The Tim Ferriss Show - #84: How to Turn Pain Into Creativity (Whitney Cummings)

Episode Date: June 27, 2015

This episode explores pain, struggle, and how to turn both into amazing creative projects. Whitney Cummings is a Los Angeles-based comedian, actor, writer and producer. Whitney is executive producer and, along with Michael Patrick King, co-creator of the Emmy-nominated CBS comedy 2 Broke Girls, which was recently picked up for a fifth season. She also wrote, produced and starred in Whitney, which aired on NBC from 2011 to 2013. She has headlined with comics including Sarah Silverman, Louis C.K., Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, and others. Her first one-hour stand up special, Money Shot, premiered on Comedy Central in 2010 and was nominated for an American Comedy Award. Her second stand-up special, Whitney Cummings: I Love You, debuted on Comedy Central in 2014 and she is shooting a third hour for HBO this August, which is set to air in 2016. For all links, show notes, resources from this episode, please visit fourhourworkweek.com/podcast ### This podcast is brought to you by MeUndies. Have you ever wanted to be as powerful as a mullet-wearing ninja from the 1980’s, or as sleek as a black panther in the Amazon? Of course you have, and that’s where MeUndies comes in. I’ve spent the last 2-3 weeks wearing underwear from these guys 24/7, and they are the most comfortable and colorful underwear I’ve ever owned. Their materials are 2x softer than cotton, as evaluated using the Kawabata method. Check out MeUndies.com/Tim to see my current faves, some of which are awesomely ridiculous. This episode is also sponsored by Onnit. I have used Onnit products for years. If you look in my kitchen or in my garage you will find Alpha BRAIN, chewable melatonin (for resetting my clock while traveling), kettlebells, maces, battle ropes, and steel clubs. It sounds like a torture chamber, and it basically is. A torture chamber for self-improvement! Ah, the lovely pain. To see a list of my favorite pills, potions, and heavy tools, click here.***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hello, my dangerous dainty friends. This is Tim Ferriss. This is another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show where I try my best to deconstruct excellence and world-class performers. That means interviewing people who are the best at what they do or one of the best at what they do, whether they're investors or chess prodigies, actors, athletes, everyone and anyone who fits the bill of top performer, I will try to dig into the habits, the routines, the favorite books, the meals, the meal timing, their sleep habits, meditation techniques, and so on and so forth to provide you with recipes that you can test. So not a whole bunch of highfalutin abstract concepts, although we explore some deep stuff,

but the really tactical tools that you can implement on a daily, weekly basis to become better at whatever you do or want to do. And this episode is no exception. We have Whitney Cummings. Whitney is hilarious. Whitney is a Los Angeles-based comedian, actor, writer, and producer. She's a multi-hyphenate. And let me rattle off just a few things. She's executive producer and, along with Michael Patrick King, co-creator of the Emmy-nominated CBS comedy Two Broke Curls. Not Two Broke Curls. I heard a lot of Ks. Two Broke Girls. You've probably seen it, heard of it, observed the advertisements for it. It's all over the place, which was recently picked up for a fifth season. She also wrote, produced, and starred in Whitney, which aired on NBC from 2011 to 2013. Not only that, outside of television, she's headlined with comics,

including Sarah Silverman, Louis CK, Amy Schumer, Aziz Ansari, and many others. Lots of big names. She's famous for some other skills that we'll explore, like roasting other comics and celebrities. That is a fascinating and fun conversation that we dug into. Her first one hour standup special money shot premiered on comedy central in 2010 and was nominated for an American comedy award. Her second standup special Whitney Cummings. I love you debuted on comedy central in 2014 and she is shooting a third hour for HBO this August, which is set to air in 2016. In this conversation, we talk about her process for writing both comedy and other types of writing difference between fiction and nonfiction. We get really granular on how she develops her jokes. I ask her questions like if you had eight weeks to take someone,

IE me, who's terrified of standup, no experience to get them ready for a real performance. What would those eight weeks of training look like? And we also turn back the clock, look at her childhood, look at the things that have formed her and informed her the mistakes that she's made managing other people lessons learned, uh, because she's had massive teams, hundreds of people, which I did not know. Uh. And we even delve into some very esoteric stuff like equine therapy, using horses for therapeutic work. Really fascinating. I love this conversation. I hope you do as well.

And she is a very funny lady, making me laugh. So I hope you enjoy Whitney Cummings. And I usually say without further ado, Whitney Cummings, but I've said Whitney Cummings like 17 times already in this intro. So Whitney Cummings, Whitney Cummings, Whitney Cummings, like Candyman. Enjoy. Whitney, dear, thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks for having me. I caught you opening your beet juice. I have a lot.

Look, I'm really into beverages. I don't know if you noticed this about me. It's my weird... You do have a collection. I think I'm a hoarder. I'm really into hydrating, but sneakily so. Nefarious hydration, it can never be actual water. It's always like something that costs $8.

Right. Well, beet juice, I mean, a lot of endurance athletes are big on beach use. Well, that's what I'm here to tell you is that I've made my transition into being an endurance athlete. That's my new career. That's why you're grilling the American Ninja Warrior competitor who wandered through the living room. I was asking him so many questions and uh yeah no i um i feel like i didn't make a lot of great health decisions in my early 20s so i feel like i'm overcompensating now with you know things like this better than going the other direction right you're like you know i was so healthy i was so orthorexic i was competitive athlete i feel like our parents just kind of dropped the ball? I mean, now that we know so much about

GMOs and high fructose corn syrup, I feel like I'm on borrowed time. Well, I think that maybe they dropped the ball, but they didn't know they were carrying the ball in the first place. 100%. Yes, they didn't know that. So they have plausible deniability. They'll be like, it's not my fault that I gave you chicken McNuggets. No, I smoked when I was pregnant.

Krispy Kreme. No, exactly. Fruity Pebbles every morning. You wanted Cocoa Puffs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So I feel like I'm kind of like trying to rectify a lot of that damage that was done. So, oh, look at this. I just noticed. So, I love you.

How is that on your arm? I got that for you. I have something else to tell you. It's just full of exciting confessions right at the back. That's so funny that you just said, because as what you guys can't see, hopefully, unless you're a weirdo stalker, I have a white tattoo on my lower left forearm that says, I love you. And I don't think anyone has ever noticed it without me having to point it out. How is that produced?

I have another white one right here. It's an anchor. It's basically, this is like someone who's incredibly commitment phobic who wants a tattoo but doesn't want anybody to see it. So that's one of my weaknesses. Is it done with an electric needle without any ink? Nope, with white ink, but it has to go much deeper. So it's more like scarification.

So it basically hurts like twice as much. So I am fascinated by that. You get twice as much pain, but half the recognition. Sounds like a lot of business ideas I've had. Exactly. Worst investment possible. That's fascinating to me because I've never seen a tattoo like that before. But I read when I was in Japan as an exchange student, my first time abroad,

when I was 15, I became obsessed with Yakuza tattoos and sort of deep traditional tattoos that were associated with organized crime. And I read about this type of tattoo, which is pretty much exactly what you have on your arm, that would only become visible when the skin was flush at, say, the public baths. Wow. So if they wanted to keep it under wraps that they were an organized crime member, but then wanted to scare the shit out of everybody when they were naked in the baths, they would have full back white tattoos.

That is so cool. It's almost like blacklight tattoos today or something. I don't even know what a blacklight tattoo is. There's a blacklight. You can do a blacklight tattoo. This is mostly for, I guess, people who do LSD and like special K, but you can do it with black light ink so you can only see it under a black light. This has got to be good for you.

Yeah. This is so funny because I wrote my senior honors thesis in college on tattooing. Really? Yeah. So I've, now I think you also have, if I saw correctly, something on the back of one of your arms. Yes. I have a safety pin on the back of my right arm,

which I always forget I have because I hit it so well that I always forget it's there. What is the story of the safety pin? The safety pin is sort of... Well, the I love you is first for you, Tim. Thank you. Thank you. I wanted to subtly tell you.

Sort of a requirement for podcast guests. This is what I have that really divulged. Sign the release. You get the tattoo. Then we can talk. Right, right. I've been branded. Well, let me do them in order.

I got the anchor right here on my wrist. Michael Patrick King and I created a show called Two Broke Girls, which is on CBS. Michael Patrick King did Sex and the City. If you had a girlfriend at the time, you probably had to watch it. He did a show called The Comeback, which is a brilliant show. It is so well done, sort of about an aging actress in Hollywood and sexism in Hollywood. And it's just incredibly well written and performed. And we did Two Broke Girls together simultaneously. I was doing a show on NBC, which was a sitcom, as well as a talk show. So I was

doing three shows simultaneously, which doing one is already, I was going to say glutton for punishment, Herculean desk. So, um, so I was just, I was having a hard time. Um, I dealt with some just, you know, as a comedian, you know, you become a comedian cause you want people to like you, you know, and then all of a sudden you're sort of thrust into the zeitgeist as like a public figure. And then, you know, not everyone's going to like you, which know, and then all of a sudden you're sort of thrust into the zeitgeist as like a public figure. And then, you know, not everyone's going to like you, which in standup is usually a good thing because it means you're being specific, you know, as you, I believe say, uh, when

you try to please everybody, you please no one. Right. Exactly. So the idea is you want to polarize some people, but then all of a sudden when it's critics, you're like, wait a second. And then you recreate your childhood circumstances and you're like, dad, I mean, a critics just become your dad who won't accept you or your mom, whose approval you're trying to get. So you just sort of time travel back into being a kid. And so that was really hard on me. And then, uh, I just kind of eviscerated myself. I did everything wrong

in terms of being a boss and managing my time and managing people's egos and depleting myself, which I've learned a lot in the last couple years. When you were working on these three shows. When I was working on these three shows. I was a perfect example of what to never do. This was before I knew about you, before I had a – I'm in a 12-step program for codependence called Al-Anon and I do trauma therapy. Now, I do all this stuff, whatever. But this was before I had any kind of that recovery or had done any work on my sort of neural pathways. I was using a lot of really old survival skills and I was like people pleasing and caretaking

and I couldn't fire anyone and I was terrified to tell someone no and I couldn't have uncomfortable conversations. And I was all of a sudden the boss of like 400 people and I... That's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. That was not the number I expected. But then again, I haven't worked on... Yeah, well, three different shows. I haven't worked on big TV shows. Yeah... That's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. That was not the number I expected. But then again, I haven't worked on... Yeah, well, three different shows.

I haven't worked on big TV shows. Yeah, it's a lot of people. I mean, I worked on a TV show. It was very, very minimal. 400 people. It's a lot of people. I mean, it was just between three different shows. I have three staffs, 200 each.

It was probably more like 600 over the year. And they're all looking to you for clarity and being decisive and just saying yes or no instead of, well, I just – I feel like I'm so sorry. It just – I was so apologetic and so desperate for everyone's approval, which makes a great comedian a terrible boss. And so I was just having a really hard time. And I remember Michael Patrick King, who's sort of one of my mentors, he gave me a ring that had an anchor on it, just sort of that, you know, he was like, just stay grounded, stay in your shoes. Because anytime someone would come to me, I would just like abandon, you know, myself and just jump out of my skin to try and take care of them and manage them and please them instead of just keeping my feet on the ground.

And then, of course, I promptly lost the ring. So I decided to get the tattoo of it in white, of course, because being on television, you have to go in like an hour early to get tattoos covered. And I don't want to give up, you know, an hour a day, five hours of my week. That's five minutes. That's right. Every. It's very interesting.

Yeah. Every, you know, an hour a day times five days a week. Yeah. That's, you know, five hours of tattoo covering, which I just don't have time. So hence the white. And then the safety pin was sort of, I grew up in, this is not funny. We're going to get funny.

We don't have to be all funny. In kind of an unsafe environment. And my parents would argue a lot when I was a kid. And I used to play with, we didn't have a lot of money. I was poor. Safety pins were my toys. I just remember playing with safety pins

and I remember opening them and closing them. And I just remember that was just, I did EMDR, which is like a trauma thing. Eye movement. Eye movement, desensitization. You can say that word. Desensitization. Desensitization and reprogramming. Got it.

Which involves using eye movements. Exactly. For overcoming trauma or- To basically reprogram your trauma in terms of putting your trauma into a different folder, like in layman's terms. So the way that my trauma therapist explained it to me was, you remember the episode in I Love Lucy when there was the conveyor belt? Sure.

Was it the bonbons or was it bottles with gloves? I want to say it was bottles. I want to say it was bottles and she was putting the glove on it. That was in the open. But anyway, so she explains it as our brains take in 3 billion pieces of information a second, right? So Tim's shirt is camouflage and how he feels, how he looks, how this house feels, trampoline outside. That's a longer story, listeners. There's a trampoline that all I want to do is leave this podcast and go jump on it.

And then when we get traumatized, our brain freezes, but the information keeps coming in. So if right now someone came in and held up a gun to our heads, the information would still come in, white walls, wooden, Apple computer, this cactus, and then it would be filed into the folder of trauma. So later in five years, I'm sitting at dinner and all of a sudden there's a cactus and I'm anxious and stressed out and I don't know why. Exactly, and I'm triggered. So it's like reprogramming some of those triggers into a folder that is more benign, essentially. And so did the tattoo come after that EMDR?

Yes. Got it. Yeah, when I started doing EMDR and sort of like getting into sort of like neurological recovery, essentially essentially from trauma. And was the safety pin a trigger for negative feelings? And if so, why did you choose to put it on your arm? That's interesting. It was kind of my, and it wasn't necessarily a trigger for me. I think

it was more like a symbol for me of sort of a time. And I think this is sounds kind of corny, but like it was open when I was a kid and I would sort of like, you know, not in like a masochistic way, but I would sort of like prick myself with it when things would get, it was just like a tick kind of like how someone bites their nails or something. And so I sort of closed it. So the tattoo is a closed safety pin. That's sort of like, you're safe. It's over. Cause a lot of times if you have any kind of trauma as a kid, you become an adult and you constantly are recreating your childhood circumstances and having these completely obsolete inappropriate feelings to present situations so i had a you know was working with somebody who triggered all these feelings that my

family of origin used to cause and it was like this is a completely inappropriate reaction this is an employee who works for me who's trying to get a script done. And all of a sudden I'm like, you know, reliving these historical wounds. It's just not appropriate. So I think it was sort of me really trying to put an end to that story and respond to present circumstances with present appropriate emotions. Got it. If that makes any sense. That does make sense. And the I love you? I love you is a couple things. My last special was called I love you, but I actually did that after I got the tattoo.

Interesting. I'm trying to figure out how to say this without seeming ridiculous, but something that I- I sound ridiculous the entire time I'm on the podcast. Okay, good. Feel free to balance me out. You know what? I mean, I'm just admitting like pretty embarrassing. It's pretty hard to embarrass me, but this, but any kind of vulnerability tends to be a little bit embarrassing

for a comedian. Um, I was struggling a little bit with patience and compassion. And, um, again, I'm codependent or like I grew up in an alcoholic home, which a lot of times people get, uh, uh, we have a lot of trouble with patience and control and we want everyone to do what we want to do when we want it to be done. And that's sort of how we survived as children is if I could just organize my drinks in the right row, I'm going to be fine. And I found myself and I travel a tremendous amount as I'm sure you do also or I have in

the past. And I just found myself getting frustrated with people not doing things my way I don't know if you've ever it's like every minute of every hour of my life okay so I might have a pamphlet for you yeah um but I found myself just being and I think that's one of the reasons I gravitated towards being a writer and a comedian is I get to do it all on my own right you know I write the material I perform it I critique it I rewrite it own. I write the material, I perform it, I critique it, I rewrite it, I tour, I do everything on my own because when other people get involved, it's inefficient and I don't like the way you're doing things. I don't like the way you're saying that. I don't like the way you're sitting, just everything. Sounds really low stress to have 600 people.

Constantly just- Working on projects here. I know, exactly. Like, is he wearing flip-flops to work? I mean, it was just like, just a way to not focus on myself. And I think ultimately, sometimes when we judge other people, it's just a way to not look at ourselves or as a way to feel superior or sanctimonious or whatever. So my trauma therapist said, every time you meet someone, just in your head, say, I love you before you have a conversation with them. And that conversation is going to go a lot better. Cool. I like that. It was just an interesting little trick for 28 days, which is how long it takes to make a neural pathway, a new neural pathway. I would just, when I meet someone in my head, whether it's the lady

at the DMV who's making me wait two hours. And essentially, it's just the notion of everybody is doing the best they can with what they have, which is really hard for a lot of us to accept. Super hard. This is, I'm enjoying this because I've been trying to work on a lot of these weaknesses that I have, which fall pretty squarely right into the impatient dick category. And very perfectionist, very meticulous in sometimes a helpful detail-oriented way, oftentimes in a monkish, overbearing way. Which works great when you're writing a book yourself, but

when all of a sudden you're getting a relationship or have employees, it doesn't work as well. Or have other people involved in the process, you become a problem author, which is sort of my label. There are pros and cons to being a problem author. You get the cover you want, but then so-and-so at the publisher wants to stab you in the face with the pencil repeatedly. I'm just glad people still use pencils.

I'm not sure. I'm really clawing my way through vocab. I'm decaffeinated at the moment. But the two things that are very related that really helped me were one, always assuming that people are fighting battles you know nothing about. Everyone's fighting some intense battle internally that you know nothing about, number one. And something that is a battle for them might be super easy for you. Right. You know? And I think my dad said something really who is not known for excellent advice, but he said something to me once that was super helpful because I was having a lot of trouble in relationships where I felt like I wasn't getting my needs met.

And he was like, you just have to understand how strong you come off. Like people don't think you need anything. Right. So that's why people don't help you. And it was this interesting thing where I was like, oh, I mean, I have a lot of weaknesses and I'm bad at a lot of things, but when I'm good at something, which maybe you can relate to, I'm really good at it because I've just worked really hard at it. So I'm really good at things that a lot of people might not be and vice versa. So it's like, I'm like, how come he hasn't finished that book yet? How could he? It's

been two days. And it's like, okay, not everyone reads a book or whatever it is, you know? Yeah, exactly. Being, having compassion for everybody. Right. And it's like, okay, not everyone reads a book or whatever it is, you know? Yeah, exactly. Being, having compassion for everybody. Yeah. Not something that comes naturally to me at least. And it's not that I'm a complete like apathetic serial killer or whatever it's, but the impatience is really pronounced. One of my favorite quotes, one of my favorite people is Katharine Hepburn.

And in a Philadelphia story, I think it was Cary Grant said to Katharine Hepburn. And in a Philadelphia story, I think it was Cary Grant said to Katharine Hepburn's character, you have no tolerance for human weakness. And I remember that resonating a little bit. Yeah. Which is, it's easy to rationalize, at least I find ways to rationalize why it's acceptable, but you just leave this sort of string of collateral damage. And the two things that that brought to mind for me were one, I remember somebody told me, if you walk outside and you go about your day and you meet an asshole, that person's an asshole. If you walk outside and everyone you meet is an asshole, you're the asshole. I love that. I love that. That's great.

And so whenever i have one of those days where i'm like man everybody's so ungrateful and they're such assholes i'm like well wait a second now wait a second i'm the common denominator in all these interactions is more my problem that was exactly so that was my way of uh just it's a shortcut and it's it's as soon as i meet someone in my head i just just say, I love you. That's the starting point. And then, yeah, I love you. Can I please get a Diet Coke with it? Whatever. I mean, for everybody.

Mr. TSA, can you please not drop my computer? Thank you. I'm getting felt up by the TSA guy. You too? Well, I'm TSA pre now. That's like third base. I get felt up with my shoes on. Oh, yeah, right. that's like third base i get felt up with my shoes on oh yeah right um and another thing that

was super helpful because at least in my field i don't know the case for years i can't speak to it but a lot of people who are in a performance-based field whether it's writing acting um as this is a huge generalization but you can sometimes assume they didn't get a ton of attention as a child or need more attention than most. They have a compulsion to need to be seen and heard and appreciated. And humor is usually developed as a shield slash defense mechanism. So what were they defending against? We don't know, but it was something. Everyone had a thing they had to defend against as a child.

My last name is Cummings. That was probably what I was managing as a child. And last name is Cummings. That was probably what I was managing as a child and whatever was going on in my household. So you get a bunch of really fragile people who have all these defense mechanisms in one room to constantly show up every day to be rejected because you're in a writer's room. All you're doing is pitching and the boss is saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And you're just hearing no all day. You're not good enough. You're not funny enough, which is what we all translate to.

So a bunch of really fragile, sensitive people in one room and who may or may not have done the kind of recovery that I've committed to or therapy. We always assume everyone works as hard on ourselves as we do. They don't, you know? Well, that brings up a couple of things for me. One is I have at points tried to chill the fuck out. And that takes many forms.

Meditation has been very helpful. I do have a simple sort of daily morning meditation practice. After two, my friends are just like, you're being an idiot. Maybe you should try sitting still. I find sitting still and focus, returning my attention to something, whether that's breath or sound or a word for 20 minutes a day, allows me not to feel overwhelmed. Yeah. That is due to over-responding to things imaginary or outside of my control. Mm-hmm.

But what I wonder is, for you, I've sometimes thought, you know what, I'm impatient, but I don't want to totally fix it. I want to dial it back, but I don't want to totally fix it because there are a lot of benefits that come from being impatient sometimes. It's a strength in moderation. Or sometimes in extremes. I mean, we could dig into that, But do you worry or have you experienced that doing the work that you've done has negatively impacted your comedy in any way? Doing the work I've done, has it – oh, the work I've done. I see. So like removing the shield or reducing that codependency.

Great. Great question. Has it removed some of the magic? Great question. I think the short answer is no. One of my biggest fears when I went into a recovery program and intensive therapy, like not talk therapy, like trauma therapy, which is actually kind of the opposite of talk therapy because talk therapy largely, I'm not disapproving of therapy, but for me personally, mine has more

of a neurological perspective, which is when you have some kind of trauma and you talk about it, you just re-embed the trauma and it actually makes it worse. So I do like, I can't talk about a certain topic for 28 days. I have to replace a negative thought with a positive thought for 28 days. I mean, it's like a pretty hard work. I got really worried. I was like, you know, talking to my therapist and a bunch of people in my program. And I was like, I got really worried. I was like, you know, talking to my therapist and a bunch of people in my program. And I was like, I'm just really afraid that I'm not going to be as funny if I'm not as dark and in pain all the time. And it was actually the opposite because I waste so much time trying to manage, you know, unhealthy relationships and the, you know, having low

self-esteem and my perfectionism, which can be really paralyzing, you know, perfectionism leads to procrastination, which leads to paralysis. So I could go a couple of days without getting any writing done because my self-esteem was too low. I didn't think I was good enough. And just these old sort of obsolete messages and survival instincts. And I think that it has given me so much more mental energy, physical energy. I have much more balance in my life now and I'm much more productive and much more vulnerable, which as a writer, you have to be vulnerable. I think before I was so overworked. I was such a chronic workaholic that I didn't have a life. And in order for art to imitate life, you have to have a life. That's a really profound statement.

For me, art was imitating art because all I was doing was working. Which turns into this weird recursive funny land. Yeah, self-reflexive. Yeah, and then all of a sudden, it's just so meta. And I'm sitting in there, and I remember being in the writer's room in the second season of a TV show about relationships. And someone was like, oh, what if they go to a baby shower? And I'm like, no one goes to baby showers. And everyone in the room was like, yeah, you don't.

But most people do on a Sunday go to a baby shower. And I was like, oh my God, I was just so work. I was so myopic. And I was so, I hadn't had a conversation, you know, this is going to come off bad, but I'm just going to be honest. I hadn't had a conversation with someone that I didn't pay in months. Wow. Which is scary. Now pay, not meaning you've paid them to talk to you, but an employee. I've been playing. Yeah. I only talked to therapists. No one else is allowed to listen. Here's your script. You'll note the compliments are all in column B. Right, right, right. And proceed. Memorize it before you. I don't hate that idea. That's how sick i am um but yeah i didn't i hadn't had like an organic healthy sort of conversation with someone not that the people that i hire are

like obsequious to me and won't you know walk on eggshells around me good word that is a good word that is a good word um just gre'd my ass not bad not bad i don't use it often but that felt like the right context but when i do but when i do it comes in with a plomb. It comes in hard. And so I felt like it was really important to me to have balance. I didn't have any hobbies. I got assigned homework from my trauma therapist that I had to do two hours a week chunks of something that was purely fun with no work motives. Right. Purely.

So I took up equine therapy and some other hobbies and stuff. But it was really a struggle. I was like, I can do that. And I mean, an hour in, I was restless. I felt unproductive. I felt like I was making notes in my phone. I'm like working. I realized like-

Working on the material. Oh my God. I'm doing bits with horses. What's the deal? I mean, I was like, it was a struggle. And I mean, even like listening to podcasts or I was always emotive of like, oh, I can get a joke out of this or if I listen to, you know, and it made me realize how work-driven I was. What was the, so going from burning the candle at both ends, workaholic, what was the kind of defining moment where you're like, no more, like I can't continue this way? What was the conversation or the day or the experience?

By the way, in the workaholism, and you know more about this than anyone, a lot of it was busyness. It wasn't actual work. I was taking on a lot of tasks that I had no business doing just because I had been so sort of... I think one of the most important things you can do as an artist or in any field, I can really only speak to comedians, actors, writers, performers, is to get a handle on your issues. But you will never be successful if you're dysfunctional in your relationships and with

your employees and stuff. If you have trust issues, if you have abandonment issues, if you're a narcissist, whatever it is. If you have trust issues, if you have abandonment issues, if you're a narcissist, whatever it is, you know, if you are controlling because I found like, I remember when I was, I was so apologetic

and I was so afraid to ask for help that I was doing everybody's job which ends up disenfranchising them. They get pissed. Insulting.

They feel micromanaged. Yeah, they feel micromanaged. And then you can't ultimately pick up all that slack. Yes. And I'm exhausting myself and making them feel bad. Nope, everybody loses. And I remember I was like punching holes in a script and there was like literally 40 other

people in that room who wanted to do it. I mean, I just had a bunch of employees that were like, can we please do something? They were so bored. And I was like, I got it. I got it. I was just so coming from stand-up comedy. I'm so used to doing everything myself that asking for help, I realized how hard it was for me.

So there's no point in having a great script or being a great writer or actor if you can't let people help you. So I think a lot of – I realized – because again, being like you and I, just in terms of your impatience and all that, like, it works really well up into a certain point. So all of these defects had worked really well for me until I had a staff. Right. Until I had people who were, I had to collaborate with. And all of a sudden I'm like, was sort of a codependent mess. What's wrong with you people? Oh, wait. I know. Why doesn't every, if you were all just psychic and did everything my way,

everything would be fine. And so I think that when I realized. Why doesn't every – if you were all just psychic and did everything my way, everything would be fine. And so I think that when I realized that I couldn't fire someone, like, I mean, I literally would get a pit in my stomach when I had to tell someone that I, you know, didn't like their script or didn't like their joke. I realized I was like, I can't believe how hard it is for me to feel like I'm disappointing someone or just to tell the truth, quite frankly. Right, right. someone or just to tell the truth, quite frankly. I was so apologetic and afraid of people not liking me that it was really paralyzing and really unproductive and slowed down the writing process, confused employees. I remember in the room, people would pitch jokes and I would just say yes to all of them because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. And then I have to go later and change it. And then all of a sudden the script comes out and their jokes aren't there and they feel betrayed and lied to. And a phrase that I love

that when I first went into Al-Anon, I heard someone said, people pleasing is a form of assholery, which I just loved because you're not pleasing anybody. You're just making them resentful because you're being disingenuous. And you're also not giving them the dignity

of their own experience and assuming they can't handle the truth. It's so patronizing. Yeah. It's a band-aid that hurts a lot when it gets ripped off. And there's a very short book called Lying by Sam Harris, who's a PhD in neuroscience. He's been on the podcast, which digs into a lot of this in a very interesting way. Don't we tell like 30 lies a day or something? Oh, I'm sure it's,

uh, three, 330. Who knows? I think it depends on the, it depends on the person or which politician you're listening to. But the, um,

the point being like when you tell white lies or you omit certain things, uh, they can ultimately have the same negative impact as an outright kind of bold-faced lie to someone. So I apologize for interrupting. No, no. That's super... I love that.

I want to come back to one thing you mentioned, which is... Actually, before I do that, so was there a particular breaking point where you're like, I need to address this? Yes. And again, I wish I had... I wish I do that, so was there a particular breaking point where you're like, I need to address this? Yes. And again, I wish I had... I wish I lied more, actually. I probably should lie into your response to this question. I got pneumonia and I didn't notice.

And it got really bad and turned into something called costochondritis. Sounds bad. Which is... Costco chondritis. Sounds bad. Which is, you get it at Costco. The good news is it's really affordable. And it's basically the infection from the pneumonia gets in the muscles of your chest, which is called pleurisy, which people got in the Civil War. I mean, it's like nobody gets this. You have to go so long without taking care. That and the civil war. I mean, it's like, nobody gets this. Like you have to go so long with that. And then it gets, um, inflames the cartilage under your rib cage. So

it starts to just sort of, your chest is really sore. And essentially I just wasn't taking care of myself because I was so busy. I mean, I was sleeping like four hours a night and was in, had to be in every meeting and every editing session. And when I rewriting, I was writing four scripts at a time and I was just super overextended. I had some family things happen. My mom had a stroke. I had a family member going to rehab. And I just had no concept of boundaries. And you can't give what you don't have. I was the queen of giving everything away, all my energy, all my time, all my money, all my... I was like, I would cook a five-course meal for you, but then I wouldn't eat dinner, you know? And so I think, you know, I had this doctor say to me, you know, he's like, you're killing yourself,

you know, like you really like need to figure out a way to be healthier because, and that's when I kind of learned about neurology and stress and cortisol and adrenaline and epinephrine and how damaging they can be on your body. And I was like, I'm 27 and I have three jobs. This is awesome. But then it's all fun and games until – Until it's not. Until, yeah, you have leprosy.

Until your lungs fall out of your armpits. It's all fun and games. I just remember being like – and I think that to that point, I remember being the doctor and having this realization because I grew up on Roseanne and Mad About You and Three's Company and these multi-cams. I love comedy. I love comedians. I remember being like, I'm living my dream at 27. I have everything I wanted for my whole life and I'm not enjoying it. I'm the doctor and I have pneumonia and I'm like managing people's egos instead of just like having a great time.

What's allowed you or what are the things, and this comes back to something you said about being very, very good at some things and very, very, very bad at others. And I'd be curious to know what you think the factors or beliefs or behaviors were that allowed you to get to that point at 27. I mean, a lot of people will say, holy shit, that's really young. How would you get to that point from a success standpoint professionally? What were the things that contributed to that? Got me to success. I failed so many times and wasn't deterred by it. I, for whatever reason, saw failure as practice

instead of as the end, the finish line. You know, if that makes any sense. I wrote three pilots before anyone even read a pilot I had written. Now, a pilot for those people who are not sort of in the business, is that a single episode on spec? It's a single episode of basically the first episode of a TV show, which sort of has to introduce all the characters. And it's just a little different than a traditional episode.

And it has to introduce the world and be very specific. So I wrote one about the news in 2040. And it was like about a news station and the news in 2040. And it was kind of this apocalyptic take on what the news was going to be like. And the screen was like all covered in ads and all of the newscasters dressed like NASCAR drivers with like brands all over them. And, you know, they literally every other sentence they said, you know, they'd be like, you know, so Costco's, you know, Cincinnati is 72 degrees. Like every state was sponsored by an ad. It was just kind of a ridiculous sort of hyperbolic sort of thing. And sort of about, you know, there's a drought and there's no water and it was like

180 degrees out. Which may end up not being far from the truth. It might just be a documentary. So I, I, and everyone thought that was kind of insane and, and no one really read it. And then I wrote, um, one that was, uh, based on this book called, um, uh, uh, it was about something about, it was like a psychology book. I think it was called, uh, uh, I was about something about, it was like a psychology book. I think it was called, uh, uh, I don't remember, but it was about the 14 different kinds of personalities, you know? And, uh, and I wrote about three sisters that had the same mother, but three different fathers and how those three different personality types produce different sort of girls and

their relationship. Fox didn't pick that up. I wrote a pilot for Comedy Central, which I still today, till today, I think is the best thing I've ever written. It was based on me and about just me falling in love with a guy who's in AA and he can't date anyone outside of AA. So I pretend to be an alcoholic to get in his life. And I go to AA and pretend I'm getting sober to get in his life. And then I fake a relapse to get his attention in the pilot and then have to drink and then actually become an alcoholic.

It's this really ridiculous premise. And they didn't pick that up. But that's what Michael Patrick King read that made him interested in me to write two book girls with him. So everything that I, and then I wrote a spec for a pilot that didn't even go,

that was Dane Cook's pilot or something. So I was just constantly, you know, I see- Back at the wheel, back at the wheel. Yeah, I see comedy in writing like med school. It's like, this is the only profession where people think they should be famous and be making millions of dollars two years in. It's like doctors this is the only profession where people think they should be famous and be making millions of dollars

two years in. It's like doctors go to med school for 10 years, 12 years. Like, it's not that different. That's really interesting. I had Adam Ghazali who's a neuroscientist at UCSF on the podcast

and he was like, I was in school for 18 years. Yeah. And it's just like, wow, that is... I have comedians come up to me now because with YouTube and how famous everyone gets so fast

or some visibility which i think is great the democratization of comedy and entertainment but people like three years in are like i just i'm working on a sitcom and i don't have an agent and i'm like you should in six years we'll talk right get good and then we'll talk there's this entitlement now if i have 10 minutes of jokes and like, where's my sitcom? You know, it's like a doctor

going to school for two years and being like, I think I'm ready to operate. It's like, no, I'll see you in 10 years. Yeah. Well,

there's an expression in, I think I'm getting this right, in Japanese, which is like, hiyasi samayasi, which is like, gets hot easily, that which gets hot easily

gets cold easily. But I mean, it's usually referred to people who find a passion that they're really excited about and they go all in and then quickly drop it, which is kind of, I guess, my entire business model. But I think that can be applied to so many different industries and skill sets. And so for instance, I get asked all the time because I've written a handful of books that have done decently well, how do I hit the bestseller list?

And my point is you can game hitting the bestseller list. You cannot game staying on the bestseller list. And the latter should be your focus. And they're like, well, how should I market my book? And I'm like, it starts with writing a good book because that is how you sort of perpetuate the popularity and get the word of mouth. And I think it's, I mean, that's a sort of a content point. Because the lesson you want is to make the bestseller list. And I'm like, yeah, it wasn't that good.

Yeah. You know, because that's like the hype syndrome of like... Yeah. And then it drops off. And I think that if you haven't built that foundation, it's very hard to have any sustained success, which is why certain people like, I mean, Justin Bieber, very impressive, that he came out of that sort of YouTube farming,

you know, scouting area and has been able to sustain it as long as he has. I mean, granted, I'm sure he's dealt with his own stuff. No one should be famous at 20. Could you imagine if you were famous at 20? No. The things you did when you were... And by the way...

My judgment was bad enough. Imagine you at 20 with $50 million. Well, right. It's going to take every bad decision and pour gasoline on it. If I had $50 million at 20, so many people would be dead. I mean, horrible things would have happened. When you do your best writing, whether that's the pilot that you mentioned that involves AA or anything else, when you do your best writing, what does the process look like?

When you look back at the best best stuff you've done what contributed to that writing it's awful it's awful it's awful writing is awful i agree with that it's not sexy it's not glamorous it's not easy it's the more i've done it the harder it's gotten uh you know because you don't want to become a parody of yourself. You don't want to keep, you know, doing the same things. You get sort of disgusted by your own instincts. You know, I've written that joke. I've written that character. And then, you know, it's gotten a little bit better because my inner monologue is a little bit nicer to me these days. You know, I've worked on that. I've worked on detaching from my negative uh beating myself

up but writing is um writing's nasty you know and you know i've also gotten better as i've learned about neurology in terms of like not trying to multitask not you know my internet's cut off when i write i don't have my phone near me um i don't try to edit and write simultaneously. Do you do sort of brainstorming or first drafts on a computer by hand? I am really very meticulous, which I think a lot of people have shame about. A lot of people want to be like, no, I just like, I don't. I'm not like a- Wing it. I don't wing it.

I write things out. I'm very dorky. It's note cards. It's 30 pages. It's, you know, 30 pages of a word document of just all my thoughts. And then I put my dialogue into the entire script goes into a word document before I even open final draft.

So I'm pretty much done with it in a word document with the dialogue. Cause I don't like to write in final draft cause it's just harder to go back and edit. Okay. Got it. And because writing and editing are two separate parts of the brain, going back and forth is just kind of paralyzes me. Sure.

I'm very easy to, it's very easy for me to collapse. So I really, I just, I think the most important thing is just knowing your strengths and weaknesses. So I know that it's hard for me to stay focused if I'm looking at a final draft document and seeing the names of the characters. I feel like, oh my God, I'm screwing this up. This sucks. This sucks. Too many inputs. I like it to suck in Word. So the aesthetic of it is, oh, this is just a rough thing. It doesn't have to be good yet. When it's in final draft, I'm like- That's interesting. The aesthetic makes you feel like it should be better.

Exactly. When I see the form of final draft, it's like, oh my God, I suck. I suck. What am I doing in here? So I've learned how to sort of like quell my own fears and anxieties. It's a lot of pacing. It's a lot of eating. It's a lot of going on walks. It's a lot of...

Do you have a set time or did you? During these periods where you felt like you put out really good work, and that could be now, obviously, but morning, night, middle of the night, coffee, wine, what's the cocktail look like? The whole thing. I do not drink. When I'm writing, I try not to drink at all because I think since I've started eating so healthy, my body just metabolizes. I I mean, I used to, I'm 32 now. Something happened to me when I turned 30 where I just could not drink the way I used to. I, on my 30th birthday, someone sent me two shots of tequila and I'm pretty competitive. So he's

like, I bet you can't drink those faster than me. And I was like, boom. It's like the oldest dude trick in the book. I didn't know that. No, it's not that I do that, but it's like the oldest dude trick in the book. I didn't know that. No, it's not that I do that, but it's like, you know, I can recognize it. I'm like, oh my God. I bet you can't take these two roofies faster than me. It's like a roofie eating competition. I just was like, and I was like on an empty stomach. And literally I woke up in my bed the next morning and I had like 30 missed calls and texts.

And people were like, did you go home with John Mayer? And I was like, Oh my God. And you're like, I hope so. I know. I'm kidding. Did anyone get photos? I don't even remember seeing John Mayer. I was just like, okay, I, I can never drink tequila again. Certainly. Um, but so I'm just like honoring the fact that, okay, I just, I can't be as productive and prolific when I drink. So I don't drink when I'm writing. I wake up. Um, I, uh, have like 30 minutes online, you know, I, I, I really try to keep it to like four basic sites. What are the, what are the sites? I always do Huffington post. I do salon. I do slate. Ashley Madison.

Ashley, Ashley Madison.com. Laura Ashley, ashley madison um and then one king's lane which is like my sort of you know um thing and dig sometimes and it kind of depends what i'm working on because it's also if i'm writing right now i'm writing a pilot for hbo that's sort of about gender and and it's got a lot of science in it so i'll'll go to psychology today. Jezebel, the frisky, which are kind of- The frisky? The frisky is like a website for girls that's got a lot of studies and this many women admit to having orgasms and masturbation is good for your health. Sort of like edgy- It's like Cosmo with some citations?

Yes. It's smart Cosmo. Got it. That's really funny. It's Smart Cosmo. And so if there's anything that's relevant or, you know, and I'll look at Twitter. You know, I sort of follow all the major news things on Twitter. But once I get into that, it activates a part of my brain that's a little too self-conscious and what's everybody else doing. So I try to not do that because I do know that all of this is an addiction and I have to sort of keep it under control. I do coffee. I do vitamins.

How do you do your coffee? I do my coffee in a Keurig. Yeah. I do Keurig. Keurig. That's a hard one. Keurig. I know. I couldn't say... What was it? Desensitization. That's a lot of syllables.

That's bad. But you did nail up secrets. I'm going to do... I did. I hit that one out of the park. I do with almond milk and this something all natural sugar. I had this woman come in and take all the carcinogens out of my house. So I'm like making my own almond milk like an Amish slave these days. Those Amish slaves make amazing coffee.

As long as they tie those beards back. That's right. And I try not to do too much coffee. And then I do a smoothie, which you've heard about, but it's kind of like everything I need for the day. So I'm not worrying later about what I should eat for lunch. What time are you waking up generally? Usually about, depending on how late I'm doing shows.

Right now I'm touring to get ready for my special. So on the weekends when I am on the road, I'll wake up more like 10 or 11. But when I'm writing, I try to wake up early. And when I was writing a script last year, I would wake up at like 5 a.m. and try to work from like 5 to 9 and go back to sleep. Because isn't that when our brain is the most kind of... For a lot of people yeah it depends i mean the of the writers i know who are really prolific uh and put out good work it seems like they all there are a couple of exceptions and i

hate them because i can't do what they do which is like they're like oh yeah from one to two p.m i'll kick out an article can't do it uh These writers, the more common case, they write when other people are asleep. Whether that means staying up really, really late or waking up really, really early. And I was always the night owl version. But yeah, it's great to wake up at 5 a.m. because you're not getting emails.

You're not on the mass emails and whatever. So I would do that and then go back to sleep. Got it. Which was super helpful cause my circadian rhythms are, how long would you sleep for? Um, I, my nap game is pretty strong.

I believe very strongly in naps. Okay. So wait, let's, so let's revisit that time period then. Okay. So you wake up at five, five,

you do a four hour writing session, blitz, go back to bed. When do you wake up? I'll go back to bed at noon or one. A lot of times I'll sleep for two hours and then take another nap from seven to eight because then I'll go do stand up at night. So what I usually try to do is break my day into two days, like two know how can i think a lot of comedians sleep really late but if i'm gonna wake up at eight and then i have to perform at 10 right by the time it's

10 o'clock everyone else is winding down and then all of a sudden i have to be like hilarious and charming so i'll usually take a nap at like six to seven so that i wake up and like i'll have a little bit of coffee and then like go do stand-up game on yeah game on very argy very argentinian that's what they do in Argentina. It is kind of. For the tango. So I lived in Argentina for nine months. And in the tango world, nothing really gets started until 11 o'clock at night or midnight. I don't know how people do that.

And so people would do exactly what you're describing. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, got it. So then during that four-hour blitz, you wake up, are you still doing the 30 minutes of internet in the beginning? I guess I don't. Yeah, I'll do it in the morning. Okay. To me, that's always my, I, because I know how many interests we all have and how many priorities we have. So it's, we want to know what the news is. We want to put nutrients in our body. We want to connect with our parents or loved ones or whatever it is. So I'll try to get that

all done as early as possible. So it's not looming over me all day. So it's like, if I've just checked all the news, okay, I know everything that I check box. I have my smoothie with all my nutrients in it. Check box. Can you, now I know during the sound check, which was spectacular, but I made a solemn promise not to use that. So could you elaborate on the smoothie? Yes. Okay. So I, this woman, her name is Lori Cohen-Peters. She's pretty amazing. And she comes to your house and tells you everything in your house that's killing you. Basically, your cleaners, your food. I mean, I thought – I was like going to this super all-natural grocery store and she literally – I mean, I had almond milk and hummus and raw enomami.

I mean, I think I'm nailing it, right? And literally, I'm like, this one is going to come over and I'm going to get a refund. She opens and she looks at me like horrified. Like gassed. And she was like, you're eating this? And I was like, what? Al this? And I was like, what? Almond milk? She's like, it's full of lecithin and blah, blah, blah.

So because I was also having some trouble with my energy level. And my liver was a little inflamed. And I wasn't converting folic acid properly. There was like a couple things that were up. And so she put this smoothie together for me that it's uh uh kale of course vegetable of the hour the zeitgeisty vegetable um i was in savannah like two weeks ago and someone was like are you eating kale and i was like kale's officially made it it's in savannah people know about kale it's it's officially in the zeitgeist it's kale kale, carrots, kiwi, raspberries, avocado, olive oil, flax oil, some kind of green powder.

And then we put all my sort of pills in there, which is like adrenal support, cod liver oil. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah, is this good? No mercury. Vitamin K, alpha lipoic. Yeah, this is good. No mercury. Vitamin K. Alpha lipoic. Alpha lipoic acid. Okay, thank you.

Desensitization. I think, oh, CoQ10. And I think that is maybe like 2% of the pill. That's 2% of it. And then we actually make the shake. And then we add the ingredients. Right, that's step one. Got it.

So then I feel released of like, okay, I can kind of eat whatever I want all day and I've gotten everything I needed because I could be so... I don't know if this is the case for you. If I need something to be done, I can't stop thinking about it until it's been accomplished. So I just have to do it right away. I can't be like, oh, I'll eat a healthy dinner because then I'll just worry about it.

Obsess on it. Have it on loop. Yeah. So I know my limitations and I try to just... And so let's take... If you think... Well, let me ask a couple of rapid fire questions just for people who want to get more familiar with your stuff. So if,

if you could recommend that someone listen, listen or watch five minutes of your material of your stuff, five to 10, let's just say, what would you point them to? I would first tell you to put your kids away. Yeah. Um,

I would point them to my last standup specialup special, as you can see on my arm. It's called I Love You. It's part of the advertising campaign. My white tattoo. And I would just do the first five minutes of my last special. Okay. The first or the last. First five minutes or the last five minutes.

Okay. So if we take a look then at the first or the last first five minutes or the last five minutes okay so if we if we take a look then at the first five minutes and i don't want to give away any secret sauce necessarily or the punch line literally i guess but uh if if we look at that where did it start like what was the the kind of development process of one of the five minutes yeah or of like one of the bits if that's the right word yes uh in those five minutes like where did it where did it come from or or uh i'd love to just kind of track the sure the growth and development of that came from

pain it came my stand-up is um always comes from uh sublimating or alchemizing really painful situations into figuring out how to make it funny. And so I was in a sort of really codependent, unhealthy relationship. I'm going to ask you an embarrassing question. No. What does codependent mean? Codependent. There's actually- I've heard it used a lot and I've never been 100% clear. That's actually a great question because most people use it wrong. Most people think codependence means spending a lot of time with people or I can't be alone or whatever,

which could be an element of it. Codependence is essentially that you look to other people to decide how you're feeling. So I go, Tim's in a bad mood. Okay, now I'm in a bad mood. It's like essentially you're a reactive person and you put other people's needs before your own. I got it. All right. Thank you. It's basically that. So I have a doctor's appointment. Tim asked me to drive him to the airport. I'm going to drive you to the airport. Right.

And I'm going to forego my doctor's appointment. Got it. Your comfort comes first, essentially. Got it. And it usually, codependence breeds resentment. Right. So I'm going to do this for you. And then two weeks later, you're five minutes late.

And I'm like, well, I drove you to the airport. And you're like, well, I didn't want you to. You offered. Right. You martyr yourself, essentially. Got it. Which is – it's pretty nefarious because you're masquerading as really kind and nice. Right. So everyone – when I was in the height of my codependent glory days, I was like the

nice person who would help you move and I'd pay for the bill and I was like the nicest person yet people-pleasing his farm of assholery. So then I was like annoyed at everybody for not taking better care of me and keeping score. You know, it's not a truly nice thing if you're expecting something in return. Sure. You know, so it's just a way to victimize yourself. Right. And a way to like, I don't know if you've ever dated someone like this or had an employee like this or someone that does nice things for you and then gets mad at you for not receiving the gifts the way they wanted you to have them.

Yes. Yes, which is a way for – you just started this fight and made me a jerk. Don't do me a favor I didn't ask for and then lord it over me. I just made you a four-course meal. It's like I didn't ask you to do any of those things. Why are you – and then you get mad when they don't appreciate it the way you want them to yeah so codependence breeds resentment so but it's a tricky thing to catch and recover from because again your story is i'm just being nice right um so i was kind of in a in a relationship like that uh with someone that sort of recreated my

childhood circumstances so it just felt familiar and um, yeah, so that's the answer to that, but I can't remember the material, the bit in the five minutes. And so you pull it from your painful experience. So I had all this rage after I got out of it, not rage, but just sort of like I was disrespected in a relationship. And I just took like, you know, for I, I, I, the reason I think I'm proud of that first five minutes is because that was my sort of more, I think getting your heart broken is really important. If you're an artist, I encourage you to get your heart broken, get hurt, fall on your face, make mistakes, um, thaw the ice, break through the defenses and get vulnerable. Cause I think that there's

a difference between getting your heart broken and getting your heart broken open. And when it gets broken open, you can really... That's where the meat is. That's where you write great characters. That's how you get vulnerable. And it's important because I think comedians, we pride ourselves on how tough we are. But we're porcupines.

Under there, it's all marshmallow. Just get to the marshmallow because that's where the gold is. I promise if you just tell the truth and get your heart broken as a comedian, you will have a house. That's a cool way to put it. Yeah. So I think maybe in a lot of professions, being tough is what's valued in comedy being weak. It's like power through vulnerability. The speech that brings to mind for me is a commencement speech by a writer I really admire named Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman. Love him.

Yeah. Make good art, right? Cat exploded, make good art. This happened, make good art. Yes. And I think I'm quoting him correctly. This is paraphrased, of course, but- I think I knew that you liked him because on one of your podcasts you brought him up before.

I'm a big fan. Yeah. I'm a bit of a fan boy. Yeah, I like him. Yeah. A bit of a fan is an understatement of the podcast. But he's an amazing guy too. I met him for the first time in SF very briefly. And I'd heard his audiobooks. So it was extremely surreal to hear him sound so erudite and extremely British in person. And I was like, am I listening to an audio book right now? This is amazing. But the line was something along the lines. I'm saying lines a lot. You're in a line barrel. I'm on the line theme. But he said, when you start to feel extremely uncomfortable, like you're walking down the street naked, then maybe you're starting to get it right. Love it. Love it. Oh, that's so great. That's my favorite. And when I put out,

I've experienced that in my own writing where I'll spend a disgusting amount of time on a given blog post, let's say, that I think is going to kill it. And it just flops or it's just crickets. And then when I have that extreme discomfort and I hesitate drafting it and I hesitate publishing it, those are almost always the pieces that do the best. So even outside of comedy, in writing, I find that to be true. Okay. So you take this pain. Did you take notes on the pain as you were experiencing it or did you recall it in one of your writing sessions and put down the bones? I remember actually, and this might be cheating a little bit and, or not cheating, but I actually remember sharing in an Al-Anon meeting something that was really hurt my feelings. And I was like,

and then he did this, and then he did this. And people started laughing. And I was like, is this funny? And I realized, oh my God, this is funny because it's happened to other people. And people are relating and it's resonating. And when you tell the truth about your embarrassing moments and show your shadow, catharsis happens, which is what laughter is, which is people go, me too, you know? So it was basically like I was like – the whole premise of that first five minutes was what does love mean? Because I feel like my whole life love has been a very – I think just in our culture

in general, love is a very confusing, vague, manipulative word, right? And this is why I love working with animals so much is that you only communicate through behavior, not through words because words can be so confusing. Words mean something different to everybody. And they have no thumbs, so they can't get... They have no... They can't open your doors, steal your stuff. That's true. That's true. They can't read your blog and say, this wasn't as good as the last one they just love they're your biggest fan um and uh and so love i i kept being in these difficult relationships

where it was always like but i love you but i love you and then it was like it would just undermine all of the bad behavior and i feel like i was you know the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result i was like i keep i kept justifying being in bad relationships because of this vague amorphous thing called love, which I was like, so love means you hate, I love you means I hate you basically. Like I just was, so I was like, we need to all agree on a universal definition. I think that was my sort of solution. I was like, we should, because I see so many people getting hurt and disappointed because their definitions are different. And then I sort of laid out what I think my definition of love is, and it should be very

simple. I'm not going to be hacky and do the bit, but it was like, I was like, my definition of love is being willing to die for someone that you yourself want to kill. That in my experience is kind of the deal. And if you love me, don't do these 10 things that I have been through. Like, if I'm in the shower with you, don't pee. It was, like, stuff like that. Like, is that so much to ask? Like, things like that. And I just listed all of my grievances.

And I was like, it's so great to be able to, you know, that is what is great about comedy is every time something bad happens, I'm now conditioned to go like, oh, this is gonna be a great joke. So everything that sucks ends up being a gift somehow. Like when I first had money, like I grew up without any money and I got a car like seven years ago, maybe it was, I got my first car that I paid for myself. It was a Lexus hybrid. And the first day I got it, I filled it up with diesel fuel. So I assume it was not the right thing to do. Just destroyed it. I mean, it costs like six grand or something. It was awful. And I got this great joke out of it though. I got like a seven minute bit that probably paid for all the damage. So now I'm in this place where when something bad happens, I'm like, oh good,

I can use that. Material. This is good material. Exactly. So now I'm in this place where when something bad happens, I'm like, oh, good, I can use that. Material. This is good material. Exactly. Organic. Yeah, it's the upside of being a comedian. And I was going to dig a little bit further into that, but maybe I can take a step back.

I was looking on Wikipedia, which, as we all know, is always 100 100 factual factual but it said genres observational comedy blue comedy insult comedy oh and i wasn't sure what blue comedy was quite frankly the other one seemed a little more straightforward what is blue comedy blue comedy um i mean i I take offense to that. It's kind of – it's not – I'm not saying it's true. I don't even know what it is.

It's pejorative to me because – and I'll tell you. Blue comedy is thought of as like dirty, edgy comedy. Dirty, edgy like Dan Carlin. George Carlin. George Carlin. Dan Carlin is a podcaster I idolize. Hardcore history. George Carlin.

George Carlin. But it's tricky because it's like whatize. Hardcore history. George Carlin. George Carlin. But it's tricky because it's like, what is, again, what is the definition of love? What is the definition of dirty? So for me, it's like, if you're talking about doing airplane jokes but using curse words, is that dirty? Or is talking about sex without curse words dirty? Kind of thing. You know what I mean?

What's dirty to you? And in our sort of puritanical society where sex is still this really taboo, uncomfortable thing, it's so interesting to me because it's like, I do talk about, I don't talk about sex. I just talk about my personal experiences and my confusion. Because to me, sex is about power dynamics and it's about masculinity and femininity and just so many primal things. And it fascinates me because I think we think we have so much more choice than we actually do in a lot of this stuff. And it causes the most of us the most amount of pain of any other thing in our lives. Yeah.

I mean, you know, being cheated on or being in love and getting heartbroken. I mean, this is like, I mean, every movie plot, every, where every, all the money is spent on Valentine's is all about this. So to me, it's like, how can anything be more relevant? So the fact that I talk about sex and someone calls it blue, I'm like, this is all anybody cares about. Why is this still taboo? Why blue? Blue.

Oh, good question. Like in terms of why is blue? Because blue is usually the symbol more for sadness. Sadness. Oh, yeah. Blue comedy. That's a good, I don't know. I will look that up.

That's an interesting ideological conundrum. Ideology? Well, sure. The words? Morphological? Oh. There we go. Now you're pushing it.

No, no. I said obsequious. Let's not forget that. That's true. I was a D-Station studies major, so I can pull out the linguistics words every once in a while. Morphological. I haven't probably ever used that in a spoken language before.

So, okay, that's blue. That's blue. Let's talk about insult comedy. So, you've done roasts before, participated in roasts. Which roasts, what are some roasts that you've participated in? I did Joan Rivers. I did David Hasselhoff. I did Donald Trump.

And now roasts are – I mean just if – Those seem like treasure troves of material. Well, it's interesting because whenever someone thinks that, that is always a trap. Because it's too obvious. Yes, it's too obvious. So Donald Trump, everyone's going to do hair jokes. The first comic's going to do all the hair jokes. So by the time I go up sixth, I have to have some other angle that nobody's even...

You have to think of like the butterfly effect. Yes, exactly. So we start with the hair, but we're going to end up... I went more for the Russian mail-order bride wife. I have to go to like a totally different angle or, you know, you're a slumlord. Went straight for the Russian mail-order bride wife. I have to go to a totally different angle. Went straight for the kick to the nuts. Totally. I've got to go to this weird angle.

And Joan Rivers, everyone's going to go after the same thing. And David Hasselhoff is actually kind of tricky because he's just more of a general – he's just silly. So the angle on him was tricky to get. But then there's a ton of other people on the dais too. I did that early. So I was a writer on the roasts before I was a performer on the roasts. And, you know, I think it's tricky because I guess I get defensive around that because maybe I have some shame because I do feel like they've gotten really mean.

And the way that roasts originated was actually the Friars Club roast, which is a bunch of comedians roasting other comedians. Friars Club. Friars Club, yeah, in New York. And it was all comedians roasting other comedians. It wasn't comedians roasting non-comedians. Comedians are very different than normal people. Their brain chemistry is different.

Their amygdala is different. I mean, it's... I have this theory that comedians should not be let out in public they're dangerous armed and dangerous silver tongued maladjusted it just took me a long time to realize you can't talk to regular well adjusted people

the same way you talk to comedians and we just make fun of each other it's not healthy but that's how we show love to what's up? And we just make fun of each other. And that's sort of, it's not healthy, but that's sort of how we show love to each other is that we rip each other and make fun of each other. And, you know, and it's funny because actually you'll know this is that, you know, Brian Callen, which is how I know you, which you met him on, what was it? Thrupple Tinder? Oh, yes.

Well, we first connected. It was very funny. First, we met on Grindr. And most of his photos did not involve his face. And then we met again on Thrinder, which is Tinder for threesomes. And finally, we're like, you know, not that attracted to each other, but we share a lot in common. Let's go read some comic books and drink some coffee and be friends. I actually don't know. I don't recall how I first met Brian. I,

this is a common issue for me. He just sort of creeps into your life in a very insidious way. He's like mildew. Yeah. He's like mildew or like an STD. He shows up, you don't know why. And you just spend the rest of your life trying to get rid of him.

so I remember him, you know, he and, uh, Brendan have a podcast, which I think you've done. Fighter and the Kid. Great show.

And I remember going on the podcast and Callan and I, I was just, we were trashing each other. I mean, it was like bad. I mean, and then Brendan, who's not a comedian and I'm trashing him. He's just like, what the fuck are you guys doing? And I know, and he's like, are you guys fighting? I mean, it like, it does look awful. And then I'm sort of treating Brendan the same way. And Brendan was like so insulted and upset.

And I was like, oh, my God. Sorry, it's a completely different language. So the roasts, again, initiated with comedians roasting comedians. And then when it got on Comedy Central, all of a sudden they start bringing in like Pamela Anderson and just these perfectly nice people with feelings who aren't numb to the core and who aren't sociopaths. And so when you start mixing that, that's when it started getting – you start seeing people getting their feelings heard. And also, again, comedians actually are more sensitive than anyone. So when you start having people who aren't comedians making fun of us, it's like, oh, no, you haven't earned the right to call me a whore. You don't have your stripes.

Jeff Frost can call me a whore. You can't call me a whore. It's like all of a sudden we have these boundaries. Well, it's funny you mention that because it's like I am okay. There was this piece in the New York Times, which was a sort of – it wasn't a takedown piece because it was too funny. It was like a parody piece related to the four-hour body. And the guy was like – it's like the New England – what would he say? It was like the New England Journal of Health or something like that was hijacked by the SkyMall catalog or whatever.

And it was like actually very funny stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Didn't bother me at all. Yeah. But then there's someone who tries to be funny but is not a good writer who slams me. And I'm like, no, no, no. If you're going to do it – You haven't earned it.

Yeah. If you're going to do it, do it well. I always say in order for a roast joke to work, it has to be funnier than it is mean. So if it's not funnier than it is mean, it's always going to bomb. So it's like you're walking this tightrope of like, if you're going to make an AIDS joke, that better be an A plus joke. If you make a C AIDS joke, you get a boo. If you make an A plus, which is sort of what I like, excuse me, I'm getting attacked by bugs. Something that I loved about the roast is sort of the math of it because those jokes are all math jokes. What do you mean by that?

Adding and subtracting a word can completely change the response. They're basically tight cat skills jokes. For example, one of my favorite jokes, because I won't say my own jokes because that would be narcissistic and give me shame. So I'll say one of my favorite roast comedians, the late Greg Giraldo, he had a joke for iced tea once. He said, iced tea, you're so old, you used your first residual check to buy your freedom, which is just a brilliant joke. But it's all math. It's just set up turn you know those were the kind of jokes that uh you know we do with the roasts where it's like if you did any other word combination would not be as funny yeah you know you change one word um i remember uh some more i wrote this joke that was

it's a horrible really dark joke but um i said uh it was a flavor flavor roast i was a writer on that and it was the joke was flave you. I was a writer on that. And it was, the joke was Flav, you look like what Magic Johnson should look like right now. So I wrote that joke and she delivered it in a way that it bombed. She was like, you look like how Magic Johnson should be looking right now. Just too many words, Like three extra words. Bumped. It's not sharp.

It's a dull knife. Yes. I love the economy of words. You can take two words out. It's the difference between laughing and applause break. Yeah. So that kind of stuff is- I feel like Twitter is good training for that.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And I've been astonished when I've tried to draft something and I'm like, God damn it. Negative 23. Yeah. And I'm like, oh. How do I get that answer? But I want to keep it. I want to keep it. And then I trim it down and I'm like, it's so much better. Yeah. Concision is so much better. Yep. A hundred percent. So I love,

that is sort of something I loved about the roast. Ultimately, um, you know, I think that roasts, I think it's important to know when to, to stop doing something. You know, one of my favorite Steve jobs things is, uh, what I don't make is just as important as what I do make. What you say no to has just as big of an impact on your career. So I did three of them and it felt like I was getting known as the roast girl and I was getting known as this insult, mean insult comic. And I'm not like that at all. I'm like this super fragile, sort of scared person. And I'd be in an airport and someone would be like, hey, cunt. And I'd be like, whoa, it's two o'clock on a Tuesday. People just thought they

could talk to me like that. And it would really freak me out. People would say words like that to me on the street. It's so wild. I mean, it's very unusual dynamic, obviously, when you're public facing and people feel like they know you intimately. And in some cases they, they might, right. If they've read all your stuff, watched all your stuff, they actually probably know quite a lot about you. Uh, but you can have that type of experience, right? I'll have guys come up to me in the, like, I'll be taking a piss at a urinal and some guy will like come up and like give me a slap on the back and start like kind of breathing into my ear, talking to me as if he's like my buddy from high school.

And I'm like, I have never, yeah. Speaking of grinder, I did. Granted, I did respond to that for a good time. Call on the inside of the bathroom.

I was in an airport bathroom, you know, which surprised me, especially in the airport. I'm thinking security, the guy must work here. Isn't that a violation of some kind of TSA regulation? But,

uh, it is very interesting because I But, uh, it is very interesting because I think, uh, you know, when it's so rewarding to be able to share the intimate details of your life with people and help people laugh at it, or in your case, help them, you know, with their confidence or their business or their goals or whatever. Help people laugh at me. Exactly. People laugh at you. Uh, and then to sort of compromise this level of privacy, it's usually okay for me, but I just don't have very thick skin. And I have this theory that the third thing someone says, a stranger says

to you is always an insult. Hey, such a big fan. Love your work. You're so much bigger in person. Because the third one is always their honest re-answer. The first two is just their adulation. So I always try to just get out after the second compliment. That's really funny. Yeah. That's very funny. I was listening to... I'm an avid consumer of stand-up.

Deathly afraid of ever doing it. That's something we can maybe talk about. But I think it was either Dimitri Martin or Mitch mitch headberg i think when they're saying you know when i when i take photos i like to count to five because that's when people get real like one here it's coming two is almost here three smile four what five what the fuck and then they take the photo that's great so funny sounds like dimitri oh my god dimitri's hilarious's hilarious. He has a lot of great photo jokes. He's like, I love camera phones because you can reminisce immediately. We were so young.

He has a lot of good wordplay jokes too. Very clever, delightful, playful jokes. Like the silent G. Yeah, we use that to screw up foreigners. Like in Foreigner, I'm right there. It's so clever. There's a lot of different kinds of comedy. I had a sort of argument about this with someone recently.

He was like, I don't understand why comedy is so negative. And it was like there's lots of different kinds of comedies. Just like there's lots of different kind of music and art and whatever. But Dimitri and Zach Galifianakis and Mitch Hedberg and Stephen Wright are in this sort of echelon of this playful, tickling sort of – I mean, like Dimitri, one of my favorite jokes of his is he's like, you know, it's like people always want to show me photos of their kids. And then I show them photos of their kids and they think I'm weird. I mean, it's just little stuff like that that's sort of this fantastical, surreal comedy. Well, there's such an economy to it, which I really like also. It's like-

Precise. Haiku comedy. It's very, very precise. And it's repeatable. There's something democratic about it because you can't say one of my bits to someone that's long and convoluted and- It requires too much narrative practice. It's physical. There's also a guy named Dan Mintz who tells the kind of jokes that you can easily – How do you say – Dan Mintz, M-I-N-T-Z.

He wrote for Louis C.K.'s show on HBO. He's doing something now, but he has a great joke. He goes – it's a little bit blue, but he goes, you know what would be really confusing? If someone was performing an abortion and someone ran in and yelled, abort, abort. Oh, God, that is blue. It's very blue, but it's obviously a joke, but it's just one of those, you hear it once and you can repeat it at parties forever.

It's like the one, not to make this the Demetri Martin show, but the one, I think this is all on the same album too, and I'm blanking on the name of the album, but he says, it's along the lines of, what does a Dalmatian think when he sees a cow? He's like, am I high right now? And then the cow's like, he looks amazing. Got my tits on the ground over here. It's just like a part of your brain that's never activated. Like things where you're like, I've never thought about that.

But I mean, think about it. People like us and anyone who's listening to this is probably an overthinker, but we've thought of everything. We've overthought everything 50 times. And so when someone puts a visual in your mind that you've literally never entertained, it's like being a kid again or something. That's how I feel watching Dimitri.

The roast, I was thinking, roast's part of what makes them so different now, aside from the fact that you have non-comedians being harpooned by 20 professionals, is that it's preserved. So instead of being in a club with an expiration date that is the end of the night, it's on YouTube, Comedy Central, forever. Good point.

And very different sort of persistence. Yeah. Well, also, I see the roasts as more of a sport. It's like watching boxing or football or something where you're watching someone get schooled and someone comes back and fights him back. And I think that activates that very primal part of your brain of kick his ass. And I think it started getting so nasty. And I think the roasts, they're better when you're the underdog. And people like to see a

rudy come out you know so i for my first roast and it was like who's this girl and then i you know came out of the gate and like knew what i was doing and then when i started to sort of it was like my i had an acumen for it and people started to expect all of a sudden when people expect you to be good nothing but downside then they think you suck you're like wait a minute you thought it was great when you never heard of me now you've heard of of me and now you want, you know, everyone wants to build you up so they can just tear you down. And then I felt like, okay, it's good to know when to go out. And, um, I'm sure she'd be fine with me sharing this, but in the last, the Donald Trump roast, Lisa Lampanelli and I, we just cried after the roast. We were like, it was just too below the

belt. It was like, you know, the go-to for me. And I, again, I've been in the writer's room of the roast. I know the math of it. I know that it's like, we're going to make fun of what you look like. I try to not make fun of things about people that they can't control as a general rule because it just feels a little too mean. Um, with the exception of some jokes I wrote about carrot top, but come on. Um, uh, but I regret those and I feel bad about them. Um, and that one was just a little below the belt. It was like, people were calling me a slut. Like I was in a relationship at the time.

It was just like, what are you doing? Like this is going to cause an argument. Like it was just, it's so salacious and incendiary that i felt like i it was i was so it just hurt my feelings after a while and lisa lampanelli and i were both like she had just lost all this weight and they used to make fun of how you know that she was overweight and she had lost weight and now they're making fun of skin it was just like oh you can't win it's whack-a-mole yeah you know so uh we were like i think it's probably good to take a break. Switch sports. Yes, switch sports.

What would you do if you had, say, this is all hypothetical, obviously, eight weeks to take someone who's never done stand-up but has spent a little bit of time on the stage? Yeah. Let's call that person a friend of mine. I.e. just wondering for myself. Eight weeks to get them ready to do five minutes on stage. At like an open mic.

Right. What would you do? That's a great question. I would get them on stage the first night. The first night. Yep. First day of eight weeks. Yep.

Okay. And this entire every night for all day of eight weeks okay and this entire every night for all of the eight weeks whether they have material or not because yeah the material is like 10 of it being comfortable on stage is all of it you know so i would say just get on stages i i say always say the first year and a half two years of stand-up is just getting comfortable on stage your material doesn't matter like It's like boxing or whatever. But I would just say get on stage as much as possible. Because your material in the first couple of years, no one's ever going to see it. It's just an excuse to get up there. And I would also ascertain where they are in terms of their

self-awareness and opinions. I would ask them 50 questions about where they're from, what makes them different. Because I think a lot of people have this dysmorphic view about what's interesting about them. So I have this girlfriend. She's a comedian. And what was the thing? Oh, she goes on stage and she was talking about smoking pot and hooking up with guys. And she's sort of a younger comedian. And it was just sort of everyone kind of does that and then

later i found out that she was a competitive diver in college and i was like why don't you talk about why haven't you mined that and she's like oh no i mean it just seems boring i'm like no one else has that like i'll do it if you don't do it i'm stealing it you know like a lot of people a lot of times people don't know what's interesting about them. So it takes a while because I think we all are so sick of ourselves in some ways, or we inflate things and deflate other things and have denial about things. So tap into what makes you you and why, what's interesting about you. Also help you figure out... It took me a long time to realize that as soon as you get on stage, you need to address what the audience is already thinking.

I was just going to ask if you grab the gun and shoot yourself with it before they can shoot you. Yep. So I don't know who says this quote that comedians become comedians so they can control why people laugh at them. Ah, I like that. So for me, I realized… I wish I could do that. I need this skill. I realized right away that people thought my last name being Cummings was funny yeah and I didn't never understood so I get on stage and I'd start talking and then I'd be like oh my last name is Cummings everyone start laughing like

she just put the needle in the balloon now we can move on you know well I saw your tweets what was it I wouldn't let any husband take my last name unless his first name was dick thought that was pretty good well because Zoe Saldana's husband took my last name unless his first name was Dick. Thought that was pretty good. Well, because Zoe Saldana's husband took her last name. I think I was like thinking about it. You know, because I always say like people are like, do you want to get married? I'm like, I just want to change my last name. You don't have to marry me, but can I just take your last name?

We don't have to sign anything. Can my last name be Ferris, please? But I am grateful to that last name because I think at a very young age, I had to learn to defend myself against ridicule. So I had to get quick-witted. So how would you do an inventory for someone to figure out what those things are? About them, yeah. So you can like slay the pink elephants before they have a chance to like stampede at you or whatever.

I would – I'm a very direct person. Like I remember seeing a – there's a lot of like – I don't know. What is the politically correct thing to say? Is it little people now? I don't know. It's not dwarves. I don't know what the proper term is. Little people.

I think it's little people. Everyone's on the same page. Okay. I think midget's not... The M word is the new N word. Yeah. M word, definitely not. Not the M word.

Not kosher. It's like calling food oriental. It doesn't work. I think it new N word. Yeah. M word definitely not. Not the M word. Not kosher. It's like calling food oriental. It doesn't work. I think it's little people. Yeah. So a friend of mine is a little person and he's a comedian. And he goes on stage and he's just like, so I was with this girl. I was like, your first 10 minutes is talking about being a little person.

Now, how do you prevent that from being much like going after Donald Trump for the hair? Right. Too obvious. Like they expect you to do that. Well, I think that first you have to, I mean, it's, you know, a lot of people say stand-up is like sex, but like you have to be in... Really malicious. Really malicious and violent. Sociopathic.

And like 10 minutes long. Basically, you have to... 10 minutes? What am. Basically, you have to... 10 minutes? What am I, sting? Jeez. Secrets of happiness is low expectations, please. The four-hour work week, the four-minute sex life. Yeah, exactly.

But you have to understand what their needs are and be able to ascertain. Like I say, so much of comedy is just listening and it's a conversation. It seems like a monologue ostensibly, but it's actually a conversation. So you're constantly checking in with them. I always tell a lot of comedians who in the beginning aren't doing well. And I'm like, well, are you making eye contact with the people in the crowd? And they're always like, no, like, oh, it's so intimate. Like you have to, I mean, I literally look all of them in the eyes all the time. It's you're constantly checking in, constantly checking in. The sound is one thing, but you also have to be checking in with them and knowing what they need from you, you know so for me the first couple years i had to address

the last name cummings in the beginning everyone was like cool we don't have to think about this anymore because other people like did they just say cummings is her last name come and then they're distracted so you have to take it off the table are we can we move on here okay my last name is cummings now let's get to some other stuff. I've always... It's one of these things where you think it's going to get old. I'll tell you what it is. It's Jim Gaffigan's voice that he does to imitate the crowd. Oh my God.

Yeah. He's so bad. Yeah. Yes. That's exactly it. It's so empowering. That's freedom. Yeah.

I just thought it was such a clean it's such a clean and kind of elegant way to just nail it. Yes. Yeah. It's so great because it just – it takes the elephant, like you said, out of the living room. You know, another thing I did recently and just when I kind of thought, okay, enough people know me. I don't have to – so I – this is such a weird thing to say. I like get – like I mean I put a lot of, I take good care of my skin. I try at least.

But one of the crowd questions was how is your, how do you get your skin so glowing? So maybe, so maybe you could explain. Maybe we should talk about that. Um, but, but sometimes on stage it, I look really shiny. Yeah. Like I look all the time. No, this is, but you're, I mean, I can't totally, but you look just like like you can't see my face because it's sun's in your eyes you're just like an orb of light yeah um but the same as with me so i get really shiny and then one time i was on stage and i was

like do i look really shiny and everyone just burst out laughing because it was like the elephant in the living room i'm like why is she wet yeah yeah is she just coming from a storm and i was like oh my god you guys, I, I'm not wearing any makeup. And I put like cream, like oil on before I came on stage. And I was like, like, it was like,

now we can talk about, now we can move on. Right now I can pay attention to what you're saying. Totally. So it's like just sort of being able to have that kind of self-awareness, which is, it's hard because it's like you want self-awareness, but you don't want self-absorption.

You want to be able to self-reflect, but not be a narcissist. You have to, you know, it's a, it's a delicate balance. I think I would also- Who are some comedians who come to mind, like right off the bat?

I mean, there are a lot of really good comedians out there, but just like offhand, people who are good at walking that tightrope between self-aware and self-absorbed. Ooh, good, good, good, good, great question. David Tell? Yeah, David Tell. I couldn't have more love for David Tell.

I mean, I'm not. I feel like he's not. He doesn't penetrate, I mean, too much emotionally. Like, I feel like Dave's not super vulnerable, at least on stage. Off stage, he is. But I would say, like, this is a great, great, Bill Burr. Bill Burr. Bill Burr is a monster. And he has this great ability to, I mean, he's, you know, on stage is somewhat obsessive and neurotic and, you know, he's got podcasts and he, you know, gets really obsessed with things, but he's able to move on real quickly

and not make it about him. He's not myopic. He's really good at responding to the crowd too. When he'll say something and everybody will go, and he'll go, did I lose you? You were with me and now I feel like you're pulling back. I love when he does that because even in it,

and it's such a, maybe this will interest your fans, that he is one of my favorite comedians to watch because he will almost ordain a bombing so that he can, because he's so successful now and I've seen him be on stage and just be killing. And he's like, that wasn't that funny. You're laughing. Oh, so he'll like premeditate.

He'll sort of like bombing, meaning doing. He'll be like, black people are different. And people go, and he'll be like, just let are different. And people go, oh! So he'll throw out something so incendiary that he loses the crowd on purpose just so he can get him back. That's amazing. Which is so cool because it's like, what do you do when you're that skilled? So you don't

plateau. You have to keep creating. It's like Roy Jones Jr. at his peak when he would just drop his arms and do these rooster fighting postures because he's like, how do I make this interesting for myself? 100%. That's exactly it. You know, doesn't Laird Hamilton swim with a cement block? He does exercise in pools underwater with weights.

Yeah. Something like ridiculous where you're just like, oh, you're just bored at this point. So I'll see him. He'll throw something out where he'll be like, you know, maybe the Holocaust was good for us. And everyone's like, oh, you're just bored at this point. So I'll see him. He'll throw something out where he'll be like, maybe the Holocaust was good for us. And then everyone's like, and he's like, well, and then he gets them back. And it's like, he'll throw something out that you think is like the point of no return. You think like his career is over and then he gets him back. So he's so cool, but he's not like a narcissist.

He's not stuck in his own. I think one of the biggest dangers, you know, as a comedian, and I always worry about comedians who aren't friends with other comedians because we're who we check each other and keep each other sort of sane is when comedians get too sequestered, they, or any big personality or someone with opinions who ends up being surrounded by staff and, you know, the Jim Carrey's of the world who gets sequestered and all of a sudden they have no point of reference with reality and they kind of lose touch. You know, so Bill is also great about he's in the trenches.

He's the comedy star every night. He's talking to people. I mean, he's that's part of the reason I think is, you know, comedy so incisive. Who are some of the most underrated comedians? Great question. Great question. Great question. Sebastian Maniscalco. That's a hell of a name.

It's a hell of a name. I'll send you his stuff. He's just- How do you spell his last name? M-A-N-I-S-C-A-L-C-O. Sebastian is, I encourage any creative people to watch him because he is- Sebastian Maniscalco. Maniscalco. He has some Italian blood and he's almost like a Brian Regan or like a more

flamboyant Jerry Seinfeld. He's completely clean. And this isn't, he's one of my favorite comedians, so I hope this doesn't come off pejorative but he almost doesn't have jokes per se like if you were to transcribe his act you wouldn't see jokes it's so much in his performance and essentially his sort of thing is just discussed with humanity like whole and i'm not gonna embarrass myself by doing his act, but he'll just say like, he'll be like, so anybody have the Blu-ray? And he'll just say facts about the Blu-ray. His point of view is so specific and authentic, and he's so genuinely angry that it's just hilarious.

So it's like, whatever you are, be that. If you're annoying, be that. If you're a Republican, be that. Whatever're annoying be that if you're a republican be that like whatever it is exaggerate what you already are as long as you're pretending to be someone you're not the audience knows so stand up is the ultimate exercise in accepting exactly who you are as ugly as it is as long as you tell the truth they're in because they can tell most people can tell when you're which is why equine therapy has actually been really helpful for me. So talk to me more about the horses. What's going on? So the Maniscalco, I'll definitely check it out.

Oh yeah, Sebastian Maniscalco. If any comedy nerds want to know more underrated people, Sebastian Maniscalco is great. Gerard Carmichael is great. I think he's probably, you're going to be hearing his name a lot more soon. Natasha Leggero is very funny. Tig Notaro, I'm sure you guys all know her by now. Chris D'Elia, I'm a fan. You probably already know him.

Brian Callen is actually overrated, I would say. This is where your retractable claws come out to eviscerate our friend in common you're like I know he's our friend that's why I'm going to publicly humiliate him Neil Brennan co-created

the Chappelle show with Dave Chappelle and has now started doing stand up and is super incisive funny commentary on race and gender and has now started doing stand-up and is super incisive and funny commentary on race and gender that very few white people can get away with. Yes, that's hard to get away with.

Very hard to get away with. Especially if you look like me, American History X. It's just like you're kind of asking for very unfavorable media coverage. I was going to say American Psycho. Well, you know, I'll take it. That must be because my skin is so luscious. Well, yeah.

Between your skin and my skin, I mean, we need to turn the AC on. I want to... So I will come back to the equine therapy, but before we get there, I want to come back to the eight-week training program. Oh, right, right, right. For your friend.

For my friend, Jim Saris. Because, for instance, and I think I'm probably not the only person with this insecurity, but I don't feel like a very funny person. That's fine. And I worry about... So, for instance, there are certain circumstances that... And literally, like, maybe three, where I'm like, someday if I ever do stand up, this could be funny. But there are so few of them that I'm like, wow, I would just get, I would be roadkill if I tried to go for five minutes.

And actually one of them earlier before we started recording, you came out of the bathroom and you're like, I just wanted to say, I did not create the mess in there. And so my thing has been like, what do you do when you like walk into the bathroom and some like bashful person comes out and like scurries away and then you walk in, you're like, this is a fucking disaster. But like I'm in an airplane, somebody's behind me. Do I fucking clean it up or do I leave it? Like I'm not going to have a conversation after.

That's great. Right. But I only have like two or three of those over several decades of being on the planet. Right. How do you come up with... Here's the good news. What you'll love is it's a muscle. Okay.

So the more you work it, the stronger it gets. And then you'll be like me and you'll be haunted by everything you look at. All you can think of is how to make it a joke. It starts being more and more. And then you're up at night and you're having sex with someone and you're like, this would be a good joke. And you're like, oh my God, can I just get a second piece? Yeah.

So it starts becoming like pretty relentless. But yeah, it's a muscle like any muscle. You know, the first couple of weeks you go to the gym, you're going to be a little sore. It's going to be hard. So what is the, if it's the muscle, if it's a muscle, what does the workout look like? What are potential exercises? Potential exercises is, you know, I remember like when I first started, I would like go around my house and be like, trash can.

What's funny about a trash can? Like what's, I think the best way to do it is to, which is also helps to, what's the word? When you, when you, I'm making weird. Pet. Fondle. You're making, you're making hand gestures that looks like a squid. Cultivate. All right.

Squid. Cultivate. When you cultivate your voice, figure out what interests you. So what I would first do is figure out what pisses you off. So people's limitations piss you off. The airport bathrooms piss you off. What pisses you off? Because I always say comedy is, for the most part, just an obsession with injustice. So most comedians have a very deep obsession with injustice. So most comedians have a very deep obsession with injustice. This isn't fair. And that's what we get on stage and talk, unless you're Demetria Martin or Mitch Hedberg, and you're sort of doing those sort of one-liner, sort of more playful, surreal jokes. So what pisses you off? And you know,

Louis C.K. says, if you think about something more than three times a week, you have to write about it. What's haunting you? What's plaguing you? What's pissing you off and you know louis ck says if you think about something more than three times a week you have to write about it what's like that yeah what's haunting you what's plaguing you what's pissing you off what do you spend most of your time thinking about anyway so um you know you can't stand your ex-boyfriend and your ex-girlfriend and she's posting photos on facebook and anything that pisses you off just because i I was on Grindr once does not mean I have a boyfriend. Let's be clear. There you go. Whatever it is.

I know you're not monogamous. That's what they say on the message boards on Grindr. I did some research. So it's actually, whereas I think most, and it's interesting. I remember you, I listened to one of your podcast episodes where you talked about negative

thinking. There's positive thinking, but then the – I'm going to botch it and plagiarize it horribly, but the power of negative thinking to prevent – or something. It's almost like – Yeah, rehearsing the worst case scenarios. Scenarios to avoid them, which is so cool to me. So I always say that comedy is like a very delicate combination of positive thinking and incredibly negative thinking because you know you take the toilet thing and then you times it times a million and you go to its worst extreme what's the worst possible thing that could happen

the catastrophe and then you make it a joke so i you know you mentioned louis ck i feel like he has gotten a lot better at infusing the positive. And again, I'm not – this is just going from some of his albums, which are still very funny, but then getting on, say, a late night show and talking about like everything's awesome and nobody's happy. Nobody's happy, yeah. And the Wi-Fi on the airplane and stuff. Well, he's also – I mean, it's interesting because comedians are also human beings who grow and change. So a lot of people say about Howard Stern in the nineties, he was much angrier because he was in a bad marriage and now he's in a great marriage and he's much happier,

you know? So it's also, you know, I think you have to be very flexible in your standup. So my first hour, I mean, I was 26 or something, so I wasn't even a person yet,

but, uh, I was very like, I thought I was right about everything. And, you know, in your twenties, you think,

you know, everything. And, you know, I was like loud. And then my second special, I had sort of life had kicked my ass a little bit. And I was more humble. And I was more like I don't know anything.

And my next special is sort of – so all of my specials are just – it's a different person in each one. So Louis C.K., I think now that he's gotten so successful and so exalted and lauded, it's like, he's almost like, you know, it's just a different guy. He was 10 years ago. He has less anger and he's able to come from a different perspective. So I also think it's important to not become a parody of yourself and to be able to be flexible. Yeah. Well, that's why when people ask me, for instance, how would you edit your first book if you went back to edit it? And this has come up because the 10th anniversary is coming up in about two years. And my answer is almost always I wouldn't edit much because I wrote it

when I was 29 and I was in a different place and my perspectives have shifted a bit, but that book strikes a chord with a lot of people who are facing similar things. If I tried to rewrite it now, I don't have the kind of boots on the ground experience with those issues right now to the extent that I did then and I would fuck it up. I would rob it of that kind of immediate relevance uh what would you do night of so eight weeks pass yep okay all right got a crowd not just your mom not just your and this is for the novice this is for the novice you've taken from ground zero over eight weeks uh but just so you know over the eight weeks i'm having them go up every night whether they're bombing or not three three spots a night, at least. Three spots.

What does that mean? Three locations? I go on stage three times. A night? So you're driving to three different things. Wow. Three different clubs. You're driving to a club, to a coffee house, to a bowling alley.

When I first started for the first three years, I was doing bowling alleys, parking lots, sushi restaurants. Just like walk up to people when they're trying to unlock their car. Just ambush them. So what is the deal with these Audis? Probably easier for you to get away with. The drunk guy's like, oh, hey. I got shanked a couple times.

I got maced. But no, in LA, I mean, and this was the time of MySpace. So it was a time when there was all these shows at restaurants and bowling alleys and laundromats and people would just do these sort of shows everywhere. And I would say, can I get on? And you just had to constantly hustle and you're MySpacing all day to get spots and then driving around all day, all night to do them, sometimes three minutes, sometimes whatever.

And your first minute is going to make or break you for the most part if you're doing a short set so doing a three minute set is enough practice because that first minute is the key because as soon as you get it's like the first impression of anything yeah if you get on stage and you have power and you have status it doesn't really matter after that but if you go on stage apologetic and scared and codependent yeah even the best materials are going to bomb. You're done. Yeah. So I say that first minute is kind of what counts the most. So doing three spots a night for eight weeks and recording your sets and listening to them, not only to sort of get it into your memory, but also to see what's really getting laughs. Sometimes we hear that we're bombing when we're actually getting laughs or we hear that

laughs are smaller. It's just important to listen to it back objectively later when you're not sort of in the sort of deer in the headlights. Yes. And, um, and then the day of when I do an hour at night or when I do two hours a night,

when I'm doing, um, getting ready for my hour, I don't leave my hotel room and I don't talk all day, which is like, I try not to talk on the phone. I try not to just to plead too much of my energy so that I'm super excited to get on stage and talk. Interesting.

So that I almost am like, what would the metaphor be? Like a boiling pot? No. A balloon? No. I'm not sure what you're going for. Could be either of those. Depends what comes afterwards.

I just mean like when you're like chomping at the bit. Yeah. You know, I kind of deprive myself. It's almost like starving yourself before a meal. Yeah. You know, like I kind of like sit in my hotel room all day. I just do work. I don't talk on the phone so that I'm super amped to talk.

So I would say like don't go out to dinner first. Don't go to lunch. Hang out. Watch TV. Be starving for attention. Yes. Exactly. Deprive yourself so by the time you get on stage, you're like super connected.

Right. And – That's the only human connection you have all day. Yes. Craving intimacy. Instead of shut down and you've already filled your quota for connection all day. And when do you know that your material is ready for a three-minute set? In other words, someone hasn't even done the what's funny about a garbage can. Yeah. Like we're talking. It's like, all right, Ferris, you're on an hour.

Do I get up and do it? What the fuck do I talk about? Well, here's the thing. You're already naturally funny and you're smart. So you're going to be fine because you're going to, I mean mean pending any anxiety attacks. That's a big asterisk. I think I'm only funny when I'm not trying to be funny. Here's the thing.

I feel like you are a public speaker naturally. I mean you're very good at this. I mean in front of a crowd, I mean you're not going to have a problem and you're going to react to the situation and be honest and self deprecate and whatever. Like, um, but I think the only time you really get in trouble is when you attach yourself to a script and aren't flexible. Right. So if you're like, go off on a thing of, Oh, you know who I am. You read my, if someone heckles you, I've read your book and now you're right. And then you're like, so I was at the supermarket today.

And if you can't respond in a conversational present way it's like boxing yeah like if someone throws some new you got to change your combination or whatever it is it's you have to be relentlessly present and flexible and detached from your plan so it's make a plan and then be ready to completely adapt if needed adapt if needed and with your say two hours a night yeah right uh let's say you're getting now you're getting ready you do that and uh well two i guess two very related questions so you have the two hours a night in preparation for like recording the big special yes is that right yes then you have like the night of recording the big special yes what do

your pre-game rituals look like love it Like in the two hours before each of those? Yeah. What happens? So in the two hours, okay, so I am right now touring to get ready for my HBO special, which I'm shooting in August. So every other weekend,

I'm on the road in clubs. I like to perform in small spaces to really ascertain if things are working and seeing people's faces. Because in a theater, you can get an applause break. But when you're up close and you see someone, you can't fake laughter. You can't fake a laughter. I would imagine if you have 30 people.

If you have 200 people, 10 people clap really loudly, you think you're killing it. Whereas if you have 30 people and one person claps, you're like, oh, shit. Yeah, exactly. But if you get a theater, you get sort of this false sense of bravado and false sense of success. Whereas like when you're in a club, like people are drinking and they're eating, you know, it's like you're up against more. So I like to practice in clubs. And so when the day actually comes, I will, I have two dogs. I will send them with the dog people so that they're not in the house for those two days because they'll wake me up early or they'll, you know, whatever. Even though they provide me with a lot of emotional support.

Just avoiding any curveballs. And I'll wake up. I'll do my normal routine. I'll probably, I'll listen to the set a couple times. Even though I know it inside and out. Just more because I know I'm neurotic. So this is a previous performance? Like the hour that I'm planning on doing essentially, like the script. It's like going

over a script. I have it recorded and I'll go for a run probably and with it in my ear. And the recording is you reading the script? The recording is an actual performance. So I'll record all of my hours when I'm in the clubs on a voice memo on my iPhone, and then I'll label them. This was good at this point. I did this new chunk of this. I'll be really specific about which one is which. The one that I feel should be the one that's recorded, I will go for a run and listen to it in my iPod, pad, pad, phone, Samsung, Sidekick, Atari. Just have five phones strapped your head pager sky pager and then um i'll kind

of lie in bed i'll take a nap i'll eat uh and that's pretty much it got it and then i have to get there at four for hair and makeup and i'll meditate twice 20 minutes in the morning 20 minutes before the show like transcendental meditation yeah so you got your mantra got my mantra yeah don't tell anyone. Puppy chow. Puppy chow. Puppy chow. Oh my God, I can't believe I said that outside.

How loud? It's obsequious. It's obsequious. And really very economical with my energy, the day of. And so you've got the, let's just say, the warm-up acts. That's probably not a polite way to say it. Yeah. Opener. The openers. The person that goes before me, yeah. You've got the, let's just say, the warm-up acts. That's probably not a polite way to say it. Yeah. Opener.

The openers. You've got the openers. Yeah. You know you've got 15 minutes to go time. Yeah. What do you do in those 15 minutes? That's a good question. I'm usually managing or practicing wardrobe malfunctions.

Practicing like Janet Jackson, like nipple exposure? Yeah, I'll walk through sort of my most extreme movements with my wardrobe to make sure, you know what I mean? It's, what's it called? Like catastrophe troubleshooting, essentially, you know? I'll just close my eyes and meditate. Troubleshooting, otherwise known as catastrophe sniping. Yeah, catastrophe sniping. I like that.

And then sometimes something super normal because I think I'm a strong believer in this. Everybody is. I'm not special because I believe proven science, but it's very Pavlovian. So it's like if all of a sudden I'm doing something I've never done before before a show then it's gonna feel weird so before i go on stage at the comedy store tonight on any given night i'm looking at instagram i'm on twitter i'm texting so i'll do something just kind of that i always do before i go on stage because if you put too much pressure on it like this is a different show you're i'm doing the same thing i've been doing the last four months right right right you know what i mean and it's like it's basically my my work isn't done tonight my work was done three months ago right i just have to show up yeah i had um

conversation with uh with uh paul levesque otherwise known as triple h the professional wrestler who was on this podcast and he was telling me a story uh why am i blanking here he just fought manny pacquiao a floyd Mayweather Jr. Yeah. And he was saying, he was telling me a story about how he visited Floyd in his dressing room right before a huge fight. And he was just sitting there watching TV.

And he's like, oh yeah, sit down. Let's have a conversation. And Paul's like, I don't want to bother you. I don't want you to get knocked out of the zone. Aren't you nervous?

And he's like, what good is being nervous going to do me? He's like, if I'm not ready now, I'm not ready. 100%. So it's like,

if I need to do some weird ritual right now, if I'm not ready now, I'm not ready. 100%. So it's like, if I need to do some weird ritual right now, then I've got bigger problems. So I think for me, just keeping it very simple and if I'm shooting a special, my mom and dad or they have to come

different nights, but will come. So I'll take a picture for that or something that just feels benevolent and connected. And I'm very dorky about gratitude and I'll just be grateful and I'll thank the crew and I'll talk to my director and just say thank you and just really

do whatever I have to do to go out there and just have a good time. I'm not taking myself seriously. I'm not stressed. I'm not in a zone. It's like I know this backwards and forwards at this point. So the only work I have to do is just be relentlessly present. And this point so the only work i have to do is just be relentlessly present and this sounds so geeky but i truly have to have a good time yeah um because my work is already done right you know that's kind of the the misery of stand-up and the joy of stand-up is that the when you're actually shooting it on tv you're just showing off at that point right there's no you're not in the trenches yeah you know everything works you've done it anything i do on show night i've done 100 times right and i know it works.

Well, that's part of the reason I love watching. And I've seen Brian do this, but work on material when it's not 100% ready. Yeah. And I find that fascinating. It's pretty cool. Yeah. It's really- There is a, if you're a comedy nerd in any way, Kevin Nealon does a show at the Laugh Factory on Tuesday nights, and it's New Material Night.

This is in Los Angeles? In Los Angeles, yes. But I think they put videos on the Laugh Factory website or something and it's comedians, big comedians who are only allowed to do new material. And we will call each other out if I'm like, dude, I know you've been doing that joke. And I know, because we really try to be vulnerable and go up and do sort of fresh premises. And some of us are bombing and we're really struggling. And it's like being a beginner open mic-er again. Have you seen the documentary, The Comedian? Yeah. With Jerry Seinfeld and Rorny? Yes. How do you feel about that?

I love it. I love it. I love Jerry. I think his work ethic is really... He just kind of nailed it. I mean, you know about this more than anyone, obviously, but his whole thing is just do the work. There's no shortcuts. There's a linear relationship in stand-up of how much you do it and how good you are. It's super simple, very merit-driven. And so I like that. I like his methodical approach. I've learned a lot from him and been inspired by that and he's also you know I think it's good to glamorize health

because I think in stand up especially drug addiction and alcoholism is so glamorized you know and Jerry's kind of he does yoga and drinks smoothies and he doesn't drink on stage you know he takes it very seriously stand up is a job and I think a lot of people

see it more as a hobby because we all really just secretly want to be rock stars but aren't cool enough um but you know i think there was this generation of comedians obviously in the 70s and 80s who were all on coke and hookers and now i think the pendulum has kind of swung everyone's like in therapy and drinks jamba juice and he's like vegan and i think that j Jerry in that documentary, sort of him admitting how seriously he takes it. Like the nerd in the class who gets a straight A and all the jocks hate. Like, he's a loser. Like, it's high school all over again.

It's like he makes trying look cool. And then Orny, I think, is tricky because he just was so angry in that documentary. And I worry a little bit that people were like, oh, that's how all comedians are. You know, but it's a documentary. And if someone thinks that, that's their generalization. Yeah, more their than the documentary. Yeah, but Orny is very, very funny. And I think that that documentary was a big, what was it?

What would it be when something is an injury to his career? Yeah. I think he would have been really big if it wasn't for that. Yeah. That was a fascinating documentary for those who haven't seen it, but it's basically tracking

a younger up-and-coming comedian with Jerry working on new material. Yes. Yes. And a friend's ex-girlfriend actually popped up. Yeah, I was watching it with him. And he's like, wait, what?

Is that my? No, no, she popped up. It was just her leading Jerry to the stage. And he's like, wait a second. Is that my girlfriend? Random. Yeah, really bizarre. Chilling.

Hot twist. Let me ask. I don't want to chew up your entire afternoon. This is really fun. So maybe we'll do a round two sometime. But I'd love to ask you, number one, equine therapy. Yes. Equine therapy is...

Is that one the horse rides you? Is that one you? How does this work? No, that's Ashley Madison. Oh, that's... We've been through this. Catherine the Great. Yeah, right.

Okay. That actually sounded much... Did not come out the way I intended it to. Sorry about that. That's my attempt at blue comedy. And I think you nailed it. It was a successful attempt. So I don't think you have to wait eight weeks.

I think you should go on tonight. You can be my warm-up. What makes me angry? Horses riding women. Let's talk about it yeah so i think this might interest you interest you because um and i hope that i do justice to it and explain it in a educated enough way to where it doesn't sound ridiculous but horses are prey animals so they are incredibly attuned to any kind of threats i mean i mean they're constantly scanning for threats, which the human brain does also. And we try to like pretend it's not, but essentially, I mean, constantly they,

a horse can look at a bobcat and tell if it's hungry or not. I mean, it's fight or flight 101, you know, they can literally read faces, they can read. Um, so when you are around a horse, a horse is codependent, if you will, looking at you and their behavior depends on your behavior. So essentially what you do in equine therapy is it's my goal was to practice being more direct and clear with my intention versus what I'm asking someone. Because, you know, a lot of times, and you can't see this if you're listening to this podcast, but I'll say like, no, I'm fine. I'm not mad. I'm obviously mad. I mean, I don't, my face, I'm betraying my own face

and humans tend to be manipulative and passive aggressive and say one thing and mean another thing. And I think that's something that maybe people in my field maybe do more than you and what you do. You seem very clear and effective, great actor, pathological liar, sociopath, American psycho, American history ex. But I found that I was really struggling with saying one thing and meaning another thing and being apologetic and not being present and not getting the results out of people that I wanted. There was a great documentary called Buck that's about the guy.

Yes, it's about the guy that was the horse whisperer. Oh, cool. And essentially the whole premise of the documentary is that in order to control something, you have to give it more control. So in order to get power over someone, you have to empower them. So people bring these problem horses and they're pulling them and trying to control them. And the first thing he does is give them more reins and give them the opportunity to make the right decision. So you can control something when you give them more control. So that really fascinated me, that documentary and the way that he was able to non-verbally communicate with horses because we waste so much time trying to

verbally communicate with people. And a lot of times we just confuse them and words are so subjective and, um, we talk way too much. So people don't actually understand what we're saying. Uh, you know, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but I, you know, a lot of times when I'm writing a script or a TV show, I'll get notes from an executive and I'll, you know, I'm sure your editors or whatever, I'll be in a meeting for an hour and I'll walk out and I'm like, I have no idea. I have no idea what was attempted to have communicated.

We spoke for an hour. I have no clue what my objective is. I don't know what the notes are. I don't know if they liked it. Like we just bloviate to the point of just like talking in circles. So I went in with the horses. A girlfriend of mine took me for my birthday. And the first thing you do is you pick a horse.

There's four horses. They all have various degrees of damage and backgrounds. And she tells you about each one and you choose your horse, which already says everything that she needs to know about you based on the one that you choose. It's like a Rorschach test or something. So that's really interesting. And then the first objective is get the horses from one end to the corral to the other, which is probably like half of a football field. I mean, it's big. And you're like, how am I going to... Hello? That's the bat phone. That's the bat phone. That's Ashley Madison customer service. So I'm like, how do you get horses with no rein from one end to the other?

Right. This is crazy. Without cajoling them or hitting them or you can't use treats. I can't use any of my – I can't use charm. I can't use humor. I can't use intelligence. I can't use any of the things that I rely on on a daily basis to manipulate and beguile people. Right. And so essentially

you have to use your intention. So you let them know we're going to the other end. You can use words if you want, but if, as long as you're saying something and meaning it, they're going to buy it. If you're going, you know, you can't see me doing this, but if you're going like, I need you to come with me, is that okay? If you're asked, they're not clear. No, they're unclear. They don't trust you. You're not in charge. You don't have status. So I go and I'm, I'm leading them from one end to the other. They're following me. And it's like magic. They're following me. And then halfway through, I start like, so I say to my friend, Oh my God, they're following me. And they stopped. And I was like,

what, what just happened? She's like, you lost your connection to them because you focused on something else. I mean, it was just this, like, it was like magic almost. It was this amazing. So I just, it's a way to practice being present and connected and having a consistent intention with essentially these sort of animals that are basically a mirror to your psyche. That's very cool. It's super cool. When they, when you stop focusing, they stop focusing. And whenever you lie, they freeze because they don't understand lie because they just see she's mean something, but she's saying you lie, they freeze because they don't understand lie because they just see she's mean something, but she's saying something else and they freeze. So as soon as you're disingenuous or pretend you're not scared and you are, they just freeze and look at

you. Don't get it. They're just like, grow up. And you're like, oh, sorry. Let me be clear. It's this really cool sort of way that I think, and I'm not saying I'm one of these people, but I think that smart people who have so much therapy and we've so over-therapized, sometimes it's just like, keep it simple. Yeah. Bread and butter, another animal, just in a cage. Yeah. Yes or no.

Yeah. It's so primal and simple. I love it. I've almost learned so much from that than any other book or therapy I've ever done. That's, uh, for those people interested in, uh, a lot of this stuff, I, I'm, I'm really tempted to, to experience that. It's here. It's in the woman that I go to is out in Topanga and it's awesome.

Cool. It's called the reflective horse. You know, a lot of rehab patients do equine therapy um well i was gonna i was gonna say that uh i put reflexive i think it's reflective reflective horse i'm taking notes uh is uh temple grandin yeah worked a lot with horses early on and that's how she started to realize like wow i'm actually very good at understanding yes what they need what they're afraid of etc um so fast. You mentioned book and then you said therapy. So I'll ask a book question, which is what book or books have you gifted to other people the most?

Oh, that's a great question. I like to pretend that I read fiction and I just don't. Okay. So I went through this phase of giving people, because I read one fiction book in the last like three years called Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Sheingart, which is phenomenal. Super Sad True Love Story. Yes. Gary Sheingart. Is it super sad? It's super sad, but very funny.

And not super. It's like a dystopian satire on the future. Okay. And essentially, it's like that we all have cell phones sort of embedded in our chests. And as soon as I see you, I can know everything about you, your cholesterol, your genetics, your dad had a stroke. Your bank account, your credit report. Like essentially we know everything about everyone instantaneously.

And it's just very interesting and like could happen. And I read that because I had to, because a friend of mine who's sort of successful and has everything and had a birthday weekend and you can't get her anything. So her gift, our gift to her was we all had to read the same book, which was so annoying. Don't be friends with rich celebrities. Here's your homework assignment. And I was so annoyed. And it ended up obviously being excellent. Gary Sheingard is phenomenal.

So I started giving it to everyone more as an ego, as a congrats. I read fiction. I read fiction, guys. I'm so erudite. I'm so cultured as a pat on the back. But I don't want to mislead you into thinking I actually read fiction. I'm not that normal. I give the drama of The Gifted Child a lot to people. You know, this book has come up. I bet.

Just in the last week with a number of friends of mine who are very talented. Yeah. High performers. Yes. The drama of The Gifted Child are very talented, high performers. Yes. The drama of the gifted child. The drama of the gifted child. It's very much, yes, if you're a creative person, if you have any kind of anxiety or discomfort or just read it. It's hard to sum up.

Another one I give a lot is The Fantasy Bond, which is incredibly dense and clinical, but it's about essentially what happens between ages one and three sort of ordains your whole life. It's kind of about attachment, like our attachment strategies based on how much eye contact we got as a child, how we were breastfed, how much physical contact we got, what our dynamics we walked into as a child, and how we see the world according to those formative years, which is pretty fascinating stuff. I think I have a lot of shame around the fact that I'm almost like an attention seeker, if that makes any sense. Like being a comedian, there's just a little bit of shame for me when it's like, why do I have this much of a compulsion to be seen and

heard? Like, what is this? And once I got a handle on the fact that as a kid, I wasn't seen and heard enough. And I had this, I was trying to get these childhood needs met as an adult through my work. Once I got a handle on that understanding, it made me need it less. You know, I was trying to get these childhood needs met as an adult through my work. Once I got a handle on that understanding, it made me need it less. Right. You know, I was like, oh my God, I don't want to be famous. What am I doing? This is horrible. Like you can't undo this, you know?

Yeah. So I feel like, you know, because I read this book, I took like a year off of like being on TV because I didn't need that anymore. I wasn't like, I just need to be seen as much as possible by as many people as possible. That's not a healthy compulsion. And I backfired in some ways. So I was able to kind of take control of myself. The fantasy bond. The fantasy bond. It's Firestone, Robert Firestone, maybe? Yeah, it was recommended by Marc Maron, actually, the epitome of mental health. Mark is in large part responsible for me wanting to experiment with podcasting.

Really? Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. I had such a great experience on his podcast, Joe Rogan's podcast, The Nerdist podcast. I was like, huh. Oh, yeah. My favorite. This long form thing is really fun.

Yeah. All my faves. Yeah. So we were on tour together last summer and he was reading it. And I was sort of, I think things come in your life exactly when you need them kind of thing. Like this book, the drama, The Gifted Child. Maybe there's something, someone obviously, the universe wants you to read this book,

I guess. But I was just in a receptive moment and he was reading it and I was like, boom. And it was just the perfect time. Cool. Like, you know. I'll check it out. and I was like, boom. And it was just the perfect time. Cool. Like, you know. I'll check it out. So I've been giving those. Another good one, because a lot of my friends are having kids, it's called the Continuum Concept. And it's about sort of attachment parenting.

Is this basically like you don't, you keep the kid with you 24-7 until they crawl away kind of thing? Kind of. Yes. And the point is... What was it called? The continuum? The continuum concept. Okay. And oddly, it was recommended by my equine therapy teacher. And it's about essentially the reason we...

There's all sorts of chemical reasons like dopamine and oxytocin that are given off when we touch each other and especially people we love and bond with. But that if you always go to a child when they cry, they learn if I need something, my needs will get met. I can trust that someone else will meet my needs. So attachment parenting is when your child cries, you go to them. You can't necessarily solve their problem, but they know that their voice is being heard and they feel heard. So they're more secure. They're more trusting of their environment. They don't deny their own reality as adults, essentially. Their expectations for the rest of their future. So- Why did your, if you don't mind me asking,

your equine therapy- I thought you were going to say X. I was like, uh-oh. No, no. Why did your- Equine therapy recommend that? Yeah. We were talking about attachment, I think. And we were talking about like, oh, the horse. Like I didn't have trust that the horse was going to follow me or something. Like I was like, kept checking in. And she's like, you keep, because equine therapy is so fascinating because of what comes up, the way that we relate to horses.

It just says so much about how we try to run businesses, marriages, relations. It's just a metaphor for everything because the way you do anything is the way you do everything. Right. So I kept checking in and doubting that the reality that the horse was following me. I was like incredulous that it was happening. And she's like, you really question reality. You always doubt yourself and you think that your perception is wrong and that, you know, um, the Damocles sword is going to fall. You're always looking for the catastrophe. And so she was like, read this book. And I did to kind of get an understanding of like, oh, something must have happened that maybe constantly be like, and it's true.

I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop when something's going well. I'm just like looking around instead of enjoying the moment. I'm just waiting for the catastrophe, you know. So it was sort of about all that blue comedy blue no blue blue is really confusing to me and the expression waiting for the other shoe to drop and i'm just like interesting well because you know what i always think of when i think of waiting for the other shoe to drop what is shoes on a phone line in a bad neighborhood. What do you think that means?

Wait a second. What do I think you're envisioning that means? Okay. Wait. Okay. I always think of bad shoes in the neighborhood. When I think of waiting for other shoe to drop, that's the vision that comes to mind.

Also, do you know what it means when shoes are hanging in a bad neighborhood? I don't. But you've seen it, right? I always thought it was just kids being dicks, but I think I'm probably totally wrong. Apparently, it's because you'll see a phone line, you'll see a pair of sneakers hanging in bad neighborhoods. Apparently, it's where someone died of heroin. Oh, God. So you know that's where someone died of heroin. Oh, God. So you know that's where the best heroin is.

Oh, my Lord. So when people see shoes hanging... Thank you. I got it right? Ninja approved. Ninja. I got it ninja on it approved. Hashtag on it.

And then you know that's where you should buy heroin because that's the purest stuff because it killed someone. That's insane. Insane. Blue comedy. Blue comedy. Blue comedy, indeed. That was Travis Buehr, i.e. Brewer,

making a cameo. When you think of the word successful, who's the first person that comes to mind? Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs. Isn't that weird? I like him anyway, though,

so that was like on the tip of my... Brain. Brain. Okay. However, if you had to choose a second person? of my brain. Brain. Okay. However. If you had to choose a second person. It has to be the tip of my brain, doesn't it?

I'm overthinking it. Well, I was just going to say something that is just going to open up a weird can of worms because I was going to say Sheryl Sandberg because I feel like she had this well-rounded life and a personal life also, which recently imploded, which is not funny. But like someone who has – I think I used to define success as someone at the top of their field professionally only. And now I also view it as someone who has balance, like a good relationship with friends and family. Time has fun. When they're not working, they're actually not working. So that's why I was thinking about her. Drew Barrymore, this is really weird when I follow her on Instagram. She really seems to go to the beach a lot. She's got a cosmetic. She has two kids. She seemed to have kind of nailed it. I was just like, God, it's just, that must be nice.

Steve Jobs and Drew Barrymore, that's, you know, and Joe Sandberg, that's a trifecta. Yeah, yeah. It's a motley crew. Elon Musk is a good one. I mean, I don't really know about his personal life, but he's, in terms of, you know, making an impact, I think he's probably done a pretty good job. Yes. You're pretty successful. He's very good at betting the farm and pulling it off.

Yeah. I think he made $180 million from the sale of PayPal and he took all of it and put it into three companies. To put it back into, yeah. And had to borrow money for rent. Yeah. He's like Bill Burr. He keeps making himself poor so he has to get rich again.

Yeah. Like how Bill bombs to get... That's actually Bill Burr. He keeps making himself poor so he has to get rich again. Yeah. Like how Bill bombs to get – That's actually an interesting comparison. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's interesting because I want to – all these comedians came to mind. Like I was thinking of Richard Pryor and Louis C.K. and Jerry Seinfeld.

All these comedians were coming to mind. But I think for me, because I've seen the others, what the success has cost them. Yeah. You know how the sausage is made. Yes. So I don't know Alon or Steve Jobs is what it costs them emotionally, family-wise. So I'm a little bit naive about it.

In Jobs' case, a lot. A lot, I'm sure. Well, it's interesting because everybody always... I think the reason I sort of latched onto him, I mean, it's obviously a pretty hacky, unoriginal, inspiring figure. But I think when I was the boss for the first time, I think I, for some reason, looked up to him in a way because everyone was like, oh, he's an asshole.

He's crazy. And I was like, I just, maybe everyone who's the boss is crazy because no one likes their boss because they're telling them to do work. And I remember people like oh he was such a dick like he would you know if something wasn't perfect he'd make them fix it and i'd be like oh what's so wrong with that what you're supposed to do i mean that sounds like a great boss you know he sounds like a great leader you know and i hear all these horror stories and i think that i started getting paranoid that people thought i was difficult and i do you know

and i'm like why is it difficult to say i I think we can do better. I think we can beat this joke. Like I'm not, I'm just like, I want this to be good. All of our names are on it. You're getting paid a tremendous amount of money to be here. Why am I such a jerk? You know? And I think that through the lens of people's egos and, and feelings and stuff, it just ends up being like, oh, he's crazy. He's an asshole. You know, I, I've yet to meet or know of one successful person who everyone doesn't think is crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's, yeah. That's pretty much just me. I think that's par for the course, generally speaking. Yeah. He's crazy. He's fucking nuts. He's a psycho. It's like, okay.

Or you just catch someone on an off day. Yeah. I mean, I've met some people who are celebrities who in person, every time I've seen them in interaction with other people with me, they've been great. But I'd read things about them online at some point where you know someone's like oh my god you know i was touring with this guy and he wouldn't sign fans autographs he was a dick i don't know like maybe he just had a bad day like had broke up with this girlfriend or like

who the hell knows i was in the airport and um you know people were asking for pictures and i i my dad had just had a stroke and i was like i'm just sorry i can't and i'm sure that those people are going she's such an asshole like i'm sure they were you know but it's just not you know we just can't concern what you think of me is none of my business etc you know louis ck i don't know if you know this it interests me uh he doesn't take photos with people really but says, I won't take a photo with you, but I will talk to you for five minutes. And he says, almost everybody declines. Oh, I bet.

They just want the photo. Now, why doesn't he do the photos? I don't know. I think it's, I don't remember. I guess maybe it's like if you're going to occupy this time, I want you to have to do some work as well. Yeah, maybe. Like, what am I going to get out of this?

Well, no, not even that. But it's just, you know, if we're going to have an exchange, let's have an exchange. Yeah. If you want to connect, let's really connect. I think, I mean, I'm sure he has a really interesting reason why he doesn't. I mean, because also it's like, there's no, you know, I always say, getting your picture taken is just so weird. I mean, especially on like a press

line. Like, you know, when actresses have to go down a press line and just like pose I said I I mean I've stopped kind of doing it because I'm like unless someone gives me a healthy inner monologue to recite while I'm doing that I'm not going to do it because what do you you're just like look at me am I sexy am I thin enough do you want to like it's just such unhealthy things that you're thinking it's like what's in my head every time I read the subway I love that you read the subway so it's like I's in my head every time I ride the subway. Every time. I love that you ride the subway. So it's like, I'm sure when he's posing with someone, it's just like... Bart.

It's Bart in San Francisco. It's kind of like the Mad Max Marauder version of the subway. I like that. It's carpeted. Why on earth would you... It's not the outdoor one, is it? Why would you ever carpet a place as filthy as a subway car? I don't know.

It's not the trolley. No. No, it's not the... It's underground?...Rosseroni thing. Yeah, exactly. You get a lot of musk on that. as filthy as a subway car i don't know it's not the trolley no no it's not the restaurant anything yeah exactly you get a lot of musk on that the hyperloop yeah the hyper carpet hyper carpet the hyper carpet and uh so i think that yeah i think he just felt like he feels like you know you feel kind of violated someone just ambushing you and i mean he's with his kids and he's you know i think when you have a family i can only imagine it and when one person gets one then all of a sudden everybody

yeah wants one and then you're gonna you know so i think he just you know whatever for whatever reason i'm sure he has a um you know a dignified reason for it but nobody ever he's like i mean to talk to louis ck for five minutes could be the best five minutes of your life and people are like no thanks yeah we just want i just wanted to Instagram it and show off that I met you. This is about me. It's not about you. I mean, this culture of narcissism. I remember I was at the People's Choice Awards, which is a really silly award show. But they have seat fillers. Yeah. Wait, seat fillers? Seat fillers. There's all the celebrities there. But then everyone else that's in the audience are

paid seat fillers who are super attractive. It's like an Indonesian political rally. They pay people with like signs to come. Oh, no, they absolutely do. That's so funny. Yeah, no, I didn't know that. I love you and I's reference points are so different. Yours are so much more impressive.

And so they get paid 50 bucks to dress pretty and look good because they're going to be on camera maybe in a pan shot or something. And so I'm sitting in front of, I want to say Ellen's in front of me but Ellen had gone on stage. So this is actually, but there's all these seat fillers. Beautiful. I can't tell who, I mean the seat fillers are more attractive than celebrities.

It's like, and so on stage is I want to say Ellen and Chris Pine who's that, you's that whatever actor, famous actor. And I see these people holding up their cameras. And I'm trying to look over them. And I see that they're taking selfies of themselves. And I'm like, no, the celebrities are that way. You're not the celebrity.

I mean, there's a celebrity two feet in front of them and they're taking a picture of themselves. I mean, it's just like, you know, it was crazy. Yeah. It's a bizarre world. Flip it around. Yeah. It's a bizarre world we live in. Yeah.

Just a few last questions. Love it. If you could put a billboard anywhere and have anything you want on the billboard text photo what would it be where would it be like a message i would want to get out or is a message or it could be a photo of anything anything wow this is a really good question you should have a podcast um if i could well everyone's got their things, right? Yeah. Their thing causes.

Sure. And my cause is dogs. Everyone's got their thing. And I'm sure that when something else touches me, that will be my thing. When cancer touches my family or whatever. Alcoholism has touched my family, but I haven't been compelled to get super in the trenches of that. But a statistic that really affected me, two statistics that I just sort of wish people knew was that 3 million dogs die a year in shelters and 17 million a year get bought. So it's just like-

Right. That math, the three shouldn't exist. Crazy math. Yeah. It should be, don't make me do this math. Yeah. 14 a year are bought. Yeah. That should just be the statistic, right? Right. So that was something that just hearing that, I was like, God, that is such a waste. That's just so much death and it's just so karmically bad for just this species. And so, yeah, that's something that sort of... I was always kind of trying to do dog rescue and I didn't really know how. And once I got that statistic, I felt kind of emboldened to be like, all right, I know exactly where my energy can go. It was very empowering to learn that.

And another thing is I work with this charity called the Beagle Freedom Project. That's beagles that are tested on in labs. The tests are usually inane and don't do much. It's just you can say a product is tested on an animal and that it's safe. And this statistic kind of blew my mind, which is that beagles are chosen to be the dogs tested on in labs because they're the most forgiving of all dog breeds. So you can hurt them a bunch of times and they'll still give you the benefit of the doubt and they'll still keep forgiving you. It's like the most heart-wrenching thing I've ever heard.

Heart-wrenching. So once I heard that, I was like, I'm in. You're preying on the weakest, sweetest. And so I got involved in that. And I think that if you don't have kids and if you're busy like you and I are and you travel a lot, dogs is just a really sort of easy, rewarding, sort of healthy thing. And those two. So I feel like I would just put those on billboards maybe. So what would it say? In China at the Dog Meat Festival.

That's probably the location I would pick. The Yulin Dog Meat Festival. Makes me crazy. Is there a Dog Meat Festival? Oh my God. The Yulin Dog Meat Festival. Yeah. So this obviously means you festival? Oh, my God. The Yulin Dog Meat Festival. Yeah. So this obviously means you don't follow me on Instagram, which is Stop Yulin 2015 is

my big obsession right now. But yeah, there's a dog meat festival that's going on, I think, right now in China where they actually kidnap people's domesticated dogs. So you just wake up and your dogs are gone. And then there's a dog meat festival. Wow. I mean, here's the thing. With China, they don't treat their people that great either much less their dogs or their children so uh that's a bigger issue that i'm not really qualified to talk about but

yeah wow dog meat festival but whenever i tell people whenever i'm like doing i think a lot of people want to help dogs it's just such an or animals or cats anything it's too broad too big of an issue. And like, as soon as they hear that, like beagles are the most, people like, how do I help? And a lot of people don't even know they're getting tested on.

Got it. So it could be like beagle, beagles are the most tested on dog species. They're also the most forgiving. And then tagline, whatever that is. Whitney Cummings.com. Buy tickets.

There we go. Download my stuff. Download my stuff. No, I'm using it. I'm not actually donating anything. No, no.

Donate just to me. I just got this to get your attention. I just wanted to bring this to your attention. I just wanted to capture your heart so that I could then manipulate you into buying me a vacation home. Gotcha. Gotcha. That was a hell of a...

That was a nice political move. Circular. Circular. Yeah, no, it was great. It's like, I'm glad you asked that question. Let me answer it a different way, meaning waytocomics.com. I also think that like donating to animals is just my drug of choice, I guess. I don't drink.

I mean, I drank, but I'm not, you know, not like to excess and I don't do drugs. Like when I give money to animals, I feel as good. So I just feel like a lot of people, like once they start, you feel good if you give 20 bucks to whatever, you know, it's start, you feel good if you give $20 to whatever. I think everyone would be... Everybody wins. What advice would you give to your 25-year-old self? 25.

There's so much advice. I would say don't wear any of what you're wearing right now which was which was you know it's funny i dressed like a boy from the 70s until i was like 29 okay new vintage new balance sneakers bell bottoms and a hoodie with a backpack you know i was very that was my uniform um which was kind of like my shield of like, please don't see me as a sexual being like when I did stand-up. I tried to really like neutralize my like gender. And stopped drinking Diet Coke. Stopped drinking aspartame.

I feel like I just missed the new thing of that that was like like my early 20s in college was all artificial sweeteners and crap that I feel like I'm going to be that's why I'm drinking the stupid beet juice um and I think it really compromised my productivity and my you know who knows what that was doing to my brain chemistry um and uh I think maybe the main thing is those mistakes are actually getting you to exactly where you want to go. They're rerouting you to your dreams, you know, and they're not, I hate the word failure because I always think it's just like a step in the right direction, you know? So all the things that I agonized over, the jobs I didn't get, I mean, I was in bed crying my eyes out for a week

because I didn't get a job as a VH1 host of a countdown. I mean, something that would just be so embarrassing. If you saw my Wikipedia page, Dad, I'd be like, can you really not talk about that? It would have been a thing that I said, please don't talk about it on the podcast. It would have been so embarrassing now. But at the time, it was like, I was just...

The holy grail. I was destroyed over it. And I didn't realize, oh my God, in a couple years... Dodged a bullet. I dodged a bullet. So I wish that I would have saved a lot of time and energy and anguish. Your mistakes are taking you where you want to go. Yes, exactly. I like it. Exactly.

This has been great. Where can people learn more about you ashley madison ashley madison.com whitehouse.porn i literally got this call the other day my lawyer was like hey we need to buy your.porn and i was like are we we changing the game plan is Yeah, right. Is there something I don't know? Yeah, you're like, I'm not sure what you've opted me into. Yeah, but the.porn is about to come out, so you have to buy your domain. You're welcome. Thank you. I'll get on that.

Get yours. TimFerris.porn. Reroute it to your blog. I'll send it to your website. There you go. So the home base is, where should people go? My tour dates and stuff are all WhitneyCummings.com. And then I have Twitter, Whitney Cummings.

My Instagram is Whitney A. Cummings, because Whitney Cummings is a 15-year-old black aspiring singer who is pretty talented, actually. Yeah. And has a lot of followers, thanks to me. Nice. Has posted two photos. But yeah, Whitney A. Cummings. Got it. Yeah. And any last ask of the audience?

If you could ask the audience to do one thing, what would it be? Besides visit the website. This is so provocative provocative i'm like using parts of my brains i never use if i could ask the audience to do uh one thing what would it be um god that's a really deep question i have so many thoughts um mean, do you do your thing, live out loud, be authentic. I don't know. Is that, do you ask that question? I haven't heard you ask that.

I don't ask it too often. If you could ask the audience to do one thing, um, watch comedy. It's good for you. Okay. Now I'll, I'll dig on that for a second if somebody who's seen comedy occasionally but is not a connoisseur wants to enjoy comedy more or get more out of it if they're watching say a stand-up special what should they pay attention to or think of to see kind of an extra layer or ask themselves anything? I think that there's, I think,

look at what offends you. If something offends you, watch Richard Pryor, watch Daniel Tosh, watch the most incendiary comedians, Bill Burr, maybe Louis CK's monologue that he just did on SNL that there was this outcry because he talked about pedophiles or something. If something offends you, look inward. That's a sign that there's something there. What offends someone says a lot about them. Agreed. I think it was Mae West who said those who are shocked easily should be shocked more often. like that i like that i love i have a huge poster of may west in my office um but uh who a lot of people think was a man and a lot of people think she was black oh interesting the original rachel dolezal was that her name the girl who just

pretended to be black the naacp woman i don't know um yeah she was like, I was on a plane yesterday. I was way too deep into the news. But yeah, I would say look at what offends you and it'll probably help you with some self-awareness. That's great. Yeah. I love it. Thank you so much for the time.

This is great. Thanks. All right. To be continued. And until next time, thanks for listening folks for all the links, resources, and so on from this episode,

just go to four hour workweek.com forward slash podcast. To the loop.