The Tim Dillon Show - 179: 179 - Sal Vulcano

Episode Date: December 22, 2019

In this special Christmas episode, we play a holiday rant from an archived episode that is Patreon only titled "My Last Christmas" that was recorded last year. Then Tim sits down with the great Sal Vulcano of Impractical Jokers to talk his comedy beginnings, what it takes to make it, and how you will not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, it is Tim Dillon. And welcome to the Tim Dillon Show Christmas episode. We're very, very excited. We're bringing you a special treat. We're taking a famous 20 minute rant from the Patreon archives called My Last Christmas, which is about why I decided to retire from spending the holidays with my family.

Only partially retire. I do go back occasionally for holidays, but it's really just kind of this kind of epic rant that a lot of people connected with about really trying to get rid of your family and friends and trying to level up. That's what the holidays to me are about. Thinking about what you have in your life

and what you can get rid of, who you can get rid of, how fast you can do it, and how quickly you can leave those people in the dust and ascend to higher levels. That's what I believe the holidays are about. They're about taking stock of where you are and who you are and trying to change both of those things dramatically and immediately,

if possible. So I did this rant and it was about a Christmas that I had and it was a Christmas that shook me to the core. It made me realize that it was time to enter a new phase of my life and a lot of people have connected with it. So we hope you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it,

it's probably because you're threatened by it because you know I'm right. Or maybe you are one of these people that I don't understand that thinks the holidays are about togetherness and just making do with what you have. A lot of people feel that way. They're like, the holidays are just about being grateful

and thankful for what you have. Shut the fuck up. That's not what they're about. They're about saying, I want more. Okay, enough. Stop lying to yourself and others. Stop denying yourself. You're an animal.

You're on earth. You're an animal. Now, obviously there's maybe some divinity. You have the ability to reason. You know, maybe there is a God. Maybe you can, I'm not saying you have to stay an animal, but you have, you know, you have instincts. You have, there's a nature to you and you want things.

There's nothing wrong with that. Stop denying yourself. The pleasures of getting rid of people. The holidays are just about looking around and saying, thank you for this shitty job and this even shittier family. No, they're not. The holidays are about driving by a big, beautiful house

with a big, beautiful wreath on the door and a big, beautiful Christmas tree and looking at that house and going, I want that. I want that. I want that warmth, that security and that safety. And I deserve it. And you know what, a lot of the people in my life right now aren't helping me get that.

So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna pretend I don't know them because our friendship's based on mutually assured destruction that we both destroy each other. And my family is just based on which is a bunch of people don't know, we don't know what the hell we're doing anymore. We're all just staring at each other. Some of that's nice, but the majority of it isn't.

And we know that. We're eating garbage food and sweatpants. We're phoning it in. We're throwing a lot of good money after bed. So that's what the holidays have always symbolized to me. And I know people have all kinds of different views about it and I don't hold that against anyone. But the reality is the holidays are about,

it's a quarterly review for your life. It's the end of the fiscal year, the quarter, whatever you say to yourself, listen, let me figure it out, let me figure it out. And that's what the holidays are about. Looking around to people going, who's essential? Who's not? So that's the first part of the episode.

Second part of the episode we talked to the great Sal Volcano is one of the impractical jokers. It is the most successful, whatever you wanna call it, prank show, which they're not really fans of that name. They don't like reality show either. It has elements of a game show, but it is a hybrid. It's a few different genres. And it's one of the most successful shows

in the last decade. It's a worldwide phenomenon. Those guys sell out arenas all over the world. And they all experience success in their mid 30s. Very interesting story about how they came together, how long they all worked day jobs, how long before they started making money. And then just the show growing into the fucking

powerhouse that it is today, where it's a worldwide sensation and everybody knows about it. Sal's an insanely famous person. When I've gone out with him to dinner, people always recognize him. It's really insane, especially in New York City, but pretty much I'm sure wherever he goes,

there are people out there. So it's very interesting talking to him about that. So that's really the episode today. We have those two things happening. Is this our final episode of the year, Penn? No, we have one coming out on the 20th, on the 30th, I think? Okay, this fucking month sucks.

Yeah. You can't, as my father said, can't get ahead. Can't get ahead. They're always trying to get you. They'll get you. Can't get ahead. I spent a lot of time. We released a Boomer Christmas video.

That's funny. Spent a lot of time with the boomers over the last week. They're great people. And they're very fascinating to me because what's great about the boomers is, and I've talked to different boomers from different tax brackets all over the place,

different locations, the sense of injustice that they all have about the things that they've been denied. What I love, just they're somehow all victims. Many of them have inherited homes, victims, you know? Because then you got to renovate those homes. What a project. Many of them, you know, worked at one company for 40 years.

That's not going to happen anymore to anyone we know. And I'm not saying these people should be derided, but I'm just saying, I love the idea that it's like still like, it's rough, man, it's rough. It's been rough. They have no idea how rough it's going to get. So it's a really, it's a really fun episode.

And maybe you like it. Maybe you don't. Subscribe to the Tim Dillon Show. Rate, review, leave a five star rating. We do appreciate that. Tell friends and family, thanks to everyone who bought the shirt. Send us photos of you in the shirt.

We'll put it up unless you're completely hideous. We're kidding. We'll put it up even if you're hideous. Doesn't matter unless you're like deformed. If you're like elephant man. Well, actually, if you are elephant man, we will put it up. Like if you are deformed, we'll put it up.

If you're just kind of regular ugly, I don't know that it helps me or you. But if you're really good looking or deformed, I'd like one of the extremes. I don't need you to just be like plain Jane, you know? But, you know, let me know. Let me know how you feel, folks. Send me the, send me the photos.

Also live dates, a lot of them coming up. Timdilloncomedy.com all over the place. We're going to Austin, Texas in January. We're going to Magoobies, January in Baltimore, Maryland. We're going up to Toronto. Coming back to Carolines in New York City in March. Headlining those rooms. So please check out timdilloncomedy.com.

All the links for tickets are on the website. Enjoy the episode. We'll be back. We've got another episode coming on Patreon with Luke Radowski, the guy who stormed Epstein's Island in the Virgin Islands. He's going to come on the show. Also, we have Patrons coming up

with always the great Ray Kump. And, you know, folks, we'll have more shirts working on a Meghan McCain shirt that could be epic, but it's got to be done the right way. It's got to be done the right way. I know somebody that knows her. They were with her the other night. She's not a fan of me, understandable.

And we're working on that. We are working on that. Be great to do Rogan with her, me, as her. Her, as her. Joe, as Joe. Fun times. When does this come out? Oh, tonight.

Merry Christmas, everybody. Happy New Year. Happy Kwanzaa. Happy Hanukkah. Happy Winter Solstice. Happy fucking holiday. Whatever the sadness are, Sam Tripoli will know what holiday fucking celebrate.

Happy holidays. Somebody on Little St. James is singing like in that Robert Goulet voice. Happy holidays. Fucking wild fucking world we live in, man. It's truly unhinged to an alarming degree. Really is. Not much can be done.

This is how the boomers become the boomers, by the way. I'm going to become the same thing. People are going to come to me in 20 years if I'm still around and they'll be like, hey, the fuck's going on? I'll be like, can't get ahead. I'm always trying to get you. They're going to be like,

satanic pedophiles run the whole government. And you're like, not good. Got to make time to golf. Hit the ball a little bit. Play nine. Take some time. They give you the card and you're outraged. Be like, buddy, we were outraged years ago.

We were outraged decades ago. But then we decided that there's not really much left to do except eat meatballs and wait for death. Got to take a moment for yourself, you know? I'll, you know, I'll be going to see whatever act is like an old act at that time. I'm like, I'm going to see Lizzo. She's on a comeback tour, you know?

She lost her foot, diabetes, but she's back. She's playing the hits. So that's it, folks. That's what's going to happen. Boomers weren't born boomers. They became them and I understand. And it's, you know, all these politically active people that are on the right and the left, far right, far left,

they're going to realize that the system's just going to crush them like everybody else. Don't call it a black pill, you stupid fucks. Oh, you're so black-pilling. It's not a black pill. It's the pill. It's the only pill. Go get a fucking life.

Go get married, have kids. Do whatever you want to do. Don't cocoon yourself on Twitter with a bunch of losers. It's not going to work. The revolution's not coming. Shut up. Go find something to fucking do. I'm not saying don't be, you know, concerned.

Don't care, but care about real people in real life. Fucking jump on the hashtags. Shut up. Get a life. How about in 2020 you get a fucking life? I was talking about Elizabeth Warren and Donald Trump. They don't care about you. Doesn't matter to them.

You're a statistic on a sheet. You need to take care of yourself. You'd be eaten alive. It's the truth. You don't want to think like that. You think your tweet's going to save you. You think one of these sociopaths who spends their time eating children

is going to turn around and like you, you know, like you. You think you're going to send them a letter about your papa. Don't work at the factory. And they're going to be, oh, I got this letter about a baby. Shut up. Grow up.

You've grown up. Go to Washington DC. Walk around. It's all demons from hell. It's all it is. All the people that write about politics, talk about politics. They're soul, these are kids

who've never been invited to parties. They've never had any fun. They've never laughed. They're like drones. They've had their souls replaced by teleprompters. And fucking listicles. These people's, are you looking their eyes? There's nothing there.

They just go on MSNBC or Fox and they spout inane nonsense. And you people, oh, oh, look what this one said. Look what that one said. No, no. Get a fuck. Go be somebody. Go start a fucking drug business.

Become a crisis actor. Go fake terrorist attacks. Go do something real. You know? We will be, I'll be putting out on the Patreon an article about the Buster Marathon bombing if you want to talk to your family over the weekend about something.

Merry Christmas. Why can't we hear from Dolkar Zahranayev? Happy holidays. Why does Dolkar Zahranayev not able to give an interview? Is it because the FBI used him and his brother as informants and then said they didn't know who they were and that they probably were not sophisticated enough

to make that bomb? Maybe the FBI allowed them to have a bomb so that they could catch other people with bombs and then that bomb went off and then they decided to lie and say that they didn't know who they were and then they got caught in a boat. One of them was shot.

They were clearly trying to shoot both of them and then they also killed a cop on MIT for no reason. They didn't even really try to get away. They just drove around on Boston. Happy holidays. You know, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do?

Hi. That's my new attitude in 2020, that voice. Hi. Hi. I'm in comedy now has been invaded by wealthy white women. Every night you just perform to Ugg Boots. Ugg Boots and $400 sweaters that just stare at you. They want you to talk about dating and avocado toast.

I just wanna know, is Jeff serious or not? That's what they wanna talk about. They're all just Chardonnay. Chardonnay and Ugg Boots to misery and Ahara. Life's an unending, merciless hell. Enjoy the holidays, folks. If you have a turkey, let me say this before I leave. If you have a turkey again on Christmas,

you're a fucking psychopath. You should have turkey on Thanksgiving and at Christmas you have a meat. You have Chateaubriand, filet mignon, you have steak. You know, you have maybe a ham. You have pasta, seven fishes. You know, pasta like a lasagna or whatever. You don't have turkey again.

If you have turkey again, you're from a sick place with sick people and you need to get away from them ASAP. If you're going to someone's holiday for the first time and they're having turkey, get the fuck away from them. Get away from them. I wish if I could do it all over again, I'd be heterosexual, I'd be a banker. I would date one of these fucking Ugg Boots

that I have to make laugh and we would go to Ugg Boots house and we'd meet Mother Ugg. Mother Ugg would be drinking maybe a little brandy and she'd go, hello, hi, Colton. My name would be Colton. And I'd have a Patagonia jacket and leather boots and I'd say, hello, my name is Colton. I went to Princeton and she'd say, hi, Colton.

My name is Felicity and this is my husband, Benson. And he'd say, hello, Colton, I'm Benson. You know, I went hunting earlier this year. And we'd be in secret societies and we'd wear hoods and we'd go in the middle of a field. I don't know what they'd do. They'd probably do like a big dance number where they're like, Satan is great.

Satan is great. Satan is great. But whatever, okay? But I'm not in the fucking green room of a comedy club. I gotta entertain a bunch of Ugg Boots. Is he gonna be funny? I don't know. Would Tina Turner have been good

if she didn't get smacked in the face? Yes or no? These are questions for the holiday Christmas. Or would she have phoned it in? How do you get what's love got to do with it? You get that if you're happy? No, stop wanting your entertainers to be happy. There's a lot of entertainers that are happy and healthy

and that's why everything is dog shit. It is dog shit and you like it. Because entertainment now is just something that you know happened, you dumb fucks. Oh, he's talking about Uber. I take Uber's, entertainment. That's not it, that ain't it. The highest sacrament now is being relatable.

How disgusting is that? You have to go into their world. They don't want to come into your world. You have to go into their world in their fucking dumb world. They're dumb world, whatever these retards are talking about. Just disgusting. I gotta go now and perform for the sorority that's here.

Fucking Fairfield, Connecticut, snow bunnies. I'm gonna have to get up there and tell them the truth. Tell them that the country is run by a cabal of demons. That's what I'm gonna tell them. And I will also do jokes about the death of the diner, declining quality of Wendy's and other important things that while they might not be as important or certainly important,

certainly not gonna skip over them. Thank you. You'll let me know when I have to go, right? I love you, thanks. We're firing everyone after tonight. I'm gonna fire everyone. In every comedy club I work, I bring them in, I go. We appreciate it, but tonight's gonna be it.

Tonight's gonna be it for you. Thanks for coming. Tonight's gonna be it. We've enjoyed it. We hope you've enjoyed it. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. That's how I'd fire. If I had a business, I'd fire everyone like that.

I'd go, hey, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. And they'd go, what do you mean? I'd go, you're out. That's what I mean. My heart goes out to everybody who's working on Christmas, like myself, by the way, I'm fucking working too. So don't give me nothing.

I got seven shows on New Year's Eve. So the reality of the situation, folks, is this. Some guys just emailed me, hey, how's next Monday morning, or Tuesday morning, or even Sunday? For what? Is this guy mentally ill? Oh, this is this.

Oh, I like this guy. This is Al Tucher. I like James Al Tucher. Yeah, some kid asked me to do the show in Highland Park. No, no, no, no more, no more. No more. I'm gonna start diving into the audience at these hipster shows and biting people in the face.

And we'll see how many shows I get asked to do. Hey, was Tim doing funny the other night? You know, he was doing okay, but then you just bit someone's face. The cops had to come. So we're not gonna invite him anymore. Yeah, leave me alone. Hey, if you don't own a club, don't message me.

Unless you're in skull and bones and you're fucking, you can get me in. These retards call me, they're like, I'm in the Penn States combos. Hey, shut the fuck up. Yeah, I'm in the National Community College combo. Shut up, please. You fucking delist, fucking scabs.

I can't get a goddamn real elitist. I got these fucking tertiary people, third and fourth tier, nobody's messaging me. I'm trying to get a real elite, a Rothschild, something like that. Getting these fucking nobodies. These fucking, the fourth or fifth guy that rounds out the fucking golf trip

that nobody gives a shit about. He's messaging me, tell me. Yeah, it's really like not even that cool. Yeah, I know it isn't. I'm talking to you. God, stand up comedy sucks. It really is the worst art form. I mean, it's the best, but it sucks so much.

Who's that guy? Fire him. Fire him, he's fired. Who's that? He's getting, I'm firing him. Care for that guys. Everybody's gonna get fired, by the way. I walk around, fire everybody.

Hello, sir. How are you? What's your name again? Tim Dillon, nice to meet you. Have a good holiday. Are you excited about the holiday? You excited about the holiday? Fuck yeah.

You're Puerto Rican? You do not look Puerto Rican. A white guy just walked in and was like, I'm cooking Puerto Rican. Like, what does that mean? You're cooking up Puerto Rican? It's interesting. Well, have a good holiday, sir.

We'll wrap this up, folks, because frankly, I'm not paid enough to do what I do. I give you everything for free and you take a shit in my throat. Okay. Every other podcast, you've got nine houses. I'm struggling to feed that fat cat in LA. Okay, I should have named my podcast,

Avocado Toast in your Pussy. And then I'd have 75 million people listening to it. And I talk about my dry snatch like everybody else, because that's what everybody wants. They wanna hear about your dry snatch and how fucked up you got in college and at your friend's wedding. Okay, we're not doing that.

Okay, we're telling you the truth. And that's hard to fucking monetize. So if I could do it all over again, I'd be a single loudmouth Jewish with a dry snatch. Eh-heh-heh-heh, goodbye! Hi, I'm Timmy the Trash Cam and I love trash. Popcorn boxes, pops and candy wrappers. They all taste so good.

Instead of throwing your trash on the floor, won't you please give it to me? Thank you for considering your fellow patrons. Christmas week is now, this is the week between Christmas and New Year's. When you were a little kid, this was the best week of the year because you could play with all the toys you got at Christmas

and you were off from school and all of your friends were off from school and it made it the best week of the year. When you're an adult, this week is harrowing. It's horrible. It's like a hangover for an entire week. You don't know what time it is, you don't know what day it is,

you're not at work, nothing's going on, but you're not also not at work somehow. You're like involved, you know work is coming. It's a nightmare week. It doesn't ever feel like it should be daylight out, you walk outside. It's like, if you were ever, if you went to, I went to parties in high school,

not to brag, I went to a few parties and every now and then I used to love drugs and alcohol, so I would wake up the next day at the party house, which by the way, bad move and a real omen of things to come. If you're waking up at the party house, it means you have a problem, but what I saw is what you should never see, which is the house the day after the party.

It has that dank feel, it smells bad, it's just ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts, stains from your hope booze, and you're looking around the house and there's just sun peering in, illuminating the filth, which seemed so fun only a few hours before. It seemed okay. The family that embraced this, that lived like this,

that opened their home and allowed you to trash it, you thought, these are good people. They let us come in here, do drugs, alcohol with them, with their children. They let us trash the small piece of real estate they happen to own. They let us depress the value of it for several hours, and then we all leave, we don't give a fuck.

And if you still leave at 3 a.m. in the dark and you wake up in your house or somebody else's house, you're fine and that magic still stays with you and that's an important magic to retain for as long as possible. But when you wake up the next day at the party house and you see it in the day and you see the family in the day, these people, these vampires that are sunlight,

they scatter around like roaches. You say to yourself, this is not good. This is what the week between Christmas and New Year's feels like to a person. You feel like you are seeing something you shouldn't see. You feel like it should go Christmas and then you have like an hour or two and then New Year's party and then let's go.

It's a new year. We're in this weird vortex between the absolute hell and the vapid conversations you have to suffer through with your family. Oh my God, it doesn't feel like Christmas is here. I don't, you know, the, you know, and I went to my part and this is the end of, and I've been pretty open about this.

This is my final year spending the holidays with my family. And I will, because I want to be successful and I've realized that success requires to constantly keep climbing. And when I look around these parties, these holiday parties I'm at, I'm like there's very little room to move up in this structure, you know?

There's nowhere to really go. We've done it and I'm thankful and they're good people, these people, but next year I think I'll go to an island or I'll get away somewhere and I'll, or maybe I'll go spend it with friends. I was invited to spend it with friends this year and I said, no, I'm going to go

and I'm going to spend it with my family. And it was nice and it was only nice because I felt like it was a kind of the closing of a chapter and here's my thing, and I'll throw this out there too. The phoning it in of the holidays across the board has got to stop and this is happening. The older generations are now dead or they're dying.

They're bedridden, they can't do anything anymore. They're old, they're there, they're sitting in a chair. We love them, we thank them, but they're not the captain of the ship. My grandmother has died, my nanny is left, but she's not really doing anything anymore. So the responsibility for the holidays falls on the baby boomers, a selfish generation of people

who have sucked everything out of this country and given it nothing. Demonic drug addicts who were drunk on cheap credit for their entire lives, mortgaged their future, mortgaged our future, disgusting, selfish, hedonistic people without honor, without valor, without intelligence. And I say this with all due respect, many of them are fans, but that generation largely, not all of them,

but a lot of them, it's phoning in time. And like one of them said to me, and I'm not gonna say who, but because this is my family, but it's also there's other people's families involved, and I just observed holidays on Facebook and Twitter, people, paper plates, plastic cups. Is it a go fund me?

I thought that was a go fund me. I thought I was gonna take out a credit card and donate to you. Why are you advertising your inability to own glassware? I mean, this is really something that I've seen, I've seen these, look at photos, I'm not making this up. Look at photos of holidays from the 50s, from the 60s, from the 70s, from the 80s.

Look at photos of holidays now. Everybody's dressed like a bum. People are sitting in the basement with red solo cups. It's like you're playing a beer pong in the basement, like a fucking child. People go to supermarkets to cater the meal. Supermarkets where the staff is on heroin, okay? I went with my father, he goes,

we're picking up some food, we're having catered, not from a caterer, not from a restaurant, from the supermarket. We went to the supermarket and got the food. Can you imagine? This is the day Christ was born. Come to our house and you could eat supermarket food in the den.

This is ridiculous. Why have a holiday? Somebody said to me, they're like, nobody cares where the food comes from. Yes, they do, I do, I do. I don't get it. I also don't get this potluck dessert where you just give up and you go, well, I'll host,

but I need everybody else to bring dessert because I can't manage to buy a dessert or make a dessert, even though I'm hosting the party and it is my responsibility to ensure that people have a good time. I'm gonna just let whatever dirt bags I have coming over, stop at some local fucking 7-Eleven and buy a fucking cheesecake and have them bring it over.

I'm gonna let my aunt make a chocolate pudding pie that looks like a child made it, where the crust is uneven and the mousse is overflowing and it looks like a Jell-O no bake. Remember those? Remember when Jell-O came out and said to fat people, you shouldn't go near an oven, you're fat. But what about if we gave you something

you could just stir, put in the refrigerator for a half hour and then eat like a pig on your couch while you watch the Drew Carey show? And it sold well, sold well, but that's what we're eating. Pudding pie. There was a dessert, I swear to Christ called dirt. There's a dessert called dirt.

These were adults. These were adults, it was a bowl and they told you how they made it. They weren't embarrassed, they told you how they made it. Whip cream pudding, cream cheese, it's just this glop that looks like human shit and then they take cookies and crumble the cookies up and put them on the top and then they put gummy worms in it

so that it looks like the dirt. How about bringing actual dirt? Could it have been more insulting if you brought actual dirt with real worms? I mean, this is disgusting and people eat it like it's okay, not okay. If you host, you do the dessert. You don't trust people to bring shit to your home.

You know what they're gonna do. They're gonna do it on the fucking cheap because they're just gonna fucking, nobody knows who brought what. That's what it is. If you do a potluck dessert, you still have to stand in a circle and go, what did you bring?

And you should be judged fucking harshly. But nobody does that. They throw it on the table and they run away to the other room. They don't give a fuck that nobody's eating. They're garbage fire of a fucking dessert because they're gone. So again, when I was growing up,

we had a New Year's Day party and the New Year's Day party, we had great food but the dessert was peach melba. One dessert, that was it. Now I know people now, they're like, well, you know, some people are chocolate people. Some people aren't, some people want cheesecake. You know what, folks?

We're trying to please everyone and we're pleasing no one. That's what we're doing. We're trying to include everyone and we're including no one, okay? So it bothers me. Again, I just felt a lot of the food where I was was phoned in, phoned in. And I don't like that because I remember

when I was growing up, my grandmother and my nanny and the men as well, everybody would help. They would really get into it. They would cook for days and it was a mark of pride. It was a mark of pride, how great the food was. Everyone looked forward to it all fucking year. Now these people go to a supermarket and buy something.

They buy macaroni and cheese that somebody stirred in an Oxy-Cotton Frenzy in Long Island. I, what are we doing? Why are you inviting me to your home? I'm insulted. I don't know how, you're not insulted. I mean, I try not to yell, but it gets angry. And I know that everyone says you on Reddit,

everyone's like, you're loud and fat. And that's very instructive. I had no idea. I appreciate that. I appreciate your candor. These guys will hopefully fix the levels. It's very tough for me. I know on Kill Tony everyone was like, you're loud.

You're loud on it. Because I'm playing to a room of people, it's 300 people. And when I get worked up, I get worked up. And you know, it's not my fault. You should be watching Kill Tony. I don't know who listens to Kill Tony. Kill Tony is a visual experience. You're watching on the live stream, you watch the YouTube.

But I am trying, I'm working on that. I'm working on not being as loud, but I get angry. Cause there's real issues. There are real problems. I saw people's holidays and I just, I sit back and I judge on social media. And I think that, listen, I think that I understand people that say, you know what?

We're going to use paper and plastic. And you know what? I'm not saying in every instance, that's not appropriate. Okay. What I'm saying is that the formality of the holiday to me matters. And I think you should, you should say to yourself, you know what?

We're going to let everybody drink at a big boy cups and they're going to eat on plates like people. We're not going to give them, we're not going to give them plastic knives that break in the food and forks where they, the fucking things fly off. We're going to give them real utensils because Christ was born today.

And whether you're, whatever you feel religiously the significance of that event, my stepmother got everybody slippers. She does this every year. She gets a gift for the whole group. Last year it was Snuggies, you know? I always try to talk about 9-11 when she hands out the Snuggies to everybody.

Everyone's like, it's so soft. It's so soft. I said, why, why did building seven fall? It wasn't even hit. It's just fun. I like to have fun because you end up in these conversations with people that are vapid and meaningless.

People are talking about why they, why they decided to become a teacher. Could anything, we know why you decided to become a teacher because you don't like to work and you have nothing to offer the world. That's, we get it. We get it. Why'd you become a teacher?

You're not a fan of hard work and you don't have anything to offer. That's the only thing anyone should ever say why they became a teacher. Became a teacher. Like it's a fucking, like you won the Heisman. You're gonna go through your story and start talking about how you did it.

What was your origin story? Tell us, tell us. As you went to college and you realized you wanted to have the two best months of the year off where you did nothing and you wanted to be done with your job every day by 2.30. Ah, okay. Listen, my grandmother was a teacher.

I know a lot of teachers get mad at me because I talk a lot of shit about them like I just did. But the reality of the situation is this, I never shit on teachers until they started saying they had the most important job in the world, which you don't, it's not even in the top 100 jobs that are important teaching.

You know, here's why everyone wants to do it. There's no shortage of people doing it, okay? So if you decide to not go to work tomorrow, there's fucking a trillion people called subs that are there to step in and can do your job immediately, maybe not as good as you, but they can do your job,

they can approximate your job. But this is what you gotta do and you're there on the holidays, you gotta sit down and you gotta tolerate that. You have to tolerate that as an appropriate conversation. Someone in the room telling you why they decided to be a teacher and you have to sit there and go,

yeah, I said you decided that you wanted to, you just wanted to be a teacher. Oh, that's great. It's ridiculous. So we get these slippers and then she's like, everyone put the slippers on. I don't wanna put the slippers on, okay? I wanna tie a noose around my neck,

but she didn't buy everyone a noose. That would be funny. You know what, I got everyone this year, a noose. Funny, she goes, that would have been a great gift. She goes, 2019 is gonna be rough, but don't worry everyone, I gotta sell nooses. That would have been too dark,

people would have gotta set. So we all put the slippers on to take a photo with everyone with the slippers on, okay? To commemorate this. And then one of my aunts starts, like we're all standing in a circle with the dumb slippers. One of my aunts like, do the hokey pokey and everyone starts doing the hokey pokey.

And I'm standing there and I wanna kill myself. I literally wanna end my own life. I wanna grab something sharp and stab myself and I want my blood to sputter out while everyone's doing the hokey pokey. Because I'm like, this is fucking crazy that this is going on right now. The hokey fucking pokey.

We're all adults, there's no children here. There are no kids. This is an important distinction. There are no kids, these are all adult people. They're doing the hokey pokey. And it's like, all right, well, you're not really listening to this show if you're doing the hokey pokey.

You probably don't wanna hear that George H. W. Bush might've had a hand in killing Kennedy or at least knew who did. You don't wanna hear about satanic pedophile cults and you don't wanna hear about the Russian mob. You don't wanna hear about the deep state, the underworld, the overworld. I get it, it's fine, it's fine with me.

You don't wanna hear about the Craigslist sex stories. You don't wanna hear about the morgue and dead hookers, red cump finding things in the cavities of people's bodies, fine. There's gotta be a happy medium between that and the fucking hokey pokey. And then my dad is a musician. My dad sits down, he starts to play guitar.

And here's the thing with my dad, I love my dad. My dad is very talented, he's a great guitar player and he hasn't done it in a while and he can still play guitar. But the songs he's writing are not good anymore. He's, they're not good songs anymore because he's out of practice, okay? And he's just writing about the shit he does every day.

He's a wine salesman, he sells wine. So all of the fucking songs are like, I took the train today to sell a little wine. I go into the city and I go and I sell red wine. Sometimes it's white wine. And I'm like, you know, you're really describing your day with three chords of music. This is not, they're just not deep songs

because he's checked out. He's at an age where he's got his wife, he's got his three dogs who he loves and they're all named, Maya's named after Maya Angelou. Ruth is named after Ruth Bittiginsburg and Fred is named after Frederick Douglass. I swear to God, I don't know why they're so, these politically charged names or whatever,

but his wife's a big liberal and the kids a big liberal, the grandparents are huge liberals. So this is, they're into this shit. And he tells people about the names, the history of the names of the dogs. No one cares. He did it at my grandmother's funeral. It was wildly inappropriate.

People were crying. He's showing the pictures going, Fred is named after Frederick Douglass. He was like, hey, cool it, reign it in, reign it in. But he, he starts singing these songs and he's like, I take a newspaper ride on the train with coffee that I drink to sell the wine.

What? And I'm sitting here everyone's like, this is fucking great. He's like, I want to move down South cause it's summertime everywhere. I'm like, God, writing songs are so fucking easy. I was sitting there going, man, if I did that shit, writing songs are so goddamn easy and pointless. In the summer it is hot, but in the winter it is not.

And if you have an acoustic guitar behind it, people are like, oh yeah, this is great. He's an artist, he's an artist. All these other idiots in the room are like, this is deep, this is deep shit, this is good. And then my uncle's girlfriend's son, who's 47, I don't know how old she is, a hundred. She looks great, but her son, I figured your son's coming.

He's 47, I'm like, oh, he's elderly. Your elderly son is coming. So he walks in, he's also a guitarist. So he starts to play. And I swear to God, he goes, I was spending time with my friend that she has an 11 year old son and me and the 11 year old started to write a song together.

So then he goes and plays the song that an 11 year old wrote. I swear to God, and he's like, and it's all based on the colors. He's like, rainbow, shine, blue, what are you gonna do? Green, green, green, whatever, and yellow, you're so mellow.

And I'm like, are you fucking that kid? Because that's a bad song. How are you, how are you a 47 year old man? You're gonna play a song an 11 year old wrote and he's like, children, it's just so beautiful. You know where their minds go? And I'm like, what? Children are idiots, they're stupid.

And their thoughts are worthless. Okay, for the most part. Okay, I know sometimes like a child's, like they have that child like wonder and they're like, they're nice and they're like, they're like, they don't know what genocide is yet and they don't live stream from some bunker and there's lots of benefits to them.

But I don't wanna hear a song written by children, it's stupid, but my father's songs weren't all that much better. I'm on the train with coffee, it's the morning, later on it'll be the afternoon. And so I'm watching these two people sing these world respect retarded songs, literally retarded songs.

Blue, what are you gonna do? And we're on the den and they're playing these guitars. Red, what do you say when it's red? Violet, it's like, what? And I just, I'm checking out, I'm just really, and I said to myself, I said, this is great, I'm enjoying this, it's lovely. And I'm not, but I'm saying this is nice

because this is the end, this is the final Christmas. Well, last Christmas, I wish everyone well and next Christmas, I don't know what I'll do. I don't know where I'm going, but it is not, there's no more sing-along, hokey pokey shit going on. We're done, no more supermarket pie, no more, so what made you wanna be a teacher? I've never met a teacher before.

Is it the benefits and the exorbitant amount of money? Is that it? Is it the time you have off? Is it the relatively short day? Is it the commute from your home? Is it the fact that you get to boss people around all the time that aren't of age? Well, you know, folks, I don't wanna sound bitter.

They did get me, they did get me slippers. I did get slippers. All right, we are here in the kitchen of Savocano, who just got me four slices of cheesecake. This is, you know, when you have friends like this, it's like, you know, it's very easy to stay on the straight and narrow and stay in a good place food-wise when you have people like this in your life

that really treat you well. This is, the cheesecake is the best cheesecake, I think, in New York. You know, I'm so glad that you say that because I respect your opinion. We've got to eat a bunch. We talk food a bunch. I also just see your Instagram and whatnot.

I look to you as an authority. I do. And I, see, I share a love, but you have way more education on food than I do. Well, my family's in the business to an extent, right? I mean, my uncle is, and we grew up around really good restaurants, and I really, it's the one other business

that I would consider getting into. Like, I love comedy, I love being a comedian, but if I succeeded on the level of you, you know, or, you know, in that orbit, would it be something I played around with the idea of like opening a small restaurant? Really, you would? Yeah.

You know, I was talking the other night, we went out to dinner, it was me and Andrew Schultz and Yannis and Chris, and I'm like, I'm coming to everybody in five years for investors in a restaurant. And they all loved it, because we all, you know, we all like eating and going, but-

I'm investing in one now from a childhood friend. Yeah, it's a thing like, I've just observed the business for so long, and I have a great asset in my uncle, a great resource. Sure. That I feel like I would, you know, listen, everything's a risk, but I think with the right amount of money,

it would be a calculated risk. So I would like a million dollars before I leave. You know, I have a menu on my phone that I will show you. No, but this cheesecake is from Peppalino's. Yeah, which I stumbled upon. It's, I mean, everybody says juniors, I like juniors, SNS and the Bronx is great, blah, blah, blah. But this place is the lightest cheesecake on the planet.

Let's not get it to, I mean, I've had plenty of amazing cheesecake, some that have blown my balls off. So, but you know, when I give this cheesecake to you and you confirm what I feel, it means the world because sometimes if you can believe it, I've given this cheesecake to people who are like, it's really good.

I don't know if it's the best I've had. Well, you know what it is, my friend, I sent my friend and his girlfriend to Don Angie, which is in a restaurant in the West Village the other day. One of the most interesting Italian restaurants, really good food, you know, phenomenal food. And, you know, they were basically like, oh, it's okay. And it's like, but you don't know the difference.

What are you looking for? Yeah, what are you looking for? Cause you need a simple dish. Yeah. A simple dish. People could look at a simple dish and be like, oh, it's just, you know, it's just rigatoni with a little bit of red sauce. It's like, no, no, you have to understand something.

There's distinguishments between those things. This is made perfectly. It's really, it's the line from, I think it was, you know, I forget, maybe it was the bird cage where it was just like, you know, most people are animals. It's like, if you can't appreciate something, don't pretend like, I don't know a lot about fashion. I know very little about fashion, right?

So I don't walk around Madison Avenue and tell people what's what. I don't tell people, is that jacket worth 10 grand? Maybe it is. To me, it's not, but I don't know. So if it's worth it to you and that's how you want to spend your money, go do it. But I don't tell people their value system is wrong, you know?

Cause I don't know about it. I don't know what lamb skin leather is. I'm sure it's great. It sounds nice. And fashion is a lot like art where it is wholly subjective and questionable. And it's person to person and there's no right or wrong. Food, your body tells you.

Yes. Is excellent. Food is not here, it doesn't lie. Yeah, I think it's more like sports because athleticism to me is about consistency. Like somebody that can do something over and over again, better than everybody else. To me, that is 100% like what you look for in a restaurant.

Like they're hitting the mark more often than not, all the time. That doesn't mean every single meal, but it means... Or maybe every dish on the menu. That's why I'll never write some place up. Well, I'll write a place off of everything's terrible, the service and the food. You could tell right away, you go, oh shit,

this is, I got myself into shit here. But if something like, you know, sometimes one dish, that's why I always ask, a lot of times I'll ask the waiter, is there a dish on this menu that you think is prepared in a more unique way? Or a way that you think is special and I need to try. I'll always defer to them. Hopefully they say what I wanted.

Because then if they don't, it's a little bit of a conflict. Then it's a tug of war. I've always asked a waiter, I love when I, sometimes you'll go to a place and they're very honest. Like Long Island, for example, they are brutally honest. And a lot of the waitresses at diners and stuff are older and they just don't care anymore about anything. And you'll say, is there something here you like?

And they go, I don't need anything here. You know, they just have that gritty voice of somebody. She's like, I wouldn't need anything. Yeah. You're like, okay, well, you know, I think, are you a guy that grew up eating good stuff? Or is it something you came to kind of later on? No, I didn't, I wouldn't say grew up in any type of,

I didn't have a palate for anything like that. No, not at all. Just homemade stuff, maybe. Yeah. My grandma cooked really well, my grandpa. And my stepmom cooks really well. Do you cook? No, I don't.

Right. My lady is a great cook. Yeah, phenomenal. I had Super Bowl party food that was beyond belief. But I don't actually, and I lived alone for like a cool decade. And I was the guy that did complete basics or I just bought my food.

Now that the show is so big, it's massive now. It's worldwide. You guys are on stadium tours, arena tours, things like that. Do you ever look back at, like what do you miss the most? You're just not able to do now, because I've gone out with you and it's amazing to me. I know how successful you are, but it's so,

when you go out with, I mean, we've gone to Broadway shows where the entire theater turns around and looks at you when you walk in the theater. You know, and I like it because I pretend to look at me too. I like that. I kind of do a wave and I post, but you are really just a magnet for people. And you say people come up to you on the street,

they'll just start recording you. Blessing and a curse. First of all, on places like, it doesn't always happen, but I live, the other guys are more open to it than I, especially Joe and James on the show, which I envy. James actively welcomes it. And I think that that's probably better than what I do. And it's not that I don't appreciate it

or welcome it or anything like that. It's just that I'm, by nature, a very much more private person I always have been. I prefer not to be noticed. And especially if I, you know, these days that we're humans and we don't want to talk to anybody, I find I have to do a low hat and a hood and things like that a lot.

It helps a little bit, even if it deters 50% or whatever. But you get to, I have to constantly remind myself, I just fucking relax because, well, you don't realize it starts festering and I end up getting social anxiety. Because I feel like people looking at me. Let me tell you, just from the other side, it is much worse to not have to disguise yourself

and not be noticed. That is much worse. I know several people in that position, me being one of them, and it is far preferable to be like, how do I sneak into this restaurant? Instead of being like, well, I could just walk to this restaurant naked and no one will care at all.

It's just that, you know, it is, it is just what it is. It's just like, I never turned down a kid. I'm open to talking to anyone at any time. It's just that if I'm with, if I'm on, like if I'm with my, you know, significant other or with children or my grandma or things like that, or in the middle of chewing at a restaurant, just certain times it's like,

eesh, I wish this wouldn't happen. Other than that, open to whatever. And also especially when people are very respectful, yeah, most of them, you know, a lot of times they'll just turn on the camera, which is just a weird fucking thing. Yeah, it's a weird thing. Something is broke in somebody's mind

if they don't know that they're broke. I'm not even, I'm fucking basic cable successful. You know, I'm making my way in comedy. Don't get me wrong. I would never change anything for the world. And I'm more successful than I ever thought I was. I can't even imagine what real celebrities and real successful people and real like movie stars.

Who do you consider real celebrities? I mean, the people that are globally famous for decades and decades. What would you select? I don't know, Tom Hanks, Bill Smith. I don't know these people, Beyonce or Kim Kardashian. These people, well, then again, here's the thing though. They, their success, their wealth,

I think matches their success in a way that they can set up an infrastructure to navigate something like that. It's hard to be able to run up to Beyonce with an iPhone. I would say. It is. And what's the weirdest phenomenon I learned is now it's a little different. But when we first got on TV,

people just equate television and any type of fame with complete wealth. Yeah, right. But I was making- People think I make millions of dollars. I live in a box. I made a very modest, if not low wage for the first few years.

Of course. So like, I'm, you know, I'm the same as having a decent regular job. And everyone just thinks, you know, and then, but then the show is getting popular to a place where they play it so much that everyone kind of knows me. But then my, my, I don't have the infrastructure

to shield myself from anything like that. So I'm just out there, man. How does this idea of becoming a comedian happen in your life? Like, how does this start? Wanted to be a comedian since I'm a child. Oh, wow. Okay.

Don't know why or how. I did some school stuff on stage, got some laughs. I was a class clown, but not like disrespectful, just fucking the guy that I made everyone laugh. Right. Through grammar school and high school, at least I feel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know.

And I just, I always wanted to, I just, I idolized Eddie Murphy and Bill Cosby as a kid. Right. And how do you link up with the jokers eventually? Do you start on your own and then beat them? Yeah, sure. So I started doing improv at first. I was too nervous to just stand up.

I actually, like 20 years ago, maybe even more, I did like stand up writing classes because I was so desperate to want to beat one, but I was too nervous to get up and I didn't know anyone and I didn't know how to get my foot in the door. So what is the stand up writing class? So I did that God from Writers workshop and I went, and it was like a stand up comic teaching a class

and he'd give writing assignments and we'd come in, read them, share them, critique them, come back, refine them. And I think like, it's like eight weeks or 12 weeks or it was you'd have a class show. You know what's funny? There are people in that, that took that class with you that bring it up. They're like, I took that class with Sal.

There's no way they remember who. You don't think so? No way in the world. Well, though I will tell you, I remember the teacher and I remember no joke. I remember like, at least by face, if not name, almost a whole like dozen people in that class and only one person I thought was really,

could have been a comic. Everyone else was, cause it's a mixture. It's like, oh, I want to be better at public speaking. Oh, I want to be better at parties. It's like, you know, fuck you. I'm trying to, you know what I mean? But it was, oh, me and my friends still talk about it. There was this old German couple, okay?

I could find their names because I kept the class contact sheet. Cause like, I'm a hoarder and I keep shit like that. I have it to this day. That's amazing. And we'd come in and, you know, this is, we were writing on legal pants. You should call all of those people

and tell them how much more successful you are than that. But you should just call them and go, hey, we took a class 20 years ago at Gotham. I don't know if you remember me. What have you guys been up to? Here's what I want to do. I'm going to find, I know I have the sheet because, because recently the Staten Island Museum

did an exhibit on us from high school to now. And it was there for like eight months. And I dug through all this stuff to give them all these, like they put them in like the, you know, like, oh, here's the email where we decided what the name of this group was and all this shit. And I found that. So I know I have it.

Next time I do your, next time I do your podcast, I'll bring it, we'll go through the list. Amazing. We will call them. Amazing. I would love that. It would be fascinating. So you take that writing class, we'll talk to 2,000

around there. It was, it was 98. 98. I was in college. I was coming out of college and going to, I had a finance degree. I was going to go work at Prudential Securities. And I knew that that wasn't really what I,

look, you start college at 17. They're like, what do you want to do? And I'm just like, I have no clue. Nobody knows. How do you make money? I'm like, this was my literal reasoning at 17. Don't know what I want to do. Know I want to make money.

Finance means money. Right. So I'll do finance. Didn't know any, I didn't know what it meant. Didn't know what I was doing. Right. Picked it. Graduated with that degree.

Yeah. Mind you, hated it. Skated through college, got good grades. Cause I knew how to do school. Yeah. But I only retained things I was interested in. I have no knowledge of finance. I came out of the school,

I started working at Prudential Securities with a finance degree. And then I started going to these classes. I started going to acting classes at HB Studios. Just cause I needed to know that I was also doing that. You needed to have that, that thing that you were passionate about. Yeah.

You have some role in your life. You know what's funny too? Oh, we should do this. Okay. And also I think I believe that we used to write and we used to have to make photocopies of the material back to Gotham. Yeah.

And bring in, if there was 12 kids in the class, you would write your stuff and photocopy it and then give out your work to the other 12 people. So when you read it, everyone could read it out loud and critique. So we hand wrote. So I believe too that I saved other students material. Wow.

And the old German couple, they were no joke. I think they were about 70. They were like native New Yorkers. I love this. And they just were like a cute, fun loving couple that was still kind of in love, I guess, but they had thick accents. And they thought they were way,

they were pretty fucking cool. They're 70 and going to a Gotham workshop class together. But they also had an air of arrogance about them. Yeah. And they were beyond criticism in the class, which was fascinating. Right.

She thought, especially the woman, the guy was like, was like very like sophomoric in an endearing way. None of the material. This was hogwash material. Picture just handing a pencil and paper to a child and saying, right. Of course.

And I remember she came in and she was so proud one day and she's like, I have like this whole bit on dieting. And she went to go and he's like, all right, why don't you go ahead and I forget her name. And she goes, okay. And she like, everyone, she passed out of papers and she looks down and she was brimming with anticipation, like a smirking, like wait till you hear

what I'm about to drop on you. I remember this. An old, a 75 year old German. She had it figured. She looks up. She goes, and people cannot see my face, but you see what I'm right. She was like, wait, you're not ready for me.

Right. And then she said, dieting is not easy. You gain, you lose two pounds. You eat a slice of tomato. You gain three. And then she leaned back and waited, her lips and it was just like adorn me with cheers. It was amazing.

And then we were like, okay, you know, like, can you expound on it? She's like, I read you the joke. I've made the perfect joke. That was the joke that she wrote that week. That's so crazy. But you know, you get a glimpse in a classroom like that. What's very interesting is you get a glimpse

into I think the delusion that you need. I agree wholeheartedly. You need a little bit of delusion to push you through, especially the beginning. The beginning of comedy is brutal. And most people don't understand how brutal because they haven't done it. It's like you are, you're literally in a pitch black room,

and you don't know what you're doing. You don't know how, you don't know where to go, what to say, who to turn, what's good, what's not good. Something in your head you think is good is, by the way, my stuff was shit. Right. I remember, I just remember one of my topics, I was engaging in how like religious people are hypocrites.

I mean, I was raised Catholic. I went to Catholic school from kindergarten to senior of college. I'm not religious, but I was like, not what I say, they were doubled. My bit was how they, you're in church and you give this peace be with you. And then two minutes later,

they're all flipping each other off, cutting each other off in the parking lot when they're leaving and so on and so on. It wasn't good, but at least it was just touching upon something that I knew about or whatever it was. It wasn't, you gain, do you lose two pounds? You have a tomato, you gain three. Gain three, no.

Yeah, you weren't there. That's my droplet. But in the beginning, most people I think are, when you tell anybody that you're doing comedy, you're gonna be a comedian, there are people that think you're funny, that are supportive, but the idea that you would make a living at it

or you'd make a career of it, people are just like, okay, buddy. You know? Yeah, but nor did I know if I would make a career. I loved it. My goal at that point wasn't yet a career. It was like, because you know, honestly, a career feels pretty grand

unless you're sacrificing everything. Yes. And you know that I'm on a couch and I'm poor and I'm not doing anything but this and that's your goal, but I didn't commit that far yet. I had a full-time job. Really, that's what it's about, I think, because we tell everybody in our culture right now

that you can be whatever you wanna be, you can follow your dreams. These are all good and positive things to tell people, but we don't tell anybody about the word sacrifice. We don't, that is, it's been eliminated and there's something very design. And it's sacrifice everything. Everything.

It's not some things. Correct. It's sacrifice quality of life. Yes. Sacrifice sleep and health. Yes. Sacrifice personal relationships. Correct.

Sacrifice dignity. Correct. Sacrifice your own course. I just got sleep back. Yeah. I still have quality of life. I'm waiting for dignity back. We'll be thinking a year or two.

I just got where I can sleep a little better, but not there. But yeah, no, it is. And by the by, I still feel those things now, even with success. Sure. I mean, that's what I think people don't understand is that you, it really is everything.

Yeah. And when did you know that you were gonna make that sacrifice? At what point did that happen? Yeah. So the guys and I, we did improv. And you meet each other? We did improv.

We met in high school at 13 years old. That is what makes a show so great. You guys have known each other. 30 years this year. Wow. We met with the same exact age, all born in 76. We met as freshmen in the same exact school, 1990. And by the end of it, we weren't even like a click

or anything, but we just, we were all friendly. We went to a small school so we knew each other. Did improv in high school, we left. We all went separate ways. I continued, like I said, I tried to stand up. I took some acting classes. And then when we all got back from college in 98, we all were kind of still doing it a little bit.

So what's interesting is that you all went to college and then after college, you guys like, you were like, I ran into someone at the mall. Let's get the band back together. I ran into James at the mall. Wow. And he said, I started, he's like, I started an improv troupe at Georgetown.

They didn't have one. And actually James, James went to Georgetown with, he did improv there with Brabiglia, Kroll. And then when he left, Malaney came in, but all those guys were, Jack the Novak was a show now. Oh yeah, like Georgetown just put out the funniest, most successful.

Those guys like Malaine, I mean, come on, Jesus. Right, of course. Malaney, Brabiglia, God, even Kroll, those guys, I admire those guys. What's the story of, you know, it's just a story of how far you can go coming from poverty. You know what I mean? It's just, it's so impressive to see

very poor, underprivileged people figure it out. Like that's the American dream. I love everyone, but the... Ivy League schools really put out quality. Ivy Leagues. Yeah. No, but those guys are really not so funny because I literally, I mean, Malaney,

even the bigs, they're brilliant. They're brilliant. But yeah, so he came out of that little crop. And anyway, he was like, he's like, you want to try to do like improv and stuff? And I was like, yeah. I was like, let's call Joe. And then we called our buddy Mike Q. Brian Quinn

on the show. He was peripherally around. He was writing and working for Kevin Smith, actually I think, and doing like comic books. And he was writing movies and stuff. He was, he's very talented and he was always inclined that way. And he would join us at shows and like be a guest on shows.

But first it was our buddy Mike. And you guys were the tenderloins. Yes, that's correct. And so our buddy Mike now, he kind of left a long time ago, started a family that's very successful in his own right and went a different way. And then somewhere in the middle,

Q decided to join us. And then after that was when we got like, was when MySpace and YouTube started. And that's when we transferred all of the stage stuff. We moved on to sketch comedy. And then we moved on to filming those sketches and putting them online. Somebody at YouTube and somebody at MySpace saw them

would put them on the homepage. And sometimes they get hundreds of thousands of views in a couple of hours. And what had happened was, and I've told this story before, so I apologize if people listen and they've heard this stuff. But there was a competition NBC was having to find the best sketch comedy troupe.

And it was really their way of finding talent. They were posting an online competition. They were gonna turn it into a show. But instead of interviewing people, they just held an online competition for submissions. And every week they gave you a theme. And you had to turn over a sketch in a week. And if you won, you could win $1,000.

And they did that for like 20 weeks and hundreds of sketch troops from all over the country kept submitting. And it was online voting. And out of those 20 weeks, we won like 11 of them. So we won $11,000 in 20 weeks, filming these sketches with a handicap and the four of us. And they suck.

And were they similar to what you do in practical Joker style? No, absolutely not. They were just pure sketch comedy. They still live on YouTube online. Some of them hold up. Some of them are embarrassing. It is what it is. You need to crawl before you can walk.

I'm not even sure if I'm walking. And we will, $11,000 was like literally we won the Powerball. And then what they did was at the end of that run, it was going to be a studio show hosted by Carson Dilley on NBC called like The Battle of the What Have Yous. I don't know. And they took the five best videos they thought that they found from that whole thing,

which by the way, that was going to be their pilot episode. They got content for $5,000, cause five videos. And then they filmed a pilot and the audience voted and we won $100,000. Wow. And this was what year? This was 1997. So this is a big, I was sleeping on a couch. Yeah.

And in a little basin apartment and we split it. And I was like at the tax, it was like 20 grand each. And it was transformative because I didn't have to worry about like rent and stuff like that. And then the show never aired, but legally they had to pay us. So they paid us.

And from that, we got an agent. And then our agent was at a small boutique agency and later went to CAA and we migrated with him. So that's how we got a smaller agent to a bigger agent. And then after that, we started writing and pitching TV shows. How many shows would you say that you pitched before Impractical Jokers was born?

Probably 20. 20 shows going into the pitch meeting. How many sold? Sold 20. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. We pitched 20, maybe sold four. So for people that don't understand,

you go in and pitch a show, when you sell a show, in most cases, not always, but you film a pilot. Yeah, if you're lucky. Sometimes they could just sort of present a shorter version of it. Yeah, you film a pilot episode of the show. So you did that a few times.

We did pilot presentation about four times. Four times. Everything from like, we had to show a single camera scripted, like almost like it's always sunny. That was the first bite. We got Fox and Spike offered to buy it. And we were nervous to go with Fox.

Yeah. And we thought, if we went with Spike, it was a much smaller boutique thing, aimed at guys our age. Did you think Fox would just chew you up and spit you out? Fox even offered more money to shoot it, but we just thought, well, they're gonna,

they're gonna take a flyer on 100 shows and maybe pick two or three. Right. Spike might be doing 10, 15 shows and picking two or three. Right. So we went with Spike. It was a learning experience.

The production company that we did it with, they were a little green too, I think. And then the end of it, we both learned a lot. It wasn't the best experience. Now, during this process of pitching shows and pilots, there's, is everybody 100% in or do you have to grab one of you guys one point and go, no, it's gonna work out.

There's like, does somebody, is it because you had that early success? You had that 100,000, you won that contest that there was just this idea that it was gonna work. Well, we also had, we also had full-time jobs. So nothing's changing. Nothing's changing. Right. We were doing those things.

Everything we've ever done has been in addition to our full-time jobs. Right. So now we have people that can get us a meeting. And so now the guys and I are sitting down and every day having lunch and being like, what's an idea? Let's develop another idea.

Cause when we go in these meetings, we don't want one idea. We want five ideas. Right, right. And we go and sometimes they fail miserably. And that one, we filmed a pilot presentation. And they only wanted, they gave us like 75 grand Spike and they wanted like five, six minutes.

Is Spike TV still around? I have no idea. That was like television for dudes, for men. And it was like robot wars, right? Isn't that the type of stuff they had there? As I recall, it was. And it was like, it had its little niche. And we thought maybe we, we could succeed there.

You know, like so, so we made it. But the production company we made it with decided we're going to give them the full 30 minutes because we want them to see that we could produce this amount of material and this amount of time for this amount of money. The fact is we couldn't do any of that. We spread ourselves then.

We had a loss in quality. We had to put in extra money of our own because it didn't, because we went through their money. It took longer to deliver and we didn't give them what they asked for. We didn't know any better. We just deferred to them. Now we know.

So we were so sad with that experience that we left. We said, we can do this better, a newer idea better buy ourselves with no one else for less money. We called in all favors from friends that we've been making the videos with over the years and friends that were comics and had talent. We put together a volunteer crew. We chipped in our own money and for $5,000,

we made another pilot act on our own and it got into all these festivals. So that's the lesson is to do it yourself. Do it yourself. That's the lesson. The lesson is if you can do it yourself, do it yourself. If you can, call in every favor and you learn more. Cause I learned from the first one

but you learn more when you're making mistakes yourself too. And we made mistakes too. And it didn't. And ultimately that didn't really get picked up. We almost got to deal with YouTube at the time but that didn't get picked up. And then we had a couple of game shows that we shop out, they didn't get picked up.

But nobody in the four of you, which is interesting because fuck this, we're done. Nobody, everybody. No, because it was exciting. Cause we went, we went closer. Every no is close. We went 10 years without an agent. Now we have one.

He's telling us, give us ideas. So we were young. I mean, not, we weren't young, but it was, we were 30 or whatever. No, actually, no, so sorry. When we first started improv, we were 22, 23. But by the time this rolled around, we were 30, 31. And we were like, but we still felt young. I mean, we were young, we had no accomplishments.

And, and you know, that is still young actually. It is young. And you didn't mind living on the couch and you didn't mind kind of working the day job and then putting it in. I was getting a little nervous. I didn't have health insurance. I was bartending.

I was making really good money bartending. I got into a neighborhood spot and I really like was good at my job. I enjoyed it. And so I was making money to save and pay all my bills. So I felt good, but it was off the books with no health insurance. I knew sooner or later something was going to give.

I mean, I had a finance degree. I knew I could always go back because I left Prudential and they told me that if I wanted to come back, I could. Right. And, and I always knew I can go back. And then just as luck would have it, after, after we kept failing, we said,

what can be an idea where we don't have to try to learn how to do that idea? And it's like, well, that would just be being ourself. So what's an idea where we could just be ourself and then things will hopefully fall into place. And we said, well, if we just improvise and fuck with each other and play each other, then what do we really have to learn?

Then we just got to figure out how to edit it funny and know, trust what we think's funny. And that's it. We don't have to know camera angles and story structure and pacing and how to act better than we did because we didn't really know how to act. Right.

So now let's not act. Let's just be ourselves. And then that idea went to true. We went, we, we, okay. So we had, they set us up with around the pitch meetings before we had any ideas. Okay. We had the meetings with true

and the rest of things scheduled, no idea yet. It was a week away and we sat down, thought of it at a lunch, we thought of a few ideas. That was one of them. And we had the meeting booked before the idea. Is the name something you guys came up with? No, I hate the name. Okay.

Interesting. The name has now grown on me. The name is great. I think it, I thought it was the, I was, I was mortified by the name. They, they put it on us. We went to it and we were going to call it mission uncomfortable.

Okay. Because the original conceit was, and we tweaked it a little bit, was that we drove around in this van and we pull up outside locations. And then people, viewers would send in these missions for us to do. And we'd go in and compete

and see who could do them better. And the van was like kit and it was going to be voiced by Patrick Stewart and he had, and he didn't like us. And he was like an extra character. It was like, it went through the literations. But then we said, we got there. We said, now fuck the van, you know,

and fuck submissions. That's right. These things ourselves. So we tweaked it a bit. But what was it? Where were we going? I was saying the name. So that's why it was called mission uncomfortable. We thought it fit well.

But I will tell you a blessing was that they named the show what we, it was, it's now it's eponymous. It's basically now what we're called is the name of the show, which is really good to have your identity tied to the brand name because that helps the brain. But when they came back,

they were going to call us daredevils. And I said, I will literally not do the show. And then they said impractical jokers. And I said, people are going to start calling us the jokers. I was like, guys, I'm a 30 something year old man. I'm trying to take my comedy seriously. Like, and who says the word impractical? It's a mouthful.

It's an odd word that people aren't going to latch onto. Also, it's corny, a practical joke. We're going to do an impractical one. And I had a feeling in my gut because all my peers in comedy, cause I used to run this bar and I was in comedy already and I hosted a comedy show every Tuesday night with J.F. Harris, my buddy.

He would host, it was called grab ass. It lasted like three or four years. What year was that? 2008, eight, nine, 10, 11. And every comic that you know right now in the city, everyone from Michael Shea to every person we know has done that show and I knew them all already as the bartender manager of this bar

that was also in comedy before I got it. So all my peers, I was like, they're going to hear I got a show and it's going to be called impractical jokers. And I was like, this is just demeaning. Isn't it so funny how that's you? It's the first reaction you have is that it's going to be a demeaning. She has a video.

It's so funny. She has a video of them telling me he turned the video on and they told me on the video that the network is insisting it's this and that's what it has to be. And I had a visceral nausea. I literally lost the blood in my face. I went, I turned like a white green.

And I literally like was close to dry heaving. He has it on. We cry laughing when it's on. It's the most successful prank show in history. Candid camera. Okay. It's getting close though. I appreciate that. It's getting close.

I appreciate that. Candid camera, historically, you have an argument there. But I mean, it just is- Well, we don't exist without them. But we try to take multiple genres. Who is the guy? Who is the candid camera guy? Alan Funt.

Alan Funt, correct. It was different. It was different. But that's the impetus of everything that came after it. Yes. That's a great point. But we don't even like, we don't even call it a prank show. Like we don't, we don't.

I mean, look, you get written up and we get discussed and is it? Yes, it is in an element of it. But when we're making it, we didn't want to fall into that trap. I feel like sometimes you paint yourself, we didn't want to paint ourselves into being the pranksters. And unfortunately, a byproduct of this

is that a lot of times we are, and a lot of times people don't know the show and don't know us and I meet them. I see the judgment because I think that they don't know what we're about. They haven't given the show a chance. They don't know what I've done outside of it. I've been in the comedy world.

I've made a dozen shows. I've written and contributed to a lot of things. I'm a stand-up. I do a lot of stuff in comedy, but I see even sometimes when we'll do like talk shows. So you guys are the pranksters, you know? And it's like, look, I'm a middle-aged man. But also, I'm not like a YouTube kid

turning on my thing, slapping somebody in the back of the hand and running. I feel like it is, it's reductive, it's just, you know. Sure. But I think when you do it really well, it's an art fork. I mean, it's great. I appreciate that. That is the goal, you know?

Yeah. But I thought that the name impractical jokers would, you know, perpetuate that. Right, brand use that. But now something happened where it just is what it is and people oversee the name. Are you? And honestly, it was a blessing

because if we were called, we wouldn't be called the mission on comfortables. No, of course. So call me a joker, go ahead. People don't do it anymore with like a, that's corny as fuck. They just do it like it is what it is. They're the jokers.

There's the advice for people out there that are trying to get something off the ground that haven't been able to get it off the ground. What, I mean, it seems, you know, the trial and error part of it seems to be so essential. Like there's, I think I know certain people where I go, you're not failing enough. And it sounds wild.

But I feel like you're not failing enough. I have failed at so many things. I'm still failing at that. I still throw things out and I go, that wasn't what I wanted it to be. Just fail up. Fail up. That's the whole move because there's people out there

that are afraid to try. And they're even in the business of comedy. They've pushed off the doctor, swimming director. I'm still afraid. Yeah. We all are. And if you're not, you're doing it wrong. Right.

I'm afraid. I see comedians, I see young kids. I see over-micros with more confidence than I know that I have. I don't say that I have no confidence. By the way, that's an issue for them. It is. It is.

And I'm not saying- Because I'm sitting in your home and they shouldn't. I'm not saying that I don't have confidence, but I'm saying I doubt myself routinely. I'm nervous routinely. I question if I'm good enough routinely. Sometimes I feel good. Sometimes I feel bad.

Sometimes I feel like I belong. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel like I earn and deserve what I have. Sometimes I feel like no one really should earn or deserve that much for it. I don't know. I flip flop all the time. But I'll be still in a room and be like,

especially I'm trying new stuff or if there's someone around that I really respect. But I see some of these people walk into a room and God bless them because they don't have anything to back it up per se. And I don't mean their material. Maybe their material sucks. Maybe it's okay.

Maybe it's really good, but they're still young and they don't have a body. They don't have an experience to back up the feeling. But maybe that's where I'm wrong. Cause maybe they are not mutually exclusive. If you're that person that walks around like that every day and that's who you are, then that's who you gotta get out.

I think sometimes that can be an asset. Sometimes it can be a, it can really hinder somebody. Cause the reality is those types of people go very far or nowhere I've tend to feel, you know? Because that, and I've seen that. Some of that is genuine. Some of that confidence. Some of it's just being a sociopath

and being like, I'm doing, I'm a star. And here's the thing. If that's the way you present yourself and you position yourself like that, sometimes it works and people go, oh, you're a star. You're, I was just about to say, sometimes it's a fake until you make a type thing. If you're that enough, people are gonna be like,

oh, he's that. And then again, just get, you could be that. But sometimes it doesn't work because what happens is those people don't have those like dark nights of the soul where they go, man, am I a fraud? Am I even good? What am I doing? Because I think those are the nights that make you go,

okay, what do I do that's going to be funny now? Like I transitioned to doing a lot more stuff on social media because that was where a lot of prospective fans were. And you know, I was in the development process and something similar to what you described, not nearly as many, but like you go through it a few times and you go, I'm watching my career sail away

because I'm not connecting with people because I'm working with suits and industry people. And they like me and they're coming out to shows and they're going great set and let's make a show and blah, blah, blah. And that's great. But I'm losing this whole chunk of people that I need to buy tickets and really to enjoy what I do

because I want to make people laugh. And they're on Instagram and Twitter and social media and YouTube and that. So I pivoted to that. But again, if I maybe was the type of person that was just like, hey, well, I'm getting meetings and people like me and the hell with it. I'm gonna, you know, you know, I think there was part

of it of like sitting in, you know, my producer's garage in Los Angeles going, well, what are we going to do now? You know, the pilot is not going to go. The scripted show is not going to go. And we have these tools and maybe we can just, maybe we can be funny and put it out online and see what happens.

And then these dumb little sketches and things we do, you know, Joe Rogan's playing them for Kevin Hart. You know, people are, you know, people like you, people that I respect, you go, oh, these are really funny things. And then I love it. I, you know, I've championed you from- No, you have for a very long time.

I appreciate that. I'll tell anybody who will listen. I told you you should write a book. I appreciate it. I treat your shit out all the time. No, it's, the book is definitely going to, I'll like to do that. That's something I'd like to do.

I've gone on your bus tours. Yes, you're a legit die-hard. Yeah, we're going to do maybe another one of those in the spring. It's, so it really is about, it's kind of like failing up. Personally now, do you feel you're accomplished or successful? You guys have done it.

Is it ever, do you ever get anxiety now? Because you're like, well, what now? Oh, make no mistake. I just, I'm a person that lives with anxiety. Right. I mean, I think that every day. Even when we got the show, the show could be canceled any moment.

We're now luckily about to start season nine, but at the season, I think now the show is not going to be canceled. At the season one, we didn't know. At the season two, we didn't know. They held that over us. You know, you not even their choice. What if people stopped watching?

Also, we got the show and didn't know how to make a show. We had the idea, we knew what we wanted to do, but then we also had to learn on, while we were doing it, how to do it. And now we know how to do it. But if I venture outside of this box, I'm going to have that process all over again. And this show, while Bittersweet will end soon enough,

and it'll be a silver lining, because I love the show. This is the golden years. I don't know if I'll ever have something that'll be as big a legacy as this to me, but I am ready, willing and wanting to explore so many other projects and creative outlets. So that will be the saving grace

when this golden time of this show passes. We lose all the staff that we've become family. But I'm just looking at it like, all right, we'll also let me at them, because I want to go and do all this other stuff, not including stand up. Because right now, my stand up is in every free moment that I have.

But I want to, it's a great problem to have, but I want to be online with my peers that are putting in, I want to put full capacity. And that's why I won't even do a special until I can do that. So I'm like waiting until this all ends and I could dedicate all my time, only my time just to that,

and then see if I can put something out that I'm proud of, and I don't think I can, then I won't. But I'm nervous. I don't know what I'm gonna do after this, and I just don't know. Does it change having money change? There are people that talk about this, is having money change the sense of urgency,

or the sense of being successful. Does that cause some people go, I lose my motivation? No. No, well, it's a case to case, I'm sure. And I'll say yes and no, it's gray. I don't lose motivation. It makes it easier, less stressful to know that I don't have to worry that I can't pay my rent

or something like that. That peace of mind is an intangible, I mean, you can't even, I mean, that's yes, that helps. But I have something that I want, that I haven't achieved yet, and I wanna do that because I have a passion for it, not cause I'm trying to make money. So that hunger for me is there.

And that's the type of person you've always been, because people that get into this business, even though that they wanna make money, their main thing is they wanna do something they like. They wanna do something that excites them. First of all, anyone getting into comedy or acting or anything because they like, and it sounds, try to even say this,

it sounds like it's obvious, but if you're listening to this and you wanna be an actor and actress cause you wanna be a movie star and you wanna be famous and you wanna be rich, like, you should not do this. You're not going to succeed. Like this has nothing to do with it.

Like, no, I mean, you have no shot. I would bet my, I would bet my hard earned money that you will never be successful. Yeah, because you have to, you have to have something from the episode. And that's gonna be the clip. I always like to check that this can be the clip. I had to tell you a story.

Because this is great. I mean, yes. I had to tell you a story when you, when we go offline, I can't tell it online. Of course. That I wish I could tell online, but I don't, I haven't figured out yet how to tell it where it wouldn't affect people negatively.

Of course. But you will do a tumble sauce if I tell you offline. Okay, well, yeah. But anyway, some things in life need to be private. But yeah, but my point is, is that like, you can't, you cannot do this. I go to shows. One of the things I like is that when we see these,

you know, the Ferryman, how talented are those people? Yeah. I took Ben to see that show. Yeah. You know, those people are, You're a good looking guy. Are not fans. Do you model?

Do you model? You should. Let's not give him a head. You know what I mean? Let's not give him a head. The guy looks like freaking a young Brad Pitt. He's fine. The reality is he's fine.

And he's got a fashion sense with those glasses. He's fine. There's no six pack. There's not, it's not. Nice smile. His hair flops to the right. Seems like he has a nice, he has a nice five o'clock shadow.

It's not, it's not bad. I wouldn't walk around. What are you, 25 years old? 27. I wouldn't walk around with somebody who was an Ugo. Yeah. You know, he's good. A lot of people say that,

that he's good looking and I think it fills his head. But I, I, I, I'll get you some work. Yeah. I want, get me work, please. I'm gonna just stop the internet, but it is what it is. Get me work. I'm saying for my supper here.

I make a living with my mind. Hold on a second Tim. So Ben, So like the whole thing is really that these guys, you're watching them in the ferrymen. You're like, these are great actors and actresses. Some of them are known. Most of them are not.

They're not going to be known. They'll make some money. Maybe they'll, but they're doing it because they love it. They're probably happy. They're probably happy. Yeah. Yeah.

And homeless. Many of them don't have homes. I can't, I, I, this, I promise you, this is real sound, we'll sound syrupy a little bit every day, every fucking day. I can't believe my life. And I cannot believe this happened to me. And I'm very thankful every single fucking day.

I wake up, I think about it. I go to bed, I think about it. I don't miss a day. I feel that way. I say, I can't believe it. I didn't come from money. You know, I came from a good family, but not money. And I get to support my entire family now.

And I, that is the, and now you're at a point where you can support members of your family. I'm not saying, I'm not saying like my family doesn't do nice, but I just mean like now I feel my family doesn't have to worry. You guys, if I worry about money, I don't worry about like my money for me,

but I do worry about money still because like, obviously you, I'm, I didn't make money in the beginning, even with the show. And now I'm at a place where I kind of am, right? Yeah. And then when that goes away, I will do other projects. And I'm going to be a comic for the rest of my life and I'll tour.

I might not, who knows if the, the level will be at the level that I'm at after a nine year tenure on a project. Right. Right. Who knows. And, but, so I'm saving saving because I know that I just want to have peace of mind that my family won't have to worry extended family. Yeah. Will not have to worry about anything

as long as I'm here. And I, so I have anxiety about that. The main reason that I've always wanted to make money is to let my family know that you guys still have to worry. That's the only reason I want to succeed is to let them know that you have to worry no matter how good I'm doing. It has nothing to do with you. And, you know, but I, I, I don't mean to discourage anyone,

but it's not a, it's not why you get into something. You don't get into, you don't get in. That's not why you get into the art. It stumbles in. It happens. You had to love the art. Otherwise it's not going to. The later you date, she's so cool with everything. That's important.

Yeah. That didn't come easy. That didn't come easy. It's because it's a weird life we live. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm working all day and all night. Yeah. All day and all night. Right.

And then I'm away, you know, two, three or four weekends a month. Sometimes I, you know, sometimes I'm not home for a month. Sometimes I'm not home before, you know, three a.m. for a week straight. Sometimes I have one, not always, but sometimes I have, I'll have one day off in a month, you know, like whatever it is. Like, so, so that's an adjustment period. But I think that once you weather it a little bit and then, you know,

she was able to see like, this isn't like me partying. This isn't me choosing not to be here. This isn't me doing something social. This is me putting all of my efforts and energy into something I love in order to succeed and to help us. Right. You know, and once you see that, it's just like, okay. And then, then you get on that team and then she helps me because like,

you need a sub if you're in a relationship, you need the full support of that person. And I will tell you, Rickles is on my wall right there. I got to meet Rickles before he passed. Yeah. And I talked to him for a while and that was one of the first things I met him with my dad and she was there and he's, he sat down and he talked about because he's married till the end.

He was married when he passed to his wife. And he said that that was the most important thing to him was to have someone that was his backbone that understood what he was doing, supported it, didn't question it. And only enabled it and helped it, you know, despite all the regular bumps that you have in Malaysia. And I believe that. I believe that because it's got to be hard because you,

you don't want any, any barriers to entry for what you're trying to do. And if the person that you, that you're involved with isn't getting it. How many people that are pursuing something creative, let's be honest, their partners not into it and they pretend to be into it. Most people are just not into it. I think it's a specifically in a, in a place where one person has an unconventional career, right? You know, everyone, if you do both doing separate nine to five or you hate your

job or whatever it is, if it's something, but when it's something this unconventional, the other person has to, and then by the way, with success comes, you know, more challenges because like who the hell wants to be? Like your pictures put up, people say mean things about you, you walk around, people have an opinion. It's just not, you just sacrifice privacy. That's a big thing too. Yeah.

And no privacy is tough for relationship too. So there are like these little things that you never really think about, but then they present themselves to you, you have to navigate them. I wouldn't change anything for the world. Of course. But if you want a little insight as to like that kind of feeling, yeah, there's always a set of challenges. What do you love about Staten Island?

Because I love Staten Island because I, when I, well, when I, yeah, I have a history with Staten Island. When I first started a standup comedy, I was selling copiers, telemarketing copiers in Tottenville at a place called reliable office systems. And I, that's just the best name ever. Yeah. Reliable office systems were reliable. That was, that was it.

That was the hook. And I would take a ferry. I was living in midtown Manhattan with Jim Harris, by the way, and Jesse Dodge, I was living, I didn't know that I was living with them in the spare room of their apartment. It was, it was the second divorce I watched. It was crazy. First one was my parents.

Second one was them. I bear responsibility. I think a little bit for both. You reverse commuted. That's what I reverse commuted, which is, and I had a whole joke about it. I had a whole bit about it where I was like, we're going past the Statue of Liberty, but we're going the wrong way and it was crazy. And I would, I would take a train to the Staten Island ferry and then I would

get on the ferry, get off the ferry. And by the way, get on the S 74 bus to Tottenville, which is another hour. That's a four hour. The commute was a two hour process to get to reliable office systems. I'll get up at six 30. I get to my desk by nine. I'd work to one or two. I'd get back into the city by four, four, 30 and then do open mics.

And you had to because that's where the work was. That's where I would immediately be like, where can I do this? Where I am? Well, then they eventually, after a few months of that, they moved me to their office on Sixth Avenue and made me like a copier guy. And then I was like, the problem was I was getting dragged into the nine to five world where they were like, oh, you're going to wear suits and you're going to be that's why I became a bartender.

And then I had to stay. So eventually while I was walking home, I saw one of the tour buses and I went, oh, that seems so free to just stand on that bus and talk and nobody cares. That's what I have to do. I can't be in an office all day because then you start to go out to work dinners and everything and you start to get sucked into that vortex. Yeah, you saw a bus pass and the light bulb went off. The light bulb went off and I said, I should do that while I wanted, while I

learn what I need to learn. And while I, you know, can't make money, a comedy, I shouldn't be in an office. But the time I was in Staten Island, maybe three months, four months, intense Staten Island, I mean, Staten Island every day, dinner at Angelina's a lot. Quarterly dinners, month, like Staten Island, Christmas parties. I really for whatever reason, I grew up in Long Island. So this is your sister here, your cousin. Very similar, very similar.

Everybody's Italian. Everybody's kind of in the mob or thinks they're in the mob. Yeah, for sure. Oh, things they are for sure. Yeah. It's food color. It's it's it's more conservative. Right.

It's old school. Right. It's it's just like any other place, I like to say, because I know Staten Island there's a stigma with it and it does get a bad rap and not not for no reason. Because stereotypes are just for a reason. One of my jokes is you know, it's with the worst place in the city because you have to take a boat to get there and it's free. That was my joke.

I said that's a 30 minute boat ride. The city is like, this is on us. It was like, that's great. Yeah, it's it's an interesting place, by the way, boat rides the best. But charming as shit. It's great. Get a tall boy, sit outside, see the statue, go back and forth. It's awesome during the spring and summer.

There's nothing better. I love it here because this is the this is what made me who I am. Right. Simple as that. That's what I like about who I am. I take to go to bed here. I get what people don't like certain things. I just don't like when people trash it. Just like I was saying at the top of our conversation,

like even about like our show or just like I don't like when people judge. Right. And look, I just don't like when people if people are educated and can trash it, but then also could tell me the good things they like about it. Right. And then give me a well balanced take on it. That's no problem. 100%.

But if people are just like, fuck these people, fuck them. Oh, you're from there. Oh, you're automatically this, which I get all the time. My name is Sam. Yeah. I'm from Staten Island. You know, I do a prank quote unquote show, which I fucking hate. We don't use the word prank in the office.

Right. We don't have to say it. Interesting. It's a hidden camera show. Okay. And it's about friends. Right. That's what it is.

Right. And we write the shit out of that show. Right. We improvise, but we write the shit out of it. Of course. But we're not allowed to say it because it's non-union. So it's like, so it's like they could put it under the guise of like they put it in a reality show. Right.

So people call, when we could do interviews, they call it a prank show, which we don't think it is, and a reality show, which we don't think it is. Right. A reality, when you think of reality show, you think of, you know, Kardashian or whatever the amount of work that goes into your show, the housewives, this, that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's just, you know, contrived people looking for, you know, it's contrived, it's produced, and it's, you know, they're looking for these sound bites and moments of, of flair.

Right. To have, you know, nuggets to put online, to get viral. I don't know, it is what it is. And it, and there's people that like that. And I've watched reality shows, but we're not that. So, you know, it is what it is, but, um, what was I say? Oh yeah. But if you judge the island and you don't know much about it, I don't, I don't like

that because this, the, some of the best, most sold to the earth, wonderful people that I've met here. So my lifelong friends here, my family's here, you know, good, good people. Yeah, of course. So just like anything else. There's some shit. There's some shit. But it's nice.

It's nice. And it's a stone throw from the island, but you get like a bit of the suburbs here. Like if you ever, so you've taken the train, I don't know how much you've actually traversed. I've taken the train up and down Staten Island. So I know the train. I've been in cars here. I could take you through like some places and you wouldn't even know you were in Staten Island.

Oh, it's beautiful. I've seen the suburbs and it's gorgeous. I mean, there's, there's, there's a lot of history here, which people don't know about. Yeah, for sure. For sure. No, I love it here because there's a lot of character here. And I like character. One of my complaints about Manhattan is everything's so corporate now that the

character is unfortunately has been lessened by that. You don't have as many mom and pop stores or little diners or restaurants. The people that would hang out in those places and the people that would own those places, you're much more likely to find in Queens or Brooklyn or Staten Island. Oh, they're all over you. Yeah. So those are the characters that to me make New York fun. The people in your neighborhood.

The people in your neighborhood. And the, you know, now the people in your neighborhood is like Chase, you know, or like, you know, $300 a head sushi place, you know, and it's like, okay, that's not what I think of when I think about New York, the friendships with the guys, they all have they changed over the, over the last 30 years. Is it still the same? This is pretty much the same. Wild.

I mean, we're closer than we ever were because we have to be with each other legitimately all the time, 24 fucking seven. So is another rule when you pick people to collaborate with, pick people that you can spend time with and people that you can. Oh boy. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that we do a good job at that, despite even our own disagreements,

arguments, occasional blowouts, this, that, the other, you got to understand, we are four, not even two. We, we have to, it's a democracy a lot of times, but we trust each other. And a lot of times we'll, if someone is. So there are arguments. Yeah. There are. Well, yeah, they're not too many arguments.

There are. Yeah. But, um, but when it comes to the creative part of it, it's, uh, we're pretty good. We're pretty good. We'll, we'll convince each other if we think an idea is good and someone doesn't, or we'll give it a whirl. And if it doesn't work, we'll learn from the mistake, but it's not so much, um, the creative part as much as it's the business side to, like we have, we have collectively

probably sometimes anywhere from one, no joke, to 100 decisions to make a day as a team. Right. So we have learned how to do that, but every once in a while, it's still like, oh, we hit a stalemate, you know? But it's no small feat to be like, sometimes just be asked like 50 questions. There's a lot of people, I think that aren't, for whatever reason, aren't ready to take the next step, or they're not ready to be successful, or they're not ready to have any, like, what do you think the challenges are?

What people don't really understand? Like there's a lot of people that constantly get in their own way. And that's either subconsciously, maybe a fear of success, fear of failure, whatever it is, self-sabotage. What do you think separates people that are willing to take the next step or ready? Really ready, because a lot of people are willing. They're just not ready. How do you, what makes people ready to make 100 decisions a day if they need to?

That's a big thing. I don't think anyone is ready. Right. Um, and I don't think if you think you're ready, you're probably not. It's just about knowing that you have to be ready whether you like it or not, and then do the best you can. I wasn't ready for this. No one's ready for it.

But I think a big help is to, uh, like you said, have a lot of failures. I got, I got this kind of success relatively late in my life. Yeah. So, uh, we got the show. I know a lot of YouTube kids in LA and they're 23 and they have millions of dollars. That's, I think, look, God bless them and good luck with them. And I wish them the best. I hope they manage the money and I, and I hope they manage their day to day and

their relationships the right way and they get out on the other end of that. Because if it's also the way you were raised, I think, um, and I think that younger people now, and I could be completely wrong. And I think everything's cyclical. And I think people probably said this about us and people said this about our parents and the rock music and the rap man, all that shit, whatever it is. But I think, I think especially now kids are being raised, um, with the internet, which I think is different than television in the fact that people's

opinions, ideas, the world is very six, uh, accessible around them. They're saturated with information about everything, opinions about everything. And, uh, and I think that success now is equated with, you know, likes, friends, retweets, and so people are chasing clout now as a kid. And I think clout is important to young kids now in a way that it wasn't before clout in high school, maybe was my thing of that clout in the neighborhood, you know, but not clout globally. Right.

And so when kids now are their square one is like, how do I get global clout? Right. That is a very, right. That's right. That's a great point. Like how can I be a global phenomenon before? How can I get priorities? The priorities are never learned.

Does it ever worry you? I look at some, you know, I look at comedy and where it is right now. And there's so much, and I understand it. I have to deal with myself. There's so much of an emphasis on marketing, getting yourself out there. It's like comics or learning how to, you know, they're selling t-shirts before they have an act. I mean, everything is like, it does it ever worry you about just the future

of like art in general, the idea that everything is so fast paced and that you need to really learn. And the emphasis in the focus seems to be on just getting so much stuff out there. Forget whether it's good or not. Forget whether it's, you know, valuable or not, just putting stuff out there. And everybody's got to see themselves as like, you know, everybody's got to be like a marketing company. And does it ever, do you ever wonder, like, you know, where that leads?

Does that lead to just kind of very cheap art eventually? I think, well, an argument could be made from every side, right? Because art is so subjective. Right. Like the fucking guy that, that they nailed the bananas to the wall last week and he fucking ate it. And like, what is that? Yeah.

What the fuck? And that's old people. So they're fucked up too. Right. They still sell bananas for a quarter million. Right. But I think that someone could, it could be said that, look, every art begets art. And this is all art and take it or leave it.

And so, you know, whatever someone is into is value, I don't. I think it's a dangerous thing. Yeah. Because I think that, like I just said, that is the trend from square one. So we already have saturation in the form of how we can access this information. Now there's saturation in the amount of people that are trying to do it as well. Right. And it just, it's, it expounds.

It's just, it's to the point where when we first started doing the YouTube stuff and someone put us on, we got a few hundred thousand views, we were like, whoa. And then the MySpace blew up and then they were ranking comedians. And then it felt like this gold rush, right? Right. To this type of thing, which is now having a revolution still going. There's a renaissance of the, like, but I would say, oh shit, like everyone's doing it now. So like now, how are we going to keep up?

And I remember having this conversation with a friend of mine. He's like, look, like anything else, people will rush to it and then a lot of output will be made and then the best stuff will rise to the top. And you know, and you'll see, like, you know, if it's good, it's good. And that should be the great, the great equalizer, the people will find the good stuff and the trash will fall by the wayside and those people will give up. And you'll, you will get good content from it. I believed that at the time.

Now I think we've have a somewhat of an epidemic because now I think that we are so saturated and flooded with content that it's the new normal and people cannot even find the good content or at least it's harder to. And all of these kids now are accepting and I mean this even, and I'm not calling anyone specifically out. There are very talented internet people, very talented SoundCloud people. It's just that they're also so much shit, just like anything else. And I think that there's so much shit available that the masses of young people

are now just accepting the shit as the baseline good. Right. And they're redefining what is acceptable as quality. Yeah. And they are outnumbering us. We're dying. Yeah. They're not.

They're flourishing. The people that spent 20 years to get to where they're going and. I'm only 43. I'm not acting like I'm an old man. No, of course. But I'm traditional. But the people that have really put time in are kind of being supplanted and replaced by people, like you said, that are just kind of like this.

But even the people that are putting great content up on the internet right now are outweighed by one billion teens that are just like turning on the camera. Right. And jump cutting themselves, twirling their hair. Right. Blowing bubblegum, slapping their friend in the face with a piece of ham, or saying, I like this nail polish, or whatever it is. And now these people are getting 10 billion views.

Yeah. And they cannot be denied by corporations. So they have to give them money because they need views on everything. And we are changing the landscape. We're lowering the bar. We are. And I think that even someone who's honest with themselves, even someone who's gotten success from that medium should be able to say,

well, hopefully, you know, I got success. But there's frauds out there that are successful. I have no right to be. We all know that. Of course. And again, that's happened in every iteration. Like even when we were younger, people fall into success that shouldn't be there, I suppose.

But I just think it's bad because this is hive mind now that, oh, this is what is entertaining. This is what is quality. This is what should be inspiring me. This is what I'm taking my cues from. Right. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So I'm scared because I don't have it in me to be the guy that's always turning on. Some of my friends are really good at it. Right. Like Bert Kreischer, amazing at it. Chrissy D, amazing at it. Like they're just really good. They turn on the camera.

They could say whatever they want. You're great at it. Yeah. You know, but I don't have the inclination. And maybe it's because I spread myself a little thin. And so when it comes to like, put this up, promote this, say something funny, or let them into my kitchen and see what I'm doing over here, or give them today's quip or whatever, I just don't have the motivation to do it.

And I know that it's to my own detriment. Like I do it, but I do it like very half-assed. I'm not going to do all the, I haven't done the Snapchat. I'm not going to do the TikTok. I'm not going to do any of that stuff. And I don't even do, I even have issues with Instagram stories. Right. You know, I'll do the Instagram post.

Yeah. But luckily I got a little success right now. And I don't have to like lean on it hard. But for live ticket sales, it's everything. Is it sad when you see comics in their mid 40s and they're just, they just have to do this stuff? I don't think it's sad. I think as long as they do it well.

Right. Then they utilizing it well. It's always like it's sad sometimes to see like older Long Island comics who are like, my daughter told me about the YouTube. So hello. Yeah, oh that, yes. There's two views, you know. She's like, subscribe to my channel.

To your channel. I don't, yeah. What? Exactly. They're out of it. Salvatore, I really appreciate you talking to me. We had way more of a, I mean, I didn't give you, I don't know if we had any good thoughts.

I wanted to, no, it's, we chopped it up. But I, you know, people need to know they're going to fail. And that's what my show is about. Yeah. My shows. I don't even, I don't even be much of a light hearted. My, because I got that too, baby. I got that too.

The show's funny enough. We've got archives. It's very popular. People can laugh. But every now and then we need to do an episode telling people that they are going to fail. Yeah, you're going to fail. And that's the thing.

And people need to know that. And I mean, so many people pay attention to people, the people that know someone that's going to fail, tell them, tell them, you're not being a friend. Yes. You're not being a friend to them. Tell them they're going to fail. Tell them, listen to me, I love you.

Maybe this isn't for you. This isn't for you. Or at least keep it in mind. Yes. I feel like I, you might hate me, but one day, if you, sure enough, you will know that I did you a service. The people around the people that are going to fail, tell them. And by the way, if you persevere past that and you succeed, good.

You were meant to succeed. Right. And you needed that to succeed. Right. But the people that aren't going to succeed, just try to be a little more self-aware. Two main lessons from the show are you personally are going to fail and you should also tell others that they are going to fail.

That's true. You could encourage them. You could encourage them saying, you know what? Listen, listen, you could do a lot of things. You could do a lot of things. Yes. Nobody, that's the other thing. Sometimes, you know, there was a friend of mine who wasn't doing a lot of stand-up

and their friend said something about like, oh, you should do more stand-up or you're hanging out with this person. They don't do, you know, they're not pushing you to do stand-up. Here's the thing with everything. People do what they want. They do what they're good at. And no one can tell anyone what to do. This is the thing that nobody will realize.

Nobody could, this is my problem with a lot of these online motivational speakers and things like that. It's all great. I'm glad it pumps you up. It makes you feel good. It's really entertainment more than anything else because a lot of people are going to go to where they're going to go. They might take a weird route to it.

They might take a straight route to it. They might go, you know, some of them might not get there, but they're going to end up where they're kind of going to end up. So this whole collective identity and idea of like, oh, you know, worrying about what other people are doing or worrying about other people influencing you. Like there are no influences. There are influences creatively.

But you're either going to do it or you're not. Look, there's also, let me look, there's also people that are naturally funny and that's something you can't teach. But there are people that are not necessarily naturally funny, but work hard, learn how to tell and write jokes and become great at it, excel at it, that are probably even famous right now.

I'm not saying to you that if you've tried for five years and haven't made it, you're going to fail and you suck. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that, I'm saying that just be self-aware. Make goals short and long-term. See if you're making progress. See if you're, be honest with yourself is all I'm saying. Because if you're half-assing it and you're not,

then you're wasting everyone's time. And I'm just saying like, even if you have to be the friend to be like, look, I want you to see it. I want you to keep trying. I think you're funny. I think you do have talent. But I, the way that you're approaching it, I don't see something happening for you.

And look, if you're strong enough of a person and you're talented enough of a person, that's not going to matter. But I just don't want to see someone who's trying a year, two, three, four, five, 10. You got to look down deep and go, why am I really doing it? You need a plan. By the way, everyone's like, just get on stage.

Yeah, get on stage. Just get on stage. That's the first thing. But also you need a fucking plan. You can't just be like, ah, people tell me I'm funny or I like acting or I want to be funny. You need a plan every day. Follow the plan.

Take notes. See if you're making any progress. You know, you have to do that. And I, you know, I don't know. I just don't want to be like, you know, every... No, we're always kidding. Most people are not funny. Most people...

We're strictly talking comedy. It's hard to make a career out of being funny. Yeah. It is a very difficult thing. It can be done. It is done. A lot of people will do it. But it's tough.

It is not easy. And you got to have a plan. And you got to be willing to do everything. You got to like drop all your preconceived notions. Surround yourself with people that are positive and good at what they do and that you can learn from. But not in a way to like these young comics that just become like incessant in your face

to the point where like, I get that you're hungry and I get that you're trying to make opportunities. But you also have to remember that there's a human element to it and you cannot be a savage. Be, just be... Make natural friendships, organic natural friendships. Put yourself in a place if you're... Do people do that to you where they're just crazy?

Yes. And that's, I get it. I get it. I get, hey, you think I could help you? Even whether it's like, some people are like, can you just get me work? Really? Or just put me on a show, make a show for me.

Let me be on your show. Make a show for me. I was at the cell the other day, a guy hits me. I won't name names. I will have to be hang up the phone here. But I want to... He hits me, he goes, hey, how you doing? I said, good.

He goes, you're that guy. You're that guy from the show, The Prankables. This is what he called like, he literally like Lunchables. He goes, you're on The Prankables, you're on HBO. I said, yeah, he goes, what's your name? Ed? I'm like, yeah. What's the name of your show?

Now I got to tell him in practical terms. That's it. Huge fan. Watch it all the time. Can I get on the show? I love it. I said, how so? Like I'm really funny.

Everyone knows I play here. I play here, he says. I'm at the cellar. He goes, I play here. He goes, so can I get on the show? I said, well, the show don't really work that way. You know, it's the four of us. Right.

A bunch of 30 years and so on. Right. Yeah, no problem. Here's my YouTube. Here's my card. Look me up. And then he goes, you got a pen? And I was like, no.

He goes, this is my YouTube. But my Instagram is this, but with an underscore. And my other one is this, with a that. Look me up tonight. Leave me a message. Let me know. Email me. This is my email.

I'm not kidding with it. Wow. Who was sitting with it? Vita was sitting with me. Yeah. And he goes, all right. My name is this. I work here.

I'm good. You know, everything. And he just came and he's like, all right. And sometimes people break into the fucking green room. And be like, I just, can I get on your show? Can you give me a show? Wow. So that, don't do that.

But go, go to where the people are that you want to be. Hang out, make natural friendships. Let people like you for who you are. And then stick with those people. Stick with like-minded people, especially if you want to be a comedian. Go to the clubs, plant your ass there, write, observe, work, talk.

Do it. It might take a long time. Do it. Make those friendships. Then you got to get around like-minded people. You got to. You can't be an island alone trying to do something. You have to change your lifestyle to where everyone else

around you is thinking the way that you're thinking. I think that's a good accelerator. And I would also say, have, like when you said have a plan is so important, but also have an idea of what you want to do and who would out there would enjoy it. Like, who are you talking to? Who's this for? Who's it for?

Who is it for? By the way, I speak like I'm, I'm talking like I'm Jerry Seinfeld over here. Yeah. I'm, I'm still young in comedy. I got lucky. I still have all my doubts. I don't do everything right.

I'm not speaking like some, I'm giving you my experience and opinion, not speaking like I'm the law on this. Right. I still learn every single day and I'm still afraid to fail. And I question all that stuff too. But I, at least I will say that I know that I'm self aware of it.

Yeah. You know what I mean? So just be that at least. You know what I mean? Be that. Yeah. Be that folks. Be self aware.

And you know what, you know? I like, I'm, it's so funny that I'm talking. I know doling out advice like I'm this like so, like successful. You have one of the most successful shows in the history of television. No. Yeah.

I mean, what do you mean? Yeah. You know, I mean, it's like, but I don't want to come across like that. We're conversating. I'm giving you my opinions. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But please do not mistake this

for me doling out from my fucking. The people need to be held under water. So I mean, I don't know if the people that are listening to this, that this might apply to, they need to have their oxygen cut. You, you, you did it. You fucking did it.

You get to sit and tell everybody you, you, you are more successful than anyone at the seller. I need to tell you this. Every comedian at the seller there, whatever they want to do, other than like Seinfeld and a few of them, it's really you.

I mean, it's the reality. I don't, I mean, I mean, there's a lot of people there that are eating pigeons in the park, you know, and then having really good sets. But let's get real about it. Let's get real. They're, they're going to die.

So thank you for listening. Thank you for listening everybody. People will find Sal on Sal Volcano and a practical drunkers. You know where he is. I actually am. You want to put up something? Can I, can I, why not?

Yes, please. I'm about to announce my 2020 theater tour for myself soon on Sal Volcano Comedy dot com. And the guys and I just announced a 40 something city tour of all next summer. And we, we got, because I want your audience to know about this stuff too.

Who knows if we share them? Of course. I think we do. The new show Misery and Necks on TBS got picked up for season two. My comedy is very family friendly. Jokers is on. We got to, we should have talked about that

because I also try to have you with me when I can here and there. Of course. You did the cruise and it was you're a fucking fantastic. Yeah, guys are good. It was hysterical. Also hysterical, which you didn't touch on.

The, the, I think it was a history hyenas you did after so funny. We have not so much next time. A hundred percent. But um, yeah. So just the tour, Sal Volcano Comedy dot com. And what the fuck else was it? Oh, the movie, our movie comes out.

The Practical Jokers film. February 21st. Very good. Folks, get it, get it, get it. Tim Dillon comedy dot com. Oh, that crap. Tim J. Dillon on Instagram, Twitter. Thank you.

Great review. Subscribe. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're going to fail. Thank you.