dreams are the real world? Well, there's no idea.

There's no, no one has any idea what the fuck is going on when you close your eyes. You wake up in the morning, and you got a whole new day. That consciousness, whatever it is, you know, unconscious consciousness, that state of mind, whatever it is, while you're sleeping is very, very, like, poorly understood. We know that there's all sorts of chemicals floating around inside the brain while that's happening. There's REM sleep and all these different neurotransmitters that are buzzing around your system. But we don't really know what's going on. We don't, you know, when you have like a deep, we assume that it's connected to various anxieties and wants and needs, and those are like the source of your dreams.

But at the end of the day, it's a lot of fucking speculating. It's a lot of speculating as to what's happening while you're dreaming. Software updates. It could be. It could be that there's, it could be that we have this idea. This is where it gets real weird, right? We have this idea that everything that is in this world, we touch things and you pick things up and you weigh things, you measure things. That's the only way things can be real.

The only way things can be real is if you can measure them and weigh them and put them in a box and carry them around. But that's our own prejudice because that's how we live most of our conscious life. We live most of our conscious life with very hard physical things but if you could just abandon that for a moment and just imagine a world where you don't have physical things that you pick up would it be possible to exist only in a state of thought would it would it be possible that the mind is another environment or what you're thinking about in your imagination is another environment.

It's just you don't, there's no solid things there. That's weird. Yeah. I mean, that's really what's going on. Okay. Well, here's one thing. You talk about what's real and what's not real. I've had many moments in my dreams

where I'm trying to decide if it's real or not, and I come to the conclusion that it is real. Okay. And then in my dream, and then when I wake up, you know, we're in a different plane of existence where I go, okay, that was a dream, but why wasn't that real while it was happening? If I made the, if I came to the conclusion that that was real while I was experiencing it, I mean, that's as, that was as real at that time as later when I'm awake yeah why are you not trusting your dream self and only trusting your this self well because this self is there all the time anyway I'm gonna be at the chuckle hut Saturday I got two shows Friday to

Saturday it is a weird world, the world of dreams. It's a weird world. All these people analyze them. All these people debate what's going on. I feel like I gave away my breeze dream. Now everyone's going to be, now when I'm dreaming it, I'm going to look around, everybody's going to be around me floating around going, hey, thanks for the tip. We didn't realize you just had to trust it.

I'm going, darn it, now it's all crowded up here, man. Well, one of these days I'm going to figure out how to do lucid dreaming. I'm going to sit down with someone who actually is a real, legit lucid dreamer and have a conversation with them about it. Because there are techniques that you can practice, and there are states of mind that you can get yourself into, allegedly. I've never experienced it other than accidentally. But when you you have

dreams you can control those dreams and that you could navigate and create things that happen in your dreams be aware of the fact that you're doing it like that it's a skill and that you could develop it yeah i've never i've had dreams that are lucid dreams but totally accidentally and uh one of the ways that i learned was one of those movies was wacky movies like what the bleep do we know one of those through the rabbit hole or something like that but uh the guy was talking about lucid dreams and he was saying that you have them all the time you don't just don't realize you're having them the one way to to determine it is in your real life in your conscious state when you walk through a doorway knock on the side of the door and say am i dreaming like every time you walk through a doorway, knock on the side of the door and say, am I dreaming?

Like every time you walk through a doorway, go, am I dreaming? And because you do it consciously all the time, if you do it all the time, am I dreaming, am I dreaming, you're going to do it in your sleep. And in your sleep, you're going to get to a doorway and you're going to go, am I dreaming? Oh, my God, I'm dreaming. It's going to go right through it. But you're going to stay awake.

I did it once. Once. I only did that once. I never really, most of the time i'm tired i'm like fuck i'm going to sleep you know i just i don't i don't deal but if you're one of those people that practices it on a daily basis apparently you can get really good at it and you can make all sorts of crazy things happen you live in like these wild sex orgy dreams where you could do whatever you want you fly around you live in space You hang out with robots you do whatever the fuck you want I want to get in an orgy with robots well. There's enough people talking about lucid dreaming. It's not bullshit I mean this is Freddy does it Freddy Lockhart does he yeah?

He reads all the books and he practices it all the time hmm. I remember talking to somebody years ago Who said she could astral project. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. A-S-T-R-A-L. Squirt from the butt. Astral project. Yes. She'd say excuse me, I have to go astral project. I'll be back in a couple minutes. No.

This is the right word. Maybe I've got it wrong. She said she would go somewhere in her head, but leave her physical body and she'd be above her body and go somewhere else and be aware of it, and then

she could come back into her body. Was this while she was awake or sleeping? No, I think it was while she was awake. Schizophrenic? Maybe that was it. It's probably similar as to a lucid dream. You know, you're creating this artificial reality or maybe, look, you're seeing things, right? I mean, just because you can't, again, put those things on a scale and weigh them and measure them

doesn't mean you're not having that actual experience. So when you're closing your eyes, you're meditating, and you project yourself above your body, who knows what the fuck is really going on. Obviously, we think that you're just imagining shit, and the shit that you're imagining is not real. But it might very well be that we're just so enamored by this state of things being solid that we don't think that unless you could touch something and feel it and put it on a scale

and measure it with a tape ruler ruler it's not real i i'm interested in the concept too that most things are a facade like we are we're enjoying or experiencing something that isn't there when we watch a football game on a big screen tv those football players aren't there they're at another location But we are experiencing it as if we were there. You talked about the car and the fake gauges, you know. You're looking at a facade. And you get right down to human beings. I mean, we have the skin and muscles and eyes.

But, like, right past that is this bizarre skull and muscle thing. And so what is the— you know what I mean? We're looking at a facade that we're comfortable with, but what is an inch beyond that? It's a scary, scary thing. But I think we need facades that we can be comfortable with to be able to experience life in a way that isn't scary. Yeah. Like I think about you, Brian Regan.

I know you, I know your personality, but but deep in your head there's this bunch of weird synapses that are firing your life experiences is all like manifesting itself in your actions and your behavior and it's a very weird thing to be a person very very weird thing yeah but that's a really good way of looking at it it's like you're projecting it that's why it weirds us out when whenever someone like does weird shit with their face you know like when whenever someone gets their lips done or gets their cheeks puffed up with that weird shit that they do right man that freaks me out that freaks me out more than almost anything when everyone's people get stuff put in their face and they're sure like it's like what

do you you know it's you're confusing me i can't i'm used to this certain yeah i doesn't mind i don't mind aging i don't mind if it changes over time that all seems normal but when you start putting stuff in there and pumping things up and and and botoxing shit and stuff that weirds people out because it's like man i miss the signals all fucking right it's like if you can't have the normal facial reactions to express the proper emotions, the signals are getting all crossed. That is a weird one when they have the rubber in their face and their face doesn't move right.

I remember we were at the Brea Improv, and Joan Rivers, rest her soul, was on television. She had a reality show withrov and Joan Rivers, rest her soul, was on television, she had a reality show with her and her daughter and it was me and Joey and Ari and we were barbecued, we were way too high to be watching the Joan Rivers thing. And I was freaking out about her face. I was like looking at this weird frozen kabuki mask thing that is her her field of expression. You know, it was just very bizarre.

Like everything was like pushed up and filled and frozen. It just wasn't moving right. And it was like, oh, my God, like you're it's way better to be old than to be that. Well, I I contest that in the sense that people want to do things to make themselves feel better. And sometimes they feel if they look better, they're going to feel better. Nobody questions somebody when they comb their hair or brush their hair or wear contacts instead of glasses or shave their beard. You know, those, those are things that, you know, could be considered a selfish and vain, but shaving your beard. You know, those are things that, you know, could be considered selfish and vain.

Shaving your beard? Well, I mean, you know, like trimming it, I mean. You know, and some people will go to extra extremes and want to put stuff in their face. And it makes them feel better. I agree with you. It could look kind of strange. But if it makes them feel better, hey, you know, free will. Well, it is nice to feel better.

That's true. But when you see someone and their face is no longer a human face, it's like a weird mask, a frozen mask that doesn't communicate right. It gives you a creepy feeling. The signals are all wrong. you feeling like is it it can the signals are all wrong like if you talk to someone and you talk to like a really old person and there's lines all over their face and you're talking to them you realize wow this guy has lived 90 years 90 years on this planet like you could see it in his face but if you talk to that same guy and he's this frozen mask with silicone on his lips everything like it's fucking strange because you're not you're not getting in there

you're not seeing it it's like it's like you're talking to him through a really thickly tinted window like i could see there's a person in there and they're talking to me but i don't i'm not exactly sure what kind of expressions they're making you know you know that weird there's a weird thing that people do when they shut off the expressions of their face it doesn't it can't fucking move it around anymore you ever see someone they have like they're super well he's not is he up yeah his face his face looks pretty pretty worked on well maybe he's old i mean it's not that i don't know he doesn't he doesn't joan rivers it did you hear the the

thing recently like uh this was like a day before the the oscars that uh he got he was at a gym at three in the morning in hollywood and this guy was working out and then jeff will just comes up and just like introduces like hey how's it going i'm john how's it going it wasn't a week before it was a long time ago oh it was yeah it was a story that went around Oh, it was? Yeah, it was a store that went around. It was like a non-story. It's like, what did he do? He said hi to a guy in the morning. So who knows what he really did? That guy, we're taking that guy's word for it. He's probably trying to get his dick sucked.

You're right. Probably. It's probably what he does. You know, three o'clock in the morning, you never know. Maybe it's like rest stops. Like, that's where gay dudes meet to try to hook it. Equinox? Yeah.

You never know. You never know. So is that what the gist of the story was? The story was, well, the guy said that it was really awkward because at three in the morning this guy just comes up to him and like holds out his hand and starts like introducing himself and the guy was like, you know, I felt what he was doing, but I was. Well, I read the story. Yeah.

It was, I mean, the guy was just saying it was odd to talk to John, but it's a non-story. The guy said, a guy said hi. Right. I mean, it could be you. Yeah. Brian Redbrand came into the fucking Equinox at three o'clock in the morning. It was weird out to me. It was fucking real strange. Okay, let's print a story. Imagine if it was a story. It became

a story. Every time you said hi to someone at the gym. You know what? It is. Every celebrity encounter is a story, not necessarily something that, you know, gets into the media. But I remember living in New York and taking a train out to Chuckles in Mineola, I think. Yeah. And they put you in a place where they put you in a cab. You know, it's like five people have to share a cab from the train station to the town. So there's three people, I guess. So we're in the cab and the guy goes, so where are you headed? And I said, I train station to the town. So there's, well, three people, I guess. So we're in the cab, and the guy goes, so where are you headed?

And I said, I'm going to Chuckles. And they go, oh, you're a comedian? Yeah, you know, you get into that awkward conversation. And so this cab driver says, I had Roseanne Barr in the car. And I remember driving by, and she was looking out the window and she was intrigued by a mailbox that she saw in front of one of the houses. And, you know, so there's like a nothing story. But I'm thinking, Roseanne Bard doesn't remember this story. But this guy, that's his Roseanne. Well, Roseanne Arnold now, but I mean, that's his story.

So, like, if anybody gets into an elevator with a celebrity, they will tell that story for the rest of their life. The celebrity is not going to remember that particular elevator ride. But if you happen to be in an elevator one time in your life with Paul Newman, anytime that's, Paul Newman's mentioned, that's your story. And it's weird that every encounter is a story to somebody. I had a story that I talked about on the podcast because a guy in an elevator, me and my friend Eddie were in an elevator and some guy was in the elevator. And apparently when the guy left the elevator he said uh take it easy or something like that and we didn't respond you know i or if he i did respond he didn't hear me i don't

know what happened but he wrote this long crazy post on this message board about what a douchebag i am damn i mean i literally i mean it was like hey what's up so get in the elevator the guy left and uh you know and i thought that was it there was a guy in an elevator and that's it but in his mind he was slighted like in some strange way which is if someone says hi to me i always say hi i'm not the type of person that says take it easy i i'll say yeah take it easy you know always always trying to be cordial i'm just not that guy right so reading that this like artificial creation in this guy's mind like right then he apologized for it then it got really weird like you know like people he got called out on it and

so that like so you you responded in a way and then he uh and then he apologized it was a message board that i go to so it's like really strange i was like what are you talking about and so then he backed off of it and apologized and said he was just insecure. It was like it was Very very very fucking strange But to see someone just create this artificial version of an encounter and in their mind his mind who knows I mean, I don't know what issues this guy had obviously he has some otherwise he wouldn't have ever made a post like that Even if you had slighted him why is that? You know, what's the big deal to him and the rest of his existence? And if it was a slight, I mean, it wasn't.

But in his version of a slight, it was as minor as it gets. Like, take it easy. That's what I mean. No one says anything back. That's it. And this fucking diatribe, I mean, several paragraphs of bile, like spewed by this guy, but in some people's minds like these Encounters like you talking to Roseanne Barr about a fucking mailbox Like it's a day Roseanne Barr shits on people's mailboxes

I like what kind of mailbox you got in Bel Air you fucking cunt Like for whatever what that's a strange mailbox. Maybe she's trying trying to make small talk, you fuckhead. No, he wasn't saying it negatively. He was just saying that that was what his encounter was. So that was his story. But it could be negative. I mean, there's a lot of those. I've had conversations with people. I always get in, when I get in limos, I always ask, who's the biggest shithead you ever had to drive around?

It's always the same three people, too. There's a few. There's a few people where we've done that a bunch of times. We hear that, hmm, I can't believe it's him again. Smoking fire. There's a few people where we've done that a bunch of times, and we hear that, hmm, I can't believe it's him again. Smoking fire. There's definitely that. Well, everybody should get one pass, you know what I mean? Like, everybody's going to have a bad thing or something that's confused, but if it's a recurring thing, then there's probably some truth to it.

Absolutely. I was in an elevator one time with a guy, and he recognized me as a comedian, and he wanted to do one of my bits to me. But he got it wrong. And the bit was this old bit I used to do about saying, you too, at the wrong time. Getting out of a cab at the airport. And the driver goes, have a nice flight. And you go, you too. So that's the bit.

So I'm in the elevator with him, this guy. And he goes, oh, you're a comedian, right? And I said, yeah. Yeah, how you doing? And he goes, you're the guy that says, and you all the time. So I'm not going to call him out on it. I'm honored. He even knows who I am. So I'm not going to embarrass him. I said, yeah, that's me. That's me. And he goes, yeah. He goes, I do that all the time. I'm always saying, and you at the wrong time. And now I'm like,

no, I shouldn't, I should have corrected that. You know what I mean? And he goes, yeah, there's probably not a day goes by that I don't yell and you. And I'm thinking, this is getting off the tracks. So the elevator door opens. It's in a casino with a bunch of people. And we walk off the elevator. I'm going one way and he goes the other way. So he starts yelling to me, thinking it's going to be funny, what he thinks is my bit in a casino now with hundreds of people. And he's going, and you, and you. Oh, God. And I'm thinking, I'm the only guy here who knows what this guy's talking about, and I

don't know what he's talking about. It was very, very strange. You can run into people, man, and just you zig when you should have zagged, and you run into someone who's completely out of their fucking mind, and then they become a part of your life. I mean, that can happen. You could definitely run into the wrong people, especially if it's a girl, especially if you're single.

You just, for whatever reason, start talking to someone, and it turns out they're fucking crazy, and then you, you know. That's the problem with men. Men are willing to look past a lot of shit if a chick's hot. Like, I know a lot of guys that have gotten involved with girls that are just completely out of their fucking mind, but they're pretty. And they're just like, oh, you know, she's a little weird. But no, no, no. If she was a guy, you would be running from her.

And you! And you! Imagine if that was a gal, and she be running from her. And you! And you! Imagine if that was a gal. She had giant tits and a thin waist. Yeah, I'd be running back towards her. Exactly. Yeah, that's me. I'm that guy.

You're like, hey, we're going to be partying. And you and me, man. Let's do it up. You take her to a restaurant. She's yelling out, and you. And you. And then she sees your act. And then she sees an old recording, and she sees an old recording and she sees that bit.

And she's like, what the fuck? You didn't even tell me. You had me making an asshole out of myself. You fucking selfish piece of shit. Fuck you, Brian. Or you do it during the wedding vows. And she says, and you. And you go, all right, I got to tell you, that ain't the joke.

And you, and you go, all right, I got to tell you, that ain't the joke. The people that you meet in this wacky life. I got to think the people you meet living in Vegas is, well, you're in Henderson, right? Well, I don't want to tell you where you are. Oh, too late. I'm not there anyway. Good. Beautiful. You're in one of those suburban towns outside of the Vegas.

And you're actually further than that. You're like deep in the woods in a secret underground compound we can't discuss. But the point being that you're actually in a real normal town that just happens to be next to the Death Star. Like you're like in the vicinity of the Death Star. Like you could probably drive and you can get to the strip in a reasonable amount of time. But the people that you live with, are they affected at all by the fact that they live in Vegas or do they seem like regular folks in a regular town? Well, I used to live in a house in a cul-de-sac and so there was more interaction with the

neighbors and now I live in one of those condo kind of deals. So now I have less interaction with the other people in the condo. But in the cul-de-sac, you know, one thing I liked, things I liked about it and didn't like about the neighbor thing. One, I'm not the kind of guy that just wants to have a conversation when somebody else feels like having a conversation. I just felt weird about pulling up into the driveway and then Joe Blow wants to just walk up and just start talking about the water pump or something that has to do with the cul-de-sac or even small talk. It's like, well, I don't want to do that right now. But one thing I did like about it is because it was so non-show busy. I've got a lot of friends in show business and I love them. And of course, they're going to be interested in their careers. And that's what people are going to tend to talk about.

When I lived in L.A., there was just a disproportionate amount of conversations about auditions that people went to and what they're up for and how they feel about an agent or this or that. And that's okay, but it's nice to be away from that. And one thing I loved about this just very suburban kind of cul-de-sac in Las Vegas was, you know, I'd come back from the road, right? So I'm just, I'm doing comedy and I'm doing show business and I come back from the road and there's neighbor kids riding their bikes in the cul-de-sac and the dad's saying, yeah, I put her bike together yesterday. And it's just very real. bike together yesterday and it's just very real and i liked i liked having the showbiz life balanced with the real grounded kind of world where not everything is about you know furthering careers and stuff yeah that's that's a big thing that a lot of people experience about

any sort of environment like hollywood where it's just so based on one industry you just get so wrapped up in that world that it's exhausting when I was living in Las Vegas I've been in Las Vegas over ten years now and I was out here doing something and I met a guy on the street I didn't know who he was but he was a comedian and said hey man he knew who I was. And so I said, hey, how's it going? And he said, well, I've got an audition for this. I got, and he started telling me things he was up to showbiz wise. And I'm thinking that's not what I meant by how are you doing?

Right. I meant like, you know, how are things? How do you feel? There's a guy that I won't name, but I can't talk to him anymore. Because every time I talk to him, that happens. I ran into him. We were both working the same venue. He was doing the early show.

I was doing the late show. And I ran into him and I said, hey, man, what's up? Well, I've got a blah, blah, blah, blah deal with a blah, blah. I mean, it just starts reading off. He starts reading off this deal that he's got and his backup deal that he's got. I mean, he went on for several minutes. It was fucking exhausting. And I went, good to see you're doing well. Yeah. I took a deep breath and I looked like,

I don't know what to say. Like I was stuck in this fucking hallway talking to this guy. There was no way to get out. There was no one there but me and him. And he just rattles off this fucking crazy resume of bullshit. Just nonsense that, by the way, never happened. None of it happened. I mean, here we are years later. None of those things took place. But he was telling me that he had a backup deal. And this sitcom, if this didn't go, he has a backup deal.

They're going to pay him this amount of money. It was just nonsense. But that happens. I've never had a backup deal, man. I want to get where I'm in that place where I have a deal and a backup deal. Yeah, guess what? I don't even have a deal. I don't even think he had a backup deal.

I don't even think he's a bullshit artist. I think, you know, that's just what he wanted. What he wanted. So he's just telling me that he's doing great. There's some people that run into you. You know, you run into certain guys and you want to prove to them that you're you're doing well you know like they maybe have some weird thing about them like they go oh this guy's doing better than me I'm gonna tell him I'm doing awesome I'm gonna let him know

right away that we're on even ground so that's where this you know if he was running into some open mic er you know and say hey man how you doing he'd be like yeah good how you doing like He'd be like, yeah, good, how you doing? Like, that would be normal because he would already feel like he has the advantage. Right. And I know, I'm guilty of having, I don't know, there are times when I think, you know, I have the proper amount of just low-key thing, but I know there's a little piece of me, that little ego part of me that needs to participate.

You know, it like comes out of me that, that needs to participate, you know, it, it, it like comes out of me sometimes if like, if somebody has the wrong idea of maybe what I've been able to do as a comedian, right. You know, like you meet somebody at a party or something and, and I'll never say what I do unless I'm point blank asked and I'll go, what do you do? And so then now I'm going to be honest as I'm a comedian and, and they go, oh, you do like open mic nights and stuff like that? Is that what you do? And then that little ego part of me is like, now how do I reply to this? Yeah.

You know, this person has the wrong idea of what I do, you know, or where I'm at. But you can't be braggy either. But you don't want to be braggy, you know. So at what level do you know or where I'm at but you can't be braggy you don't be braggy you know so so what at what level do you answer a question like that you know just like do I do I just say no I don't do open mic nights and let it go with that or do I you know throw something out there that well I used to you could say maybe I used to do open mic night there you go yeah I had this guy run I ran into this guy at a fucking gun store for you know all places and

the first words that I said this guy never met him before his first words he goes hey you're you're Joe Rogan right I go yeah he goes how's your career doing that's his first words. I go, I go, it's good. He goes, you're not doing that Fear Factor show, huh? Like, puts me on the defensive. I go, nope. He goes, tough business.

Good luck. I'm like, whoa. But it was so douchey, the way he was doing it. It was so douchey. Those are the only words I said. I'm like, all right. And I like like literally it ended right there I was I was under the influence of the sacred plant at the time allowed me to relax more but it was like I wasn't gonna get in an argument with the guy about it or

Correct him, but I was like it was taken aback by how's your career? Well, I got the first words out of his mouth. You know you could have said well you just said my name Yeah, so obviously you just said my name. Yeah. So obviously you know who I am. Yeah, but he's trying to paint me as a has-been. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, that's what, there's people that will do that to you. They try to paint you as a has-been.

Hey, like a guy did it to me at CVS once. A guy that, it's working behind the counter at CVS. There's this guy, I don't know what country he's from, but he's super, he doesn't work there anymore. But he was like super like aggro. He's like This this fucking face like and he goes hey you don't have that show anymore Like that's the words he said wow and I go what you know I guess you don't have that show anymore, huh? And I go no, I don't have that show anymore. I also don't work at CVS Fucking idiot like what are you talking? I can leave anytime I want, motherfucker.

You got to stay until your shift's over. I had a... What a dick. Like, how much could you possibly make at CBS that you want to get shitty with someone who comes in that used to be on a TV show? Like, he just... The way he was saying it was just trying to put me on the defensive. Like, make me feel bad.

But he didn't think it out. Much like he probably didn't think his life out, which is why he was the fucking late-night guy at CVS. There's a lot of... I'm fortunate in that the people that come out to see my show, they're pretty cool people, man. You know, I like meeting them after the show, and they're nice people, you know. So I have no complaints there. But every once in a while, you're going to get a curveball. And I was working at the improv down in Irvine and I remember I had a pretty strong set,

felt pretty good. I walked off stage and this guy like walks, like just beelined back to me who was in the middle of the audience. And I felt, okay, I just, I just made people laugh laugh for an hour you know i felt like i did my job and he goes hey didn't i see you bomb on arsenio like 10 years ago i was like um yeah yeah i had a rough one did you see tonight show you were in the middle of tonight. I just did an hour tonight. We're not talking about that.

We're talking about 10 years ago. Yeah, people want to make you feel bad. Rough set. Plus people see you, and they're like, oh, this guy thinks he's something special. I'm going to let him know. I saw him. I'm going to knock him down a peg. I saw him when he wasn't at his best.

Yeah. Saw him in that weird environment of the, those shows. Doing stand-up on one of those fucking shows is so brutal. It's so hard to, first of all, I don't know, like, if you feel comfortable doing, like, a real short set. But I always feel real weird when I do five minutes. Like, five minutes to me is, like, I don't, that's, I have long bits. Like, five minutes to me is just exploring a premise. It's a whole different animal.

You know, I I like the challenge of it, but it's it's so different from doing an hour set, especially an hour set in front of people who, you know, they're there to see what you do. Yeah. But if I do Letterman or something like that, I'm walking out to a group of people who have no clue who I am. Maybe a handful of people in the audience do, but for the most part, it's like, you know, here's a comedian and, uh, you're walking out and on Letterman, you get four and a half minutes and, uh, you know, it's a very, very challenging thing to, yeah, I describe it to people as...

People think of comedy as knocking down the pins. Well, the hard part is setting up the pins. There's no pins set up. You're walking out to nothing. You're walking out to nothing. And you have to set up pins quickly and then knock them down. And people don't realize that that's part of the art form and part of the challenge um is coming out to nothing it's white virgin snow and you have to quickly talk about

something and set up something and then start getting people into that and it's a lot more challenging than people might think it's one of the the harder jobs as far as stand-up goes, is doing a talk show set. It's one of the harder gigs. It's like opening up. Because when you go on stage cold and there's no one who warms up the crowd before you, you have to get everybody into the mindset. There's a thing going on. The way I describe it is it's like I'm almost like a mass hypnosis Like when I'm watching a Brian Regan show when you're killing I'm thinking the way you're thinking you're I'm not thinking in my mind

Like man, he's doing like if I was in my own head It's like well like the way what dresses this guy's fucking walks weird You know I mean like if you have like date you're gonna get out of that the mindset right when when a guy's killing, when you're up there and you're letting it loose and everything's flowing, I'm thinking like you. I'm allowing you to sort of control where my thoughts go. And you're surprising me with your statements. And those surprises are often really funny. And that's how you kind of get comedy going. But when you're just starting out, like, ready, go, and you're doing four minutes, you don't get a chance to hypnotize anybody. You just kind of got to hope that they're kind and they're receptive.

And then they think that your first few words are reasonable enough to allow you a certain amount of access to their funny thought. I remember so many years ago, and I wish I could remember who it was. This was before I had ever done a TV set. Say that you have to get it into your head that the first joke is going to be a foul ball and don't let it throw you because you're not going to get the reaction that you get in front of your fans. Your first set on a TV, your first joke in a TV audience, they don't know you. They're like, who is this

guy? You know, they're usually trying to be friendly. They want to like you. So your first joke is their absolute first clue of how you think as a comedian. So they're not going to be all in yet. So it might get a laugh, but it might not get the laugh that you're used to it getting. But you have to understand that and go, I know this first one is a foul ball. It's just going to go off. And if it does get a bigger laugh, okay, that's a bonus. Now I can ride it.

But I think it's best to go out there assuming that it might get nothing or a little laugh. Yeah. Because if you go out there thinking this is going to kill and it doesn't, it could throw you for the whole set. Yeah. I've seen that. I've seen that in regular shows. I've seen guys go out there that never have opened up before or haven't done in a long time,

and they'll go out and try to rush it. They'll try to rush the first joke before, like, settle down, folks. What's up? How's everybody doing? Thanks for coming out tonight. They just immediately go into a bit. And when you immediately go into a bit and it doesn't work, then you're on defensive mode or tailspin mode.

And you're trying to recover. It's a constant quest to try to figure out how to learn how to do comedy, both in front of fans or in front of TV audiences and stuff like that. And that's one thing I love about it is that you're always learning. You're always learning. Sometimes you can prepare too much sometimes you can prepare too little it's like it's a never-ending process right i i think it would be a mistake to get to the point where go okay i got this figured out yeah i don't ever

want to feel like that i want to feel like i'm learning every time i hit the stage and um that's one of those things that's a blast about doing like a TV set. You know, I've kind of learned over the years after the foul ball. It's a it's it's it's animals, man. It's like you have to let that audience know you are comfortable. You got to let them know. Smell your weakness. Yes.

You got to let them know. I got this. Yes, you've got to let them know, I got this. And it's a cool feeling because that's the moment where you're either going to go south or you're going to get them. You know what I mean? And it's a fun, I don't know, it's fun. It's like hunting, I guess, you know what I mean? No, I love it.

I love it, too. Same for the same reason. Because it's constantly challenging. Yeah. Yeah. You never have it down. You just don't. You know know you have it good enough and you can go out there like I'm confident like I did some shows this weekend in Portland every show was fucking amazing great

crowd had a great time but before every show I'm going over my notes I'm thinking about what bits I want to do I'm tweaking this and tweaking that and I'm getting in the right you can't you can't disrespect it you know you can't ever get cocky you can't ever think that for whatever reason that the learning process is over. It's never over. Especially when you're constantly creating new material. Then it's really never over. Like I did a special in November, abandoned all the material.

Once it was done, once it was on TV, I'm done. Now I have a whole new fucking hour I have to hone and sharpen and add to. And that's always terrifying. It's always terrifying when you're trying out new shit and adding new shit to it and tweaking it and changing it. But that's what's exciting about it. That's what's so fun about it.

It's so fun that you've got all this new stuff that's in your head. And it's like the saddest thing about comedy is watching those guys that have been doing comedy forever that do the same jokes they did 20 years ago. That's one of the saddest things you could ever say. Yeah. I, um, I worked with a guy one time and he had a bit and, uh, it was a pretty good bit. And I remember thinking, ah, it's a good idea. And he needs to, you know, work on that, you know, tighten it up and then, uh, get to that point a little bit quicker or whatever. Yeah. And then I worked with a guy like tighten it up and then get to that point a little bit quicker or whatever.

Yeah. And then I worked with a guy like two years later and he did the same joke word for word, like no tightening of the screws at all. And I remember kind of being disappointed as a fellow comedian saying, well, I mean, I didn't say that to him, but thinking, why aren't you working on this? Well, it's delusional. He's delusional. He's either delusional or he's lazy. Those are the two options, right? It's like you're delusional or you think it's good enough and you don't have to change it, or you're lazy and that you don't want to work.

You don't want to fuck with it. You don't want to tweak it. You have to. There's no way you get good. Years ago, I started at the Comic Strip in Fort Lauderdale, and Rodney Dangerfield was performing at the Sunrise Musical Theater, and he came into the Comic Strip to do a guest set, like warming up for his big thing, you know, down the road. So, of course, a small comedy club in Fort Lauderdale.

We're honored to have him. He goes on stage. Crowd goes nuts. You know, it's a small audience, you know, 200 people or whatever. He's like, hey, you know, thanks for, I want to work some stuff out. You know, I appreciate it, you know. He takes his glasses out. And I'd been doing comedy like six months at this point.

You know, I worked there as a busboy and they let me go on late at night. Now here I get to watch Rodney Dangerfield. He goes on stage. He tells the audience that he wants to work on some jokes. He takes glasses, little reading glasses out. He takes out about 20 little three-by-five cards. And he reads them, half performing them, half reading them, you know, going, I just want to get a feel for these things, you know. And he does them, and some laugh, some work, some don't work.

And then he leaves. And I'm like, wow, that was interesting, you know. He's working on his act. I'd never seen a star comedian work on his act. He came in the next night and said, hey, you know, can I do a guest set? Of course. He goes on. Now there's no glasses.

There's no three-by-five cards. Of the 20 jokes, he's doing about eight of them, and they're tighter versions of what he had done the night before. And I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it it's like when it dawned on me this is a this is a an art form this is a craft and you can work at this you can some anybody could watch rodney dangerfield's end result and just laugh that was. But I got to watch him. I got to watch him figure this out, take stuff, trim out fat and figure out how to make a set. And like from that moment on, I realized, you know, just go on stage and go home and just chill. You know, you work on it. And so I love the process. I love the offstage process. I love working on jokes, man, making them 1% better. That's always my philosophy.

I just, if I can change one word and make that joke 1% better, why not? Yeah. Or cut, cut words out and get to a quicker and it has more impact. Right. And that doesn't mean, you know, that every joke needs, you know, some jokes. Yeah. It's better to stretch something out if it's a freer form kind of thing. To me, it's like an accordion.

You know, some stuff you're pulling out and other stuff you're squeezing. And all that stuff is happening simultaneously. Or like maybe music where sometimes you have this like really slow buildup and sometimes it's like really fast and really loud. It all varies and it all depends on the subject matter. It depends on what you're trying to do and what that bit leads into. When you write, do you write on paper? Do you write on a computer? Do you write, like, do you sit down and say, I'm going to write jokes today? Or do you just have an idea and just start writing about it? I don't know how to sit down in front of a blank piece of paper

or a blank computer screen and come up with stuff. I don't know how to do that. You know, or a blank computer screen and come up with stuff. I don't know how to do that. The original inspiration has to be external. I just have to experience something or see something or read something. So I just go through my normal day or life the way I normally would, and things jump up and down. It's like a kid in gym class, you know, pick me to be on the basketball team. Something in life jumps up and down and you

go, oh, that's weird. And then you have your initial weird comedic view of it. So the inspiration comes from an external source. And then, all right, now I have the nucleus, then I can write. Then it's like, okay, now I know what the thought is, the idea. Now what words am I going to apply to it to get from beginning to middle to end? And then that part could take a year or longer, you know, going on every night and changing the words, changing it, tightening it, switching it, you know, things like that. And you don't go necessarily to comedy clubs to work out. You kind of work out your bits in between like bits that are already established. Yeah. Because most of the time you're doing these big theaters and you're touring. Do you tour like four or five days in a row or do you just do weekends? Like how do you set it up?

I do two weekends a month and those weekends are four one-nighters. I do Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Oh, you only do two a month. Do you do every other or do you do two in a row? Saturday, Sunday. Oh, you only do two a month. Do you do every other or do you do two in a row? It's well, it depends. I work half the weekends of the year. And you do this so that you can hang out with your kids and spend time. Yeah, that's cool. And when you do it, do you like you purposely say like, okay, I've got, you know, a bunch of bits I'm going to do in the beginning that I know are rock solid. I get everybody rocking and then I'll slide this new stuff in there and see how it works. I try not, I don't want to have that overly figured out either. You know, it's like, you know, I want to, I don't want to lose that weirdness of hitting something right off the bat that I don't know if it's going to work or not.

You know, it's a temptation to go to a surefire laugh. Right. And I usually do. But every once in a while I'll say to myself, I need to go out and do something relatively new that I've never opened with and see how it flies. Because I want to keep exercising every muscle. You know, I mean, there's a lot of guys out there who just always open with the same thing and always close with the same thing. And it's like, I want to keep switching that up. You know, you're also in this place where you're doing these big crowds and you don't do other stuff like you're not doing a lot of television shows as far as like sitcoms or you're not doing a lot of movies. You're doing a lot of these things. So it's like you're constantly performing you're constantly performing you're

constantly like adding to this this sort of uh this this database of jokes and material you know yeah i like what you're doing man i think it's really cool because you were you were like trying to do the sitcom thing for a while like everybody else and then you just like well fuck this let's do some i appreciate it i you know i mean heck you know you can't argue with somebody getting a sitcom and then you know the being able to be set for life or whatever and um and i but but i have always liked stand-up and i always thought you needed to get a sitcom to get to the point where you could play in theaters. So that was why I wanted a sitcom, so that I could get my exposure up to then I could continue doing stand-up, but now in front of fans. We thought that in the 90s.

Everybody thought that. And I didn't realize, well, I kind of got there without having to do that. You know, it's like, wow, I'm building the following just from the stand-up. The stand-up thing just kept kind of getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so I was able to make that jump from comedy clubs to theaters. And so now, you know, I still, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't want to do a TV thing,

but I would want it to be around my creative vision. You know, I'm not interested in being a star. I'm interested in my comedy being a star. Right. Well, that's one of the cool things about what you've been able to achieve. Well, you do these really big places, but you're in this reasonable celebrity mode where it's very reasonable. You're like, I've hung out with you.

You walk around the casinos and occasionally people will recognize you and everything like that, but it's nothing weird. You know, you don't have to hide. You're not getting overwhelmed. You don't get chased and hawked. But you're packing these giant fucking places. Like, you have these fans. There's, like, this hardcore group of dedicated fans that will come to see you

because you've earned them by traveling over and over again, back and forth to these same spots and packing these same places. It's a very unique thing you've done. and packing these same places. It's a very unique thing you've done. It's a very bizarre situation because I don't know what the percentages are, but I truly feel like if you polled 100 Americans just at random, I swear I think 98 of them, and showed them a picture of me or something like that,

98 of them would not know who I am. Maybe 99. Yet, I do have enough people that will want to go to these venues. I'm not exaggerating when I say how strange it is for me to be in a theater. Say there's 2,000 people there. And I do my show. I could go a half a mile down the street to a Burger King afterwards and walk in and nobody in there knows who I am. And I'm like, how do these two disparate things, how can I be big man on campus a half a mile

that way? And in here, nobody knows, nobody knows who I am. Well, you've done it by establishing this like really loyal fan base. It's very unique what you've done. So the people that know you love you. But maybe it's only 1%. But if you look at that 1%, if there's 350 million people, that means 3.5 million people fucking love you. I'm not bothered by it.

I like it. In fact, I... No, I'm not saying that you are, but I'm saying it's very unique. by i i like it in fact i i'm not saying that you are but i'm saying that's it's very unique and i realize too that anonymity is a commodity you know there are there are celebrities who probably might not want to be as famous as they are in terms of just being able to go out and having a meal or something like that and it's like you know i don't have that issue man yeah so i i have i have this career in show business with the following and nobody knows who i am and you kind of not many people can do that you kind of engineered it too i mean um i remember when you first started

like really going on the road hard and you started moving from clubs to theaters it was all based on repeat customers it's all based on repeat customers. It's all based on people going to see you, really loving your material, really laughing, having a great time, and then say, oh, Brian Regan's back in town. And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and it slowly started building up.

And then I'd heard, I mean, I don't know how many years ago you started packing these large theaters, but I kept hearing, dude, Brian Regan is just fucking killing it on the road. The difference being that if you had a sitcom, like maybe you would get people to come see you, but you would not have nearly as much time to perform and to work on your material and your sets probably wouldn't be the same. It probably, you wouldn't have the same level of competency on stage that you do now because,

you know, you've been hammering that samurai sword for fucking you know decades now bang bang there's guys and i don't want to name any names but it's sad when you see a guy who took seven eight years off to do a successful sitcom and then they started doing stand-up again and you realize they got soft not just soft but in his atrophy just the waste they just not this not only did they not get better, they got worse. Whatever that muscle is that allows you to do comedy and hypnotize those 4,000 people

in the theaters that you're performing in, they don't have that muscle anymore. It doesn't exist anymore. It's all just sort of like slipped away from them and there's like a ghost of what it used to be that they're trying to reestablish.

These embers are trying to blow on and add... That's a good analogy. Yeah, I mean, that's really what it used to be that they're trying to reestablish these embers. They're trying to blow on and add. That's a good analogy. Yeah. I mean, that's really what it is. I mean, we were talked into believing that the only way to be successful as a comic was to do it the way Roseanne had done it or the way Seinfeld had done it, is take that stand up and use it to parlay it into a sitcom. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nothing. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Nothing at all. There's nothing wrong with that. Gosh, I applaud anybody that can get a network to want to build a show around them. And if you can have some creative fun with it, even better, and make your money for the rest of your life and all that. I don't denounce any of that. But I like comedy as an end result. You know, some people want to use stand-up comedy as a stepping stone to get to something beyond that that they think is better.

And I'm like, well, I don't think there's anything better. I like it, you know. Yeah, we just talked into a long time ago, like I said, especially in the 90s, we were talked into thinking that this is not it this is just it that gets you something else because that's something else like a lot of times a lot of fucking money yeah like more money than you're ever making doing stand-up at the time like they put you on a sitcom like when I was on news radio like all of a sudden I was on the sitcom and that was a great experience for me but this it's being on a great sitcom is even though it's a lot of money this is not nearly

as much fun as doing stand-up it just never will be it's just it's not it's also not nearly as much fun to watch like if i have to choose between going to see you doing stand-up or watching you in a sitcom there's no comparison like and even though the stuff that you do especially like your your act is squeaky clean. You're one of the rare guys. It's universally respected as being one of the most hilarious guys out there as a stand-up by comics. I appreciate that, man. But you're squeaky clean.

I could take my mom to see you and not feel weird. I could take my daughter to see you and not feel weird. Well, thank you. I did a show somewhere and this family came backstage, including their grandmother, like this 80-year-old woman. And she said, so how long have you been in vaudeville? Vaudeville. Vaudeville.

What is vaudeville exactly? I don't even know. But I guess I started around 1920. I don't know. Vaudeville is one of those expressions that I never really bothered to figure out what it meant. I don't know. So old kind of showbiz thing, right? Where there was a singer and a comedian and a magician or something.

I'm guessing. I don't know. Yeah. More of a variety thing. They used to have to do that. Yeah. Imagine if you had to do it Lenny Bruce style. You used to be the fucking MC of the night.

I don't know. If I had to start, like if I was born in 1930 or 40 and wanted to be a comedian, I don't know if I would have made it. I got fortunate in that when I wanted to be a comedian, there was a such thing as a comedy club. Yeah. Where people are there to watch comedy only. Yeah. And open mic nights. Right.

That's the big one. Is the open mic nights like training wheels. Like, before open mic nights, like, how the fuck did you ever get on stage the first time? Right, right. That's why a lot of those guys used to do joke jokes. If you talk to some of the old comics that'll be honest with you about what was going on in the early days, they would all share material. They would all do jokes.

They would go to these places. The people would never see them again. And they would do a joke. And then their name would get out there that this guy is hilarious. And you'd go see them and they were doing jokes. Like, two guys walking to a bar. Literally, they would do street jokes. And they would have a certain amount of them. Like Jackie the Joke Man Martling.

Perfect example. Jackie Martling literally knows every fucking joke. He has a, he has a segment that he does called Stump the Joke Man, where he's doing radio where people would call him up with a joke and he would know how the joke goes because he literally knows every joke. Yeah, I've worked with him a number of times over the years and, you know, it's interesting the way he, I mean, I like that there are different people doing different things and

he's like a joke, joke guy. Yeah. It takes a lot of pride in that and that's fun to watch. It's like, okay, that's like that there are different people doing different things and he's like a joke, joke guy. Yeah. It takes a lot of pride in that. And that's fun to watch. It's like, okay, that's, that's what he's doing. Yeah. Joke jokes. Two guys walking to a bar kind of jokes.

Yeah. But I also like the fact that, you know, there's other people doing bizarrely or weirdly different kinds of comedy too. Right. You know, that's what's so cool about comedy is there's so many different things happening under that, under that big umbrella. You know one thing you don't see anymore? Prop acts.

Carrot Top killed the prop acts. There's so few prop acts. That's weird. When I was starting out, there was a lot of prop acts. You go to open mic night, and on an average open mic night, maybe one guy would have props. And you don't see them anymore. Carrot Top murdered that game. There's no more.

I like him. When I used to work in Charlotte, he used to live there, and he would come out, and he was always very cool and friendly, and he was a college act at that time. And, you know, I think he kind of knew the rap, you know, of how many people like what some people think about prop stuff. But I don't know. I like to feel like, hey, man, there's all different ways of doing comedy. Sure. You know. Funny's funny.

Yeah. He does props great. Yeah. He's great at that. And if you want to go there and just buy into that experience, he's going to be holding things up and it's going to be silly and funny. That's fine. I think that's valid. Oh, yeah.

No, I'm not criticizing it at all. I don't have any problem with what he does. By all accounts, he's a very nice guy. But it's interesting that that genre doesn't exist anymore. That is interesting. There's very few puppet acts these days, too. Very few puppet acts. It's like Jeff Dunham and those whatever characters that he has.

Right. He's kind of like nailed that down. There's like a few guys. Like there's Terry Fedor. Right. He does those impressions. Like he has that Terry Fedor theater at the Mirage. But other than those two guys, it used to be Otto and George.

Did you ever get a chance to work with Otto? Yes. Yeah. I used to to be Otto and George. Did you ever get a chance to work with Otto? Yes. Yeah. I used to love watching Otto and George. He's my favorite of all time when it comes to puppet acts because he had a crazy rap. Like the puppet would say all the fucked up shit and then he would go, I can't believe you're saying that. The puppet would go, fuck you. The puppet got stabbed once.

It's a legendary story. Some guy, he was shitting on some guy in the audience. The guy jumped up and stabbed the puppet. That's going to be the ultimate compliment. I guess. You know what I mean? If you're stabbing my puppet, I know I'm good at this. I worked with him once and these kids were heckling.

We see your lips moving. We see your lips moving. We're like, you're missing the point Course his lips are moving you think the dummies really fucking talking. Why are you looking at his lips? But you know people want like especially dumb people they want the ventriloquist to Listen I got news for you you cunt you know they want your mouth to be completely still the one thing I never understood is People if people say they could throw their voice You know, they want your mouth to be completely still. There's one thing I never understood is people, remember when people said they could throw their voice?

What does that mean? It means you're an idiot. Where are you throwing it to? Really? You have the ability to have your voice coming from another place outside of your mouth. Your Honor, he threw his voice. It came out of the other person. Did you throw your voice, son? I remind you, you are under oath.

Yeah, there's no... That's a thing that people used to think people could do. They used to think people could throw their voice. I think as a kid I thought that, that I would actually try, like, on the side of my mouth. Hey, I'm over here now. There's probably a way. that I would actually try, like, on the side of my mouth. Hey! Hey, I'm over here now! There's probably a way.

I'm not over here, I'm over here! You could kind of, like, subtly make it seem like it's not coming from you, like maybe coming from the side of you, your blood off the side. Yeah. I hope there's not somebody out there who does that for a living and they feel like I'm slamming his crap. Fuck you. Well, you support Carrot Top, you don't support me, you fuck.

Did you ever watch a good comedy hypnotist? Yeah, yeah. I'm not big on the hypnosis thing because I, you know. What? I think you can be really good at that. I just, I've, maybe this is a very, I don you know, I think you can be really good at that. I just I've maybe this is a very I don't know. I don't believe that the people that are doing these things are really hypnotized.

Wow. Maybe I'm naive or I don't know. You naive is the wrong word. You need to see someone who's really good at it. There's people and I don't know why. I don't know. Naive is the wrong word. You need to see someone who's really good at it. There's people, and I don't know why. I don't know what it is. I'm not saying that no one can be hypnotized. I'm not saying there's people that no one can hypnotize because I've never tried to be hypnotized.

I've never sat down with a really good hypnotist and tried to be hypnotized. I have friends that have, and they swear by it. I know fighters that have done it, and they say it helps their career and it helps their mindset. But there are certain people for whatever reason that are really, really susceptible to hypnosis. And there was a guy named Frank Santos. And he used to do this show back at Stitches in Boston. And he would do it every week. Frank Santos, the R-rated hypnotist.

And it was amazing. I mean, the staff-rated hypnotist. And it was amazing. I mean, the staff would get there, the staff of the comic club, comics would come down and watch it. Because it was just the most bizarre thing. You would see these people, and they really believed what he was saying. Like, there would be people that thought they were having sex. There'd be people that thought they were naked. But how do you know that? How do you know they believed that?

It's a good question. How do you know that, you know how Halloween, isn't it fun to dress up like a vampire on Halloween because it's okay to act crazy on Halloween night? Maybe when you're going to one of these comedy hypnosis shows, maybe you have the green light to act silly on stage. You know, it's like, oh, wow, I can do this, and no one's going to hold me accountable to acting goofy on stage i can say i was hypnotized so maybe they just enjoy

being in the limelight and acting goofy it is possible but there were people that he would tell them i'm gonna say i'm gonna count to three and when i count to three you're gonna realize you're naked in front of all these people and you're gonna be terrified one two three and you would see them like they would be too good there were some people that were just too good at acting like you would like they would be confused they weren't hamming it up they weren't going over the top and he would talk to them and question him you'd have to see it man because he would also know when people weren't under he would know when people weren't under and remove them from the stage he would know they were faking it he'd look them. I think there's some people that are really fucking stupid,

and they're open to suggestion. I will say this. I'll open the door to the possibility of hypnosis in the sense that, you know how like when you're watching a football game, and all of a sudden the other team has the ball, and you're like, I don't remember them punting, yet I've been staring at this TV screen for five minutes minutes Obviously my brain went somewhere. I missed the last few plays So maybe in life that can happen where somebody has the power to make your brain go away for a while

I I don't know I used to think it was total bullshit until I watched this guy do it over and over and over again week after week after week, and then I became friends with him and talked to him and Over and over and over again, week after week after week. And then I became friends with him and talked to him and explained how he started out as a – he was hypnotizing people for, like, weight loss and quitting smoking and stuff along those lines. He just knew how to do it. He just knew how to do it. He'd done it a long time, and he knew when people were under and when they weren't under. I just think there's some – I don't think you are,

but I think there's some people that are just really open to suggestion. And I think there's also something that happens when you put them on stage because I think people, like, they get really weird something that happens when you put them on stage. Because I think people get really weirded out by the fact they're on stage, the lights are on them, and it makes maybe perhaps some people even more vulnerable. So I understand

your lack of belief in the art form. I'm trying to be more open-minded about everything. So I will say that it is possible. I wish there was a good one. I would love to have the best come here and try it on

maybe Jamie or somebody. No, no, no. For the comedy shows, you want to see it live. You really want to see it live. I just wish there was more guys doing that. I know his son, Frank Santos Jr., does it now in New England, but I just wish there were more of those comedy hypnotists out there. There's not that many of them.

I did a show one time out on the road, like a fill-in date. And they didn't tell the club. I was filling in for a comedy hypnotist. Oh, no. But they didn't tell the audience. Oh, no. And I had a tell the audience. Oh, no. And I had a bad set. I get off stage, and then I see table tents on all the tables, you know,

comedy hypnosis night, and people were coming up to me going, how come you didn't make us act like chickens, you know? And I'm like, that's when I found out, you thought I was a comedy hypnotist. I did an hour of total confusion for this audience. So they're waiting to be hypnotized. That's what they thought the show was. Oh, that's hilarious. So you're eating dick up there talking about socks and...

Right, and they're just waiting. When is he going to start bringing us on stage? Yeah, they're just waiting. It's like you're warming them up. This is a big buildup for the comedy hypnosis thing. And then I say goodnight, and they were like, what the hell happened here? You can just say you don't remember, because I hypnotized you. I hypnotized you.

You were all up here. And you're pregnant. You were all up here, and you were all feeling like you were naked. Goodnight. How weird. What's the worst gig you ever had to do? Do you have a worst? I had one

show where I walked almost the entire audience. I filled in for a comedian and he called me up and said, you know Adam Leslie? No. Adam Leslie is no longer with us, but he had a headline gig at a place called the Comedy Barn in Jackson, Mississippi, I think was the town.

Down in the south. He goes, I can't do the date. Would you fill in and headline for me? I was very new to headlining, so I said sure, and somehow the club was okay with him bringing somebody else in instead of him. So I get on stage on a Friday night and just did not get my foot in the door um and just flatlining you know how you know how it is like what there's a point where you know this is over this ain't happening yeah and i was at that point that nothing no savers were working nothing was working and then a foursome at the

front got up like you know when i had like 30 minutes left and just put their coats on i mean how insulting put their jackets and stuff on and just walked away so i'm thinking well maybe you know they have the babysitter or something and then another foursome and then a twosome and then everybody just thought well i guess it's okay to leave and everybody just got up and walked out i probably had 20 people left when i was done it was the most humiliating one of the most humiliating nights of my career how long ago was this It was last week. Leslie died after he got the phone call from the booker. The booker

killed him. Do you fucking know why Brian Reagan did to my club? He murdered Adam Leslie. We lost all our money. We're losing our mortgage now. This was, gosh, 25 years ago? I don't know. Those moments when you're fucking tail spinning, those were some of the most painful and confusing moments in a comic's career. But in fucking tail spinning those are some of the most painful and confusing moments in a comics career

But in my opinion those are like really important because they have all the big growth moments of my early career came after I bombed Bombed and then said okay. I never want to fucking experience that again. I gotta figure out What did I do wrong like why did I what did I open with it sucked? Did I not get him right off the bat did it where's up was I not loose enough was I not comfortable enough? Was I not having enough fun like what the hell was it. What what was I too cocky was I too meek like what? What are the what's the what's the numbers you know? You sometimes think it's the audience completely the audience like this You know that it's Friday night 10 o'clock show these people are all just in a kind of a

The audience can play a part in whether or not you have a good set or a Great set but the audience cannot play a part if you are if you are really unless it's just the worst fucking horrendous group of fucking convicts out on parole all on meth it is Possible but a lot of times you'll have a bad audience But you could still get them and you'll have a good set you you'll have a bad audience, but you can still get them. And you'll have a good set. You can still have a good set. Sometimes you just go out there and it's magic. Sometimes you go out there and you just feel so loose and the audience is so ready right off the bat that everything is just flowing and amazing.

Like that was this weekend in Portland. I did Helium, the comedy club. I'm trying to work on some new material. I'm tightening things up. So I like to go to comedy clubs when I do that. I like to do a whole weekend at a comedy club. You're doing those two shows on Friday, two shows on Saturday. And it was just so fun.

It had been sold out for months. It was like all this energy in the air and everything was great. But then I did the comedy store like two Wednesdays ago. It was just like there was like no energy in the room. Marin was on before me. He was saying the same thing. He got off stage. I think he even said something.

You guys, you were there. I think he said that, saying goodnight. It was a weird lack of, it was almost like one of these cross-armed audiences where they're like, they're not going to put out too much energy. It's a Wednesday night at 10.30. There's not much there.

But you still get them. I had a good set. It was still good. Still went, you know know all the stuff that's funny got laughs i always i always felt like my job was to be one better than the audience you know there are many comedians can do as well as the audience if it's a great crowd they do great if it's a good crowd they do good if it's a bad crowd they do bad i always wanted to be one Like I wanted to be where like if they were bad, I would do so-so. If they were so-so, I would do good. If they were good, I would do great. And if they were great, I would do great.

That's a beautiful philosophy. So I just wanted to one up. You know what I mean? Like it was my job to bring them to one higher level of what their situation is i was at the improv one night and it was a late show uh it was like a 10 p.m show on a friday and uh the car the crowd was kind of tired and brody stevens went on and he was on like last and he took his shirt off and started running through the crowd he made them play music he took his shirt off started running through the crowd and he made them play music. He took his shirt off, started running through the crowd, and he was taking his shirt and spinning it over his head like a helicopter.

He's like, we have energy in here. We're alive. This is happening. This is real. We're in Hollywood. And he starts, like, clapping and putting his arms together and getting everybody to clap along. And he transformed the entire room. And he went on like, clapping and putting his arms together and getting everybody to clap along. And he transformed the entire room.

And he went on stage, transformed the—I mean, there's a video on my Instagram page of Brody. It's late night. Pull it up, the late night video of him drumming. He does these closer spots at the comedy store where, you know, the show starts. The main room show starts at 9 o'clock, and it goes on until 2 o'clock in the morning, and there's a point of no return There's a no man's land time somewhere after like 1130 where the audience is like okay? Let's just forget like a lot of people believe so it was packed and then when Brody goes on there's like maybe 25 or 30 people so this is this is this is a

25 or 30 people so this is this is this is a Brody on stage playing drums check this out We hear this through our headphones He's fucking playing drums He's got a guy next to The guy in the middle-aged guy back there the guy to to his left that you can't see, he's got thimbles. What is it, those things called? Cymbals? Cymbals, right? With a tambourine.

He gave him a fucking tambourine. The guy's got a tambourine. And he gave it to the guy. He goes, you back me up. You've got the tambourine. I mean, I watched him for an hour. And he went from that to doing stand-up where he's talking to the crowd. There was points and times where you see there's photos where you can see him walking around the crowd.

He put the microphone down and started doing stand-up, just walking around, just walking around. Friday night's kinesin spot in the main room is usually when Brody just does an hour. He starts off the drums. He rocks around. It's great. It's a great— There's two guys that nail that spot. Brian Holtzman and Brody Stevens because they're both just free-form maniacs.

They can just free ball. And Brody especially because he does so many warm-ups. He warms up for, like, sitcoms and talk shows, and he's really good at it. So they have him come. We had him do it when I did shows, and he's really good at it. So they have him come in. We had him do it when I did the Man Show. He's amazing at it. Just creating comedy out of nowhere. He just goes in there, starts talking to people, and the next thing you know.

I couldn't do that. I don't have that ability. I don't have that ability at all. I've seen a couple of sitcom tapings and watched comedians that have to warm up. That is a skill. That is an amazing skill. And I could not accomplish it. It's an act.

It's a different kind of act. It's just like another facet of stand-up comedy. I wouldn't say it's my favorite facet, but the thing about Brody is that facet, even though I don't necessarily like watching warm-ups that much right Brody has turned that into like a proving or not a proving ground but like a training ground for him like he's so comfortable just free-balling about anything and everything and he knows how to like hit it and turn it into comedy he's a very unusual talent Brody Stevens and he's

really good at that that late-night spot. Since I've been back at the Comedy Store, I've seen him do four or five of those late-night spots. Particularly, I just waited around, waited so I could watch Brody. Michael Keaton was there last night, by the way. Was he really? Watching Kimberly Condon win the roast battle. Academy Award winner, Michael Keaton. That movie won the Academy Award.

Did you see it? I heard it sucks. It was the worst movie. I watched it three times. Did you see it? I heard it sucks. It was the worst movie. I watched it three times. Are you guys joking? Jamie liked it. You liked it? Jamie liked it?

I haven't seen it, but I hear it's good. I've heard quite a few people say it's good. I'm going to have to watch it eventually. What's bothering me is there's this video going around of Michael Keaton putting what some people are speculating is an acceptance speech for best actor back into his pocket. And the vibe is how embarrassing is that? Why is that embarrassing? You know, the guy was up for the best actor at a point in his career where, you know, it's been a while since he's done anything. I hate this negativity, you know, to take that moment and just blow that

up as something that he should be ashamed of or embarrassed. So what? He had an acceptance speech. He was up for the Academy Award. Didn't I see you bombing Arsenio? Was that you? Hey, how's your career?

Tough business. You know, there's just, I don't know, there's too much, there's too much. Unhappy people in this world that have a voice. Like, I don't like the slamming people's dresses and all that stuff. You know, it's like they've been working their ass off for their career to finally get a role where they're getting some attention and they get to go to this big, fun Academy Award and they put everything they can into and putting this dress on. And then some guy or woman just gets to go, I think it looks ugly. Do you know why that exists, though? Because of people like Kanye West.

Because people, their egos are so blown out of proportion, you want to shoot them down. They're so goofy. So then you start looking at other people. Well, it was fun shooting him down. Let me look around, see who else is fucking flossing that I don't like. And you start looking for them. It's like we don't like people that think they're better than everybody else. When someone thinks they're better than everybody else,

they are a justifiable target. So then it becomes like a genre, like picking on people that are celebrities. It becomes like a thing. So then you start looking for all these other people that are successful. Look at Michael Keaton, this stupid fucking yeah, Batman! Oh, I'm sorry, you're not Batman anymore.

This fucking movie won the Academy Award you cunt but that's death people there's a lot of really unbalanced unhappy people and because of the internet and people making comments unfortunately you know it's like honking a car horn you can do it in the safety of your car because you know it's unlikely that that guy is going to come over and actually have a physical confrontation i i think like comments to me are horn honkers. They're just people honking. They're sitting in their underwear at home, and they're just going to honk their little horn.

They're going to throw their little negativity out there. I don't know what they get out of it, though. Psychologically, what do you get out of just typing some mean-spirited bullcrap? I don't get it They don't get anything out of it, but they're not balanced people. They're not thinking about what they get out of it They're not looking at their life objectively like what is the effort to reward ratio to what I'm accomplishing here Or am I accomplishing anything? No, they're just, meh What about me, Michael Keaton, you stupid fucking wordspeech

You know they go back to their shitbag job on Monday morning, some place that they hate where nobody likes them. They go, did you see Michael Keaton? How embarrassing. Put this thing back in his pocket. What a fucking loser. That's the world we live in. And it's also the world where people have a voice that never had a voice before. You used to have to earn your voice.

have to earn your voice. You know, if you were a great writer or a great critic, you were respected by all these people that went and they sought out your opinions on things. And so when they read your opinion on something, it was like, oh, well, this guy is a very thoughtful, well-measured person, and his opinion on blank will be interesting to read. But now everybody gets to put their opinion out there. Everybody can have an opinion about everything. I like it, though. I like it because I think it's ultimately balancing.

And I think that the cult of personality that comes along with celebrity, I think, is ridiculous. And I think this chips it down. It brings it back down. Look, this is a weird time that we live in. This is a time where someone can hack into Jennifer Lawrence's phone and find pictures of her asshole and then put those on the Internet. That never existed before. Well, listen, I do understand that, you know, it's a different thing.

And, yes, now any Joe Blow can have a comment. I'm cool with that. But I think there should be accountability. I hate these trolls that hide behind fake names and they're negative and they're not. If you want to be negative or positive you you should own who you are yes it should be you you that that should be held accountable the person that you're slamming should be able to confront you i think they're well i don't know about that do you really want to confront everybody if you're a person that's in the public eye do you really

want to confront all those different people that can talk to you you'll waste your entire life dealing with no no i'm not saying that you need to confront people who are people that can talk to you, you'll waste your entire life dealing with that person. No, no, no. I'm not saying that you need to confront people who are being negative, but I'm saying that the person who wants to be negative out there, it should be that person's name. Own your negativity. Well, there's a little bit of that that's happening. I mean, that's a Facebook thing. You know, in Facebook, it's very difficult to have a fake name. But I think that ultimately where this is leading is going to be this dissolving of all the boundaries between people. People can reach you. They can contact

Brian Regan where they never could before. People can reach, you know, someone and make fun of their celebrity speech, their acceptance speech. People can do things. They can get closer to you than they've ever been able to do so before. And I think ultimately the good thing about that is things like podcasts and things like that, they couldn't have existed before. They, they, they, they take down this like boundary between people expressing themselves and that expression being reached by other people. You know, if someone has really funny tweets, they're really funny Twitter person that those really funny tweets can get spread around and also they have a hundred thousand followers there's a lot of people like that they're just regular folks at regular jobs but they're really funny and so this this this just by quality just by people

they're their ideas resonating with people they have a vehicle that never existed before so it doesn't always have to be negative I think it's just so many people are disenchanted and they just don't like life and they're just depressed and they don't like their existence. And so they're looking to like shit on people and spread negativity as much as possible. But what it shows is just that this vehicle exists. And it doesn't just exist for that. It exists for positivity, too. And it's just people aren't aware.

This is a new thing man This is something that we're navigating for the first time in human history And this has never existed before the ability to leave a YouTube comment the ability to have a fake Twitter handle That's just an egg that can shit all over Brian Regan after a show. Yeah, you don't think hypnotizing is real Oh, how do you think I lost fucking 50 pounds at West Market? I mean, that's just, it's a symptom of this new age that we live in. That this stage where technology, as it's advancing, it's advanced to this completely new realm that never existed before.

Where the ability to communicate with people is unprecedented. The ability to reach people is unprecedented. And we're navigating it. We don't know how to manage it yet. And there's a lot of people that, you know, they're not thinking about what the impact of their words are. They're just being idiots. And they're not that thoughtful.

They're not really considering it. This is a part of the weird world that we're living in, the world of connectivity. And it's going to get crazier and crazier. This is just part of the weird world that we're living in, the world of connectivity. And it's going to get crazier and crazier. This is just one step. This is one step. There's going to be a time in the future where I believe we're going to be able to communicate not just with words on a screen, but with someone, people are going to be able to express feelings to you. They're going to be able to express emotions to you without even knowing you, without being around you.

Things are going to get real weird over the next few years, real weird. They're not going to be able to express emotions to you without even knowing you, without being around you. Things are going to get real weird over the next few years. Real weird. They're not going to slow down. They're going to speed up. We're not going to move to log cabins and start chopping our own firewood. It's going to get weirder and weirder. Good night, everybody. Brian Regan, ladies and gentlemen.

Brian Regan comic on Twitter. Where's your show this weekend? I'm at the Dolby Theater in L.A. this Saturday night. What time is this show? 8 p.m. That's the same time as the UFC. There's a UFC in L.A. at the Staples Center. Well.

I'm not saying it's bad. I mean, people are going to see you. They could DVR the UFC. Yeah. We should have brought up the UFC. Either way. The Dolby Theater, ladies and gentlemen. That's the place to be on Saturday night. Fuck the UFC. We should have brought up the UFC. Either way. The Dolby Theater, ladies and gentlemen. That's the place to be on Saturday night.

Fuck the UFC. I said it. I work for them. I'll be there. Dolby Theater, Saturday night on Twitter. Brian Regan Comics. Do you talk to people on Twitter? Do you interact with the folks?

From your conversation, I might need to adjust my way of doing it. Right now, it's been kind of one-sided. You don't have to listen to me, man. Right now, it's been kind of one-sided. I don't tweet a lot, but it's just me tweeting out. But you don't usually read the tweets and then respond? No, no. It's probably smarter. It's probably a smart way to do it.

My way is probably ridiculous. No, I just tweet out and then go make a milkshake. Here's what's important. You're fucking hilarious. You're a great guy. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to hang out with you. Always a pleasure to. Here's what's important. You're fucking hilarious. You're a great guy. Thank you. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to hang out with you.

Always a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Very kind. Never seen Brian Regan live. Please go check him out. He's fucking absolutely one of the best in the country. You're very nice. Thank you so much, Joe. Really appreciate it.

Brian Regan, ladies and gentlemen, Dolby Theater, Los Angeles, California, Saturday night. Be there. Good night. See you. Bye.