The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Rory Scovel

Episode Date: September 29, 2020

Comedian Rory Scovel talks with Andy Richter about honing his specific stand-up style, releasing his show Robbie in the midst of the pandemic, and the benefits of taking himself off his mind.

well hey uh everybody out there i i don't know when we'll cut into this um it's very loosey-goosey at times but i'm talking to rory scoville you're listening to the three questions But I'm talking to Rory Scovel. You're listening to the three questions. Rory, you're a podcaster now. I'm deep in the biz. When did you start podcasting? Because I know you have a couple now. Have you had more than two?

I had one attempt at a podcast show. I don't know if you've ever read the stephen king book 11 22 63 it is the first and only stephen king book i've ever read it is absolutely brilliant it's one of my favorite books it's about uh jfk assassination and the and time travel which is not a great pitch but trust me it's good and i jerk off to something exactly and hulu hulu made a mini series about it and so me and daniel van kirk uh did a podcast where we'd watch the episode and then the the episode for our podcast would be us talking about it but we realized a few episodes in we hated the mini series oh no so we just started improvising and creating backstories for who

we were as podcast hosts and it got wildly out of control and hard to remember any of our setups and any of our any of our founding. The network of lies. So we just kept doubling down and then it ended and then he pitched to me a podcast where if people are listening to the show

they just write us a letter like pen pals would and they can tell us about their lives or ask us stuff. And our reply is the episode. So we started doing that. And it's really blown up into something really fun. We get some silly letters and we get some really serious ones about some dark, very serious stuff. And we still try to keep it light and informative as two non-professional therapists. We give our best opinions. And then just recently I started doing dads on the Team Coco platform with Ruthie Wyatt. Which I was on.

That's right. We deleted that episode. I forgot to tell you. We said, nope, he didn't cut the mustard. Well, my fathering techniques are somewhat unorthodox and controversial yes and we can't spread that we can't have other people going well that's how i'll parent as well my uh my fathering techniques are all based on the movie the matrix i power my home with my children sleeping in bags of fluid every morning i give my kids a red pill and blue pill very real pills they do have an effect but i don't know what they are anymore

it's hard to keep up and i always forget which does which it's really i gotta write it down yeah because there's some days where i'm like oh no i wanted them to believe in the matrix i know and sometimes one will take a blue pill and the other one takes a red pill. And I've just given myself twice the work to do all day and convincing them in a real reality and a false reality. And I just grab a handful. So I never know where I am. So you're from from North Carolina, right?

Yep. South Carolina. South Carolina. Oh, that? Yep, South Carolina. South Carolina. Oh, that's right, South Carolina. Yeah, because we've talked, because I used to go to South Carolina, and we've talked about, I think, the Clemson sort of like the madness.

The madness of the Clemson-Carolina rivalry. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I grew up in the thick of that. I grew up about 20 minutes away from Clemson University. So it's very Hatfield-McCoy, just who have you picked? Which Montagues and Capulets? It's the age-old rivalry that when you step back, you're just like what why like to truly hate someone i know who who in reality has an equal amount of passion as you do yeah about the exact same sport but yet you hate each other when realistically you're probably so wildly compatible yes you're exactly the same yes it's like it's like uh uh you know letting i just think the middle east could be solved if everyone realizes we eat the same foods who doesn't like chickpeas we're all breathing air yeah come on you're listening to the bottom line with

that's right the podcast where i take about three minutes to solve the world's conflicts i listened to season one it took 20 minutes to listen to season one of his full 30 episodes of his podcast yep brought to Brought to you by QuickTime. That's a joke from before we started recording. It was really, really good. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, because I one time, we stayed on Sullivan's Island for, actually, you know what we did? know what we did um my ex-wife and i were friends with some comedy writers who are one of they're a couple and one of them is a native south carolinian and it's kind of hooked up now and lives back in south carolina and it's kind of hooked up with i mean because you cause you know, the Hoy Paloy of South Carolina is fairly limited, you know, it's like, it's, that's not a lot of people. So we, I mean, I don't know, this is maybe 2008. I mean, whenever it, whenever, because we rented Mark Sanford's house. Yeah. Okay. We rented his house in Sullivan's Island. He was hiking, as he often does. That happened.

We just knew, like, oh, hey, through these friends of ours, hey, we're going to rent. Because you know you rent people's beach houses. Sure, yeah, yeah. Every family rented us out their beach house. And we're like, oh, shit, we're getting the governor's house? Oh, wow. Who's the governor?

Like, we didn't know who the fucking governor was. Right, yeah, as we're like in the time leading up to it literally like a week before we are going to the house it's like the governor of south carolina was you know having an affair on the appalachian trail yeah oh my god that's crazy that's the timing of it and then yeah and then we were fully aware like my ex-wife emailed the first lady and was like uh you know if this is a rough time and you need your house we'll understand that's so insane yeah and she's like no no she's like no no no everything's staying the same. We don't turn down Airbnb money. We do not turn down Airbnb money. And we stayed there. And what was really great, too, was that people would come by the house to express their sympathy or, I don't know, wallow, you know, like just like gawk at them.

But there were casseroles on our doorstep every single night. That is the best. Yes. Oh, my God. there were casseroles on our doorstep every single night that is the best yeah oh my god and the first lady was like you know eat them put them in the freezer whatever you want so we had she didn't give a shit about anything who cares eat them throw them in the trash my life i am i i hate my life right now so i do not care um and i just i would imagine going through that and then as you walked through the house, there were just so many family photos of them and white button down dress shirts with jeans on.

Absolutely. Why is that such a popular photograph for family? Pictures of them all over the place. Yeah. On the beach, all wearing the same shirt, you know? The Christmas card. I don't know. Whoever started that was like, you're not not even gonna believe what i stumbled on i'm gonna revolutionize the family photo game

people will think that we are a boring old rhythm and blues singing group all wearing the same thing we'll look like hip pop music acapella i don't know but it was a lovely house and man i love the beach but there there were i think we were there on a i don't know if it was a game day or whatever but i mean it was like one day where it just seemed like it was clemson and somebody, and it was just all over the place. Just like, oh, my God. They're just teenagers playing football. Take it easy.

There's a strong dedication to the fandom of that. I mean, it is what carries. I mean, obviously, people have their lives, but culturally, it carries the the culture of so many different areas it's not just the southeast although the southeast is very passionate about college football yes but it it culturally carries everyone from august through january which is half of the year and it it means everything to them it means it is like you follow your team even when your team is not doing well you watch all the games and all the the teams and and i

think because there's such a massive amount of college football people it really build their identity uh around it which is um i i don't know i just never despite being with family members who do that you know my dad was my dad didn't even go to clemson and he was a die-hard clemson fan and four of his kids uh five of his kids attended uh the of South Carolina and branch schools of that. And yet he still was like, I don't even give a shit. Yeah. Clemson. Yeah.

Clemson all the way. It's bizarre. I just never got caught up in it because I don't know that I care. I will say going to a Clemson Carolina football game and tailgating and going into the game is such a fun experience. It's fun. I went to University of Illinois game is such a fun experience. It's fun. I will not like, I went to university of Illinois and they weren't that, you know,

it's big 10. They weren't that good at football, but it was fun. Game day is fun. Yes. And you get in there with, I mean, at the time tickets were like $3,

you know, like the student tickets cost nothing. Yeah. And you go sit in the game and it's just, it's just, you're drinking, you're eating shitty food it's exactly and then honestly it would be fun now i couldn't imagine it you know

i'm now 40 i could not imagine doing that or even wanting to do that every saturday it felt yeah framing your life yes and i know so many and look when people find the thing they like who am i to shit on the thing they like i i i just personally was not able to build my identity around as you said a bunch of teenagers playing a sport it's fun if you had tickets right now and you said we're going saturday i'd be like a pandemic but i'd still go because i'm american and i can prove to the world that my body can fight this virus and that's why i wanted to come on the show today to talk about we are on a zoom call but we're in the same room within spittle distance we're in the zoom room folks you're in the zoom room with andy rector

so you did you went to university of south carolina right i i went to university of south carolina upstate so it was like a branch division two sports i think it's division one now but it was a smaller uh school that was in like the the branch family of usc and you went you went for sports i played soccer yeah yeah i played i went to two schools as well i went to one semester at university of central florida because i also wanted to go to film school and i don't know if you remember this is in 99 right after blair witch project came out which was made by four or five university of central florida film students so suddenly that school was getting this reputation as hey our film program just produced you know this the new hot shit kids that made this fat footage you know one of the most frustrating horror films ever yeah that

made so much imagine you make one thing and you go actually i could coast on this money for quite a while in my my life and do nothing yeah um so i went to school there for soccer and with the hopes of going to that film school and then after one semester not even a full year, I'm one of seven kids. And it occurred to me, oh, the out-of-state tuition is huge. And this coach only wants to pay for my books in terms of a scholarship. So I was like, you know what? I'll save you the $600. You can keep the $600. I got to go back to in-state. So that's when I went back to South Carolina and played soccer there. And did you have a full ride? I didn't have a full ride.

Since I transferred in the middle of the year, it was kind of like, all right, well, you're new, so you got to kind of prove it. And I kind of got a little bit more money each year up until my senior year. I think I got a decent amount. But yeah, it's difficult, especially D2 programs. At that time, I don't know what the age cap was on players you could recruit from foreign countries. But there's a lot of foreign students that play soccer for U.S. schools, which I have no opinion on. I loved it. U.S. schools, which I have no opinion on. I loved it. It broadened my view of the world by being surrounded by guys from Norway and Finland and South Africa and England, truly all over the

place. Sounds fun, actually. It actually was very fun because all I've had is I'm growing up in a South Carolina culture, and now I'm playing soccer with and socializing with and spending most of my time with people who are telling me what the rest of the world is actually like and what I look like from the outside. And your instinct is to say, is that patriot thing you kind of grow up with, depending on where and who your family is. But it was like, fuck you. We're the greatest country in the world.

So already in my early 20s, I had an inkling of, oh, we maybe run our mouth a lot, and we don't actually focus on trying to really do things where we could confidently go, yeah, we're a pretty great country. But instead, we just go, well, if we say it all the time. So I was surrounded by people who were like, you guys know that all you do is say that you're number one even at sports that none of the rest of us play i was like yeah that's because you know at that age i'm like that's because you're too scared to play those sports right it's called the world series yeah norwegian

guy yeah you guys need to learn how to play baseball up there in the ice caps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, well, and also, too, that's become more and more true. I think, I mean, you know, America's always had a big difference between what they purport to be and what we purport to be and what we actually are. Yeah. and what we purport to be and what we actually are.

But I think it's just gotten more and more pointed as time went on because I think we got sort of freedom. For a while, we were like the only shop in town with it. But everyone's caught up to us in terms of freedom and capitalism and stuff. So the notion that everyone's coming here, here i mean that still is kind of true but it's like yeah but we're slipping you know we're yeah we're we're changing our bro the look of our brochure is is definitely changing yes quite a bit for people to want to come here but yeah it's i don't know it's bizarre because i grew up around not that i didn't grow up around great people but i did grow up where there was an overwhelming mentality of just like yeah we're the greatest and fuck you and this is how i live and this is my culture and lifestyle

and i think there's a big part of me that you know i do understand that but i i think i also didn't fully relate to it uh and so it and encompassed in that is also you know my love and support of college football it just it wasn't my identity and so i just couldn't really understand it there's a did you grow up in it because i mean having been to south carolina it does seem like well a the coastal south carolina is very different than the interior of South Carolina. And then you got the feeling that when you went into the interior, that's where like the real old time, you know, dyed in the wool segregation was. You know, it's kind of, yeah, I think it's kind of everywhere in varying degrees. of yeah i think it's kind of everywhere in varying degrees i would say that to someone who's never been to the south i would tell them that the thing that might surprise them the most is where they

would find extreme racism and where they wouldn't find it yeah it's sort of unexpected um and i would say the coastal it is it can be very different like for instance where you were sullivan's island in that sort of charleston area yeah we also go to paulie's island yeah it's outside the rural beach but so because of that and because of because that's such a great summer place it attracts people from different parts of the country to like either vacation there or even buy homes there either vacation there or even buy homes there which you know on a massive scale can start to kind of tip the the culture a little bit and you find that some places like like it's it's no uh it's no surprise that a lot of major cities have a more progressive uh vibe yeah simply because those large cities you know there's a lot of people that are just attracted to city city life and so with that they bring their ideas and their cultures and blah blah blah

and then and as opposed to voices getting drowned out they're just all collectively lifted up uh i happen to grow up in greenville south carolina which is a very big city in south carolina so it kind of rode the fence of yeah you definitely find people who are uh wildly outdated viewpoints on every single topic imaginable and then you find surprisingly a lot more progressive people than you might expect as well what what is greenville's thing would it start out as like a mill town or something or um that's a great question i mean. I guess, I mean, mills almost seems like the easiest answer. Like textiles. Hell yeah, dude.

We got into textiles. But I couldn't even tell you specifically what that even means. Well, cotton, I would think, you know. But then there's a part of me that's like, is that sort of so many places in the South? I guess, yeah, it's probably assumed. But I know now. Or lumber. now i mean you know yeah growing up around like middle school is when the uh um you know michelin is uh big in the upstate and then also uh bmw opened this really big plant uh all in the south the greenville spartanburg area right so for me growing up and like what

is their thing like truly and strangely enough international business be kind of became this huge yeah thing from charlotte to greenville to atlanta and uh because i a lot of people ask me why i don't have a southern accent um you know, just a normal Southern accent. And I say I'd never, I don't know that I ever really had one because I went to private Catholic school. And a lot of the kids I was friends with weren't from South Carolina. Their dads worked for Michelin. And so, they moved to South Carolina. So, I was influenced by how my friends around me spoke and, you know, obviously watching like a ton of TV, but yeah, for me, that's kind of what the thing was business wise. Well, are your parents mush mouth ticks?

Yeah. I wish without laughing. I was just like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, I wish without laughing. I was just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Oh, oh, the worst. They are the worst. Yeah. I mean, they put captions on the videos they make for you.

Yeah. I have a lot of family that definitely has very thick southern accents, southern dialect, which when someone does a fake southern accent who who's never been in the south it's oftentimes very bad it's all like it's so comically bad right like when someone does a like a new york accent and you're like have you ever really heard yeah but uh yeah i i think i i used to i don't know if I've ever had any feelings about it. I really kind of like how relaxing of a voice it is. That's why in some of my stand-up,

I'll do a Southern character because I actually enjoy the stand-up more from the perspective of this laid-back Southern guy. And I'm doing the same jokes. I'm doing the same jokes as if I was talking like myself. But it's just more fun for some reason yeah yeah right also because you can tell crowds kind of forgive a southern accent like if i go up and i say something that i'm clearly like oh this is like uh this is

something you shouldn't say right like for a setup of a punchline but if i say it, I can feel crowds being like, well, he doesn't know. He don't know no better. Yeah. Well, now you're one, you said Catholic, you're one of seven, is it? That's right, yeah. Wow. Your parents were all in on that papist bullshit, weren't they? Truly, truly all in and truly staying in in if you guys know what i mean talk about sex folks talk about sexual intercourse

yeah there was a poison amount yeah my dad was one of five kids he was the oldest of five kids and then uh my older sister and i have a different mother. Our mother passed away when we were very young. And then my dad remarried when I was like six or seven. And then from that marriage, I have five younger half siblings, which I always hate saying because there's no part of my soul that feels like half siblings is the proper description as they're simply my brothers and sisters. But in a technical world, yeah, they're half. brothers and sisters, but in a technical world. Yeah. Yeah. They're half. Yeah. I have the same.

Yeah. My mom divorced and remarried. And then she had twins, a boy and a girl when I was nine and they're my brother and sister. And, you know, and, and it's funny because like my,

when my mom remarried, she, I have an older brother. She, my, when my mom remarried, she, I have an older brother. Uh, she, uh, my dad gave permission for my stepfather to adopt us because my mom wanted us all to have the same name. So I was Andy Swanson, uh, from like, I don't know, I think third grade until, you know, after high school. Yeah. Because then after she split up, I changed my name back to Richter.

Okay. And it wasn't until like the third time that my brother Victor visited the Conan show that someone went, so your brother's name is Victor Richter? And I was like, oh, shit, I never thought about that. No, it's not. He's my half brother. Victor Richter would be great. He'd have to be a pro wrestler, I guess.

Vic Richter. There he is, Victor Richter. Victor Richter. This is going to sound crazy, but have you thought about going back to Swanson? No. No, I haven't. Every 10 years, you should just go back. Just change it up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, my last name now is Bellamy. No, I, but yeah, so I understand. Yeah, you got haves, but they're not haves. Right, yeah. In the technical world, yeah. You went so fast. Did you say your mom passed away?

My mom passed away of Hodgkin's disease when I was very young. I was on my first birthday. Wow. So my sister was two, two two and a half or maybe just no she had just turned two i guess at this point yeah yeah so she was about i guess yeah two two and a half when when my mother passed away and i was turning one do you have any recollection of her whatsoever? Zero. I have zero. And it's so strange because I've questioned it my whole life. Not that both situations aren't unfortunate and sad, but I've always wondered,

is it easier to have lost someone you don't know, Is it easier to have lost someone you don't know, but who is such a pivotal, you know, meant to be such a pivotal person in your growth and your evolution and is the root of where you, you know, you can't even though you say you don't know her. It's like, you know, the imprinting that happens between a mother and a child within just the first few days. Right. It's hard to gauge how much that means. It's so hard to gauge. And it's something that, you know, I also grew up in a reality where, you know, over time, you know, I don't know when we start to really log memory, long-term memories. I don't know if that's around four or five. I know that it's maybe around five as I can remember some moments from kindergarten. I was like flashes in my mind, but, um, yeah, I don't know when that, that occurs, but, uh, uh it over time someone has to explain to you that that has

happened you know so my aunt my dad's uh younger sister uh moved in with us so imagine you know the the the female uh character in your life who's taking on the role of mother you kind of don't understand that this this person isn't that person you know your soul understands it yeah but your brain and your awareness your your your your your awakened awareness doesn't understand that that has to be explained to you and then my dad remarried uh and so again i didn't lose how soon after i was like six or seven so this is about five years he started dating uh who eventually became my stepmother i believe when i was probably three or four but but imagine you know so now a second time this motherly figure has to now also leave my my life this other person i've committed to yeah yeah and now here's my step mother this third oh oh i see oh this third person so yeah it's it's it it it creates an interesting

psychological dynamic in my mind that i'm i'm so with a therapist, which I've had, and even hearing and then being like, oh, wait, this isn't my mother. She's not. Do you love her? Yes. Okay, well, she's also about to leave as well. And now here's a third person. So, yeah, it's very strange. And it's why I don't respect anyone.

Wow. person so yeah it's it's very strange and it's why i don't respect uh anyone wow and and then you could just say it's because i'm scared you'll leave me as you're just acting like a complete ass i say it to my wife every time she goes to the grocery store yeah i say you're just leaving she's like shut the fuck god you gotta talk to somebody and i go i am i'm gonna be on andy richter's podcast today it's called he'll fix everything he'll fix me yeah i joked once with scott thompson that i wanted to do a podcast called I'm Worried Sick About You. No matter who it is, just find different reasons to just be really worried about them.

Concerned about their life. Oh my God. John Leguizamo, I'm worried. You need to get more people in those one-man shows. So you were a sporty kid it sounds like yep yeah my whole was that your whole deal i play yeah i i was a class clown adhd too much energy kid who played soccer and basketball and tennis and you know needed needed these very fluid sports to be in constant motion because i just had as i'm sure you know like when you have that add in that

sort of hyperactive brain you have these wells of energy and you don't really even know where they come from or why they exist but you just know you cannot sit still and if someone says please stop talking you're not a dick you just can't you can't you cannot stop it's like something that makes you go all right you like you said you're a class clown like when you get to college or what do you think you're gonna do with yourself when you get to college i mean i know you're gonna play soccer yeah play play your little soccer man your little soccer sport run around in your shorts yeah hug your friends too much shin guards you get your shin guards and your slide tackles oh yeah you're all euro um but uh what did you what were you gonna do with yourself did you so when i was 14, my aunt purchased a Hi8 video camera for home videos and stuff, the way all of us had those things.

I mean, we had the giant VHS one forever. And then suddenly, I went on vacation to Florida where she lived. I was with all my cousins. We would go down and stay for like a week together and play. And she had this new camera and was filming know filming us out on the boat and like you know playing in the water and whatever and she looked at me and she was like you know you guys you kids should try to make a little movie or something with this camera and that was like the brightest light bulb going off for me where i was like oh my god we can we can make something

with this yeah with this we could we could do something and so i started uh um making little movies with my cousins and siblings and i was a vicious director i have i have a lot of regret at how much i yelled at my brother for getting his lines wrong and he's like three he's like three years i'm like when i say come in you stand here i mean just horrific verbal abuse to a child uh because you know we have an age gap so i hear i am 14 thinking i'm steven spielberg and he's right he's just three being like what's everyone doing uh i've no joke i have apologized to as my all my siblings are obviously adults i have apologized to be like, I don't know if you're harboring anything, but if you do see a therapist, I want to just get in front of it. It's going to come out that I was not a great older brother when it came to making my movies.

Yeah, yeah. Other than that, were you kind or were you kind of a bully? I think I was an okay older brother. I did like playing with my siblings a lot just just because i was so adhd and i was so immature and if i came home and there was homework i was like yeah what if we all go in the backyard i was always finding like something to do where i could be like not do homework but go jump on the trampoline with my siblings and play with them um but uh yeah so i i i went to college you know in my family having made all these little movies and stuff and so i kind of thought that was my identity so i was like i'm gonna be a filmmaker

i've always loved it since i was a kid i've always loved acting even though i never had done any of it so i went to school um took a bunch of film courses was intending, I didn't know what I was going to do when I had graduated. It just kind of occurred to me that all I had told everybody was I'm going to make movies one day. And I had just said that. So when I graduated, it was the first time reality and my brain hit me going, yeah, but you haven't really, you, you've put no steps towards figuring out how to actually do that so i then started working studio camera at the local news station after i graduated uh wspa news channel seven and columbia or in greenville in uh spartanburg and greenville spartanburg and so i i was basically like studio camera for the the broadcast news for like you know know, I think the news used to just come on at like six o'clock.

But, you know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, suddenly it was like five, six, nine, eleven, eleven. There's so many different broadcasts. Yeah. It would be going to work at like 4.30 and putting the sheet up in front of me, taping it to the camera viewfinder, and then just getting the shots of all of that i listened to a david cross stand-up album and i was like you know what i'm gonna just try this and then that that set me on the course to go do stand-up which is strangely now brought me into the world of acting and movies and tv not like in a huge crazy way but definitely way more than I thought was even possible as someone who didn't really know how to do it. Yeah. And also like when you start out, you start out in standup and it can be completely separate

from filmmaking. But then it also too, I mean, it's so much you know there there's a certain sort of path in that in that world that you know it started i think it just started with every sitcom you know every stand-up getting a sitcom right and the 80s boom of yeah it's not so not so much anymore right um but yeah but no it's but it it's a it's also too like you know i uh i started out in film school and then started to perform after you know kind of similar to you but it was all sort of like a holistic process you know like it was right i was learning all the different parts of it and if i wasn't an actor and a performer and whatever it is that i am um i i'd i'd be working in film but i'd be just i'd be a prop guy or i'd be producing doing something in it yeah or i'd be in chicago producing television commercials for a

advertising agency but it was going to be in film production i could just you know it was because for me it was always very it was very practical sort of you know can i make a living at this was way more of a of a concern than am i going to be a big am i going to make it big you know right right and that was and that was for the longest time. That was like all I needed was just kind of the idea that like, well, it can be done and you can do something. And, you know, you can make a living. I remember, you know, when I first came out to Los Angeles and we were here doing a live show, a bunch of us were doing the show that we'd started in Chicago. and I remember a bunch of us went out to the beach one day and I just all the houses on this in the hills on the way to the beach I was like these can't all be like movie stars like there's got to be people in these houses that just that are just you know they make a nice living working in this there's money and to be made and there's a job here for me. Right. I just, you know, this is my, this is my industry. Right.

Yeah. You know. It is funny too how when you get on the, at least with stand up, you know, you do, you sort of have it in your mind. You're like, oh yeah, I want to be big and famous. want to be big and famous, but it kind of comes from a place where you kind of know, well, if you don't get big and famous, then you maybe can't really do this because it's not a plausible career unless you actually can make some money doing it. It's kind of funny how as your career trickles along, you start to realize how you truly don't actually have any control over where your career is going. You only have control over what the product actually is that maybe keeps it going or not. Either you're writing a lot, either you're growing as an artist or

you're not. And if you are and it's going well, then maybe you'll get some stuff. Maybe you'll get to be on a TV show that you probably don't even want to be on. You might get to be on a show that you yourself wouldn't even watch, but that never occurs to you. You only think, well, if I'm really good at stand-up and I get famous, I'll get to be in the movies I want to be in. I'll get to make the things I want to make. And then you kind of hit a certain point where you realize, oh, I'm actually doing well enough in stand-up that I can sustain this as a career. And then when you start getting some acting stuff, and I don't know if you've had this same thought process as me, but when you start to be around people who are famous in a big way, it's only then it kind of occurs to you that you don't necessarily want that. You love to have the money, as everyone would love to have the money, but you then realize like, oh, fame is not like being popular in college where people just know you. Fame is you are where people just know you. Fame is you are surrounded by people who don't care about you or even know you and they just need to say that they saw you or got a picture with you or did

something. I'm not saying by any means that that's the level that I'm at. I've only been around that. I've been adjacent to people who are like that and it makes me go you know what i think i think touring around doing stand-ups a pretty good gig for a guy like me yeah yeah it is it it's well and especially as you get older and you have kids and you're and you're already making a living at this right it does the the sort of the big gee whiz like what ifs that you might have thought when you started you just see like the yin and yang of it like yeah there's all kinds of great stuff but then there's also like a lot of stuff that's just a huge pain in the ass yeah yeah i think having that delusion. And not me.

Right. Not me. You know, I just, there's a lot of, there's just a lot of show business. And as I get older too, like, I talk to my manager, I'm like, I'm getting to where I just, I like making television and I like it a lot. Yeah.

It's really fun. And I love the people that I do it with. Every other part of show business is loathsome. It's just repugnant to me. Yes. The meetings and the, you know, publicity and the just. Yeah. You sometimes get lucky in those situations on who you work with or who you have to go pitch an idea to or

audition for you just sometimes find yourself in in lucky spots that it's like hitting a good shot in golf it gets you coming back for the next thing because you go maybe it'll be like that and you go through years of like oh no one's been nice again and then you have that one meeting where like oh you know she was really great and understanding. I know. And it's always such like a low bar of like, they seemed like a normal person. Just being normal. Yeah, yeah.

Just being normal. Not even being great. Like just like a phony, so phony they made my skin crawl. Yeah. Because that is really kind of that's yeah that's your you can bet on that usually yeah it's a safe bet like the person i'm going to meet is will be phony to the point that it'll make my skin crawl yeah and i i think i think when you're when you're deciding that you're going to pursue a career like this those are all factors you can't possibly

uh those are all variables you can't factor in because you you're you you don't even think about those they almost think like well i'll probably never get a meeting i'll probably never actually have an audition so you don't think what they might look like or be like you just go i'm gonna be big because i'm good at my right thing it's it is funny how the closer you get to the target that you established when you were a kid you start to go well ah shit well now that i actually know myself more yeah yeah i don't know that i want this thing i don't know if i or i don't want it to look like this you know yeah i i i would gladly if i had the control over all the variables and and stuff i would, I would, you know, have so much more fun in it. But

yeah, for me, it's, it's, I set out to want to be a filmmaker and I would still love to do that. But now instead of having that drive and that desperation to need to make it quote unquote, whatever that even means, I now I'm like at a point where I'm like, oh, I think, I'm like at a point where I'm like oh I think I think having a job I like doing is the American dream it doesn't yeah so much matter how much money you're getting doing it you know as long as you're getting enough but yeah to me I kind of grew into being like I'd still like to make films but if right now I could just travel and and tell jokes to people, I really love doing that and seeing the product of that is so satisfying. So that had never crossed your mind before the David Cross album? To do stand up?

Yeah. I think I had been like, oh, you know, I want to be an actor and I want to be in stuff. And then I was, you know, that was another thing. I graduated. I was like, I wasn't even in a play. I didn't even do, I would shoot videos that I was in, but that, that is, I forgot to actually do any of the stuff I told people I was going to do. It, I don't know that it, I think when I was in high school, I was such a class clown. One of my best friends, Kyle Raby was like, he goes, we would love

watching SNL in the 90s. It was such a great time for SNL. And we would watch it. And he was like, Roy, I think you could be on SNL. And I was like, oh, I don't know. And he goes, yeah, you know, he goes, have you ever thought about doing standup? Because a lot of standup comedians write for SNL. And I just remember being like, oh, well, then I'll probably never be on SNL because all I had known of standup was you put on a suit and it's very set-up punchline. It's very Seinfeld. At the time, he's like the king of it. And I never really watched Richard Pryor.

I didn't watch George Carlin. My brain was not at a point of understanding who those guys were or where they were coming from. I thought Jerry Seinfeld was funny, but I was like, well, I don't wear a suit. And I definitely don't talk like that. So, it kind of didn't occur to me till I listened to the David Cross album that stand-up has variations just like music does. It's just that just never occurred to me. And I was like, oh, I now have seen videos of this guy, not just from Mr. Show, but oh, he wears wears what he wants and he doesn't talk in word economy and he's not concerned about you know the the etiquette of what we're told traditional stand-up

comedy should be and it was only then and then seeing guys like nick swartz and where i was like oh i i actually think maybe i could do this because i'm more like these guys than what i thought stand-up comedy had to be. Well, you were wrong because, man, there's anything about your act that's just, I would say, it's meandering. It's like, get to the punchline. Thank you. Please. I've heard that my whole life.

and that's that's uh that's what i've heard that my whole life well now do you start when you start are you like do you do you quickly kind of feel like because you got to start out imitating people i think yeah i mean do you quickly kind of get to a point where you feel like you're saying what you want to say and that like you're being yourself i think you know early on i sounded exactly like david cross i used to tell people my early stand-up looked like david cross was doing an impression of me you know i was doing i was trying to have the essence of of him while telling my uh my jokes through like his filter and i think that was doing fine for me for a while but then i think it took about a year for me to really be like wow wait a second i this isn't fun anymore it's actually i find it more fun whenever i hit those tiny little

moments where i'm just being me um become more fun. And then you start to realize, oh, that journey of you being confident enough to get on stage and completely be yourself sometimes is a full career, just getting all the layers off. And you see the comics who become wildly successful, they become amazing at getting all the layers off and really, you know, really relating to an audience. So I think I got tired of doing an impression. And I realized it wasn't fun. And I also was like, Oh, but this isn't even me. I'm people think I'm funny. And I'm talking like someone else. As far as like telling the jokes I want to tell, I think early on, you just try to say something that's funny in whatever capacity because you kind of don't know what you want to say but i think the fact that i started in dc meant that i had some political stuff early on

i definitely was not a political comic but i had commentary on on rights and stuff. This is when Bush is president. So I have commentary on who he was as a president and why can't equal rights just be a thing. So I actually proudly look back on my career being like, oh, from very early on, not that the jokes were good, but i liked that i took a stance on certain issues right to write jokes about them because it definitely brought me to where i am now where i very confidently take a stand on issues and i find a way to try to not alienate people in the crowd who maybe won't agree with what i'm saying and i actually find to be really fun yeah yeah no it's you either do it or you don't.

Because, I mean, I, you know, like I do some, you know, political activism kind of stuff, get out the boat, and I'm in the midst of it right now. And it is, there are just some people who are like really established and you just feel like what do you, you know, you know, and most of the time you assume what people you know you can assume like who's not john voight right who's not you know who's you know who's that guy's probably pretty liberal you can think you know about a lot of people right and there's so many people that i've that i've come across they're just like no i gotta keep my i gotta keep my whole thing politics free you know yeah you know

jim gaffigan just recently sort of and famously yeah had a had just a big freak out because he couldn't take it anymore yeah about about trump and and i think that that's kind of happening more but it's either like i say it's either in you or it's not. Like, it's always kind of been in i i do think it's important to mention these things and to and to let people know that like some of the some some things are bad yes you know like sexism sexism is bad and racism is bad and homophobia is bad. And it's just like, they need to know. I think it's wildly important. I think it has shaped

from entertainers, not just stand-up comics, but entertainers in general and how they talk about what they believe in and what they talk about. Like even people that I don't necessarily agree with,

but when I see them speak passionately about the thing that they they think whether i agree with them or not i always take into account like someone who really uh believes in what they're saying affects people whether i think they're right or wrong and so i've always looked at stand-up comedy as my job is to go on stage and try to alleviate the crowd's stress and tension of everyday life. But you also have to keep in mind, for me, I think, well, how could I possibly do that if it's a room of, let's say it's at a comedy club on a Friday night. So let's say it's 300 people.

How can I possibly know what everyone's stresses and tensions are that need to be alleviated? My best guess is to write material that is about the stresses and tensions that I have. Yeah. And hope to God, the people that bought a ticket that wanted to listen to me probably did so because maybe we have similar stresses and tensions. I don't want a crowd. I never want to preach to the choir. I find it to be more fun and entertaining and engaging when I think maybe this crowd doesn't know what kind of jokes I do, and yet they're still at the show. If I get on stage and I'm like,

fuck Trump, I know instantly who is like oh we should have done our research before we came down to the old chuckle hut tonight but it's more it's more fun to spot them and go i am now going to try to do a performance that entertains the people who already agree with me while i try to mock the ideals that you have on what you think how people should be treated and how leaders are supposed to be. And I'm going to try to do it in such a way where you don't become offended and maybe you consider what I'm saying. And the shows that are like that, to me, are the absolute best. And when someone goes, you should just do comedy and stay out of politics, I'm like, I don't think you even understand what art is in general.

It's actually, when you say something like that, it actually is great for me to know that you don't understand paintings, you don't understand poetry, you don't understand literature. It's not just comedy. You clearly don't understand comedy when, whether you're on the right or the left if you asked all republicans democrats who would you say are the top two stand-ups everyone is gonna say george carlin and richard pryor no matter which side of the aisle you're on yeah and what are those two guys talking about other than wildly personal deep dark stuff and very political viewpoints about that.

It's been embedded in stand-up since early on. That are largely subversive. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No. Well, the reason that that's the hardest thing to do, that's the hardest thing to do is to sneak a message into something that is just first and foremost funny yeah that's always

kind of what i have you know that's what i try to strive to do because yeah and and there's a lot of shows that do it and and and people love these shows and i'm never one i'm you know i mean in private i'll be like how can anyone watch and I don't mean those particular shows but just I try and make a policy of not trashing other things like stuff that I don't like

that other people like because it's like well I just don't happen to like it's not for you yeah it's just not for me but if you can it's like if there's a lot of stuff out there that is just like you said preaching to the choir or performative outrage you know like yes like there's so many sort of like topical comedy shows and most of them are talent or talented people, star talented people, and they can be very funny. But there also can just be those moments where it's like, yeah, I know.

I know Trump sucks. Okay. I know. Yeah. I mean, what artifice is being employed here? Exactly. Yes. is being employed exactly exactly yes and or or or even not to interrupt you but even from that when you go what are they doing when you see them a comic who doesn't just say fuck trump when you

go yeah it's it's obvious to a lot of people but when they do it in a different way where you go oh this is entertaining to me because i i agree but yet they're trying to concoct a recipe that maybe plants a seed inside of someone who goes, who goes, well, I don't fucking agree with you. Because if you look, if someone has come to a comedy club, you're like, we're not so different. You've come to a comedy club, which I have chosen to work at professionally for my whole life. And you know what happens here. And you maybe are like, I hope someone gets up there and talks about blowjobs for 20 minutes. And you go, yeah, but what if I do kind

of talk about blowjobs? Because I know that that's what you want to hear. And then when I switch it up, you sort of keep listening because I've already earned your respect and attention because I did say the thing you want. but now i'm going to say the thing i want to say and maybe there's 20 people there that disagree with me if two people are like i don't know i thought he made a good point about gay rights you're like well that's what it takes it does take getting those two people kind of thing yeah that's what i think when we talk about comics who are starting to be more vocal about these things or they're like nah my fans don't want me talking about this i'm like look hey everybody

choose your own road if you don't want to get into it then then don't get into it but definitely respect and understand the importance of yeah getting into it because to me it's not virtue signaling and to me it's not well i do stand-up comedy so i got this many followers now and now i'm gonna preach to those followers about what i think to me it's simply you being you so if you say well my followers don't want that then you then your followers don't want you i don't want you to fake it if you're faking it then that's a bad thing yeah yeah but if you think it and you're avoiding it because you're worried about your fans then you're not a fucking artist you're just you're just placating

to the people that are are following you why don't you why don't you be an artist and tell them what the product is show them what the product is that you're just running a business at that point you're just trying not to offend your offend your customers yeah um yeah although i mean because for me it's weird because i don't do a like i can make some topical political jokes but i don't find it that funny so if i make you know what i'm political mainly on twitter um and if i do it i always am trying to do it with like the notion of persuading of not just because i don't think i want to win anybody over by going like you know you're a dumb fuck although i have been guilty of course of course you're human you're a dumb like this

this is for dumb fucks this thing that just happened yes um but i i mean generally try and you know win people over and so you know sometimes that's pointing out by like you know the gop could maybe be subjected to rico statutes at this point like i mean you know that's like that's right like that's you know okay maybe that's not like the kindest and like most subtle thing to say, but it's like, yeah, but I do feel like it's something that people need to start to kind of realize. Like, yeah, there's, there's like massive criminality happening here. Yeah. And massive collusion and base and just racketeering. And right.

You know, that isn't like to say like well you should vote and really sort of you know vote your conscience and she would it's like no no there's there's people that should go to jail right yes you know that have that are that are crimes against uh humanity not in a small way either and not not humanity that exists on another plot of land across the ocean yeah but humanity that's actually that's actually here i i i i think that i always look at it the way we're talking about football and that's how people i i wish people held their their their elected leaders to the same standard that they are willing to hold their quarterback to if he throws five interceptions in a game and they lose and they don't go to the playoffs.

I mean, they want to cut his fucking head off. Right. And they don't find reasons why the interceptions were actually a good thing. Exactly. I've always said, I don't know why quarterbacks don't take their press conferences the way Trump does. If I got to a press conference, they're like, how does it feel knowing that if had you not thrown those five interceptions, you could have advanced to the

playoffs? I would have been like, I didn't throw any interceptions. And then would everybody watching at home go, well, you know, I'm not on the field. Maybe he didn't throw any interceptions. Would you be willing to listen to a quarterback say he didn't do something that you just watched him do? And would you go, you know what? Actually, he's a good quarterback. Or would you go, maybe we should replace this quarterback if we want to get to the playoffs next year? Yeah. Right now, if you told me horrific shit that Obama did as president, I'm not going to sit here and defend things just because I voted for him.

Yeah. I would sit here and go, well, yes, every leader, no matter what, should be held accountable for their mistakes, sometimes even sadly when their heart is in the right place. That's just what being a leader is. But for some reason, we live in a timeframe where people are like, well, if I voted for them, if I admit they did something wrong, then that means I'm dumb or I made a mistake. And that's just simply not possible. It's like, yes, it is possible. Every single, you know, it's not like I'm sitting here going, Biden is a shining blue

angel that has done no wrong. That's not the case of almost all politicians. But I think they should be held accountable for those mistakes and address them. And in some cases, those mistakes, like you said, it might deserve jail time. That's just how it is. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we devolved into politics, and I swore I wouldn't talk to you about.

I have to. I tried to push it there. Oh, you're so tiresome. The moment you said, how old were you the moment you said how old were you when your mom passed away i went dim i said democrat i said abortions let's put it this way i was already voting and now trump oopsie can't you tell my loves are growing well we've taken up a lot of time here i uh and i want to talk about how is your your new show i mean it's new-ish now yes um i want to ask about because i knew that was coming up um what is it like to have had to to work on a season of a show that is released on one day

in the middle of a pandemic yeah i it should be with advertising money it should be exciting but unfortunately with zero advertisement it's uh it's it what's difficult about it is i i i think the demise of that show is going to be that we, for two and a half years, created one season of what I think is a really good show for Comedy Central. They rebranded to go unscripted. They fired their entire scripted department. They got rid of successful shows that they had going and we were just kind of a show that was in the mix there i describe it to people as like it's like we were in the departed we were like undercover cops and then all the cops who knew

we were undercover got killed so no one knew that we weren't really criminals and that we were we were no we work on the force we're with you so no regime change is a real thing it is a very real thing and so that that kind of happened to us and we didn't get put out in in january alongside aquafina which i think would have been beneficial to to both of us not that aquafina needed our viewers but i think that some of her viewers maybe would have also liked our uh our show and uh so then we got pushed to summertime and they almost weren't going to put us out in the summer and then i think they're like hey you know just dump it on youtube because we're moving on anyway so the best that can happen to our show is that a ton of people watch it on comedy central's youtube page it's called robbie

and uh someone at some point decides they want to buy it and make more you know a streaming service that needs content is maybe like oh look at this an incredibly diverse want to buy it and make more, you know, a streaming service that needs content is maybe like, Oh, look at this, an incredibly diverse show in front of and behind the camera about the South. Uh, and,

and, you know, talking about every now and then race relations, but then also not at all talking about race relations. My character is a white guy who has a child, uh, with a black woman who is a mixed race child and we don't sit there and go but it's the south how could they have interracial relations

instead we just we make it the story we make it a part of the show and and yeah i mean obviously i'm incredibly biased because it was two and a half years of our lives and came from our brains, the whole production, everybody that put anything into it. But it was great that it came out the way that it did in the sense that my father passed away in June. So he did get to see what we made. Had they put it on TV, I don't think he would have ever seen it. So when you try to find these silver linings, the one that I find is like, oh, you know, my dad did get to see it. Whether we make another season or not, life goes on and, you know, there's other work to be had. I just think we could have strung together a really fun, unique second season as well. We're just kind of starting to figure out our tone and everything.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as someone who's been there yeah it's it's yeah it's par for the course it happens all the time and you start and you really start to you know the thing that i've that i have i felt and i have you know like with different things you know i was number one on the call sheet for three different shows and they were varying qualities, you know, and I was vari like a ladder and at the top of the ladder there's like your wildest dreams coming true in terms of like what you what when you first started to let

yourself fantasize about being a successful show business person like the the crazy like what if i had a you know a mansion and you know like like three houses and all this stuff, like that kind of financial stuff. And then just like also the ability to do whatever you want, you know, in show business that's at the top of that ladder. And there are all these rungs and any one of those rungs, they can like push a button and it disappears and you fall back to the bottom. Exactly. Cause it's always, it it's like can you sell the pilot will they accept the pilot will they make episodes will they pick it up for the next season

yeah and it just you you cannot not fantasize when i know i know you can't not start thinking like wow this is really good and what if it really takes off and oh and you know yeah so it's just you just your heart just gets calluses on it because it just gets broken and repaired and broken and repaired and broken and repaired and it's a luxurious disappointment yes it's a very entitled disappointment of course but as an artist not it's in the sense that like financially you know you're you're compensated very well for the thing that you you made you know depending on where you are in that project like if it's also the thing that you love doing you're getting yes you know you're getting made paid to do it and you're passionate about it and

i i think the the sad thing thing is that you go through enough of those and that fire and that light starts to dim and burn out. And what's so sad about it, and I keep telling myself this in this situation, is that that excitement and that delusion of how good and grand things can be is sort of this necessary fuel for the fire yeah to make the thing you're making good you kind of have to lie to yourself that this could be the thing that means you don't have to take notes any or get notes anymore you don't have to walk into a room going oh i hope i can sell this because you walk into rooms and they already kind of want to buy it even if they don't know what it is just because you have done it enough times right i think when someone told me

that martin scorsese was still having trouble getting money to make the irishman that's when i realized oh let's let's forget the idea that i will never not have to beg for the work right because if someone has made that many good movies and i'm not saying they're all great but has made that many iconic movies and still people are like i don't know i can give you ten thousand dollars it's like i worked i worked i was lucky enough to get to work with Robert Altman. I was in a Robert Altman movie. Oh, my God. Truly. What movie?

It was called Dr. T and the Women. It's kind of a, it's, you know, I think he just made movies, and he liked making movies, and the end result was sort of like, nah, you know. It's like, to him, it was kind of like, I think, and he, because when I went, I worked in Dallas on this movie and he had every weekend big parties at his house, like big cooked dinners. Yeah. At his house, the house he rented in Dallas.

And he'd have he had a big satellite dish. And he had like speaking of college sports, he he would bet on college games and he would have like these elaborate like well you see a you know uh washington's got a win and then ucla has to lose at least by six because he knew he knew the like wheeled yeah like he'd like combine bets in some way yeah yeah like i could not keep up with right but i think making movies was just like a party for him and like some parties turn out great and some parties are like yeah they're kind of duds i kind of love that it well it was it was like what was sort of amazing about him and he right up until the end and i just knew this from you know his producer telling me

he would say i'm gonna make a, and there might be a script, there might not be a script, and he would just, you know, he did well enough in Europe that European distribution would give him money, and then he'd just start making the movie without having the full money. Yeah. And he was Robert Altman. Right. That's the way he just always was doing it.

And so you've got to kind of be like, well, okay. It's never, you know, I mean, it's never not a struggle. But then I also think, too, you know, when people get to the point, actors get to the point in their career where, like, I don't audition anymore. Like, I didn't know that was part of the deal. I thought, i just assumed i'd be auditioning for the rest of my life right and i so i can't like be because there are some things where they just where it is like look if you want me you gotta hire me just because yeah sure yeah it's like a dick swinging thing you know it's like you know but also but usually i i find usually when you say that, it's usually for a thing that you're like, hey, look, if you don't want me to be in it, that's fine.

I've done so many jobs where we're like, oh, fuck, they said yes to the price. Now I got to do this thing. Oh, shit. I was kind of hoping they were going to say no. Oh, well, you know. Yeah. I was kind of hoping they were going to say no. Oh, well, you know.

Yeah. But yeah, it's, you know, I, you do kind of get your leeway. But then there also is something that kind of natural that like, no, it's still a hustle. It's still. Right. And that seems like it sucks, but it also is kind of like, well, yeah, but, you know, I mean, it's a complicated business and there's a lot of money and you're basically saying, like, I have an idea for a funny story. Could you give me millions of dollars to make it? Yeah.

To make it. And it's like, it's not, it's not software. It's not like a new missile. Right. It's not, it's not some kind of, you know you know revolutionary kitchen gadget it's an idea about a funny story you know and you're asking for money for it yeah you know so i i there's you know it's like yeah it sucks and it's hard but it's like yeah but you know it's really good too again it's yin and yang yeah it's really fun to do but so there's yin and yang. Yeah. It's really fun to do, but it's,

so there's like lots of it that's got to suck. Yeah. So, well, I mean, it, was it hard? Is it hard for you to like,

for this to be sort of, well, I'm just going to say, is it hard to not take it personally? To not think like, yes. I've gotten better at it because there's been, you know, I've been doing stand-up since 2004,

and I think commercial acting since like 07, and then, you know, little stuff here and there for a bit. But, you know, seven years of acting, fortunate, very fortunate to get to be in anything. But in that expanse, especially from commercial acting all the way to now, there's been so much rejection already. Yeah. acting all the way to now there's been so much rejection already that yeah you kind of like you said calluses around your heart you do kind of almost expect rejection which is almost why you still get excited when you get a role you audition for because you're like oh i just kind of assumed they'd say no like everyone else says no yeah no it's it's exciting to get a job. oh, we were in the hands of people that don't actually care about this product. There wasn't a concern if this product is going to be good, but also it's in the hands of people who wouldn't actually know if this product was good.

They wouldn't be able to spot it because their jobs are simply to wipe the slate clean and try to find a bunch of unscripted reality tv shows now and so you go well if that's someone's life and career and that's what someone wants to do they probably can't see the value and like again i'm i said i'm very biased because it's mine but they probably can't see the value in in this show being good or what makes it good or why it's interesting or why i think it's pertinent to the times we live in or why it maybe is worth a second season i think i i would say i no longer take it so personally it is hard not to initially be like well then fuck you if you don't think yeah yeah yeah great but i i kind of look at it now that if there's most places that don't already buy a second season of a show i'm already like well then i i don't actually respect you in

terms of you knowing what you're you're doing because that seems ridiculous it seems ridiculous to get involved in something that you don't even think will be good enough to go past eight episodes or 13 episodes. You kind of are like, well, I hope you guys get it. It's like, or why not have confidence in the people you're hiring, the people you're giving money to, to get the job done and make something that's good. Now, granted, you give people too much leeway, they sometimes fuck up. But I do know there's enough people in this world that if you go, hey, I'm going to stay out of your way and I'm going to give you all the money,

I just want you to know that if you fuck up, it fucks me up. And there's enough people in this world to go, okay, I now know the stakes are, I don't want you to lose your job because you're being so nice to letting me make my show. But that doesn't totally exist exist i would say with our team that was at comedy central before they got fired yeah uh they were they were very supportive and we did have that you know they're they're the people well the guy kent alterman there is who's a friend of mine i'm biased yeah i i love him kent made a lot of really good programming for comedy central and then but you know he would tell me like because i'd say man that you know whatever that new show is you know key and like

he was it's key and peel is him you know and right yeah and and and i mean and then other things you know andy daly's review and and or or nathan for you and yeah broad city nathan for you drunk history yeah and and like hey those are really great and he would say like we can't get anyone to watch like he's like when they did after key and peel became a big hit uh they were finding that people that loved key and peel and watched a lot of their sketches were not aware it was on a television program they weren't aware that like that they could see this on tv because they just consumed it online yeah yeah yeah and i don't know what you do you know the poor when i know what to do about that you know and these people are just making their decision the people above them are making decisions it's all just seriously you're another division of a

corporation you got to make money yeah nobody gives a shit about like well you know rory has a really interesting point of view yeah he's a good guy yeah who gives a fuck i know i got other divisions where they just sell oil filters, and the oil filters are doing great. Yeah. And if we put more money into the oil filter, we could sell even more than we're already selling. Yeah, I know. I think that's why you kind of grow out of taking it too personally,

because you go, oh, it's this machine that's bigger than all of us, and it's not necessarily about the uh about the art which i i go back to the influence that artists and entertainers have on the world it's unfortunate because to me that art is what informs and evolves and grows the culture when you have people commenting on it to try to steer it uh towards being better uh not that that's what every tv show is doing but yeah i find sometimes when people are like well look we're just out to make the dollar you're like ah well i can't imagine that leading to a great society right exactly yeah yeah absolutely yeah and then you learn to like maybe i shouldn't like i shouldn't let these people and this organization and this structure, this industry, I shouldn't give it too much control over my self-image.

I shouldn't be like, oh, the people that were in charge of 20th Century Fox didn't understand my show and that means i'm hated i'm garbage you know like no you have to be like oh he just kind of got churned up in the froth and spat out and exactly i have no value yeah yeah i guess i'll sort of attach my self-worth to my family like how i feel about that gross how they feel about me you'll never get anywhere with personal growth i know well now what's what's next for you i mean i know you got the show and i mean in covet it makes everything so fucking weird but i mean you have are you things you've been working on and yeah i've got some and how do you do that if you are doing that how do you work on things during this shit how do you write anything i will say doing that? How do you work on things during this shit? How do you write anything?

I will say that writing and doing any kind of stand-up anything has not happened for me. Anyone that decided this was going to be a great time to really sit and write and do stuff, unfortunately, a lot of my writing comes from the live show anyway. So I'm not great at sitting and going, you know what, let's finally put pen to paper and and write out this idea now there's sure there's some things i i probably could have

focused a little bit more time on but uh now that productions are are kind of back in full swing in many ways i do have a couple like acting things coming up which are kind of great because I don't really have the spirit right now to do stand up in the current conditions. I will maybe grow to like it in a forced way if things don't change and it looks like they won't anytime soon. But I do have some work coming up that's acting. But outside of that i i don't really know i mean we've been doing the podcasts and and we do some of the live podcasts through a live zoom thing and in terms of getting that performer fix you know getting like ah where i can see i'm making people laugh i can kind of hear them on the zoom and also you know they buy tickets to it so there's at least a

little bit of income so you you feel like you're not just completely draining your bank account when you buy a home in the middle of a pandemic without a job which is i don't recommend that to anybody sounds stressful there's some stress to it yeah um but uh yeah i i'm grateful for the acting work that's coming up, albeit something I haven't been doing. Obviously, any of us have been doing in quite a while, but there's something very excited about it in the sense that I'm like, I get to leave the house? And people are like, yes. And all you have to do is risk potentially getting the thing that locked you in your house. And you're like, I'll do it. I'll do it.

Get me out of here. you in your house and you're like yeah i'll do it i'll do it no get me out of here you know conan has been doing the show from largo and i was kind of just going in i mean and it's inexplicable as to why i was just kind of going in every other day you know like kind of when they needed me and then somebody who finally was like hey why don't you come in every day it's and i was like okay yeah i was willing to so So I'm going there every day, and it's like lifted my spirits just because I got somewhere to go. Yeah. Something to do.

Yeah. That I can count on and that I know is like tomorrow it'll be there and the day after that. And it's also fun like it's like right right i love the people i work with they're you know and i'm i've been spoiled my whole life by working with like literally the funniest people in the world like you know who are among the funniest people in the world and they're paid to be funny And so I get to just goof around and fucking cut up and tell jokes, you know? Yeah.

It's just, it's so nice to have somewhere to go and I recommend it. So God bless you. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it for sure. Just to kind of lose myself in something, you know, kind of find some focus to steer my mind and try to keep my mind off the doom and gloom of everyday life. Yeah, yeah. This is my real voice. Well, all right, the third question of this three questions gimmick

is what have you learned? What's the point of the Rory Scoble story? I mean, aside from, I guess, go Clemson or whatever that is. I just go hardcore college football.

I'll tell you what the lesson is. The fucking SEC conference doesn't know what's coming. I don't know. I'm always sort of curious as to like, well, what is it that not just in a pandemic that we're learning or just anything we're learning as we get older, but I think I've been trying to, I've had a hard time living in the moment. When people say be present and be in the moment, I don't know if it's our line of work or my ADHD

or my personality, but I have a really hard time doing that. And I would say this pandemic and maybe age in general has taught me it's actually much easier to live in the moment and slow time down a little bit when you just eliminate yourself from the equation and you actually just try to live and do what my kid wants to do or tune in with my wife and see what needs to be done around the house instead of me going, yeah, but what about me and what I want and all these things? I find that if you kind of eliminate yourself, and I don't mean don't take care of yourself, obviously still do that, but when you eliminate yourself from the daily grind of life and you just go, well, what does my

daughter need today? Or what does my wife need today? It slows the day down and you do kind of live in the present moment and you take your mind off of yourself. I think for me, I can't say it's for everybody, for me, my mind being on myself is not a healthy place to be. I don't steer myself in great places. I go to dark corners of doom and gloom and how things are. And then I'm also kind of selfish with my time. But if I can eliminate myself, then I'm more giving with my time. And I find it to be more fulfilling. Even saying that, it's still hard to do it. But the more I do it, I find it to be a good thing.

And I think, too, that on the other side of it, as the balance, and this is as someone who's older and who completely relates to what you're saying. You're 78, right? I am. You're 78. I actually age, every normal human day is like six days for me. Right. But I think once you get to the other side of that, like sort of taking yourself out of the equation, you actually get to a healthier level of how much of yourself you need to put into an equation, you know, because it's easy to go too far to extremes because, you know, I mean, like you said, you know, you've been to therapy. So that is kind of like, that is, you you know that's introspection and that's really you can call it navel gazing and you could call it you know uh you know being self-obsessed but it's also like if you're doing it for the right reasons it's not it's part of it's part of the community work exactly when you give yourself over to the whatever little community you've built. Like, yeah, you it is a freedom and you do find it to be richer. And as you do that, the amount of sort of.

amount of like how much you think about yourself whatever it lessens and you start to think about yourself and consider yourself in a healthier way you know yeah and in a healthier light and you kind of like i don't know you start to like it isn't so much like yourself as to me it's just like i don't i'm not like i'm not as fucking angry like i'm not disgusted by myself. I'm not like the occasional bouts of self-loathing. I'm more kind of like, oh, I'm all right. Right, yeah. He's fine. He tries real hard. Be nice to that guy, me.

So yeah, I hear you. I hear you. I hear you. I do think I have like an overreaction to selfishness. And especially in this business, like self-involvedness to me is just very unbecoming. And I know it's to a neurotic level. And I'm working at kind of finding the middle ground of that. Yeah. And I think that that's, you know, it's a lifelong skill, lifelong, not skill. It's a lifelong project, you know?

Yeah. And it's also when you realize, when you start to realize you need to do it you go oh this is i think the forgiveness you're talking about with yourself is when you kind of realize like oh less me and more other people you you go oh this is what everybody's kind of going through and you either you meet people who recognize it and also are trying to do something about it or you meet people who don't recognize it or think it's ridiculous and that's truly the makeup of most people you're gonna yeah yeah but you you do kind of forgive yourself a little bit because you this isn't a unique problem i'm not a bad person i recognize this thing and now i gotta work on

work on it and it's relatable to everybody and i yeah i just find it very very fulfilling when i can pull it off like i said it still it still takes a lot of mental work to be able to do it yeah well rory i miss you you're just in the other room quit creating this illusion that we're not that we aren't roommates i haven't i mean i have but i haven't seen you face to face in like what an hour and a half well ever since i got the mini fridge in my room i don't need you anymore yes and please stop peeing out the window oh it's fun yeah oh but you're killing the plants uh no but i miss you and uh and uh i would love to get out and see you sometime.

Is there anything you want to plug to people? I mean, you plugged the podcast. You got Dads with Ruthie Wyatt. Yeah, you know Dads with Ruthie Wyatt. I got Pen Pals. And, yeah, I think if anyone, if you heard this and you're curious and you want to check out the show I was talking about, Robbie on Comedy Central's YouTube page, I imagine it will be living there for quite a while until they go, why are we wasting all this bandwidth on this, what could have been a wildly successful venture for this young man?

Yeah, if you're interested, go there and check it out. And if you like it, tell people. And I don't say that because I will gain anything from you doing that. Right, right. I truly don't think I will. But if you do like it, tell people because I am really proud of what we made. I feel embarrassed because I haven't seen it, and I'm going to go see it. Well, that's why this will be the last time we talk.

You know what? There's so many reasons to feel relieved. And you just gave me a huge one. Wow, this has been a good day. And it's Monday. See, and that's me eliminating me and going, how can I help Andy? He also needs me to eliminate me. No, I will check it out, and I will let you know.

And I will be brutal if I need to be. I welcome it, knowing that it is a standalone thing with no future. I welcome it. Go ahead, have at it. Here's what you got to do next season. Ah-ha-ha. No, no, no. No.

All right. Well, thank you, no, no, no. All right. Well, thank you, Roy, for being on the three questions. And thank you. Thank you out there for listening to the three questions. And come on back next week for more of this, I guess. I've got a big, big love for you. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco and Earwolf production. It's produced by me, Kevin Bartelt,

executive produced by Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Chris Bannon and Colin Anderson at Earwolf. Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, associate produced by Jen Samples and Galit Zahayek, and engineered by Will Becton. And if you haven't already, make sure to rate and review The Three Questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts.

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.