The One You Feed - How To Find Belonging When You Feel Like an Outsider with Vir Das

Starting point is 00:00:00 Early on in your career, or at least in your life, you're like, what do people want to hear? You know, and can I meander between what people want to hear and ever so slightly pivot into what I want to say? And then you get to this point and you're like, hey, maybe I'll just say everything I want to say and find out if people want to hear it. And maybe they won't, by the way. But can I just say everything that's inside me for once? Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like, quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back

Starting point is 00:00:55 and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. There's a way of moving through life where we're always looking at what's next, the next idea, the next project, the next version of yourself. I know that mode really well. And in this conversation, Veerdas, comedian and author of The Outsider, talks about how hard it is to actually stop and recognize what you've already done. At one point, someone told him he needed to celebrate something he accomplished five years ago because he never did. And that really makes sense to me. We talk about that

Starting point is 00:01:43 tension between ambition and appreciation, what it's like to live with a mind that keeps generating ideas whether you want it to or not, and how easy it is to miss your own life while you're building it. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Veer, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I'm really excited to talk with you about your book, which is called The Outer, Outsider, a memoir for Misfits, and I also pulled some things from your most recent Netflix special, although you have, I believe, two others that I now get to watch. So thanks for joining us. I'm very excited to be here. So we'll get into the memoir and some of your comedy in a moment, but we'll start like we always do with the parable. And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild. And they say in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and brink. bravery and love. And the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent.

Starting point is 00:02:47 They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. I think for me, both wolves definitely exist in my life. And I think the meaning of life is to kind of walk through it with both of those wolves embraced with love and not judging each other so that hopefully at the end of a life you can wind up the good wolf. But I think what makes the good wolf is to acknowledge the bad wolf, embrace it and give it love, you know? Yes, beautiful. I want to start with where you start the book in the acknowledgement. You say this book is about someone in the middle of their life with no answers, just more questions. The book is for fellow wanderers,

Starting point is 00:03:38 complete vagabonds, utter idiots, committed clowns, and lonely people looking to belong. Always looking, never knowing. That is such a great intro that I immediately resonated with, although my experiences are very different than your experience, is that feeling of never quite fitting somewhere is been pervasive for me in my life for sure. Talk to me about for you, for you, that feeling of never quite fitting. For people who don't know you, why is it that you feel like you've never quite found the place that you belong?

Starting point is 00:04:12 Well, you know, for some reason, and much of it my doing and much of it my upbringing, which was not my doing, I've found myself seeing more of the world and being led into more worlds than anybody I've ever met. And I can explain that.

Starting point is 00:04:27 I was born in India in a town called Deradun, but when I was eight months old, I was moved to late. Vegas, Nigeria, you know, in Africa in the 80s, which is a wild trip of a place to grow up, you know, and grew up essentially in Africa until I was nine years old and then wound up in a preppy boarding school in the north of India in the hills. And from there, wound up getting kicked out and sent to Delhi public school where I was the kid from boarding school and wound up in Delhi University

Starting point is 00:04:59 and saw an American movie about American college and kind of said, hey, I want to kind of drink from that fountain and wound up from New Delhi, which is one of the most populated

Starting point is 00:05:10 places in the world to Galesburg, Illinois, population, you know, 21,000, the mecca of civilization as we know it. And wound up from Galesburg, going to Montgomery,

Starting point is 00:05:22 Alabama to study Shakespeare, to be an actor, and then wound up being in, 14 Bollywood movies from there in the bustling metropolis of Mumbai to then kind of crashing and burning in Bollywood a little bit and finding myself on a flight to Los Angeles to do Conan O'Brien and starting an America career. And it's been this conflict of cultural dissonance where I've been able to be in all of these

Starting point is 00:05:48 worlds. So somehow I've found myself in Hollywood and in Bollywood and in rock music and in comedy. and, you know, I've been in all of these bubbles but had to leave all of them before the bubble took too much from me but also before I could fully settle in the bubble. So I kind of feel like this kid who got invited to the coolest party in the world

Starting point is 00:06:10 except it's nine parties. And the broad feeling when you get invited to the coolest party in the world is, geez, what am I doing at this party? And how did I get in the door? And am I wearing the right thing? And should I talk to people? Should I not?

Starting point is 00:06:23 Can they smell the fear inside me? And I suspect that's the broader feeling that people share across the world rather than belonging at the party or feeling like the life of the party. Yeah. And so I wanted to write a book about that feeling. You mentioned being at all these cool parties. I think you're still in a pretty cool party, it seems like, right? You're a stand-up comedian.

Starting point is 00:06:43 You're doing well. You mentioned the fear, right? You end up in these parties and you're afraid. I don't really belong here. What's that experience like for you today? It's still the same. You know, I'm doing five things right now, which. are the first things I've ever done.

Starting point is 00:06:58 I'm off Broadway for the first time. And so I'm, you know, at the Lincoln Center Theater, but it's an audience that has no idea who I am and watches rag time on Friday and lay me is on Thursday and now has to, you know, watch this tiny Indian guy tell jokes about Bollywood, you know, are they going to relate? Are they going to embrace it? You know, it's weird to do a show that tells Americans about India and India. about America.

Starting point is 00:07:27 So it's terrifying to go there every day. Stand up is a pretty isolated art form. You know, you're by yourself. But then suddenly when you enter the Broadway world, you're collaborating. And there are directors and there are producers and there are tastemakers, quote, unquote. That's scary.

Starting point is 00:07:45 I've never written a book before, you know. And so I have no idea if it's shit or if it's good. You know, we'll find. It's good. Well, thank you. It's good. We'll find out. And I just directed my first movie.

Starting point is 00:07:59 So it is terrifying to walk into these places when arguably one could rest on a few laurels and play to one's crowd. And I think had you had an upbringing of a little more belonging, you'd be like, all right, I'm sad. I know my people. I know where I am. I'm happy where I'm at. And we'll just do this. You know, in my 40s, this is a comfortable place to be. but I'm kind of jumping into various deep ends.

Starting point is 00:08:28 And the only thing I know to console myself is, all right, take it or leave it, I know who I am. This is me. Yeah. And it's either going to work for you or not work for you. But I don't know how to do anything else. When did you start to get that sense? Like, this is me, right? Because one of the things that happens when we jump between lots of different circumstances is to a certain degree, we're all mildly chameleons, right?

Starting point is 00:08:55 We adjust a little bit to the place we are. And maybe with age, we start to do that. But when did you start to feel like, okay, this is me? And, you know, I'll be appropriate to the situations, but I'll still be clearly me. I know who I am. I think it's an accumulation, not of knowing or some sort of enlightenment. I think it's an accumulation of the exhaustion of trying to not be you. you know at some point you're just like i god i'm tired of pretending you know what i mean i'm

Starting point is 00:09:29 46 and i'm like this is you know i'm not doing this you know how they say about your 40s where where you meet certain people and you're like yeah we're not going to be friends uh yes you know and it is too late for us to to find common ground etc etc and i think i'm there i'm just like yeah there are this it looks like i'm this guy for the next 20 years however long this career has left on it. So I think it's just the exhaustion of trying to fit into various rooms rather than, oh, I figured out who I am. I think more than anything else I've figured out who I'm not, you know. That's a great way of saying that I've been marveling at friendship a little bit lately, like just how it's so, it's kind of just unpredictable. Like you meet people and some people you

Starting point is 00:10:16 just, there's a connection and you connect with. And then there's other people that you meet that you like, that might be fine, but you just know, like, we're not going to be friends. And then, of course, there's the people that from the minute you meet them, you're like, well, we're not going to be friends. I just find it such a mysterious process, this process of who we sink with on that level. I have a theory of friendships, which is, I have to have seen your bedroom. I have to have had a meal on a piece of furniture that you normally sit on. and that's okay.

Starting point is 00:10:53 And I have to have met one of your parents. I think that's my theory of friendship. Okay. Have I met your dad or your mom? You know, have you come over to my house and sat in my couch on my armchair? And I'm like, oh, no, that's fine. Yeah. You sit there.

Starting point is 00:11:07 Yeah. You know, and have we eaten together? You know what I mean? That's really important. Like, have I seen you with a mouth full of steak and or, you know, roti trying to make a point animatedly. That's friendship to me, you know. Yep. Yep. That's a great way to think about how far into your life or someone else's life you have to go for it to be friendship. And it's interesting because I've studied a lot about

Starting point is 00:11:37 how lonely people are today. And the studies seem to show that it just takes a long time for somebody to become a really good friend. It's to the point that you're saying, by the time somebody's in your house, has met your parents, and you've shared a meal at your house or their house, there's probably been some amount of interaction getting to that place that allowed it to develop over time to the point you're like, okay, next step. It's similar to dating in a way. You start out at one place and you end up at a very different place. I mean, I have had zero success at dating. I'm arguably the worst date in the world. I'm fraught with anxiety. on a date. But yeah, and I do think a really good friend has seen you through various versions

Starting point is 00:12:25 of you. The post-breakup, Ovo is me, self-pity, you know, talking about your ex for two years version of you. Hey, I'm doing so well. I want to tell you all about this career that you don't care about version or the, you're much further ahead of me in life, but I'm happy for you version. And I just want to come over right now because I need to see a face that I know. And I don't want to take an appointment to see that face version as well. Like that's a good friend, you know? Yep, yep. You frame the book as a search, not a success story.

Starting point is 00:13:02 Now that you've documented that search, what do you feel like you're searching for today and has the nature of the search itself changed? Definitely. I think it's one thing to find a voice. then it's another thing to own that voice and scare yourself to see what that voice can accomplish. You know, to me, it's the equivalent of building a car and building an engine and then getting out on the freeway. Or, you know, you learn opera for a while and then you want to try and hit the high note. And so to me, the search is what can I do that scares the ever-loving daylights out of me on a daily

Starting point is 00:13:39 basis. And let's just do that for a little bit of time. So being in New York right now as part of it, and testing it on brand new audiences as part of it, but also kind of going, you know, early on in your career, or at least in your life, you're like, what do people want to hear? You know, and can I meander between what people want to hear and ever so slightly pivot into what I want to say?

Starting point is 00:14:02 And then you get to this point and you're like, hey, maybe I'll just say everything I want to say and find out if people want to hear it. And maybe they won't, by the way. But can I just say everything that's inside me for one? You know, and that process is scary to confront. Yeah, you say in your recent stand-up special that freedom is not constantly thinking about whether you can speak, you just speak.

Starting point is 00:14:28 Yeah, you just speak. I've been traveling a lot lately, and when traveling, it's really easy to reach for junk food because it's everywhere. So David Protein bars have been critical in allowing me to continue to eat well during this time. I put a box of their bars in my suitcase when I left for a book tour, and instead of reaching for a bag of chips or cookie, I grab a bar. And it doesn't feel like a sacrifice because they are delicious. They've got two types. Gold bars are their main line, 28 grams of protein, 150 calories, zero sugar. The bronze bars are newer. 20 grams of protein, same 150 calories, also zero sugar.

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Starting point is 00:16:16 all in one place. They also help you reach people with build-in tools for email and social campaigns. And if you get stuck, Shopify has 24-7 support. It's time to turn those what-ifs in to with Spotify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash feed. That's Shopify.com slash feed. You have another line that says, don't think about what you say and it will get you into trouble. And when you are in trouble, do not think about what you say and it will get you out of trouble. You tell a great story about you sort of not thinking about what to say to an Indian policeman one day. You want to. want to share that story with us?

Starting point is 00:17:00 The context of the story is I did a speech at the Kennedy Center a few years ago and it was called The Two Indias. And it got 35 million views and offended a lot of people and ended up getting me 14 police cases for everything from defamation to sedition, et cetera, et cetera. So for a long period of time, the police were not my friend. And, you know, process can end up being punishment a little bit in these situations where you spend your life going to police stations and doing paperwork and fighting these investigations. And somebody sent me a notice for IP repetition, right?

Starting point is 00:17:39 And if you live where I live, you know that that's not really a notice for IP repetition. It's something larger. And so you go and this policeman asked me to surrender my passport. And before I did, I actually explained joke structure to the Mumbai police. Ended up effectively doing like a half an hour, one man. open mic to a policeman in a Mumbai police station until he finally ended it by going, are you going to do jokes about me? Is this going to be in your routine?

Starting point is 00:18:07 And I was like, well, absolutely, if you let me. And then I kind of told him what joke I would do about him. And I'm 95% sure he let me go because he wanted to see how the joke about him would land in the world. So, you know, what I found is policemen have a wonderful sense of humor. How did it land? It landed pretty well. It was in the Netflix special. So, you know, old's well that ends well. So yeah. Yes. There's also an incident of you being on a scooter on acid. Yeah. And in Delhi. I was... In Delhi. Okay.

Starting point is 00:18:40 I think I was 18 years old. And, you know, this is the first time I did acid. And I saw a gigantic cat, a brown cat with light shooting out of a massive one eye. It looked like a cyclops at a traffic light. And then when we got closer, the cat. cat morphed into a Delhi policeman who got on his motorcycle because I meowed at him, which is not something I would recommend 18 year olds do at a traffic light to a policeman. And he got on his scooter and followed us for two kilometers and beat the ever-loving daylights out of us. Now, it is one thing to be beaten by a policeman that's par for the course. But to do it on acid is a part traumatic, part pretty magical experience. You know what I mean? Because you're basically dodging punches and colors at the same time. So I think it was, you know, more enjoyable for me than it was for him.

Starting point is 00:19:33 He looked more exhausted than I did at the end of the beating. And then you found out that the guy driving the scooter only had a learner's permit. Only had a learner's permit. And I had a learner's permit as well. And I really tried to convince this policeman. I was like, if we put two learners permits together, they become a full license. Like Captain Planet all of a sudden. You know, they combine into a more power.

Starting point is 00:19:54 awful being, but, you know, he was not buying it. I was on it. So let's talk about humor. I've always thought of humor as a sort of almost a spiritual virtue, right? When you let, when people list off the virtues, I've always felt like it should be on the list. And you say early on the book, laughter has truly saved my life. Give me a couple examples of when you started to realize how important laughter was to you. Well, you know, I think comedians and ever the life of the party We're kind of the ass in the corner judging the life of the party. You know what I mean? And I feel like comedians either end up as the loser kid in school or the coolest kid in school.

Starting point is 00:20:38 And I find that the loser kid in school makes the better comedian, which was definitely me. But I do remember, you know, in Indian boarding school, sometimes you'd get beaten with hockey sticks. It was just a corporal punishment thing. So you'd go and get like a hockey stick on your bum, like a caning kind of a thing. And I remember once just. kind of going through the process and I wouldn't shut up, you know, and people around me were laughing because I wasn't the only one being punished. But I keep looking at my prefect going, does this make you feel better? Are you tired? Do you feel like more of a man? Et cetera,

Starting point is 00:21:08 et cetera. And my friends were just like, if you just shut up, you'll get one hockey stick instead of 12. But it was something undeniable I felt where I'm like, oh, you can beat me as much as you like, but you'll never win because I have the laugh. You know? That served me pretty well. I think everybody will remember their trauma. They'll remember their tough times. But you'll remember a good laugh, you know, for the rest of your life. I do believe.

Starting point is 00:21:33 Yeah. In this special, you are talking about, well, I'm just going to give you the line and you can put it in context. You say, happiness watched is greater than happiness lived. Yeah. You know, the bid is happiness watched is greater than happiness lived. I wish I could put every audience member on stage so that they could see it. like I see it and feel it like I feel it because then you would understand why people like

Starting point is 00:21:58 stand-up comedy. No one is watching the comedian. They are listening to the audience. To laughter leave their body because laughter when yelled, joy when projected, not protected is hope. People with power understand that. The scariest noise to

Starting point is 00:22:14 them is not the words that come out of my mouth. It is the noise that comes out of the audience's mouth. You know, comedians just say words. The audience tells the truth. And this what I don't understand. Why is no one arresting the audience? It's basically their fault.

Starting point is 00:22:30 But I do believe that. I believe that it's very easy to demonize the audience and to lionize the artist. And if you really look at it in the right perspective, if you've ever seen 9,000 people send you a laugh and taken the time to look in their eyes, you realize what a powerful thing that is and how much of the pedestal the audience deserves as opposed to the artist. And do you think that is the thing that draws you? you to making jokes?

Starting point is 00:22:57 Is that the thing, the laughter that's received? It is a moment in the show where I feel like if I do my job correctly, I can send you home flying on a cloud. You know, there's a moment where you will sit back in the show and go, oh, wow, I'm glad I Ubered. I'm glad I got a babysitter. I'm glad I bought these tickets three months in advance. This was a good decision.

Starting point is 00:23:21 And if I can get you to that, man. that's magic in that room, you know, that's a hell of an expectation to put on yourself, but it's also a hell of a promise to put out there in the world saying, I will unapologetically do everything I can to send you home flying on a goddamn cloud, you know, so I think that's it. That's when my art forms at its best. A couple minutes ago you mentioned you're doing a lot of things that are scary and that that's kind of a way you approach things. Like, how can I find the scariest thing to go do?

Starting point is 00:23:55 Yeah, yeah. What do you think is driving that? Or what do you think is pushing that? Or because, yeah, you are continuing to really do different things when you've gotten pretty good at one thing. Why do you think you're pushed in that direction? Or is it not feel like a push? Maybe you feel drawn. I mean, no, it definitely feels like a push.

Starting point is 00:24:15 But, I mean, who knows? ego, ambition, narcissism, and or a desperate search for belonging. But I do think I've been raised all over the world. I've seen the entire world three times. It's a crazy story. Who the hell gets to say that, you know? And so it feels limiting to take this global upbringing and limit it to one place. To say it feels like a waste of my story to limit it.

Starting point is 00:24:47 when I've had been so privileged to have this story, you know. So you're talking about ambition or ego. Does this mean that you live in a state of being sort of perpetually dissatisfied, one in the next thing? Or what's that like? I mean, I'm always curious about that sort of like we have a desire to improve, to push forward in a new ground. And then there's also like, how do I actually appreciate the things that I do have in my life?

Starting point is 00:25:17 And I find that an interesting challenge in ambitious people. I think it's the biggest challenge of my life is I'm always what's next. And I'm in one place thinking about where I'm headed next. And something I'm trying to work on is, you know, I remember a mental health professional telling me a few years ago, she's like, you literally need to go back into your last decade and celebrate everything you did. So I want you to have a piece of cake today because you sold out Carnegie Hall five years ago. didn't celebrate, you know, and validate for yourself the things you've done and the places you've been. And I would love to pretend I'm better at that than I am, but I'm not working on

Starting point is 00:26:00 it, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I just was talking with a woman about gratefulness and gratitude, and we were talking about this idea of these former versions of ourselves would be so thrilled with where we are, right? Yeah, absolutely. That person would be like, oh, my God. And God, like, if I just had that, I would be happy forever, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she had a line that I really loved. I thought about this. I mean, I don't think any of us can put this stuff into anything near perfect practice,

Starting point is 00:26:31 but she said, imagine an exercise where you wake up tomorrow only with the things that you are grateful for today. And that's a fascinating sort of way to frame, you know, frame life. I mean, that is wholly terrifying and inspiring at the same time. Do you know what I mean? Yes, 100%. 100%. Yeah. I'm not sure what I would do with that.

Starting point is 00:26:58 If I just woke up with the things that I was grateful for today, it would be my wife and my two dogs. And I think that would be enough. I would still wake up with 18 ideas in my head every morning and drive myself insane because those ideas had nowhere to go. you know yeah so that coping with that i do not know how i would do but um those three things and i think i'd be pretty sorted yeah you know well and i think that the fact that your brain does that is something to be grateful for also i mean at times it feels i mean it feels crazy making to have a brain

Starting point is 00:27:34 that's always kind of what's next what's next what's out there but it's also kind of great to have a brain that does that you know that's capable of doing that that is enthused enough about anything to want to do that. That's a gift. I think so. And it also makes you empathize with people who have that and don't have open ears yet. You know, in terms of, I think success is the amount of time that passes between you having an idea and somebody opening their ear to that idea.

Starting point is 00:28:02 You know, I've woken up with 20 ideas in my head every day since I was 18 years old. And it's taken me till my 40s to get that time down to where people are listening. But if there's people who are listening to this, who are. 27 or 28 and having ideas, you know, I empathize. Don't stop listening to those ideas because at some point people will start listening to those ideas. Like, hold on to that stuff. I gave my mom an aura frame for Christmas and I think it's the best gift I've ever given her. She can't get out of the house much these days, but she gets to sit in her comfy chair and see a rotating collection of the people and places she loves.

Starting point is 00:29:00 The other really great feature is I can add photos from my phone from anywhere. And so can all my other family members. I was updating photos to my mom's frame in real time as I did my book tour. You can also preload photos before it ships, so when mom opens it, she already has a lot of pictures on it. Named number one by wirecutter, you can save on the gifts mom's love by visiting auraframes.com. For a limited time, listeners can get $25 off their best-selling Carver Matt Frame with code feed. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com promo code feed. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout.

Starting point is 00:29:40 Terms and conditions apply. I'll admit I'm a little spoiled. Ginny does a lot of the cooking, and she's great at it. However, she has been traveling a lot lately, and I am really busy launching a book, which has made me really glad that I have Hello Fresh. It saves me going to the grocery store, and they have so many different options.

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Starting point is 00:30:38 You mentioned dogs, and the most moving chapter in the book for me is, and I imagine you probably heard this from other people, is about your dog Winston. Watson. Watson, you just wrote so beautifully about the experience of having and loving a dog. and I just would like to read a couple lines. Please. You say, if you truly want to get to know me, you have to know Watson. I realize writing an entire chapter devoted to a dog might seem unusual, but this dog is and was the best part of me. If there was one being on earth around whom I felt totally, completely and utterly myself,

Starting point is 00:31:19 this damn dog was it. Caring for him and losing him is the toughest thing I've ever gone through. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I've lost people. You know, I've lost people that I loved, but a dog truly does see the best version of you, you know, the most innocent, pure version of you. They don't understand you for anything but the love that they give you and how you respond. A dog doesn't know about jokes. It doesn't know about Carnegie Hall. It doesn't know about your podcast. It doesn't know about your finances or your SUV or anything like that. It just knows that you danced around the room a little bit when you got home and you made a high-pitched noise and you, and you, you, you rolled around on the floor and we are at our most childlike and innocent in the presence of a dog or a cat

Starting point is 00:32:04 or a pet. I also think what I love about having a dog is you're in charge of a whole life. You don't get that with anything else. Hopefully, you know, you don't get that with your child. Your child will outlive you. You don't get that with your grandparents or your parents. You will outlive them. But here, from the second they breathe in

Starting point is 00:32:23 to the second, the last time they breathe out, it's you. Yeah. You know, and for you. So what a privilege that is. You know, you will never get that anywhere else in your life. Yeah, I was reflecting on that. We lost a dog about four months ago.

Starting point is 00:32:40 And it's, for me, it's the last in a string of dogs. I'm dogless for the first time in, I don't know, 20 years maybe. Oh, wow. Because I just, we just had like, you know, I had one, then I had a second, then I had a third. And there's just a lineage of them, which is amazing. And about every year and a half, I've lost one. It's been sort of this ongoing process. So I'm sort of dogless, but I was reflecting on that exactly what you said, this idea that you kind of have to play God for that dog.

Starting point is 00:33:10 And it's really hard. And you mentioned, you know, Watson had health challenges. And our dog, Lola, near the end, same thing. You mentioned nebulizing your dog for breathing. I didn't know anybody else till now that ever did that like we did. And we thought we were like, we're the only people in the world who possibly are nebulizing a dog. But apparently not. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:33:33 No, it's a thing. And it's a privilege. You know, he couldn't walk by the end. He was, you know, incontinent by the end. He was nebulized three times a day. He had acupressure and, you know, bad limbs. And, you know, you carry him to the bathroom and you put on some nice music and you give him a warm. bath and you nebulize him and it's really I'm very grateful for that time and the way he he looked at me

Starting point is 00:34:03 in that time you know yeah was he your first dog he was our first dog yes for sure yeah yeah I grew up not liking dogs um oh really probably yeah I'd been bitten by one I just didn't like them I didn't like them I didn't want to be around them and then my best friend who's also the editor of the show had a dog and I said to him like I you know man you're I like your dog she's she's good you know and he called me one day he said I have something for you and I came over and I see the twin of that dog sitting right there. He's like, I got you this. I was like, what? And it changed my life. It changed my life. How long was it before you were completely converted? How long was that? In a month, probably. I mean, it did not take long. And it opened me to a

Starting point is 00:34:45 dimension of love. I just didn't understand before then, you know. I had a child at that point. And I'm not saying I love my dog more than my child. It just was something, it's different. There's an uncomplicated nature to animals that I think is part of what makes losing them so painful, because the grief is just, with humans, it's complicated. It's always complicated. With a dog, there's nothing to distract you from just the loss because the relationship had no complication. And I love the way that you talk about grief.

Starting point is 00:35:16 You say, the only way I know I can describe grief is an inability to breathe, no matter how hard you try, you just can't seem to get enough air in your lungs. It's because there's less space in there now. It's because someone or something that used to live outside you now lives in you. That is heart-stoppingly beautiful. Thank you. It's how I feel. And I imagine how everybody who's dealing with some sort of grief feels.

Starting point is 00:35:42 Like, you know, Watson is under my chest bone right now, you know, until I see him again. You know, that's how I feel. Yeah. Yep. It's such a good description of grief because I think that does sort of mirror my experience of it. It does feel kind of hard to breathe. Yeah. It also feels like even more than just breathing, but it's like a crowded space inside.

Starting point is 00:36:06 Like when grief for one of my dogs comes up, it's sort of, it just takes over everything. I guess that is the nature of grief. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. The strange thing I've found, though, is, you know, and not in the morbid kind of way. I very much love life and I intend to live a long life, but I'm no longer afraid of death.

Starting point is 00:36:25 Do you know what I mean? I'll give you an example. I don't like turbulence on an airplane. I'm a bad flyer. And when there's bad turbulence, I'm like, all right, this plane is crashing and I'm dying. It is always in my head. And until Watson passed, it was terrifying.

Starting point is 00:36:43 And now that he's passed, if I ever hit turbulence, I'm like, all right, maybe this plane crashes and I'll go hang with Watson for a bit, you know. So it's not terrifying anymore. Yeah. So you have three dogs now, did you say? I have two dogs. They're called stupid and Lucy. Two dogs. Okay. So the, yeah, and there's two dogs. They're wandered into our house. Yeah. Yeah. And they're very different than Watson. You said they're kind of street dogs. They know how to take care of themselves. They're self-resilient. They're hardy. They're reliant. But they're also beautiful in that they, they jumped into a house with complete strangers, with blind trust, you know. And, uh, they're self-resilient.

Starting point is 00:37:20 to watch them at age five and ten learn how to play and learn how to sleep in a bed and learn how to... It's a lovely journey, you know what I mean? Like Lucy had been abandoned during the pandemic and, you know, the first time she came to our house, she, you know, was very skittish. And I remember the first time she slept through the night.

Starting point is 00:37:42 She slept for four days because I think after three years, she finally knew she was safe. I was strangely proud at that. that, you know, to watch her sleep for four days, you know. It's interesting to see almost the way we domesticated wolves happening on a mini scale in your home, right? Like, you know, taking these creatures that are, that are wild and slowly they become

Starting point is 00:38:07 very different. I'm in Lisbon right now. I normally live in Ohio in the U.S., but I'm in Lisbon right now and we're house and dog sitting. So I am back around dog energy and just am loving it. It's just so good. So good. It is.

Starting point is 00:38:24 A lot of the latest special is about you six weeks before you were going to do the special losing your voice. Yeah. And I'd love for you to share a little bit about that. But I also want to hear a little bit about how you're six weeks from a special. So I'm assuming you think you know what the special is about. Maybe you don't at that point. But if you did, you suddenly improvised very quickly to make the special to, to some degree about what was happening right now.

Starting point is 00:38:52 Just walk me through whatever aspect of that process you'd like to. Well, you know, I do think a comedy special is nothing but a snapshot into who the comedian is at that moment in time. So it's got to be authentic to the experience. And I woke up without a voice and vocal nodules. And I was told it would be four months before I could speak properly again. And I had sold 12,000 tickets in a massive arena out. And, you know, immediately, you spend.

Starting point is 00:39:20 six weeks in silence in your head and you will really discover who you are and it will invalidate a lot of the things that you've done so far. You know, so I was like, oh, I've been so calculated and so obsessed with the wording of everything. And now that I don't have the voice, I kind of just want a free talk and that became the special to say, oh, I can speak again. I'm going to say everything in my head as opposed to obsessing about what not to say. And it was. It was. strangely kind of set me free. There's an energy to this special that none of the other specials have, which is just a guy at some level winging it and not knowing where he's going to land. Yeah. Which I would never have had the courage to do had I not lost my voice.

Starting point is 00:40:05 I love this special because it shows you at different levels of success, I guess, for lack of a better word, right? In Mumbai, huge crowd. London, pretty good crowd. U.S., not so much, right? And it's just fascinating to see you operate on those different levels. And it's always so fun for me. There's a band equivalent of that. And it's when a band is really big somewhere else. Yeah, yeah. But not in the States.

Starting point is 00:40:36 And you get to see this band that is like super pro, super good in like this small space. It doesn't happen often. But it's just amazing when it happens. And it was so great to see that sort of happening. with you to see you operating at these different scales. Do you approach the work any differently, you know, of small scale to stadium scale? No, because it would feel authentic, inauthentic. You know, sometimes I feel like there is a version of me I could become that would track way better

Starting point is 00:41:11 in the States, for instance. You know, if I talked about five or six palatable Indian things that you knew about Indians, and I kind of gave you the Indian that you knew that cater to your gaze. But I just don't want to do that. And if that means that I play a smaller room, that's worth it to me because I get to be authentic. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm not sure I would last very long doing that, playing the Indian that American see,

Starting point is 00:41:38 as opposed to the Indian who just showed up from India. Yeah. You know? I think it's very hard to succeed at any game that you don't feel like playing. Yeah, yeah. You know? For sure. that's very well put. It feels lousy and I don't think you I don't think you do well because you don't want to do it.

Starting point is 00:41:55 And I mean maybe it works for some people but I think about that often the things like I'm willing to do and not willing to do for success. In the special you have a sympathy and an empathy discussion. Walk me through to you kind of what those terms mean and why it felt important for you to talk about them. Well, you know, I've gotten into some trouble back home And I remember talking to a reporter in the States And they were like, oh my God, are you going to get arrested again? And what are the investigations? And can I talk to the police? And I was like, sure, but should we talk about my perspective and my humor a little bit

Starting point is 00:42:31 And my culture a little bit. And it felt, and I don't mean this abrasively, But it felt a little bit like they wanted to write an oppression story. Yeah. Yeah. To make their readers feel a little bit better about where they lived. Right. And I was like, I don't think I want to be the poster boy for Eastern oppression. You know, and they were like, you know, our readers will sympathize.

Starting point is 00:42:54 And I'm like, but my limited audience will empathize, you know. And the difference between sympathy and empathy is sympathy is a porn video that you watch for your pleasure. Empathy is an orgy that you enjoy with other people. You know what I mean? Like you just kind of, it's happening to all of you. So I would much rather get empathy from five people than sympathy from 9,000. So I don't know all the details about what you said. Was it at the Kennedy Center?

Starting point is 00:43:21 It was at the Kennedy Center, yes. I don't know all the details about what you said, but it pissed off half of India pretty seriously. Very much. Did you know it was going to? Absolutely not. No, I did not. And I don't think you'll ever know, by the way. I don't think you can predict the thing that's going to go viral and why it's part of a certain zeitgeist.

Starting point is 00:43:40 And, you know, it's one of many videos on my YouTube channel that were in that vein. and I don't know why that one went, where it went. But your best bed is to turn it into jokes. I have this beautiful job that turns, you know, bullshit into laughs and laughs into smiling faces and smiling faces into relationships. And, you know, and that internet, fix specials, etc., etc.

Starting point is 00:44:04 It's alchemy, you know. So would I do it again? With a little more editing, yeah, sure. I would have made sure it's a better piece. you know, comedically. Yeah. But yeah, I never saw it coming. I was blindsided, completely.

Starting point is 00:44:20 Wow. I mean, it sounds like it was a really big deal. I mean, you were getting death threats. You were in trouble with the police. I was kind of amazed to see, like you said, that's like a career turn you just don't see coming. But, you know, it's the equivalent of, I don't know if Jimmy Kimmel saw what was going to happen to him coming that morning.

Starting point is 00:44:40 You know what I mean? Or Stephen Colbert. It's just the world is. really changing and you've got to kind of roll with it. But I think any other job would have been a much harder comeback than comedy. Comedy really allows you to make light of it really fast and turn it into fun really fast. You know, a rock star gets canceled. That's a while before you can, you can come back, you know? Interestingly, you talk a lot about America at different points in the book. And you talk about American comedy, you know, Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. But you also talk about

Starting point is 00:45:14 You certainly have a point where many of us who had some relationship with Bill Cosby's comedy find out like, oh shit. How do you work with that idea of separating the artist from the art? And do you feel like it's important to do so? Or do you feel like it's impossible to do so? I don't know. It varies for me. Like with different artists. I can't watch Cosby's stuff anymore because the basis of comedy is all.

Starting point is 00:45:44 authenticity, you know, and so I know that that's an inauthentic individual. But for some reason, I can listen to Michael Jackson's early work because it's music and it's not comedy, you know. Yeah. And perhaps there's an underlying hypocrisy to that, but I don't think a blanket route. I think the art form matters a lot. Like, I, you know, I can't watch a Woody Allen movie. I can't watch, I don't like watching Bill Cosby because I can see the, the shitty sausage behind the hot dog being. made. You know what I mean? But man, I can listen to a piece of Beethoven or Mozart. Even though I know

Starting point is 00:46:21 they were severely problematic individuals, I can look at a Picasso. Even though I know that was a horrible man. So I don't know. It's weird. I haven't quite figured it out yet. Yeah. As you're saying that, I'm thinking a little bit about, like Michael Jackson to me never felt like he was talking about things that were really important to Michael Jackson. Jackson. Right? Yeah. Like it was just, it was all about the entertainment and the music, whereas a comedian, it's a much more personal thing, right? For sure. If a comedian is sharing about their life. And I, and I think that's, I think that's the case. I also have found the same thing with artists who mean more to me. It's harder. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Right. It's harder because their music I thought was

Starting point is 00:47:07 about something and about a person. And now I find out that that's not exactly the person. And that feels harder to me, particularly the closer I am to it. Mm-hmm. For sure. And I also think the expectation of a comedian is to put yourself out there so much that I feel better about myself as an audience member. And then when I figure that you haven't put yourself out there really at all, I feel that down.

Starting point is 00:47:35 Yeah. I feel betrayed, you know? Yeah. That makes sense. I've told this story on the show before, but it's one of the most confusing stories of my life. Mm-hmm. You mentioned being an escape artist, right? You were always trying to escape school.

Starting point is 00:47:48 Well, I wasn't a boarding school, but my mission, my first two years of high school, was to never go. And so I was constantly engineering schemes and all that and wasn't doing well. And I basically got kicked out of my high school and was sent to this small alternative school. And there was a teacher there who turned my whole way of being around and my whole understanding of myself around. And I mean, so far as I went to spend like a summer with him at his place out, in Seattle and comes out 20 years later, some of the kids that spent time with him, he was sexually abusing. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:48:21 It wasn't me. And it's just so confusing to be like, this guy was an unquestioned good in my life and an absolute horror ruined these other people's lives. And I just think that's so fascinating to be in that space with these questions that just don't have simple answers. I mean, isn't the experience of adulting at some level discovering that two things can be true at the same time and three things can be true at the same time. It's heartbreaking. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. To children, one thing is true or not true. And sometimes I wonder if that's a better way to

Starting point is 00:48:54 live life, you know? It's simpler. Yeah, it is. It is for sure. And I think if you try and live that way as an adult, it's probably not, like you said, you're not an adult if you're not able to start to see the complexity and the nuance in things. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's part of the reason great comedy is great comedy is it's it's pointing out all those inconsistencies that we all kind have to wrestle with and and it's just sometimes it's just good to laugh at them. I agree. And I also think great comedy, you know, the best kind of comedy makes you reflect three days after you saw it.

Starting point is 00:49:31 It makes you laugh in the moment, but then three days later you're like, huh, wow, that was something. And I didn't quite get it then. Like right now, the right and the left in America are sharing. George Carl in clips. That's insane, right? But, you know, with the same agenda. But I bet you in the, in the moment people just like, this man's hilarious. And then 20 years later, 30 years later, people are like, he was talking about us. And that's great comedy, you know? Yeah. A hundred percent. So one of the things that is in the book a lot is this idea of committing to the bit, right?

Starting point is 00:50:07 Like really just committing to the bit. And I'm curious how you think about. and how you know what bits are worth committing to? That's a really great question. I do not. I commit to all of them and some will work in some world. I have no way to foresee, honestly. My best bet is to just be like all in, all the time on everything. And some of it will land and it will be great and some of it won't and it'll be devastating.

Starting point is 00:50:39 But hopefully it doesn't shake my commitment. Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. I enjoyed the book a great deal. We'll have links in the show notes. We'll have links to your Netflix special. It's been fun to kind of climb into your world for a week. And I appreciate you spending some time with us. Enjoy, Lisbon. This was a wonderful chat. And I wish you all the best with everything. Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring or thought-provoking, I'd love for you to share it with a friend. Sharing from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don't have a big budget, and I'm certainly not a celebrity, but we have something even better, and that's you. Just hit the share button on your podcast app or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the one you feed community.

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