The Josh Innes Show - JIS: Craig Gass Round 2

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

Our friend Craig Gass returned to the studio today to shoot the shit and promote his show in Nashville. During breaks Josh and Craig had a killer conversation about a plethora of topics. Most notably Craig has an epic story about the first time he met Dave Chappelle. You'll also love the story about how Craig was indirectly responsible for one of the most amazing Howard Stern v. Mancow moments. Plus, there was a lot of talk about current comedy and Josh's desire to give it a shot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody, and welcome in. Got to tell you about Dr. Busby and ToeGrips.com. ToeGrips.com, of course, that's the home of the great Dr. Busby. And I was talking with Mr. Dr. Busby the other day, and we were talking about just the website in general and how well it's run, and a key in going to the website, right? You can always buy the ToeGrips there, the do-it-yourself nail trimming kits, of course, the Encore Mobility, which Luther takes every single day to help his little old

bone and joints feel good. When you go to toegrips.com, you're not going to be ambushed or bombarded with ads. You're just going to get information and great stories like, you know, about an 18-year-old mini pen mix that was having a hard time getting around and put on the toe grips and was able to walk. Or Hank, who's an 11-year-old pup who was able to walk confidently on the hardwood floors again instead of hopping area rugs island to island. They're just great stories. It's a very great website.

And, of course, Dr. Busby is legendary. And it's somewhere on here. You see a picture of Luther, I think. I think there's a picture of Luther that's on here somewhere, or at least associated with him because we took all those pictures with Dr. Busby. So, of course, the Dr. Busby blog as well. They are awesome. Dr. Busby is great.

Use the promo code LUTHER to save 10%. We love the folks at ToeGrips.com. That is ToeGrips.com. That is ToeGrips.com. And again, that blog, big time. Jelly had questions today about food for Luther, and I would not be shocked if that ends up being a Dr. Busby blog soon about senior food. So again, for your dogs, check out the site, ToeGrips.com.

Use the promo code LUTHER, and you will save 10% with ToeGrips.com. Well, everybody, it's Josh. I had our friend Craig Gass at the radio station today, and we got to shoot the shit. He was actually at the station longer today than the last time because he never goes away. So, Craig Gass, we talked about a lot of stuff. Just to let you know, we will have a drinking show on Twitch

Friday night at 8, 8 central. And also, got to tell you this, in regards to this audio with Craig, it's important to note that it might jump around a little bit. I tried to edit out as much of the radio part as possible, but understand that we might be talking for 10 minutes about something. We jump into the on-air part where we're doing a Gene Simmons bit and then come back and I don't remember what the hell we were talking about and it goes to something else. I tried to make sure the transitions were as good as possible and were consistent as possible. Sometimes they won't be my bad it's only i mean

it's it's a jumping around thing it's not like one long-form conversation we're doing a lot of different stuff doing the radio part then we're doing the detroit radio part the nashville radio part and talking during the breaks for the pod so uh did the best i could with that but anyway our friend craig gas great conversation and And here is today's conversation with Craig. I didn't get a chance to finish the Carlin thing yet. I got about an hour left in it. What do you think so far? It's very good.

It's very good. I'm at the point now where he's stale and you got like Cheech Marin saying like, yeah, he's obsolete. Imagine a world where like George Carlin is considered obsolete obsolete versus cheech i didn't even know about the the sketch it looks like sctv is oh it was actually pretty it was not bad though it was ctv did some kind of funny innovative stuff in their day you know but it was just kind of crazy to me that they were kind of mocking i i was not aware of that uh i only know of george's legend status i didn't know that anybody looked at him that way. I had no clue. Like, when you think about George, you just think of being arguably 1A, 1B, maybe with Pryor as the greatest stand-up of all time.

I think those are the two that usually get considered as the best. And you don't know that there's a stretch where there's a decade where, like, nobody cares. You know what I'm saying? What's interesting between Pryor and Carlin is that Carlin's material still seems so relevant to what's going on in the world that he just keeps getting recycled over and over again in today's political climate where everything that happens is like, well, remember what George said? Remember what George said? And he's almost become. But I like how both political sides use things he says because they think it makes their point like you got like the republicans that are like hey you see what he said about viruses huh look he predicted this and he said what are we doing and then on the other side that we stuff

about guns and abortion and the liberals will say see maybe that's what makes him brilliant you don't know it's like it's like he's agnostic in a way when it comes to his comedy he's ripping everybody yeah and i'm right around the point i haven't watched it yet but the point where he's like i gotta i gotta wake the fuck up and start doing something which is crazy because there's that part at the beginning of the documentary where he's like i gotta wake the fuck up and make some money and then he just does he becomes famous and starts making money yes and now i gotta wake the fuck up and become a legend and then he does it's wild man yeah he's well although it wasn't to become a legend it was oh my god i'm dated and here comes sam kinnison and for some reason it was sam specifically that

really spoke well he kind of jump-started that whole era of kind of edgy uh if you want to say edgy which i guess it was it was edgy comedy but it was he and dice and guys like that um god i was watching dice it was it was national limerick day the other day that made me think of dice so i went back and watched all of the nursery rhymes you know and like it shouldn't be funny because it's really not that clever it really is like i'm not trying to be addicted to dice i've interviewed him a couple times i he's legendary he filled up the garden i mean not too many people do that in comedy. But you listen to it. It's like hickory dickory duck. This chick was sucking my cock.

Hey. And you're like, why is this funny? It's not really revolutionary, but I'm laughing my ass off. You know what? I felt the same way at that time. I was never a huge Dice fan. In fact, when we get back on the air, I want to share the one kinnison story that really blew my mind that um uh that really shed some light on what kind of a comic he was versus dice that he just had this brilliance of being able to go into really dark areas and try to make comedy

with it but um have you watched speaking of that have you watched any of the uh the ricky gervais netflix special yet no but i i saw there was like a stink online that he's doing trans jokes no i think it's it's great and he goes into it telling you hey i'm gonna do some offensive stuff i mean basically get the hell over it like there's something about british dudes that they can just kind of do whatever and it sounds even really mean shit sounds funny and charming because it's through a british accent i'm envious but it's funny because it's through a British accent. I'm envious.

But it's funny. Oh, it's great. The first I watched about 15, 20 minutes of the first part of it. And it is. I mean, it's great. I've always said, like, you can do anything as long as you back it up with facts. There's do you know who Big Jay Oakerson is? Yep. Big Jay used to do a joke.

And I'm only going to say this here for anybody who's watching this because i cannot say this on the air but i always refer to this joke as a magic trick because when he starts the joke the audience freezes there's so much discomfort from one word and whether they want to or not jay makes the whole room explode with laughter within 10 seconds and the joke is based on a true story he goes i'm on a date with this girl and we ended up making out my car and she starts crying and i go why are you crying and she goes because of this song i had my radio on it's playing free bird by leonard skinner she says when i was in high school i was raped to this song which always makes the crowd oh yeah and he goes and that's fucked up for two reasons number one rape is awful yep and number two that's a long fucking like a six and a half minute guitar solo

holy shit like and then he goes and everybody laughs and then he goes in this whole thing of like um when i went to prison i got raped to rapper's delight you've been raped to 14 verses 14 verses like and and and they just you can't resist it it's you cannot argue that fact so yeah um but like i feel like and i i think was it seinfeld that said you don't want to play the the college circuit right like a lot of people don't want to do that and it's so weird because you watch the carlin doc and you hear you got to get to the colleges that's where it's happening yeah that's i know right in the 70s it was counterculture and yes and it was still kind of a damn the man mindset but like it's like i'm going

to go from doing carson and doing these variety shows and stuff to doing that i'm gonna grow a beard i'm gonna go to the that's where it's happening it is not where it's happening now it is where it goes to die yeah why and i don't know why do you think that is like what is the what has happened to just people in general why are we at a point now where it's like that it seems like younger people have grown up with an idea of like oh okay i'm supposed to be offended by this and then they they just take that concept and have run with it uh to determine oh this is a must be offensive this must be offensive this must be offensive i know from growing up in a deaf family that there's always been people who have been sensitive on my behalf for my deaf family yeah and they're not in my

family but they're sensitive to jokes about my family meanwhile the most insensitive jokes i've ever heard were from deaf people sure and from my own deaf people you know well that's usually how it goes like people that are in wheelchairs make wheelchair jokes they're fucking savage you know i mean it's how it goes but other people will be like oh my god how dare you like you don't know my life and they're not part of that group no and they're they're offended on on somebody's behalf and um i've always known people to usually own and laugh off whatever it is that makes them in the minor in the minority so yeah but and that doesn't exist anymore though like i think chris rock used to do a great job with that where like you'd watch chris rock and he'd make fun of black people white people whatever richard pryor multiple of his stand-ups the one that stands out is

richard pryor live in concert yeah when he comes out and he goes hey what about the the look on the white people face when they come out and see the black guys yeah yeah seeing their seats like a jep peckerhead yeah yeah jerk off and it's fucking hysterical but like you're making fun of black people make fun of white people making fun of stereotypes on both sides and now it's too pointed it it's it's targeted and politically driven and i don't know i think you have to lean into it i think you have to push even harder because again you can't argue facts you can't argue what about on your end? Do you get complaints ever? Like, do you still hear about complaints?

And regarding what? Just like, just what I say on the air. Broadcasting. What, just from listeners and stuff? Or like actual. From listeners. Yeah, some. It's different because this is not a very active audience, if that makes sense.

So they're not like, like now they're active on facebook because our audience is a facebook audience and they will bitch on facebook and leave messages like i'm on in detroit and i'll see facebook messages that they send to detroit bitching about me this shows on detroit well it is and it isn't it's it basically i record it in real time i record ahead about an hour because i hour because we're not fully simulcast. So I have to do one. I have a break to do for there that's going to air here at 9.15, for instance, or 9.10. What cluster are you in in Detroit?

It's iHeart. It's all the same. So I work on WLLZ. Oh, the same building? Mojo's. Yeah. I don't know any of those guys. I just started doing this about a month ago. Wow.

Yeah. Like, um, here we can screw with them. You want to, let's just say Craig gas is here in Detroit. We'll just hang out. You're hanging out with us.

All right. Let's see here. Um, one Oh 6.7 Detroit's wheels. Josh and his show. Steve Miller band the Joker Hey our friend Craig Gass has just stopped by hey Craig what's up and I'm Gene Simmons from

Kiss with a very important announcement Craig Gass is in Detroit right now to promote his shows in September he'll be performing at One Night Stands the owner of stan go to one night stands in late september and craig will be doing five shows in late september that's a true story by

the way yeah why is detroit a good comedy town it's a great comedy town it's had uh some legendary comedy clubs where everybody who's anybody has come through. I used to perform out in Ann Arbor years ago. And this place, One Night Stands, is actually a great, great comedy club. I performed there for the first time about a year and a half ago. And we had great audiences in the middle of the summer, which summertime sucks for comedy. Yeah. But people came out.

They actually came out and they dug it. And it's a really cool club. What's a bad comedy town? I mean, there's definitely comedy clubs that are in bad areas. Well, I mean, I watched a documentary with Pauly Shore doing like VFW halls. Oh, my God. In Waukesha, Wisconsin. Here's what bummed me out about that.

Is that Pauly Shore starts out that documentary saying, my mom is sick. She is not well. And he's at home with his mom. You don't see his mom on camera. And Pauly is talking to his mom and saying, are you going to be okay? I love you, mom. Please take care of yourself.

And then he goes on the road. And for the next 90 minutes, all you see Pauly do is try to bang anything that's alive. And he tries to bang the promoter he tries to bang his fans he's trying to have sex with anything for 90 minutes and then he comes back home and goes to see his mom and says i love you mom and it says that the screen goes dark this is dedicated to anybody who's suffering from this disease and i'm like all you did was try to get laid for and i think he did at one point he had sex with the promoter while her boyfriend was in another room i want to say was it the one in minneapolis where you played the movie theater yes i think that's where it was yes yep that's new hope new hope cinemas man yeah it's crazy when you go to these towns and you hear the stories about other

people and which is why i avoid going to the comedy condo because everyone's like yeah we got a condo you can say i'm like i'm not staying at the comedy condo where ralphie may had a foursome with with three horrifying looking waitresses like yeah you hear the stories and you don't want to do it i stayed in a comedy condo once and i'm never doing it again all right so craig's hanging out with us uh hey you want to get in you can uh we got i gotta give away this keyword here in a little bit to win a thousand bucks we got a lot to do josh in a show and pearl jam on wheels detroit is absolutely a rock town holy fuck it is always been legendary rock town yeah totally it's so funny that uh you compare lee greenwood doing the um canada song to like am i gonna find out that nutrients are vegan it's such a great comparison for this format of

radio that is the greatest like that's the thing is like i i want like i've always wanted to try to do comedy stuff i just don't have the balls to do it because i don't know if it's actually funny or if it's like there's funny and then there's like radio funny you know what i'm saying there's like one but you've gone on stage before uh station events and been funny at station events. Do you sit back and think of material for that moment? Some, like a lot of them involve my dad because my dad will bring me up like, well, sometimes I'm hammered. So like one time my dad brought me up to bring Warrant on stage at a concert in Louisiana. Nice.

And I was blitzed. And all I could do is just keep singing their songs. So I went up there and I'm like, hey, do you guys like Sometimes She Cries? They're like, yeah. And I'm like, I'll sing it for you. Sometimes. And they're like, you got to go. But like, so it's funny.

Like, I guess being on the radio helps in one way because you have to do things live and you have to think fast. So, like, I feel like if i can do stuff live and be semi-funny then if i actually took the time to write down some stuff that it could be funny but i also find it insulting for some schlub like me who does a radio show to go hey i think i could do stand-up because it's a hard thing to do and people grind for 10 years trying to make it you know so i feel weird doing that but i'd want to try it's not have the balls cory taylor wants to do stand-up comedy. And I helped him put together a comedy set. And his whole thing that he keeps going back to is he says,

I don't want to disrespect the art form. And I'm like, there's YouTubers performing in comedy clubs now. Sure. But it is true. Because, first of all, I think you know this. A lot of comedians are assholes. And they feel like they owed something. Like there were local dudes in Houston that just hated me. Like for whatever reason, local oh, that guy's terrible. Like all these different guys, like I've got the guy's name. There's a guy that was on our station for a little bit. We did a show together one night.

Then he went to Twitter and told everybody how much I sucked. Really? I forgot what his name was. Wesleyan. Wesleyan. John Wesleyan might've been his name. He did not like me. And then, I mean, there are all these comedians.

Guy named Billy D. Washington was actually a fan, but he, but then political stuff, like the world changed politically, and he started to dislike me a little bit because of political stuff. But, like, there were, like, I don't know. That kind of warped me for comedy stuff because those guys just shat on me. Like, I mean, just destroyed me. There was some guy named Rob something who claimed to be a comedian in Houston. They would just shit on me every day. And I was like, I'm not going to try this.

These guys are assholes, you know? Well, you know, it was comedians shitting on me that made me start doing stand up comedy. And I ended up with this really bad chip on my shoulder where I wanted to irritate as many other comedians as possible. Yeah. And that's what made George Carlin fall in love with me is that he loved the idea that someone was trying to get into stand-up comedy by trying to annoy as many other comedians as possible which is a solid strategy you know the most relatable thing that you said to me the other day what's that uh about that fight that happened in um at the super bowl media center what's that was that you you said yeah i'm you know this guy was a big like juiced up roid head but i was like man

i don't give a shit i'm not scared of you meanwhile my hands are shaking and i think wasn't there video of that oh yeah and i think i remember seeing it and relating to the mouth of yours versus your body language i was like i don't give a shit your body's like jesus christ i'm gonna get crushed dude i related to that so much because there's been so many times in my life that i was about to get murdered for being funny just not in a comedy club setting but as a as a teenager growing up and just having a big mouth and realizing holy shit but i would still talk my way out of it i would still somehow manage to save myself from a beating because of my sense of humor so but it also gets you in trouble to the point that people want to kick your ass that's the fascinating part about it but man that story

it's it's like it was such a refreshing story didn't that story make it to howard didn't howard howard talked about it yeah i think they played the audio on that. That was the only time. I had dreams forever being on Howard Stern, and then the time was me almost getting my ass kicked. To which he said, you know what? This is actually entertaining. More sports radio people need to do this.

I'm like, correct, because sports radio blows. Agreed. Most radio in general blows, but in particular, sports radio blows. How did you end up back on the Stern Show? I was randomly hit up by Howard. but in particular sports radio blows how did you end up back on the stern show i was uh randomly hit up by howard my transmission had just blown i was uh i was given a bill for how much my transmission was going to cost and just thinking fuck this is really expensive and i was standing outside of the transmission place when my phone rang from a new york phone number and i picked up and this woman said hey my name is so and so i work for howard stern and i said okay and she goes howard wanted me to

reach out to you and ask you if you'd ever be interested in working on the show again i said stern and i said sure and she goes okay and right off the top she said this is how much we'd be willing to pay you and i go okay and she goes is that okay and i said sure and she goes she goes okay because and what i come to find out by the way the next couple of steps also involved other people i'd never heard of before they had never heard of me before there's just all these new people working on the show that i never met before that's great and then once I started to see everybody on Zoom calls, I was like, oh, my God, it really is happening. That's wild, dude. Yeah. And it's weird because Howard had some ideas, and then I sent him some ideas.

He wanted to start at a time frame that was going to be like six weeks down the road. And I said, okay, hey, I got some ideas, too. And I sent it to him. And Howard said, oh, let's do it tomorrow. Let's go right now. Let's just go right now. at a time frame that was going to be like six weeks down the road and i said okay hey i got some ideas too and i sent it to him and howard said oh let's do it tomorrow let's go let's go right now let's just go right now let's start that's awesome and we jumped right in and everything i do leads to like let's do that again let's do this again let's do this again and it says it's one of the easiest things i've ever done in the world is so what voices are you doing on there like what are the main go-to ones that because I never hear it. We brought back some of the older ones. Kinison, Gene Simmons.

And what context are you doing Kinison? Kinison is an amazing context. Kinison trying. We haven't even fully developed it, but it's Kinison trying to have explained to him what has happened to comedy today. And Kinison replying and going like, Oh yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I guess I, I guess I'm woke. I'm woke. Cause I, I've, I've been doing Coke since 1985.

I haven't slept, you know, you know, maybe if I was woke, I would have avoided that truck. That fucking hit me. Like, you know,

it's like, it's so, it's such a beautiful context. Sam and explain to him, him well there's woke culture whose idea is that uh the ideas are being written by writers that idea was a right uh some writers on the show for stern um and then i i do i'm developing uh mike lindell um which is easy it's just uh recovering crackhead mike lind, who keeps veering off into, you got to see the evidence.

The evidence is dominion. Dominion. Watch the evidence. I promise you, please watch the evidence. I'll let you suck my dick. I'm sorry. I'm recovering crackhead. I probably shouldn't say that.

I'm sorry. I'm recovering crackhead. It almost can go into a Jesse Ventura sound. It is. You know what? I'm realizing right now as I'm doing that it is a Jesse Ventura. And then – It sounds more like Mike Lindell than Jesse Ventura,

but they have a similar kind of – They do. Well, they're from the same area. Yeah. And then Tom Arnold just being Tom Arnold, which, as you know, started developing at the Super Bowls. And Tom just being concerned about, hey, buddy, I'm really concerned about you. Oh, man, you know what?

I'd like to say on the air, the first time I ever spoke to Tom Arnold, did I ever tell you that, about how I prank called him? Yes. Did I say that the other day on the air? I think you did. Okay. And I said how I prank called him as Sam. Okay, because I was like, I just told that story the other day.

Was that here? And Tom could not be more of a sweetheart. Well, some guys don't handle prank calls well and some do like i'll give you two examples so my dad used to do like voices on the radio too so like once they back in the day when you would just prank call people like 1995 you'd find out what hotel they're in you'd call them at six in the morning wake them up that's exactly what i did and exactly the year I did it with Tom. So like a, one time you call like a Tony Gwynn,

Tony Gwynn answers. The phone is the nicest guy in the world and has a sense of humor. Cause my dad calls him as I think Tom broke all, it was the all-star game. Dad calls him as Tom broke. All says they want to talk when he's like, Oh wow. Hi Tom. And then he says,

sorry, it's Scott and it's whatever. And Tony was very nice. They did it to Don Henley and Don Henley was like, I will sue you. I will sue everyone. He seems like a real dick though like don henley comes across as the biggest like a big slug just an unlikable he absolutely is and i have the most amazing don henley story but go ahead is that an amazing don henley is it because he's a dick uh can we save it for the air uh sure all right we got so many stories we're saying we're running out of time

we gotta we gotta edit and pick the best one i know uh and then uh one time my dad called rosie o'donnell when she was in makeup for her show when she had a talk show and called us tom brokaw and she fell for it and then when she found out it was them she lost her mind went on the air on her tv show that day and talked about my dad prank calling her. No way. That was like 1996. I think that was the heyday of prank calling celebrities, I guess. So you have a story about the first time you met Dave Chappelle, right? So my Chappelle, uh, first time I met Chappelle. Yeah. Um, how long have we got before you got to go back on the air? Uh, we're good for now. Yeah. I think we should be solid. Okay. So like 15 minutes. Okay. So it's all tied to a buddy of

mine named, uh, Todd mccullough who is a basketball player uh when i first started doing stand-up in seattle i got done doing a show and these two seven feet tall guys came up to me afterwards and said hey man you're pretty funny and i i looked at them and i went you guys play basketball and they go yeah we do man we play for the for you deb university of washington uh men's uh basketball team the huskies and uh one of them was a guy named todd mccullough todd and i exchanged phone numbers and we would stay in touch uh over the years he would invite me to college games i invite him to com to comedy shows and then when i started to uh write for the howard stern show

and moved to new york to be closer to Howard, Todd got picked up by the NBA and started playing for the 76ers. And the first time he came to New York to play the Knicks, they had a day off before the game. And he said, hey, do you want to hang out and maybe get a meal? And I said, dude, you got to come to a comedy club. I'm working with the greatest comedians in the world now. So we out to dinner me todd mccullough and three of his teammates from the 76ers and at dinner his teammates go so todd says you're uh you're pretty funny and i go oh my god i am so i am so funny i am so you're not todd you haven't seen me in a couple years you don't even know how like i'm the funniest guy ever right now i am so funny and

i'm building this i'm hyping up this show they're gonna see i'm the funniest guy ever right now i am so funny and i'm building this i'm hyping up this show they're gonna see i'm like wait you'll just wait till you see dude i am so funny you guys are gonna be blown away by how funny i am and i'm todd's friend man you're gonna be so blown away we get to this comedy club it's called the boston comedy club in greenwich village and when we walked in there were two audience members when we walked in, there were two audience members when we walked in. Two. And now we added my four friends. And I'm literally standing up in front of the four guys I just had dinner with going, so how are you guys doing tonight?

It's fucking awkward as shit. There was no way to win that battle. It was just the circumstances were beyond my control. And I ate my dick for 20 minutes. It sucked. I walk off stage. Our doorman at the time was Bert Kreischer. Who was the doorman? Bert was the door guy.

I walk out and I go, Bert, that's the worst night I've ever had in my life doing standup. And he goes, what? And I go, those friends of mine, they play for the 76ers, dude. I was just hyping myself up tonight about how funny I was going to be. And I just fucking ate it. And,

uh, Bert goes, uh, Hey, maybe we'll get a Dave Chappelle to come in. And I go, is he around? And he goes,

dude, that's fucking Dave Chappelle right there. And I looked and sitting in a Jeep in front of the club was Chappelle, uh, having a smoke. And I, and I walked over Chappelle at the time. This is 1998.

Chappelle was famous for Robin hood, men in tights. Conair is what I remember. Oh, Conair. Yeah. I forgot. He was in Conair.

He was in Conair and he had, he killed it in a half baked nutty professor. Yeah. I forgot. It was, I forgot about that. He was so good. And then he was like the asshole. And, uh, it was like an asshole comedian. Yeah. Sh was so good. He was like the asshole.

He was like an asshole comedian. Shitting on him like, women be shopping. So I knock on the window and Dave rolls the window down. I go, Dave, hey, man, my name is Craig Gass. I'm a stand-up comedian. Dude, I got a bunch of friends from the Philadelphia 76ers inside. Is there any way we can get you to come in and do a set and dave said word and i go yeah is that cool can you come

in and he goes yeah man let me uh let me get some smokes and i'll be back and he gets out of his car and he goes down to this bodega and then um and i'm like oh my god i walk back up and i go bert he's coming in he's gonna come in and at that moment, six businessmen walked by and said, hey, is anybody famous performing tonight? And I was like, in like five minutes. Yes. And they're like, oh, you're just trying to take our money. And I was like, no, dude, no cover.

Come on in, please. Come in. Come in. And now we've doubled our audience. Now we have 12 people in the crowd. Big crowd. And Chappelle walks in and does a audience now we have 12 people in the crowd big crowd and chapelle walks in and does a 90 minute set for 12 people and the next guy that was supposed to be on stage

was a guy named david from the real world season two did you ever watch the real world i'd not i wouldn't know who david from real world season two is did you ever watch real world i know of it yeah i mean okay season two was in los angeles uh season one of course was in new york season two was in los angeles and dave um was a comic uh black dude who was really angry got thrown out of the house because tammy one of his roommates he tried to rip her blanket off of her and she was in a bra and panties she was like stop it and he was like come on and he and he rips the blanket off of her and and all the roommates are offended like dude she's in her bra and panties and you're trying to rip her blanket off so they all got together and voted Dave you gotta go and even though he kept saying he was a stand-up comedian he came off as an angry guy on the show. And then he shows up this night.

He's supposed to go on stage, but now Chappelle's on and he's angry at me and Bert because Chappelle's on stage doing a 90 minute set. This guy, David walks up to me and Bert and goes, Hey man, you can tell this guy to get off stage. You can tell Dave Chappelle to get off.

And I was like, uh, no, I'm not actually, no, no. And he goes, he goes,

does he know i'm supposed to go up and i'm like uh he's the crowd's having a good time we're just gonna let him roll and just and just have fun so this guy dave from the real world decides he's gonna walk by the stage and eyeball chapelle and this is what he does he like goes by the stage and he goes like the like a total bro type move like put his arms out like well what bro well yeah and chapelle was smoking a cigarette which you're not supposed to do indoors in new york he's smoking a cigarette sitting on the stool and he goes yeah man hey that's the dude from the real world and and the guy from the real world stops and turns around and plugs an independent film that he's in. He goes, Family Reunion! Warner Brothers

Pictures! December 99! And he gets really quiet and Chappelle goes, We'll be sure to look out for that. And the whole crowd starts laughing and this guy, David, starts yelling and he goes, Hey! It ain't easy being black!

And being an entertainment business! It ain't easy being black. And being an entertainment business. It ain't easy being a black man in entertainment. It's hard being an entertainer when you're a black man. And Chappelle just kept going, hey man, I agree. I agree. You know what? What he's saying is true. It is hard being a black man and being an entertainer.

That is true. Of course, it is harder for some more than it is for others and everything this guy david came at chappelle with was pure anger oh and chappelle every line he was like the matrix like like you couldn't like hit him all the bullets oh god and chapelle killed it walks off stage and says uh hey man is it cool if i get tickets for the game tomorrow man can you ask your buddies and i said absolutely and i said todd uh dave chapelle would like to come to the game tomorrow is it okay he wants three tickets for him his wife and his kid he only had one kid at the time and todd goes yeah um how about if i

just put all your tickets together you just go to the game together and i go even better so he left me five tickets under my name and and dave said cool man i'll give you my phone number writes down his phone i still have that piece of paper the rose number on really and uh that's great so chappelle picks me up and i ride with him and his wife and his kid to Madison Square Garden. And we go to the game. And and I remember afterwards trying to explain to Dave how the NBA friends and family work after the game. The game ends and I go, OK, Dave, so so we're just going to go to this section over here. They're going to let everybody out of the arena and then all the friends and family are going be in this section just just follow me i'll show you how to do this but as we go down to the lower part of the arena guys from the knicks were like yo dave and they're like

grabbing him and and he's like hey what's up fellas and they were all like like again chappelle was just um known for con air robin hood uh for uh for nutty professor all the players knew him as this killer stand-up comedian and they're like dave come to come down to the locker room which even the family and friends don't get invited to the locker room and he goes yeah man let's go i'll come down i go hey i'm cra Craig. I brought Dave. Nobody cares. I'm like, I'm Craig. Hello, Latrell Sprewell. It's me.

I'm Dave. Dude, Latrell Sprewell and Allen Iverson from the Sixers was like, what's up, Dave? And they're like, hey, AI, it's me. I'm Craig. Yeah. I don't like to practice either, dog. Wait, where you at? Am I right?

It's tough. Practice. Am I right? Lefty Georgetown. Hey, Pat Ewing. Dude, it was so crazy you knew back then like you could feel it from dave like this guy is like a next level comedian and what's amazing is that he continued to evolve and continue to elevate the entire art form it was it was just mind-blowing it's important to know that you were excited to do family guy which paid scale plus 10 right which paid you 800 858 dollars dave chappelle said yeah fuck

100 million dollars i'm going to africa for a couple like think about that like just had that kind of power to just say ah fuck it and it's probably good that he did yeah because you know what it leaves that era of that show kind of in a special place. It didn't get to a point where it went too long and got tired. That's a great point. It's kind of like the whole idea of burning out versus fading away. Like if Jim Morrison lived to be 80, he probably would have sucked eventually. Or Kurt Cobain lived to be 80.

You don't want to put a gun in your mouth and die at 27. That's no good. But is there a chance that kurt cobain could be playing the copa cabana in his 60s i don't know but like you get that little it's a it's a time stamp it's a picture of a certain time and place there are people who say about sam kinnison like man what would have happened to sam kinnison if he had not gotten in that car crash and i think the reasonable answer is that kinnison probably would have died one week later because of the way there's no way he was going to survive crash just happened to be what killed him it just

happened to get in the way of his impending death a week later but chapelle i i agree with you um his the moves that he made which he did for for personal reasons at the time are legendary now i remember when he came back from africa uh he he went right to the comedy store and i saw him that first night and i don't think he ever put this out on any kind of special but he had this story about being in africa escaping this contract and telling somebody in africa he goes yeah man i was telling this this african dude i said man you know 50 million dollars man make you crazy and this african guy looked at me and he said that is crazy yes i ate a dog today which is looking amazing absolutely amazing like dave is just uh um i just adore him for being uh the same person uh i saw it's

fascinating because he's a again he's a black dude in america 2022 a group that deals with some shit which is fair to say yet somehow and i think this is the point he tries to convey in some of his stand-up when he's making jokes about trans people or whatever like motherfucker i'm black right like i get it i'm making fucking jokes here but like somehow it's more important in 2022 to be trans than be black like you're a more protected group it's it's kind of it's bullshit it's funny that that's uh that is the point that keeps getting missed that you're pointing to and that's that's exactly what he's like this dude that tried to stab him with this gun knife hybrid thing right he's got people who are sympathetic towards his plight because he's mad that he got his feelings hurt by chapelle well he's saying that now the guy who attacked him

is saying that now i feel like that's an insincere thing that he's probably because people were already developing that storyline before he ever said anything so he jumped on with it i think he jumped on with like yeah i was upset about it but i i think it's obviously he was upset about something yeah something pissed him off so but he played he played it well like well i mean he's making fun of people and i wanted to teach him a lesson about making fun of people he's a fucking comic that's what he does yeah chapelle had a uh i saw him uh last summer in in at MGM Grand, and he puts me in a VIP lounge where all of his guests are at. And before the show started, Chappelle came into the lounge and just hung out there by just having drinks. And he seems like a chill dude.

He's always been the same guy. His security was just kind of like a little distance away. So it wasn't intimidating. He wasn't walking around with security by his side, but his security was just kind of like a little distance away uh so it wasn't intimidating like he wasn't walking around with security by his side but his security was nearby watching and i noticed afterwards he had a party and security was i mean the party was amazing uh he chapelle was standing in the middle of a dance floor with a microphone and when we walked in i was like oh my god chapelle's about to do stand-up and i realized all he was doing with the microphone was singing along to his favorite song he was singing and dancing and i was like oh dave and i pulled out doing instagram and it's and that's when security like nope no and i was like oh okay

all right cool but remember that night telling dave i said uh do you remember what you said to me the first time i came to ohio and i called you up and invited you to hang out. And he goes, no, I just, I was headlining the improv in Cleveland for the first time. And I knew that you lived in Ohio on a farm and I called you up and I said, Dave, it's Craig gas. And you go, Hey dog, what's up? And I said, uh, I go, dude, I'm headlining the improv here in Cleveland, man. So if you want to come out and hang out, I'm here for a week. Or if you want to do a set, you know, you feel want to come out hang out i'm here for a week or if you want to do a set you know you feel free to come and do some time do you remember what you said to me and dave goes now i go you said craig do you know how big ohio is i had no idea that i thought when you told me you lived on a farm in ohio i thought it was like outside of cleveland i didn't realize it was like four hours away in Dayton, you know, but yeah, I fucking love it.

Because he just seems like some of these dudes seem like they're cool. So I think Rogan seems like he'd be cool as hell. Yeah. Rogan's a little standoffish. He's always high and he's always look. I think his being high feels like he's standoffish. But I mean, he's always been nice to me you know but uh but yeah rogan is um plus he's also arguably the most important influential

opinion giver in the universe somehow without question but then sits there and downplays it all the time by saying well i am just a comedian that smokes pot and does mma commentary i think he downplays it a little too much. He tries. I mean, and it's because wherever he goes, people are constantly wanting to come at him to talk about conspiracy theories about, you know, now it's politics, all the stuff he's talked about.

He was big on conspiracy theories for a long time. And so that brought a lot of interesting people out of the woodwork that wanted to get at him. But I never got to know Rogan, but and I really got that close to Chappelle either. But Chappelle is still the same guy. He was 20, almost 25 years ago when I first met him. But man, am I. It's exciting to watch somebody who, you know, before they become famous like that guy's gonna be fucking famous man and he becomes famous and and and becomes even better and and bigger and better than anything you thought he was going to be back then it's it's also interesting because that's a business and i don't know if it's still that way and you've been around and i haven't but it's a business where there's a lot of jealousy right like like is that still the case or yeah i I mean, comedians have a weird thing about success.

But with Chappelle, it was hard to argue with Chappelle. It's hard to say, like, oh, man, like, you could, there's a way to disagree with what Carrot Top was doing that made people feel like well that's not funny in my opinion because I don't think that's stand-up comedy which is is absolutely wrong because the guy is selling tons of tickets well how do you then how do you uh reconcile that with what you actually truly believe is funny versus what's selling tickets like we talked about Dice earlier if you go back and watch a lot of the D dice stuff it's kind of just crass and not overly hysterical like i look back on it now and i'm tickled by it like you know like i don't know if that sounded condescending or not like i'm the shitty radio guy in nashville was tickled by the guy that filled madison square

garden i get that but but like he filled madison square garden so he must not suck like people like to say bands band suck, Nickelback sucks. Well, I saw him, I was front row for a Nickelback show and they had another 20,000 people there. So do they suck? Somebody likes them. Yeah. It's, um, uh, I think that, so the question being like, is what is the question you're asking? So basically how do you reconcile between like, say you see someone and they're selling out arenas but you don't think they're good are you able to reconcile the the idea that well somebody obviously thinks they are they can't suck or do you just ride with i don't get it this guy sucks and i'll never

understand i'd be the wrong person to ask that question too because i i don't judge anyone if they're successful it's like oh okay well they figured something out and they're selling tickets so i immediately understand that you've never resented anyone? Never. Never? Not one person. There's not one person you've gone, this son of a... Didn't everybody resent Mencia?

Only because he was stealing material. Mencia got thrown out of a funeral. He tried to go to the funeral of a comedian that used to open for him, and everyone inside the funeral said, get out, because they knew that Mencia had actually stolen material from him. How do you, and I think subconsciously you hear somebody say something and you don't even realize that you're taking it to a degree. I'm not saying that's what he did. But, like, that's why I don't listen to other radio shows,

because if someone offers an opinion, subconsciously you go, that makes sense. And, like, you don't even say you're going to use it, but you end up doing it subconsciously. That's got to be tough if you're a comedian and you're watching someone set you're like that crushes then you end up telling the joke that sounds similar and you're like fuck did i steal that jim norton is the only comedian i know who won't watch anybody for that reason he just won't watch anybody but to your point about when something sells i remember over the years when i work with concert promoters and

club owners around the country i'll always ask who's really selling for you right now i like to ask guys like you who kills it on your radio show what comedians uh well craig gas he's the only one on and he's here all week but i remember hearing from a promoter years ago and by the way speaking of that comedians don't work on the phone and they all want to do phoners right like in person it works on the radio on the phone it doesn't work like i all the only person who was good on the phone was bob saget who i talked to a couple months ago before he died obviously before he died i talked to him after he died i know what happened and an exclusive he got taken out just like bob crane someone took him out

with a tripod no but uh but he was funny he was really good and it's also it helps that he's got the tv backstory so you can talk about full house and stuff it doesn't always have to be a joke sometimes comedians just try to be on the whole time and can't just riff yeah craig robinson was a guy the guy from the office his stand-up is like he plays a keyboard and stuff right he was in houston at the improv maybe a decade ago and they used to bring all the improv guys into our morning show when i was at 6 10 a.m there and he came up and he was just a drag it was just kind of like slow and didn't really have anything to say and you're like well this was great good being here but then biff from back to the future comes up and thomas f wilson he's fucking killing it.

Like, it's like, you don't know who's got Titus. Christopher Titus can talk about anything and make it good. Same with Bill Burr, like guys like that. You know, what's crazy to me is, is how many, uh, it's not a lot of them, but there are guys who I worked with a lot that I never watched who became famous. And I'd go, I got what? Like, I remember a promoter telling me, Oh, um, I just did a half arena with Kevin Hart. And I went, the short black guy. And he goes, yeah. And I go, Kevin Hart did it happen. He goes, Oh man,

the guy's in a bunch of movies. And I went, well, I've never even, I know who Kevin is. I used to work. I just never paid attention to his standup. Is he funny? He's like, Oh, he's so funny. And a year later, the same promoter said, I sold out two nights in an arena with Kevin Hart and I'm like what and then a couple years later Kevin does a football stadium in Philadelphia he does a stadium where the Eagles play and I'm like all right I gotta go to this show I call a friend of mine from the Eagles he hooks me up with a ticket to the show and I watch Kevin Hart for the first time in a stadium and then I go back to the clubs in New York that night. And I'm telling all the comedians, you guys are not going to believe this.

I just saw Kevin Hart in a fucking football stadium tonight where the Eagles play. And they're like, what? I go 65,000. He sold out at the stadium where the Eagles play. And they're all asking a bunch of questions. And one of the comedians was Gary Goldman. And Gary goes, whoa, wait, hold on a second. Hold on. Kevin's from Philly, right? I right and i go yeah and he goes so he's got family

and i go he's not a mormon he doesn't have canon yeah he doesn't have that he's not nick cannon i couldn't believe that but it was funny watching kevin hart for the first time i was like i get it i understand why he's funny i've never watched watched him before, but he's very relatable. He talks about family. He talks about his friends in a really relatable way. I get it. I understand why this guy is popular. But it's interesting because there are some guys who are really funny, but

the type of humor they do doesn't work. I think it doesn't work mainstream and never will. Like Anthony Jeselnik. I think he's dark and it's funny yes but it's never going to be arena funny because it's not like jay leno used to say that like you got to appeal to may and whoever in in you know wisconsin right yeah letterman never did that that wasn't what letterman did that's what leno did some guys were able to do that i think kevin hart has a

a relatability that whether you're in kansas city or philly or la or detroit or wherever it works some guys are just too dark and comics comics if you will that aren't worried about appealing to the mainstream they're just going you know and some guys have that some guys don't want to have that i i always remember jeff foxworthy who i believe has sold more albums than any other comedian and i think he's brilliant yeah and i think at one point he was the most uh the uh had the most uh sales i remember jeff foxworthy saying comedians really pride themselves on on being edgy but the overwhelming majority of the country lives right in the middle they're not on the edge so and it's

it's true i mean comedian comedian now he's considered edgy because they were upset that he did jokes about uh like young kids today like he had a stand-up special on netflix yeah he was just doing but the thing is they weren't controversial at all but it's just he's an old white guy making jokes about millennials and they're all pissed off about like they were angry at foxworthy you know the the you might be a redneck guy you know like the most harmless human on the planet people hated larry the cable guy they would they love to show the old clip of him wearing a silk shirt you know back in the 80s like that's not really what he is he's playing a fucking character andrew dice clay is not andrew dice

clay he's a fucking character like i think um like you know jim rome doesn't walk around everywhere he goes like hey what's going on smack like he probably just sits at home and like sits in his underwear and watches fucking golden girls like like everybody's playing a character to some extent it's just funny which ones we pick and choose like i go back to the metallica thing right there's the meme on one side you've got the people who are fans of metallica and they're all like like yeah rock on and black shirts and face paint and shit then you look at the other side and it goes that's the lead singer of metallica and he's wearing fucking crocs and cargo shorts yeah like everybody thinks somebody is something everybody's playing a role to some extent there are very few people who are just authentic you know like people

get mad when they meet you and you're not the same as you are on the radio for instance those guys are fraud on the radio he's not really energetic in person say something funny guys say something offensive it's it happens occasionally where someone will be having a conversation and someone will go what would uh what would al pacino say about this and i I'd be like, I don't know. I have no idea. Funny you ask. I don't know. Why are you asking me to do it? But like, it's like, it's so. Friend, I'm just in line at the Wetzel's.

I just want to get a fucking pretzel. Friend, you realize we're at church. Like, I don't want to do the voice at church. I'm just doing a culture to see if I have chlamydia. I don't want to have to talk about this. I'm waiting for my results Can you please What would Sam Kiddus say about getting Positive chlamydia results

It's interesting to me The time that we're living in What's with kids today? What's with society today? What's with today today what's with society today what's with today today um we were talking about uh comedy chapelle sensitivity which i i didn't think was a real thing i felt like it was more of a uh you know once seinfeld kind of put it out there that colleges are too sensitive and that he avoids colleges i started hearing from

people going yeah i guess it's really bad out there and i'm like no it's not comedy clubs are fine and then one night i was watching jay okerson on stage and he was doing some stand-up and he was talking about being at a hotel and i think he took a dump in his bed i think like he accidentally pooped in his bed and he talked about the mexican housekeeper at the hotel and someone in the crowd yelled out that's racist and i and the whole place froze and i was like what the fuck and and jay says well she was a mexican woman the woman that was the housekeeper was the mexican woman and they kind of went back and forth a little bit and i was like what a that's wild i couldn't believe i saw that at a stand-up comedy show i mean but i mean it's gonna continue to be that way though it's like what do people expect

when you're going into a show like i feel like you have to know what the guy's material is everybody has like a people know what your gimmick is people know if you're going to see um i don't know we were talking about jeff jeff foxworthy yeah if you want to see jeff foxworthy you're not getting sam kinnison stuff you're getting kind of folksy wholesome now my wife type of stuff like that's what you're going to get now if you go out there and you know he's he's doing hickory dickory dock you're like well holy shit i mean you kind of know what you're getting into when you see certain people you know what louis ck does you know what gervais does you know what you do you know what chapelle does i think that it's there's a there's a way of

communicating it that people are just going to laugh they're just going to and um i think it's it's it's the the art of stand-up comedy is being able to take an audience somewhere they might not necessarily want to go and have them go willingly with you to that area and trust you enough to go there i remember the first time i ever heard about a safe space i was near seattle i was getting ready to do a big show in seattle and i was trying to do as many uh sets at open mics before you ever think about going down to those tents in se and just doing a show, doing a set? Hey, guys, I got free gum. Oh, yeah, come on.

All right. What's your name? Where are you from? Here's some gum and a box of Special K. But someone told me, hey, yeah, I heard that you're looking for stage time. I got a spot for you over here. It's near the university and you can do 15 minutes. And I was like, oh, that's perfect.

And the guy said, OK, but just so you know, it's a safe space. So you know what that means? And I said, I do not. What's a safe space? And he said, we don't marginalize. What was the word? We don't marginalize minority groups like gay people, trans people who are minorities. How do you define marginalized?

Like, is it just making a joke? I think it was just we don't make jokes about minorities. I don't know. And that's funny you say that because I thought, well don't make jokes about minorities. I don't know. And that's funny you say that because I thought, well, it's still about context. By the way, context does not matter anymore. Right. Context means nothing. Right. And I still made a joke that night using the word retarded, which is something I never say.

But I did it intentionally to see how they were going to react. And everyone laughed and i was like all right safe space my ball yeah exactly take that safe space i'm lenny bruce now bitch it was just come arrest me it was kind of interesting i didn't hit the topics they asked me to not hit but i made a joke about a marginalized group or or you know i i punched down just to see what the reaction would be and and they and they laughed so it's kind of silly but i i honestly believe i honestly believe that this is the best time for stand-up comedy this is the best time for stand-up comedy because stand-up comedians have the ability to push back uh but do they want to yes some do some some do i'm not that guy i'm not the guy who

i used to do jokes on stage that um uh like using an impression i would do this silly thing where i would do street jokes as christopher walken and say he's do a thing where he said uh i mean i've been doing comedy for so long, I remember when Adam Sandler started out, and I will say an offensive joke as Adam Sandler. And then he had to find his voice. And then I remember watching Christopher Walken do stand-up comedy,

and I will do street jokes as Christopher Walken. And I remember they were out of the book of truly offensive jokes. And one of them was Christopher um christopher walken saying what do you call a midget puerto rican a speck it's so stupid and then oh and what do you call a fat chinese guy a chunk and then after the show people come and go like dude you were so funny you're so funny and then like an asian person would go like dude that was hilarious and i go oh thank and in my mind i'd be like oh shit i'm like i want to apologize i want to preemptively go um but

they're walking out going that was hilarious i remember thinking like if i'm feeling like this after the show when i'm talking to audience members then why am i doing that well you know the thing is the people who are actually offended honestly are just white people white people are offended on behalf of everybody else dude you know a group of people that does not get offended by anything hispanic people right do not give a shit they have a great time they laugh everybody has a good time you know who gets offended on behalf of them white people the people that have now moved into their shitty neighborhoods and gentrified them, ran them out, built three-story townhouses that cost a million dollars. And because they feel guilty, they're like, you know what?

We got to stop oppressing. That is not nice. Yeah. Growing up in a family of people with a handicap, like people would get offended who were not in a family with handicapped people. People would get offended on my behalf for growing up in a deaf deaf family they would get offended at death jokes but not my deaf family yeah that's usually how it goes yeah you know and then i think what happens is there's a backlash to certain things and then people feel like they have to be offended because other people in their group might be or someone tells them they should be offended things that aren't that

big of a deal become a huge deal because it's covered all over the news and everything and we gotta you know someone's got to be completely ruined it's weird i remember seeing rich voss about a year ago and voss was doing a telling a story about uh he was talking about gay people and he said you know who i feel bad for is the gay people who also are dating interracially can you imagine that conversation mom dad i'm gay now sit down for the bad part and and there was immediately a buzz in the room of a hesitation to laugh and i realized oh shit people are hesitating on behalf of those groups right now there's like one black guy in the back this shit is lit and the white people are like exactly am i supposed to laugh exactly i think if you lean into something fearlessly uh i just think that people like comedians not just

all comedians but entertainment in general that you got a lot of people doing that and you got a lot of people who used to like i think chris rock used to be great at making fun of black people white people all that i think even chris rock has gone a little bit more mainstream with what he does now and like i think you get kind of blinded by a pressure that comes from social media that wasn't there before yeah and like if you see a thousand tweets from people they're like dude what do you do like you're making the people look bad you're making our people look bad or don't be critical i think it gets to people sometimes how could it not 25 years ago chris rock or you or stern you don't have social media right so you don't have people in your ear constantly thousands saying what the fuck dude yeah now you do yeah and

i think that that has a negative impact on people like when i first started doing radio in houston we first started with twitter and a text line that you can see that shit will fuck with you you're in the middle of giving an opinion you're like and this is why this motherfucker is the worst and some guy says your opinion's stupid you're a piece of shit and you're like am i wrong in this opinion oh i remember howard really early on i remember um howard uh encouraged me to do something on the air and i i held back and didn't do it. And we went to commercial and Howard goes, why didn't you do the thing? I thought you were going to go in that direction.

And I said, I just, you know, I think I do it too much. And he goes, what do you mean you do it too much? I've seen like on message boards that people get sick of it. He goes, oh, my God, Craig, don't fucking look at the Internet. He goes, that will fuck your head. And right that moment, Gary walked in the room and he kind of caught on where the conversation was going howard said you know there's message boards that that they'll say that fucking robin sucks like i shouldn't have robin on the show she's my co-host like you you can't it will fuck with your head none of them

know what the fuck they're talking about and gary is like you know it's true i've worked on on shows where i've done like best ofs where we'll be on vacation for a week and i'll put a lot of like heart into i'll put a lot of time into being like you know this is going to be like like a real retrospective during the best of it's going to kind of show our entire career and i'll be proud of it you know and i'll i'll look at message boards afterwards and the first message i'll see is like does anybody put any time into the fucking and it's like i put like hours into that fucking thing. And people think I just threw it together, you know? And, and Howard said, do not, he goes, it'll, but I know musicians, famous musicians who I will visit and they'll go, dude, let me show you something.

And they'll show me a message board dedicated to their band. They'll be like, look at this fucking idiot. And we're, we're having the discussion. Lars, stop. We're having this discussion in a $10 million house. And I'm like, who gives a fuck about this guy? I guarantee you who's able to do that and compartmentalize well is Chad from Nickelback. He has to.

Dude, he fucks Avril Lavigne. He's fucking nothing but hot chicks and he lives in a mansion. I don't want to say who this person is. But I know a buddy of mine who came to see me in vegas last summer he's a security uh it's probably getting it close already but uh he's a security guy who works for a bunch of artists and his first big rock artist he was with rappers for a long time then he started working for for a rock artist and he tells me and tom rhodes you know tom rhodes is no tom rhodes is a brilliant comedian me and tom are hanging out with this guy rhodes is no tom rhodes is a brilliant comedian me and tom are hanging out with this guy and i'm just peppering him with questions like

so you know tell me like the first you know tell me crazy stories about being on the road and he tells us that his first rock job was with uh nickelback and the phone call that he got was we need we need security for nickelback because we have a problem. Whenever people come up to our singer and say, are you the guy from Nickelback? You suck. Our singer is just knocking people out. Yeah. Fuck you. Like, he's just knocking people out.

So we're trying to save money by just paying a security guard to stop him from knocking out people. And I was like like you know what my fucking his status has just gone up in my mind that the singer of nickelback has actually got a problem with just knocking people out for saying nickelback suck i loved hearing that about him um but uh yeah i don't i don't know where the thing is they get shit on more than any band ever like they're just allowed to be shit on and i think there's some level of jealousy to that because, again, you sell a billion albums. It's like Dane Cook. Dane Cook was hot, really hot for about four years and was in a bunch of movies and had the—

Arenas. He sold out Boston, the Garden in Boston, 18,000 people. I saw him at the UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, and there were like 15,000 people in there. He was huge. And people, I do think, get jealous to he was huge and people i do think get jealous to a degree and it's easier to get jealous when you think someone sucks if you look at chappelle you go okay he's fucking great like how can i be jealous of that if it's someone that you think you're a contemporary with that you should be there with them it's easy to get jealous and

get pissed off about that i will say this a lot of comedians think they're funnier than everybody else um so when they see someone getting successful they can't see it but in my mind it's always well if they're selling tickets then clearly they're funny you know i've never gotten jealous funny is subjective i mean like true like you know uh there are a lot of people that think bill murray movies are funny i think some of them are okay but for the most part i'm kind of like like basically every bill murray movie after kingpin i'm like i don't get it you know some people think it's the most brilliant shit they've ever seen carrot top is a guy who got shit on a

lot by comedians i love that joe rogan brought carrot top on to discuss it and be like what the fuck why do people have this attitude gallagher was like that too gallery got a lot of crap from people with the props and everything yeah and when uh when carrot top Top and I did a roast together, Carrot Top was so cool to me. I exchanged phone numbers and I wanted to come see him in Vegas for the first time. And not only was Carrot Top hilarious, I became the lowest common denominator of an audience member. I found myself several times in a Carrot Top show going, oh, that's so true. That is so true. You can't argue that. That is true.

That is true. That is true. He's so funny, and he absolutely hits stuff that you're like, God damn, that is absolutely a fact. That's awesome. Here, hold on one second. I've got to do a quick talk up here. Sure, sure.

That way I guess we can wrap that up, too. I love this conversation. Me, too. 1-0-5-9 The Rock, Nashville's classic rock. Josh in a show. White room. It's cream. Don't forget that Jilly has got textual favors coming up at noon.

You can get your requests in via the text. Text the word ROCK in your message to 64895. That's sexy. Yeah, get that message in, and you can make a request. Let us know who you are, what you want to hear. That's ROCK in your message to 64895, and those requests will play in the 12 o'clock hour with Jilly. It's called Textual Favors.

Thank you. Josh Ennis Show. Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's under the bridge on 105.9 The Rock. What I did there, I'm sitting there trying to hit the post on that, so I'm starting to talk in slow motion. I have a weird addiction to hitting. I hate to just talk and not hit the post on that. So I'm starting to talk in slow motion. I have a weird addiction to like hitting. I hate to just talk and not hit the post on a song.

So what I'll do is I'll like, oh, I'll really slow myself down. Like one Oh five, nine, the rock and stretch it out. Cause like deep down in my heart, like I'm an old, like my dad was a disc jockey, not a talk host or anything like that. And, and I just love listening to old jocks and stuff. And like, is this like my ultimate goal in disc jockey not a talk host or anything like that and uh and i just love listening to old jocks and stuff and like is this like my ultimate goal in life to be the guy that's zany talking up records no i mean i like to talk i like having long form conversations and stuff but like i enjoy hitting posts it's a euphoric feeling if you do it right i guess i understand that you

are very good at radio um and i that whole thing that happened uh in minnesota really i think exemplified that and it was exciting like when that happened yeah and as i said though it wasn't exciting when i was standing outside of a pizza place in minneapolis and my boss is like i might have to let you go and i in my deep down i'm like i would i called my agent at the time and i go david why are they so angry like this is what you should want like we don't like the fact that we're here doesn't matter like the fact that we're talking to to merrill hodge doesn't matter no one cares we made news we were the number one story we were the least the year before that and when it was

in houston my guy walked around in a garbage can that said Assweiler. It was the Brock Osweiler trash can. It said Assweiler. We were the number one story on SportsCenter, the top ten. Yes, of course. We were the number one story. It was all over the place. And they loved us when we did that.

They said, wow, you guys are great. You're hilarious. By the next year, they fucking hated everything we were doing. It was a bizarre world, man. Yeah, but you're 100% right. It's content. I remember being banned for life from a radio station which i ended up getting banned for life what station was it uh it was

the first station i started at kisw okay seattle and i ended up getting banned for life three times from that station how uh the first one was a really brutal thing i uh um the host of the morning show there um was uh had warned me about going on the howard stern show and some shit happened um that host was bringing me to boot camp for the first time uh boot camp is the morning show boot camp it's a convention that happens once a year during the summer where people go to steal each other's shitty ideas it's morning radio shows come in from all over the country to get together and talk about what's been working on their morning shows and come up with ideas uh or or share ideas that have worked in their markets that maybe you can use in your market

and so i'm being brought to morning show bootcamp. And it's around that time that I sent a tape to Howard Stern and Gary called me up and said, Hey, we'd like to, you know, I got this tape of you and, um, you know, these, like who's doing all these voices. And I said, that's me. That's I'm all the voices on the tape I sent you. And he said, well, God, you know, we'd really love to work with you because you're Sam Kinison. Like we thought it was him. Like we were, we were friends with Sam and the Sam Kinison impression was so good. We actually thought it was fucking crazy. And I said,

man, well, I'd love to work with you guys someday. And Gary said, well, we have an idea actually that I want to pitch you. And the idea was we're going to do, this is a terrible thing.

I'm about to tell you, Josh, uh, we, um, just got into the Chicago market. Yep. And there is a morning radio guy in chicago named man cow who has been going after us and we cannot respond to all the djs that go after us because

right now we're on the air in over 40 markets and if you start saying hey that guy man cow fuck man cow although they obviously did that became a big thing in that stretch too the man cow thing well i was you i was so uh there's 39 markets that are going to be like who's man cow so um uh but man cow started stepping up his fight and he started uh sending us pieces of a cow one piece at a time to the radio station then man cow had his producer fly over the building where howard does his show from in a helicopter and take a time to the radio station then man cow had his producer fly over the building where howard does his show from in a helicopter and take a shit on the building they filmed it he's shit on the building and i'm listening to this and i go so you want me to shit on someone or what no no no

no this is where you come in um man cow's dad just died did you do the voice of his dad we want you to call in as sam kinnison calling live from the gates of hell with with man cow's dead dad and i went okay um well uh well a couple things uh number one i don't want to do it right now because in a few days i'm going to atlanta to do this event called uh boot camp and man cow is going to i'm being introduced to man cow he's speaking on friday morning oh my god so just before okay dude you know exactly where this is going i know where this story's going okay so uh so gary delabate says i thought boot camp was like a small market only small markets and i said no it's every market that gets to go and And he goes, he goes, wait, so man cow is speaking. And I said, yeah, he's actually speaking on Friday morning. And he goes, where? And I said, at the, here, you want me to get the

information for you? And he goes, yeah, I go, yeah. I open up my goal. Man cow is speaking this Friday morning in the, you know, continental ballroom at this hotel on Friday morning at 8am in Atlanta. And he's like, Oh, interesting. And what's the name of the ballroom? And I go, Oh, it's this ballroom. And he goes, and which hotel is it? And I, Oh, it's the Omni. Okay. Huh? Interesting. I go, yeah. So can we talk next week? And he goes, yeah, sure. We'll do it next week. Thursday night, I went out and got hammereded So I ended up waking up late On Friday morning And when I woke up I came downstairs

At 8.30 in the morning And there was chaos It was bedlam in the lobby of the hotel There were ambulances And fire trucks and police cars And somebody ran up to me And said dude are you still going to do that Fucking Howard Stern thing

And I go uh why And they said, dude, are you still going to do that fucking Howard Stern thing? And I go, why? And they said, you didn't see what just happened? Yeah. Based on the information that I gave Gary Delabate, they sent Stuttering John to Atlanta undercover. Stuttering John showed up in Atlanta with Doug Goodstein, who was our ETV guy. And they crashed the appearance that Mankow was doing on Friday morning. And in the middle of it, Stuttering John stood up and said, I have a question. Isn't it true that everything you've ever done was stolen from Howard Stern? And the whole room starts booing. Because at that time-

Like Stern was just a negative, like people hated Stern. At the time which i was being warned about my guy that i was working for in seattle was telling me a lot of his exact words were you can either work for howard stern or you can work in the radio business i'm you just need to know this you can either work in radio fascinating because now everybody blows him like everybody's sessantly absolutely fascinating and so uh stuttering John interrupts and says, isn't it true? You saw everything from Howard Stern and mankind goes, you know what? Shut your mouth.

I will deal with you in a moment. Let me do my speech. And he goes, but we are live on the air right now. I have Howard Stern on the phone live in New York and he wants to talk to you. So tell Howard, is it true? You stole everything from Howard Stern and he hands the microphone to man cow. It's a big cell phone, like a Zachris cell phone basically it belonged to doug goodstein it was his personal cell phone and man cow takes the phone turns around smashes it against the wall

and it breaks to a thousand pieces the place goes yeah and goodstein comes up fuck you takes a swing at man cow then fuck you and it becomes a brawl it's a brawl in the middle of a radio convention and it's total chaos. And I am the guy who inadvertently set the whole fucking thing up. And, uh, Oh, that's great. And Bob finds out through my,

my radio guy finds out through the grapevine that, uh, I was the one who gave all the information and he says, do not do the Howardard stern show unless you you want to have chaos in your life and i did the howard stern show a few days later as sam kinnison i did a a neutered version of what they wanted me to do i just i just made fun of man cow's name you know i'm down here in hell and uh man cow's dad is here and uh you know jeffrey domer was confused he was like oh my god it's half man half cow where

is he where is he yeah i want to eat him you know it was just like it was just making fun of his name i didn't do what they wanted me to do which was fuck man cow and fuck his dead dad it was so brutal what they want me to do and i did a a nicer version of that and then when i got to seattle and back to the radio station the the guy whose morning show it was, he says, get the fuck out of here right now. And he walks me outside. And this is the point I wanted to get to with you about this, which is he tells me to leave. It was the first time I got banned for life from the station.

His co-host, Spike O'Neill, comes outside and goes, Craig, I'm going to tell you something. And it's not going to make any sense right now. You are always going to be in control. I know it doesn't sound like it right now because you just got banned from here, but you create content and radio stations all over the country need content. You will always be in control. You will always be the person who makes the decisions. You just don't know that now, but you are a content creator and you will always be the one who's in demand. And I didn't understand it at the time, but over time I started to realize I slowly started

standing up for myself a little more and a little more and asking for money, asking for better compensation. And I was surprised at how often I got it. And over time I learned that it is true and, and it absolutely applies to what you're doing. You get in trouble, but I used to get in trouble. I am a very neutered individual.

Now I was fired for two years. So I was just like, you know what? I'll play nice. Like I am a very neutered individual. But even coming in here two days ago, you were talking, you were reading complaints from listeners, and you were not only shitting on the listeners who were complaining, you were naming the listeners.

And I was like, that's fucking awesome. One of the things we also like to do is find them on Facebook and then start breaking down their photo. Of course. On the air, we're like, well, this person, one lady had like a banjo or something in her picture. We just shit on her. Hey, it's Josh. So what I'm going to do here is let you know that in this little window, there was just nothing. We did a spot on the air and whatever and somehow transitioned into talking about people you met.

I think the story that was on the air was one about meeting people, meeting celebrities, and it led to this conversation off air. So there's the setup for you, just so you know, so the transition is not abrupt. We're talking about meeting people, like having encounters with celebrities. It's funny those kind of stories you have about meeting people. Yeah. Like, I met Michael Irvin twice,

and once was at the Miami Super Bowl, the one that you were talking about where Kevin James and, like, I had to meet Kevin James there, so I got a picture with him. But I was in the miami super bowl the one that you were talking about where kevin james and like i had to meet kevin james there so i got a picture with him but i was in the john taking a leak and michael irvin walks in and i'm like holy shit it's michael irvin you know and i'm like 20 20 years 22 at the time and i go sup playmaker and he just says nothing like he just looks at me and then walks away but the other time i met him i was doing radio in in houston at the time i think it was the afternoon guy so i had a pretty high profile job dicks out when you said oh yeah i did like etiquette you know men's room etiquette was not really my strength but we were in the um but he came up to the station to record something for

nfl network he was interviewing a guy by the name of mario williams uh, and he walks in, I just happened to be at the stage. He goes, Hey man. I go, yeah. He goes, man, I got to interview Mario Williams. I said, yeah. Can you write some questions for me? I go, sure. I can do that. Michael Irvin. Why not? And he goes, now write them. Like I would say, I'm like, so like in 72 font, like eight exclamation points. I got, you want me to write them? And I wrote out all these questions for him, for Mario Williams. Like,

here you go, play a maker. And he goes, man, I'm asking none of that. And then like, and then he left the building. Cause he had to go record the interview at the stadium.

He goes, all right, grab my bag. I go, what? He goes, yeah, that's the Louis Vuitton one.

Grab that. And I grab it and I'm rolling this roller bag down to this car. it's him and kevin kiley who he did a radio show with and they got in the car i handed him his bag i go all right mister by the time i could say all right see you playmaker the door was shut see you later that was my encounter it's just funny the kind of encounters you have with celebrity people like um that's probably one of the better stories i have of being around a celebrity our sports station is the sports format the toughest format i in my opinion i think it is because i think the people you have to interview don't give you shit i think they all that's why you don't interview them fuck them yeah i mean you you find interesting people or you just be

the interesting person or find people you get along with that you can riff with like i don't give a shit about talking to joe montana he's a fucking stiff so who cares you know they are in in sports radio although i have been told by a lot of friends of mine in sports radio that hockey players will actually hockey players are the best dudes ever most of them are foreign barely speak english they're happy there's like they get the worst contracts of anybody like lebron will sign a two-year contract for 90 million, right? Make 45 a year. Hockey players are like, yeah, I've just signed a 17-year, $10 million deal.

I'm happy. And you're like, wait a minute. You had a 17-year deal? Yeah, but I'm making $10 million, eh? And you're like, okay, bro. I mean, they're the nicest dudes. They're fun. Baseball players are kind of assholes.

But yeah, hockey players are the best. And golfers, if you get the right golfer, they're fun too. But they got to be kind of, by the right golfer, I mean like John Daly, the rest of them are stiffs. Yeah, I've always heard that about hockey players. But I always feel like sports is the toughest format because of that. And you brought up earlier about how in Minnesota, anything that's being talked about at the Super Bowl is going to be forgotten about. And it's amazing to me that it still happens. Every Super Bowl, you see guys walking up and saying, hey, can I borrow you for a second on the media day when all the players are walking around that are on both teams?

What are your thoughts going into Sunday? Yeah, like, why are you here? Like, what are your thoughts? Do something dumb. What is going to happen? You're actually given a gift that no one else is going to get, which is you've got 100 football players. You can make them uncomfortable.

Maybe one will be funny. You've got the world watching you, and you're like, so do you guys think you're going to run the ball a little bit more this week? Yeah, it's the event that everyone's going to be watching. This is the event that brings in more people than anyone else or anything else in the entire calendar year. And you're not asking anything original. There's nothing unique being asked there. I'm always trying to get something unique and funny.

And I am so proud when ESPN picks it up. Like you, you saying, I thought you were joking when you said it was the number one. No, our, our, our guy in his ass.

Weiler can was, I think number one on the sports center, top 10, I think. And that's a moment that you should have. And our radio station did not care. I know I'm bitching, but there was a,

there was a player that played for the Astros. His name was Tyler white. He was just kind of plunky dude that had like one brief moment of being good. And since he was kind of fat, I just, for some reason started calling him big puddin. That was my nickname for him, right? Well, the, the TV people start calling him the great white, which is such a stupid nickname, whatever, but I called him big puddin. Well, I was friends with the dude doing the games on the radio, the color analyst.

I said, do you mind calling him big Puddin' once and just seeing what happens? So he hits a walk-off home run on like a Thursday afternoon. Walk-off home run against maybe Seattle or Toronto. Hits a walk-off. Everybody's going nuts. And the guy calling the game goes, Big Puddin' with the walk-off. And I go, holy shit, my nickname is on the air. MLB Network picks that up and they start calling him big puddin on tv they're like yeah did you see big puddin and i go

wow this is awesome my station was like yeah we're not promoting that like no no that's weird like they they like my station was the dumbest station in the world like they are not smart people but and i mean that one like dude that's our nickname and they're like yeah but nobody on the station likes you so they're not gonna use it they all hate you you're a piece of shit we will not use your dumb nickname you asshole perseverance pays off you just have to stick to your guns man well i mean you would know yeah you're a person you you certainly uh persevere yeah i just it just you got to stick to your guns, man. Thank you for having me on. You bet, man.

And there you go. Our friend Craig Gass. That was earlier today at the radio station. It's Josh. Hi. I do have to tell you about Aqueduct Plumbing Company. Billy and his sister Mary. They are awesome.

We love them. And, of course, they are in the plumbing business. And if you need great plumbing work in the Houston area, 281-488-6238 is the number you need to call. 281-488-6238. Of course, they do everything, re-pipes, leak detection, camera inspection, plumbing fixtures, water heaters, tankless water heaters, water filters, drain cleaning, all that. So make sure you reach out to them if you need them. Great reviews, great people, awesome company. 281-488-6238, AqueductPlumbingCompany.com.

They are at your disposal. And don't forget, tomorrow we're going to be doing a drinking show, 8 o'clock Central. So come hang out with us on Twitch and be prepared to get hammered. Get your donos, get your bits, get ready to go. Jim is going to be with us and try to get a few other people. Might reach out to Tank and some others. See if we can have a good time.

Awesome. We love you guys and we'll see you later.