This Past Weekend - #611 - Louis C.K.

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

Louis C.K. is a stand-up comedian, filmmaker, and author. His first novel “Ingram” is available now for pre-order.  Louis C.K. returns to talk with Theo about the English language, his writing process and being human. Louis C.K.: https://www.instagram.com/louisckx/  Pre-order “Ingram” on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Ingram-Novel-Louis-C-K/dp/163774790X  Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ingram-louis-ck/1147386756?ean=9781637747902  ------------------------------------------------ Tour Dates! https://theovon.com/tour New Merch: https://www.theovonstore.com ------------------------------------------------- Sponsored By: Celsius: Go to the Celsius Amazon store to check out all of their flavors. #CELSIUSBrandPartner #CELSIUSLiveFit https://amzn.to/3HbAtPJ  PrizePicks: Go to https://prizepicks.onelink.me/ivHR/THEO and use code THEO to get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Follow @theovon on PrizePicks: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/Czao/p?short_id=YSN0TJZ1 aka Charlie Sheen: Watch aka Charlie Sheen now, only on Netflix Acorns: Go to http://acorns.com/theo to get your $20 bonus investment today! Liquid I.V.: Go to http://liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first order with code THEO at checkout. Shopify: Go to http://shopify.com/theo to build start building your business. Better Help: This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp - go to http://betterhelp.com/theo to get 10% off your first month. Valor Recovery: To learn more about Valor Recovery please visit them at https://valorrecoverycoaching.com/  or email them at [e-mail] Perplexity AI: Ask anything at https://pplx.ai/theo and download their new web browser Comet at https://comet.perplexity.ai/ ------------------------------------------------- Music: “Shine” by Bishop Gunn Bishop Gunn - Shine ------------------------------------------------ Submit your funny videos, TikToks, questions and topics you'd like to hear on the podcast to: [e-mail] Hit the Hotline: [phone] Video Hotline for Theo Upload here: https://www.theovon.com/fan-upload Send mail to: This Past Weekend 1906 Glen Echo Rd PO Box #159359 Nashville, TN 37215 ------------------------------------------------ Find Theo: Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheoVonClips Shorts Channel: https://bit.ly/3ClUj8z ------------------------------------------------ Producer: Zach https://www.instagram.com/zachdpowers Producer: Trevyn https://www.instagram.com/trevyn.s/  Producer: Nick https://www.instagram.com/realnickdavis/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellus lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SLOR Stellas lenses at your child's next visit. today's guest is one of the greats uh there's nobody like him uh he's a comedian he's a filmmaker

and now he's a novelist this is his new book ingram and i've read it and it's uh it's great it's like this huck fin like an emotional kind of huck fin you'll you'll love it i guarantee that um i'm grateful to spend time with him today he's one of my dear friends and And I think he has a lot to offer the world. So I feel lucky to ride on this planet at the same time as him. Today's guest is Mr. Louis C.K. Yeah, man, I'm excited to see you guys perform tonight. The Riemann's a beautiful place.

Oh. Yeah, do you feel uncomfortable ever saying certain things in such a beautiful venue? And not you particularly, but also definitely you. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The Riemann feels like, I mean, Harry Houdini was there. Yeah. And so was Martin Luther King. And so was Johnny Cash and Elvis.

A pretty good balance of perverts and... um wizards perverts and wizards yeah i think so um i feel okay yeah about talking about bad stuff that you shouldn't talk about um there's places like a symphony space you know when you do like one of those who where it's like really hallowed and it's like you know should be a guy in a tuxedo playing a cello yeah there should be like a like a matriety of instruments or whatever that guy's called. What's it? Yeah.

The matri of instruments. Like a conductor? The leader, yeah. Yeah, when you have those guys and then I'm on there and I'm talking about the hair on the tip of my cock. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But then again, I sold the tickets.

It's just a bunch of seats. But it is, though, you get into something, you're like, oh, this isn't it. Or I had to do a church once this man invited me. And I don't want to say he was a... pervert or I don't want to say I don't want to say he was he seemed like somebody was willing

to touch somebody that was probably young he's willing to touch somebody who's maybe probably young yeah that's borderline okay so he's willing right he was willing to I'm not going to say he was right if somebody was like hey this kid

this kid's dick is bleeding anybody we all feel kind of weird about applying pressure he'd be like I'm willing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that kind of guy, like a, like an EMT for small cocks, you know?

Like that, you know what I shot his hand up a little too quick on that question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I just would. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Like having a couple small tourniquets in his pocket, you know? He's equipped. But yeah, so that guy invited me to do a show, and it was in like Laughlin, Nevada or something out in the middle of the

desert and it was at a church and he was a church man and he was like a pastor or a leader of a church we get there and I was like oh man this guy had only seen one of my bits and it was a just more of a safe bed it just had nothing edgy in it right and I got into this stuff and you could see a man get up with his family and just I mean he was leaving the show he was leaving the church though too you could see oh no I felt horrible and it's I kept looking at him in the back and he's trying to be supportive. And I was like, don't support me. I was like, this shouldn't be happening, you know?

And you felt that way? I did. You shouldn't have been doing it? Yeah, but I couldn't just, all I had was my material. I could do some riffing. But it's also in a church that was the lights were all on. But yeah, some venues, it's just a little. Yeah, it's funny.

I used to be more defiant. I used to feel more like, you know, hey man, this is what I, you know, fuck you. But I feel less that way. I'm not going to change what I do. Yeah. But I don't want to upset. anybody i'm not trying to yeah um but i'm not as defa i'm not as like yeah show them i was talking about something on stage recently and somebody in the in the balcony yell

agra got angry and i said what's wrong and this person i don't remember what the bit was but they were like that's not cool man and i said are you are you offended by what i said he said yeah and i just said i'm really sorry like i had never done that before i was just like i'm really sorry yeah anyway and i'm going to keep doing it yeah Yeah, we got to keep going. I mean, that's, yeah, you got to keep going. Yeah. I did a club in Florida down in Key West.

Oh, yeah. And it's a good, I love the guy who runs it, this guy, Tom, and it's a fun club. But a lot of the crowd is like people that are on a cruise and they jump off and they had no context for what I was like getting pure silence on some stuff. And at some point I just said, listen, um, I, I just want you to know I'm not trying to upset you. Oh, yeah. I'm just wanting you to know that this is all. I don't have another way to go.

Right. This isn't me antagonizing you. This is just you and I are very different. Yeah. And if you could try to open your heart a little bit, I can't, I'm opening up to you, but I can't, like, invent jokes for you right now. Wow. And they are like, okay, okay, and I could see these sort of old people in pink, pink and

coral blue shirts going like, all right, we'll try a little harder. Yeah. Because at first, they just thought, Well, he's just, you know, sometimes if somebody's upsetting you, you think they want to. Right. But sometimes it's just that they're just being what they are. If you can know that, I think it helps. Oh, even as you're saying that, it makes me think, like, even when I was a kid, if my mom would have every now and then, like, I know bring back things to childhood all the time.

Yeah. But it's like, or if a parent would every now and be like, hey, I know this is not good. I know this sucks for you. Right. And I know this is everything we're doing here is really, it's a Barnum and Bailey. Yeah. It's a real shit circus. I've tried to say that to my...

But that's all we got. Right. And, like, I used to think that about my kids when I would say no about something. Uh-huh. Because when I was a kid, no was mean. It was always, like, no. And, like, no, because I said so. Stuff like that.

And no, because you don't deserve it or whatever. And I don't think no has to be a bad thing. I think every... The life is full of yes and no, right? And the first few years of a kid's life are just yes. You're just trying to keep them. alive and just let them know they're loved and then you have to start going not that though and it's tragic for them like what the person i love is saying no why would they do that and because you feel

guilty about saying no to your kid you put a little spice on it but you can be nice about it as long as you're firm you don't mean like you don't roll over because you just go no i'm sorry honey yeah that's i know how much that sucks yeah but it's not changing yeah and uh think of something else but it that's a wall, that's a brick wall. Yeah. And you'll be okay. I'll let them know, you'll be okay. Yeah.

And then they'll know that no is just a turn. It's not a wall. It's just a, it's a curve, that's all. Go look something for something else. Yeah, and that's a great way to think about it too, because then it keeps you in a space of like, well, what else could I, what's possible? How else would I figure this out?

You know, it almost puts a little challenge into the child. That's it. And also, for when my kids would complain about, And if they just harangued and said, come on, I just, no, I'm not even going to discuss it. Yeah. But if they're like, wait, and they reason and they try to lawyer through it, I go, I'm here, I'm listening. Yeah. You know, that'll listen to. That's a good skill for them to build, you know. Yeah, I remember at night, if we got in trouble, like if we got suspended from watching television or something by mom, we could go down and do a performance, right?

Yeah. And we didn't have a lot of, like, we had a little bit of face paint. I don't want to say it was like, it would seem racial, but some of the shit probably, we didn't have a lot of colors. Okay. What colors did you have? Like black, red and yellow? I mean, we had some. Yeah.

No, we just didn't have a lot of colors, right? And we didn't, and we loved a lot of black stuff. So I think we probably did in the heat of the night or something. We would do scenes from that, you know? They call me Mr. Tibbs. Yeah. Why not? In the heat.

God, dude, we love that show. I love Carol O'Connor. He was so, God, he was so multifacity. Well, did you ever see the movie? The movie's amazing. In the other night? Yeah, I have. Was Sidney Poitier?

Yeah, and Rod Steiger. Oh, is that the other guy in it? Hmm. A raisin in the sun, man. Sydney Poitier was something great, huh? Yeah, he was. And what do you call it also? To serve with love.

I haven't seen that. Yeah, he plays a British teacher teaching. He's a well-educated black teacher teaching Cockney white kids how to be gentlemen and ladies. Oh, that sounds good. It's beautiful. Oh, I've seen scenes from this, though,

just online and stuff. But yes, but if we went down and performed it, and we would also had, I think we had a kite that we would kind of do this Japanese dragon kind of thing. So we had a couple of, like, kind of motifs that we would use to win back the ability to do something new. But that was a way of us, like, at least show up and show me something, right? Yeah. Don't just sit there and wine.

Put on a kabuki. Right. And, like, have like an allegorical play. Yeah. That says, let us have the, you know, let us eat the Captain Crunch for dinner. Yes, let us have this chance. That's all we wanted. Yeah.

And sometimes it would be known. Sometimes you had to sing Mammy to get it. You had to. swing low it got I mean there were times yeah I wanted to emulate

black people when I was a kid when I was a kid it was all my heroes were black Muhammad Muhammad Ali was like the greatest thing in the world

when I was a kid and Bruce Lee and I mean everybody who I admired Bruce Lee was black right Bruce Lee no Bruce Lee

they was the Asian but dude black guys were like yeah that's a real Yeah. That's a real one. Reggie Jackson. I mean, I grew up different generation than you.

Yeah, yeah, no, but those are still some real heroes. Yeah. Yeah, there was something about being black that just seemed. I went to... Fun and risque at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't... Well, in my school, I went to public school in Newton, Mass,

and there was a program called Metcoe, where kids from inner city, Boston were brought in buses to our schools yeah and so there was a contingency of not the kids that were not only black but living in in a very different place and um so they would sit at there would be tables at the cafeteria of just black kids and i would just go sit with them i just wanted i wanted to be part of that yeah and i would sit with them and they'd kind of go all right hey fellas and uh i just i i i felt like I just was reaching for that, you know? But you think it was because, because I definitely noticed that too.

I like being around black kids. It was fun. It was interesting. You didn't know what was going to happen. Yeah. There was an element of like kind of crossing the tracks a bit. Yeah, because where I grew up in Newton, I mean, I lived in Mexico when I was younger, but I mostly grew up in Newton.

And it was a suburb that was already split because there was a working class side and a rich people's side. And I grew up right on the, literally on the tracks. Like the, the train tracks, the mass turnpike was a block behind my house, like one block. I heard, I fell asleep to the sound of, of traffic. And so we were right on the line. My family, we had a little house, a little half a house that we rented. But, uh, that was all white though. Um, everybody was white in Newton. Later, I drove a cab at Newton in my hometown and found out that there was a, a little enclave of black people that lived in one little like one street in newton but uh but in boston itself too the main city was very segregated so there there was this one kid in our um one medco kid his name was

david and uh he um his family's house burnt down in boston and my friend's dad had half a house that he rented out and he donated it to their family so they could have a place to live while they were building. Wow. So this black family moved into our neighborhood. And the russ and they were nice people. I didn't think of it. I knew David. He was okay kid. He wasn't a, he was kind of a dick, but he let him let anybody be a dick. But there was this one. But he was a black dick. He was a black dick. And he had one. But no, no, no. But at the time I wasn't aware of that. But there was a kid in in our school who was a really vicious bully. And he had a gang. And one, day David

went to the park, Cabot Park and Michael was the bully. I'm using real names. I don't know. Maybe you should bleak them. I don't know. If he did it, he did it. But Michael Michael... Michael... He took cut his gang and they took David

and they said, we're going to show you this swing is your swing and it was they painted a swing black and they painted a bench black and they painted one of everything in the park. And they said, that's your, that's the re-ssel swing.

That's the asshole bench. And I heard that story and I found it hard to believe, but I went to the park and there was a black bench. And it was black as long

as the rain, you know, until the rain washed off the paint and the park painted a green over. That's what it was like. And this was like a, kind of like a liberal suburb,

you know? And do you think a lot of that was actual, like, true racism? Or do you think some of it was just like, I know you're not playing as a racist, but I think

sometimes people, if that's what's going on, people will continue it, you know? Yeah, I think so. But I think if you actually go get a bucket of paint, if you actually go put your money down as a kid and you paint a bench black, I think that's pretty racist. I think it's pretty hardcore racist. Yeah. Yeah, it was nasty. I mean, he was mean to everybody. He found a way to hurt.

He was a sadistic person. Yeah, scared the shit out of him. It never hurt me because I was a little bigger. But I never fought, really, so. But, yeah, that was weird. It was racism in Newton. It was weird because it was like. Oh, yeah, I've been a boss in there's still.

Well, and also because there was that division. Like down where you were there, folks were a little more mixed in, weren't they a little bit? Did you live amongst? Yeah, I mean, it's just funny. In the South, people will be like, it's so racist. It's so racist. A lot of times people have this view. But also, you have a relationship.

There's like. Yeah, it's more. A lot of connectivity, I feel like. So, I don't know. You know, I remember one time me and my buddy Devin, we were, went fishing and there was these kids on these railroad tracks up above us, up above the river. And they started throwing rocks at us and calling us the N-word and stuff. White kids?

Yep. Calling you guys that? Yeah. And I wasn't black. I was, you know. At the time? Yeah. I wanted to be part of it.

of the black periods of your life. Yeah, I was like. But I still was like, you don't know what's motherfuck. You know, I was like yelling shit back. And even Devin's looking to me like, dude, what the fuck?

Yeah. Yeah. They'll try to steal my thunder here. So it was just like, I don't know. All that stuff was just, like, I don't know. I do think kids throw everything around. Kids just say stuff.

Oh, for sure. Because they want to try it on. Yeah. Like, I don't trust people that will say, like I think if somebody won't say, some people won't say f*** right or they won't say the f word for about gay folks and you know what it is huh gay f's gay f's yeah yeah folks you mean the folks is the f word right no i'm saying yeah some people won't say and i'll say it really fast because

some people don't lay here in it that got right by the people that don't they weren't they were doing something else well some yeah it's like you could have looked away you could have driving and looking out of the street before you know what it's going but some people will say the N-word but won't say that word that's what I don't get it's like yeah how do you even get that you won't say the N-word but you will say the F word or that you won't say which way some people won't say the F word yeah but they'll say the N-word really who's that that is that that to me is racist that's racist it's like yeah if you have a general sensitivity but like well I just don't Some of these words have gotten too hard to use.

Yeah. I used to say all of them. Yeah. But I don't now because it just has a different effect. Yeah. I'm like you're saying earlier, we get older. Some things just kind of it lands different. It lands different depending on how things are.

Language is a living thing. Right. And the way people communicate is always changing. And the sounds you make are affected by the other sounds in the air. Yeah. So you don't live in a vacuum. And it doesn't mean, that's not a moral thing to me. That's just, do you want to be understood?

Right. Do you want to, what do you want to convey? What feeling are you trying to put out there? And sometimes the N-word can be said with a lot of love. It can also be said with humor or just experimental confusion. But at a time where there's like certain things that got tightened up, it doesn't have that effect anymore. So make an adjustment.

It's interesting. I think because for, and also it's by generation, it's like some, it's like some people may accept a 15 year old half Mexican kid saying it, but some people might not accept a 50 year old half Mexican kids saying it. That's right. That's right. And, uh, I mean, the word colored was, uh, no way when I was growing up. Colored was like the, that's, but now they say it. But now those people have colored, like things move around. Right. When you start censoring, you, you, you, you've, freeze yourself and you're no longer hearing what's going on out there you know what i mean right so yeah what do you gotta have the flow yeah and and you you got to just trust people to go like okay let's put n word on the on the shelf for a while yeah and kant is back colored is respectable now it it moves around it's it's fascinating language it's like the most amazing thing about what we do you know yeah

yeah and you use it so well man you use it so well and it is and it is and like I will try to find a word, it's like sometimes I'll say something and I'll be like, no, that's not it. I need the exact word. Yeah. And if I can get the exact word, it can help me unlock a feeling. For sure. It can help me be extremely specific about what I'm trying to say. Where do you look for your words? I look like in my feelings a lot of times. You know, I, yeah, I look in my feelings. You get a dictionary in your heart. Yeah, it's like, that's not the word. And sometimes you get it and sometimes you don't get it. I bought, a big dictionary recently because I write um I like to have a dictionary with me when I'm

writing fiction and uh um I wrote it I wrote this book and then I started writing this other one and I write it with a typewriter it's very old-fashioned oh yeah and so I I wanted to get a dictionary that had a lot of a lot of depth to it because when I'm looking for a word I go I like looking at the reference and some dictionaries have like usage of the word they give you like so there is a guy named Samuel Johnson back in England in their early 1700s yeah and he was the first person to write a dictionary for English he just wrote one he was like somebody should have it there was none there was like lists of words and catalogs but he came up with the idea I'm going to sit down and write a dictionary of the whole in English language with every word

describing the word and giving examples in poetry and literature. And he just sat down and he did it. Wow. And it's like this, it's huge. I have two volumes and it sits on my desk on each side of me and I flip through these big pages and I read what

Samuel Johnson himself, how he described each word. Was it hard to find those? I got one on eBay. The thing that's crazy is I want to get a real like an original because you can get first editions of that. Yeah, like your guys pulling up there. That's the first, that's the birth of the English language. Wow.

You can actually touch it with your hands. You can actually own that. The first person to ever fucking do this. So that's the first dictionary ever? First dictionary, and I'm just talking out of my ass, I'm not educated, but this is what I understand to be true. Okay. A dictionary of the English language sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary was published on April 1775. It is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language.

there was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period. Yeah, there was nothing around. And I learned all this stuff about language from it. Like the letter I and the letter J were back then were the same letter. So I and like when you look at in his dictionary, the letter I is defined. And it says I when it's used as a consonant, it sounds like E or I. But when it's used as, I mean as a vowel, but when it's used as a vowel, but when it's used to as a constant it sounds like j and that originally j was just an eye with a little tail just so you know

that that's hard eye that's j like this eyes yeah yeah and so when you look in the i section of his dictionary it alternates i and j like it alternates once some words start with i some start with jay but they're all in the same section wow and it's the same with u and v you and v were just one word but they had these two different, you know? Oh, it makes total sense. Yeah, but when you get to know this stuff about language, yeah, it gives you more, you can actually have more feelings if you have more words.

But I like your retro approach, which is you're looking for the words in your feelings. It's good. You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but prize picks is the best place to win cash while watching sports. Football season is fully underway. Get them! Go! And there's no better time to join. The app is really easy to use. To create a lineup, all you have to do is pick more or less on a few players' stats. That's it. Prize Picks is in more than 40 states, including California, Texas, and Georgia. And right now, prize picks will give you $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup. Win or lose, you'll get $50 in lineups. Use promo code Theo when you download the app and sign up today. And on top of that, prize picks is also hooking up all customers with a max discount in week

three. Patrick Mahomes needs just one passing yard on Sunday night versus the Giants in week three to cash in. Here are my picks for this week. I got Spencer Rattler and more than one and a half touchdowns, and I got Alvin Kamara, and now you can even follow me on prize picks at Theo Vaughan. Prize picks, it's good to be right. I'm at the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be. Now, Charlie Sober, he's going to tell you the truth.

Is there going to be anything off limits? No. Dang! And there he is. That's Charlie Sheen right there. Sober now for seven years he's been. And he's telling his life story from his childhood to start him. He discusses all of his roles, how he turned down karate kid and how platoon and Wall Street changed his life.

He talks about his friendship with Nicholas Cage. Sheen speaks about subjects and events he's never discussed publicly before. The most outrageous moments of Sheen's life are revisited with raw emotion and exceptional warmth, painting a portrait of a flawed man whose penchant for self-destruction is ultimately no match for the ferocious love forgiveness he inspires in those closest to him, aka Charlie Sheen, now playing only on Netflix. This show is sponsored by Liquid I.V. Is your brain still in pool noodle mode from the summertime? Well, I feel that. But it's fall, baby, and it's time to focus. Time to lock in. Having a transition from summer shenanigans to the focus needed in the fall should be illegal. Thankfully, there's

liquid IV. Powered by LIV, hydroscience, an optimized ratio of electrolytes, essential vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients that turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration. That's how they do it. It's good. With liquid IV, I just crack open a packet, pour it in water, shake it up, splash, douse myself, and I'm ready. Ditch the glitch, with zero sugar and zero crash from liquid iv be ready for the fall tear poor live more go to liquid ivy dot com and get 20% off your first order with code theo theo at checkout that's 20% off your first order with code t h eo at liquid iv dot com this is my that's a heart because that's a oh you brought me ingram brought you a hard cover of ingram let's go it's an inscription but just don't read it out loud okay i'm gonna see

Okay. I'm going to say that. Dude, thank you so much, man. Yeah, I read this. You sent me, and I still have it inside.

I have. You sent me like, it was in this green kind of folder that was really cool. And it reminded me of like, kind of like something that meant something like 25 years ago or 20 years ago. You get a script and it would be like. Yeah. And it would be in something,

you know, it would be like in this sort of like green folder. Yeah. It was a binder, yeah. Yes, it was a binder. Yeah. And you gave it to me like that, and you let me read this whole book, dude. Well, you read a really early version.

Yep, and it took me two months to read it because I was like, I don't know what was going on. I was probably, I don't know, who knows? Taking breaks to touch my body, probably. Mm-hmm. But it was awesome. And every time I came back to it, dude, it was just fascinating. Thanks, man. And it's a book about, well, it's a book about a boy who's kind of neglected and then he has to take on the world himself.

Is that right? I would say, yeah. Yeah, it's about a boy who grows up on a, that's what it looks like, on a farm, just a shit farm. Yeah. And he lives in a cage, is it? Or in a... Well, he just lives outdoors.

His parents don't let him sleep in the house. Got it. And he sleeps in the shed and he just sits on the porch steps where the animals are. His father, it's one of these farms. His father's got like one pig. He's just trying to get a little extra. Yeah. And his parents are very overwhelmed.

And his father one day tells his, the bank comes to overtake the house. They give him a few days. So the father tells the mother to slaughter all the meat. And he goes on the horse and says, I'm going to sell this horse and I'll come back. And he just never comes back. So the kid's left with his mother who's just so weak. And she just tells him, you got to go. And he's like 10.

and she tells him, I can't, your luck's worse here than it would be out there. Wow. So, and she's just too hollowed out to overcome

what's going on with her. And she probably thinks the best thing she could do to save him would be to send him off. Get him out there and let him learn how to start taking care of himself. So all she tells him

is stay alive any way you can. That's like all of the advice he's given. And he just hits the road. And I started writing it and I didn't know, it's not I it's the first novel I ever wrote I wanted to write novels when I was a kid I was like the first thing I really wanted to be yeah and then I just took so many drugs that I feel like I burnt my brain out and it's only now really recovering is that true you're saying that

I feel that way I feel that way but um were you using opioids or whatever when I was a kid I was doing a lot of smoking a shit ton of pot oh yeah and we took a lot of acid and mescaline and stuff like that too and I don't think that hurts you but it does take out the linear of your thinking a little bit but uh but um but your life got busy too then yeah and then i became a comedian which i always thought was like just it's a free form scattershot verbal art so i always felt like i could it was what i could handle you know but i wanted to be a writer you know and then i wrote television but writing tv and movies is is more like a blueprint you're you're it's technical writing here's what needs to happen right

shoot this but actually writing something that's meant to be read is what I really wanted to do and um god so cool yeah so I started writing short stories a few years ago and I got really back into it and when when Ingram kind of like came into my head I just had this ritual of sitting down every day and asking I'm like what happened to you and it was just a story that just kept coming asking the child the character yeah yeah like what happened and I felt like I was taking care of him by like taking an honest account, trying to just be honest and not trying to achieve anything in writing it or trying to, you know what I mean?

Or be impressive. I just wanted to be, I just want to hear the voice and see what happened. And I worried about him every day because it's a hard life that he lives. Yeah. But I learned from him because he kept like just being curious and reporting when it stinks, but not complaining.

Yeah. I mean, there's times, he takes on some abuse a couple of times. And I was like, God, it's like you, like, yeah, I mean, there's parts, especially toward, like, the later parts of the book, so harrowing some of you're like, God, why can't he, why doesn't he know better? Yeah. Yeah, he's, he's just simple. I mean, it's not simple, like, mentally challenged.

He just hasn't had any. Like Dennis Rodman or whatever. Or who else I'm going to say? That's not fair. Or no, somebody else. Dennis Rodman is anything but simple. You're right. That's a great.

Complex dude. Yeah, he's a fucking Rubik's cube. Yeah. All the stickers are different. There's not even one color is the same. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Yeah, even one of those like Indian kids couldn't put that guy.

Yeah, no. Forget it. Yeah, that was a bad choice. But yeah, dude, there was times you're like, ah. Yeah. You feel for him that much. And you did such a great job of making me feel for him. Oh, thanks.

I can't tell, like, how I got to know him so good as I'm reading it. Well, I guess, I don't know, for boys, it's this thing of getting thrown out into the world a little bit. I was alone a lot as a kid and out in the street just trying to figure out what life is. And you just become, you're kind of a, a boy is kind of a microcosm of a human ape turning into a human being. you don't what I mean? Like adapting. Evolution's right there. Yeah, evolution from the first day of life,

especially if you're kind of left alone. If you spend a lot of time alone as a boy, you're just as catch can, and then you go, oh, I guess that's what this is like. Right. And some things you get strong at and some you don't. And some things you learn from the worst influences too. It just happens to be the influence that was passing through town

or that stopped and rolled its window down. It's kind of crazy the way you can get influence. That's kind of what happens to him in some ways, huh? Yeah, like there's this one part where he's got, he's been working on a farm, like just pulling up corn, and he makes money in dimes. I know. Just because it's the first currency that he learned to respect was a 10 cent dime. So he makes them pay him in dimes, and he hides them under a tree. And when he decides to leave the farm, he digs them up, and he falls asleep in his cabin.

And there's this, he wakes up and there's this guy there about to steal his money. and Ingram at this point has a little knife and he's thinking he's going to have to defend himself and he's going to have to stick this guy but he he's trying to figure out because he's never been taught is it okay to actually harm somebody for money like is it to defend yourself

is one thing but to defend this thing and then it occurs to him that the guy might be a little scared even though he's bigger than him, even if it's a kid. Like, it's not easy to beat the shit out of a kid. Right. Like, it's no small thing.

So, yeah, they're resilient. Kids survive all kinds of stuff. Yeah, I mean, you're going to go through something. So Ingram says to the guy, why don't we split it? And the guy goes, I don't have to split it with you. I can just take it. And he goes, yeah, you can, but it's going to be trouble. I'm going to give you a hard time.

I'll split it with you now. And it's my money, but I'll give you half of it if we could just split it and then they look at it and neither of them know how to count so they got that problem but i didn't know where it was going i got to this moment in it where they're in this standoff and i was like what's his solution but by following his logic and in the way he looked at life without having been taught he found solutions that i just came to me naturally um that i wouldn't have found in life you know what i mean you just get taught things like you got to defend you got to anybody fucks with you, you have to hurt them.

Right. You do, you know. Let's split the difference. Yeah. Split the mile. I'll take half. I'll take half and nobody has to throw a punch. I stay alive.

And also, I don't have to feel the pain of if I stabbed you and if I shouldn't have. That's right. Which can be just as harrowing. Of course, you got to walk around in life knowing you stab somebody for $100. Yeah. Oh, dude. There's a lot of great parts. Man, it's honestly, bro, it's awesome.

It was so much fun to read. It reminded me of like, I mean, this sounds. crazy, but it reminded me like a real book. Yeah, yeah. Well, I feel the same way. To me, it still doesn't add up to me or make sense that I wrote a book. I grew up in a world of books. You look at a book.

You're like, well, nobody. That's somebody else. Yeah. Somebody else can do that, not me. And I've tried. I've written short stories and things that have sputtered out. When I got to the end, like when I, when the publishers, I got a publisher, this place, Ben Bella.

Simon Schuster is you're with? Yeah, Simon Schuster is distributing it. Okay. The publisher is a company called Ben Bella out of Texas, really nice people. And when I started working with them and they were going through the book and the editorial part, they said it was kind of curious that I say the end because it's like a Grimm's fairy tale. Like nobody does that anymore. But I asked to keep it because to me it was crazy that I got there. I couldn't believe I got to the end.

And I was just like, the day I finished this, I was like, I wrote a fucking novel. And, you know, if I wasn't me with a little bit of. sense that I could probably sell something. I don't know that it gets out. I have no idea. And everybody that's right, I haven't had anybody read it that hates me, so I don't know if it's good. But, you know, I don't know, folks can buy it.

It's, yeah. It was great. I know it comes for, it's, you can pre-order it now. Yeah, it's on September 20th, 20th? Not November. It's coming out in November, mid-November. Okay. But you can pre-order it's good if people pre-order it, because that,

then they'll print more. Put the ranks up, yeah. Get it up there. And look, I'm not of you joking guys. Like, you know, I like to read. I really, like, especially for like a young man, like, if you've had neglect in your life or you wonder, like, how a child would start to absorb the world

with not even being taught how to be much of a sponge in a way, kind of like, I mean, it's just fascinating. And it was, it was, it took, I was just right there in it. I was right there in it with him. It takes place in Texas, right? Yeah. Oklahoma, Texas or something. Yeah, Texas.

And so like, yeah, he's just like walking along the highway and these car, like things are, cars are badly, things he's never even seen. He's never seen any of it, yeah. It's all fucking great. Yeah, he calls the pavement hard black dirt because he doesn't really know what, because he grew up barefoot in the dirt. It amazed me. I was like, oh, shit.

Somebody can do this, I think. I think that was. It's probably, because, like, you know, you and I know each other, and I knew that I know, like, your comment, and I know that. And then I, I've gotten to know you some as a person, but then to see that somebody can make this and it's a real fucking book. I have a lot of friends that have made some okay books. Right. You know what I'm saying? I'll buy them.

I'm not reading them. Yeah. But this, I was like, man. Well, I love doing it. I wrote another one. I just finished the second one. And if I can make that what I do, I'm going to make that. what I do like I see in the I mean whatever when you get a vision of what you want your future to be

you might get 40% of it and that's okay with me but what I like is the idea of having kind of like a nice cruising altitude stand-up comedy performing and writing novels because I really love doing it and now that I roll one and the second one was a lot it took me much long I spent a year and two months on the second one because this one I was like wanted to finished so that I wouldn't not finish it. But now that I know I can finish one, I feel like I got a flow. It's really fun to do, yeah.

And do you think it's the most, because all I wanted to be, I think, when I was a kid was a writer probably. Like I love to read John Irving. I loved once I got into his stuff. It was like so exciting, like all the different possibilities. Yeah. And the ways that like, who was that Irish lady that were?

Oh, Clanery O'Connor. Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. What an imagination. Yeah, I was like, I could be a murderer. She has this story about a kind of cranky woman who lives alone on a farm.

She, like, runs a farm. And she's just tough. And the guy next door who's black, she's every, I mean, the N-word, talk about it, the N-word, Flannery O'Connor, it's like fucking polka-dots on wallpaper. Yeah, yeah, look, if you like, it's just everywhere. If you like some soft use of it. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But so in this story,

The guy next door has a bull that keeps getting loose and coming over to her property. And she hates it. And it's this, just this, you're in this woman's crankiness. And it's really something to be like, instead of like this thing where we watch Karen's on YouTube and say that's somebody else, she takes you inside the mind of a very bitter and cranky person who just doesn't like the world she's in. And in the end of the story, it's a short story, the book, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, gores her to death. Oh.

The bull gets his fucking horns in her stomach and rips her to pieces. Oh, yeah. And Flannery O'Connor. Which is some black neighbor males will get if you leave your wife around. Yeah. And she, she dies and the book stays in her head while she's dying. So you get to, like, you see the lights get brighter and you see some, I don't remember. I read this for a long time ago.

It's stuck with. Greenleaf, it says. I don't know if that's the one, but does she die with the bull at the end? One day, Ms. May is upset to find a stray bull on her property. She's worried that the bull will breed with her milk cows. That's it, right. She blames Mr. Greenleaf, who appears reluctant to confront the bull. Yeah.

There it is. But before she dies, Mrs. May has a moment of spiritual clarity. the story notes that she has the look of a person whose sight has been suddenly restored but who finds the light unbearable. Wow. I mean, what the fuck? And this is the thing.

Flannery O'Connor was just a regular person in America. And it kind of, one of the reasons that I wrote Ingram is because I live in a world, New York City, you know, modern culture and, um but this america has always had this voice people like flannery o'connor mark twain who were or uh harper lee um who were born in little places quiet little places people like you you have this kind of a voice where it's not through like uh harvard education and like you know reading it's it's just that the american the american voice is very eloquent simple and eloquent with that

That sentence I just wrote of hers, that's not a collegiate sentence. That's like someone who lived in a old house and walked really far to the grocery store and had thoughts like that. That's what you grew up in some parish. You know, people from where I'm from, a word parish just sounds so exotic. It's just a different. You grew up in America and it made you an eloquent person. Like Abraham Lincoln, he, a lot of years of Abraham Lincoln's life.

he lived in a lean-to with an open that he would lay with his family and there was no wall and he'd see like a jaguar come up and sniff the family and he just lay there and he ended up saying some of the most beautiful things ever said just by opening his mouth

I just think that America has that language in it and I started to hear this kid and I thought I wonder if I could make a connection with somebody who sounds like that and that's a humble I don't know that I did it but I but that's what I was trying to touch you know when you're listening

to Ingram to help him guide you to write the book yeah something like that yeah no and look man you just have such a I mean like I just you're so good at like you're like the guy who's like

say like your feelings and everything was like a cave or whatever and everybody's at the top and they're like we can't go in there, you know, and they're not even, there's like one brave Mexican guy who's like selling fucking snow cones or something, but not a lot.

At the mouth of the cave? At the mouth, yeah, but it's close. It's no aberto. No aberto. Yeah, yeah. And he says that. Yeah, no abjerto. But you want a snow cone?

That's right. He's over look. Because it's capital. 50 centavos for a on snow cone. But that no is abiertos, Amigo, no passe. But then you walk up and you have like your fucking spalunking gear and shit. You're like, who the fuck?

Is this psychopath? Yeah. But you go, but you're like, I'll be back. And people are like, what? You can't go in there. Look at all the signs. There's like a million signs. You're like, no, no, no.

I've been in here. I spent a lot of time in here. I left something down there. Yeah. I left one of a favorite pack of bubble gum down there. That's right. but you're just so good at going in there and like just being in there man but also getting in there and getting in there and like seeing what the like stalactites are that are hangups in our time

or in our feelings in our existence in what it means to evolve like personally like man you're just like such a archaeologist of i don't know what it is i don't know if it's emotions or feelings or just of existing kind of. Well, that's what I love to try to do. What you're describing is what I try to do. I've never heard it that way, but that's what it does feel like is bringing people to these places and going,

it's okay. You can look at this without letting it hurt you. Or you can let it hurt. And you're going to be okay on the other. the side it's okay right and uh having that and because i've been doing stand-up for 40 years now like i'm very beyond taking it personally so if i say something to a crowd and i feel them resist i don't take i don't go like oh they don't like me now that's one one of the problems of being a stand-up is you're so exposed personally so if they don't like something you feel like you take it on yeah but i'm

okay with any outcome like they're all okay so if i say something and people just go what i go cool now we're here right now we're here that you're weirded out there's a bunch of places we can go from here because i see it all as okay i think i see every feeling is worth worth having um especially if you don't like i kind of came up with this new idea in my life recently which is that your feelings are like fire and you warm yourself by them you sit by the fire of the feeling you don't get in it and let it burn you but you also don't go away because it's it's hot you don't go away from it and then you're cold out there and there's no light just sit and just let it you know what i mean yeah so i'm trying to get better at that i think a lot of early in life i was more brutal about like yeah look at this

shit this is fucked up look at this shit and that's it's that's just kind of messy but i'm trying to get a little more refined at taking people to hard things to talk about and going like just let's just sit next to this for a second and how does it feel to be next to this you know yeah what are we doing here to it yeah because uh every experience in life certainly feelings are i think feeling is living you know i used to think thinking was more or learning but i think feeling when people really feel they're right on there you know what i mean yeah feelings are never wrong they're uh oh yeah they're pretty pure huh they are even if they're even if the you may not agree with somebody's feeling or something yeah it's interesting to see why they have it if you believe

that it's pure from them well it also goes back to that lady's quote to flannery o'connor's quote that i mean that's more like about feeling in there yeah i finally saw the the world and it was unbearable and uh and it is especially when you first really see it but if you're willing to like Chris Rock, he's a good friend and he's sometimes a mentor. He says great things. Oh, he's the best comedian. He's always been my favorite. I remember, every time I've gone to him

in a tough moment, he's never let me out of it. Like, I called him once I was doing a pilot for this show, Lucky Louie that I, as sitcom. And after the, we did two shows, we did two performances of the pilot. And after the first one, I was like, I'm terrible. And I called him up and I said,

I'm really scared. I think I might just be a bad actor. And he said, yeah, wow. Yeah, that's scary. Shit. He wasn't like, you're great, man. He was like, yeah, well, you better study your lines. I mean, because maybe you are.

And I was like, oh, okay. And at the same time, like, I shot a special once I did two shows. And after the first show, I called him, I said, I just killed. And he said, you did nothing. Go do it again. You did nothing. He's a guy that makes you really look. at it and uh wow that's cool that's cool to be that kind of friend yeah it's cool to be that kind of

like challenger too yeah challenge people well just to be real i think you know so true huh like in rocky you know in rocky one of the great things about rocky is that it's a sports movie where the guy loses you know i don't think most people even realize that rocky loses the fight at the end but the big moment in rocky is when he's talking to adrian the night before the fight you know he goes to the ring and he sees the spectacle and he's been he's been training and they play the music and he went like this but then the night before the fight he goes back home to adrian and he says uh i can't beat him it's just a fact i can't beat him he's just in another class i'm not even close to him i will not win and instead of saying you can do it rock she goes

what are we going to do like she just lets that be real and she goes what are you going to do and then he decides i'm going to pick my own victory i i can't beat him but I bet I could stand there while he beats me. I bet I can get through the fight to the end. Wow. What a great goal. And that's what he does. And at the end of the fight,

yeah. Apollo Creed wins and Raggy doesn't give a shit because he got what he wanted. Yeah, I think, and if somebody's honest with you, if there's a real piece of honesty there, then you can navigate from that place. That's right.

Which is pretty real as opposed to like things that are so placated. And then you're kind of in this fictional space. Like, yeah, I'm not going to win, you know. But now you're like, okay, how can I win? How do I find a way to do this to navigate this? Yeah, or what do I do about that I'm not going to? What else is there?

It's not the end of the world. Because both things like saying you can do it. There's fantasy. It's nowhere. You don't have, it doesn't take anywhere. But in the same with Doom. I can't do anything. I got nothing.

Now, where are you? This is reality. And usually it's your feelings that will navigate you to where. is like in like rocky did i can't win there it is but what do i and then he goes inside his heart and goes i don't have to win i just don't want to quit i just want to do that one thing of staying i've standing there that i because i've had a hard life because i've never gotten anything i wanted that i know i can do that means i can beat get the shit beat out of me on national tv but i could do it for 12 rounds most people can only do it for eight yeah

that's fucking good and it it goes back to like finding that thing like finding the word finding what is the thing that you really need right yeah maybe he word right he would have liked to a one for sure yeah but what is he really want what's the real victory for him that's right yeah what is victory what's what is it to be victorious what is it to be um right like somebody might be working their butt off to make money but it's like do you really want money do you want to do you like that may be it but is that just a blossom sometimes we get caught in with like this general goal of society or we all get like hurted into what the goal is supposed to be without looking at what exactly it is that we want yeah which makes sense because people coalesce so that they can survive yeah

so human beings are shitty animals they're like really a human being out in the in the wilderness it's done it's not worth much but you group group together and you're good so it's kind of like All the things that are like hard about life are because of what we're good at. People fight and attack each other, but they're trying to, in a way, get closer to together. You know what I mean? I mean, in other words, when people say

you shouldn't be doing that because that's what not what everybody else is doing, their heart's in the right place because we all want to be. The weird thing is that now a lot, you get rejected for coming together. like it's the opposite it's a weird time right now it's like a car battery can have a polarity reversal where it it gets confused and suddenly north is south south of north we've done something

weird where the accepted thing is to be separate the accepted thing is to be like enemies of each other you know what I mean and to if you say if you move towards the middle of any issue people start getting nervous because they want you to the safe places that these extremes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I noticed that. That's not, that's not what we're good at. That's not what got us through the ice age and the, you know, and that's not what it got

us out of the food chain. Yeah. What got us out of the food chain was like, just put aside your shit and try to be, you know, try to see other people as important to you so that you'll work together. But now it's like scary to say, I don't know, I'm like this guy, even though he's not like me. I mean. That's that you can get ostracized for being for love. It's a weird it's a weird time and I have to believe. You can get ostracized for being accepting. Yes, that's right. There is a sign at

one of the theaters I did this week. It says hatred will not be allowed here. Our policy towards hatred is zero tolerance but that's a weird right we hate hatred zero tolerance is something you're that's hate that's hate isn't it zero tolerance and hatred are

opposites so hatred and zero tolerance are equal they're the same like no hatred of any kind it's said I'm like what about I hate my dad a little bit Yeah.

Yeah, how do I even get that out of my system before I go in here to watch a matinee? Yeah. So, I don't know. I think, um, yeah, that's like, but it's not human nature. I have like a faith in the way things are going to go because, and also I see it. Like, you know, whenever people complain about like everybody always says this, right? You hear that a lot. Just that general term.

You can't say this without saying that. Everybody does this. The group that behaves that way is shrinking. shrinking and shrinking and shrinking because if you really go out on the street if you get off the if you look at people in the eyes and you see people every day most people are just like really eager to find each other again and to and reaching out to people as as as unlike them as they can find and wanting to find love and common ground that's how human beings behave and sometimes there's a confusion that scatters them but it doesn't last I

I don't think. I don't think it can. I mean, if it does, then everybody will... And that's what's what's going to happen. That'll be the test we didn't pass. Yeah. Oh, the test we didn't pass. Yeah, I mean, it may come, or it might not.

Louis, what if it comes, then? Some of us can do it. Some of us can. Nothing, you can't, you know. We have to have a meeting, though. If things get really bad, we all have to meet somewhere. Where would we meet? I don't know, maybe Denver or something.

Yeah. Some place where the air is clean, the water's clean still. So you have like a surviving chance. Yeah. Altitude cures some diseases. You don't even, some stuff you don't even get at altitude. Really? Yeah.

Or the Amish. You know, the Amish have one tenth of the attention deficit disorder. Really? That regular. They have AIDS a lot, though, I heard. Yeah, Amish AIDS is like, it's kind of. Oh, no, look, dude, I'm a sure. Look, yeah, I'm not surprised. During the Volvo Fall Experience event,

discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, Lisa 2026 X-E-90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall experience event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to Explorevolvo.com.

Many folks have a money goal, something they're aiming for financially, maybe saving up to buy a car or a kite or a new outdoor home for your cat. Well, Acorns is here to help. Acorns makes it easy to give your money a chance to grow. Acorns is the financial wellness app that helps you invest for your future, save for your future, save for. for tomorrow and spend smarter today. You don't need to be a finance whiz. Acorns put your money into an expert-built portfolio to make sure you're investing wisely, not wildly. I love Acorns and you should too. I just got it set up for my niece and she's enjoying learning about savings. Sign up now and join the over 14 million all-time customers who have already saved and invested over $25 billion with Acorns.

Plus, Acorns will boost your new account with a $20 bonus investment. Offer available at Acorns.com slash Theo. That's A-C-O-R-N-S dot com slash T-H-E-O to get your $20 bonus investment today. Paid non-client endorsement. Comptation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns. Tier 2 compensation provided. Investing involves risk, Acorns, Advisors, LLC, and a C-C-R-R-E-C-R-E-C-R-E-E-O. I think ideally that all of us would like to turn our passions into a paycheck.

I've always admired anyone who took what they cared about and built something from it. You know, I enjoyed podcasting, but as that evolved, other things came along with it, including a merch shop, where you can go get you a little item, get you a little baby tea or something. But that was a whole new undertaking, and Shopify is the reason I was able to make that happen. Shopify is the best place to start and grow a business and dip your toe in the entrepreneurship. waters. Whether it's a side hustle or a full storefront, if you're selling locally or worldwide, Shopify takes the guesswork out. And now with the AI tools, Shopify magic and sidekick, it feels like you have a business partner who always has your back, helping with reports, content ideas, editing images, and more. So if you're ready to build your own empire,

whether it's merch, a new product, or the next best idea, get on Shopify.com, slash Theo and make it happen. That's Shopify.com slash T-H-E-O. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, sometimes you go to different people for assistance. You might go to your barista and ask them something. Ask them about your 401k or ask them about a divorce or something. Or you might be at a bus stop and just be badgering somebody with questions and they can't help you. It's because they're not a therapist. Better help offers therapy. That's it. Better help therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U.S. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. As the largest online therapy provider in the world,

BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Find the one with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10, percent off their first month at betterhelp.com slash theo that's better h-e-l-p.com slash t-h-e-o in um the amish like uh i don't know how i don't know how it was like maybe 20 years ago somebody started recording just on people's genealogy right like a book yeah and that's kind of their dictionary that they'll keep it to their google where they'll go and look and be like oh who is that i've heard of them and how do i know them and they have this and it's like a a recurring book that a lot of different families and districts, that's what they live in,

called, like, a lot of times it's associated with their church. And so they'll have one of the, it's their Google. It's like, oh, go look and see who they are. And you can see how much land they have or animals. You can see all kinds of things about a certain family, what the children's names are and stuff. So they kind of have their own book. That's like a form of Google right there. Descendants of Abe Troyer and Lucinda Summers.

That's the book? I mean, it's basically something like that because, I mean, they started off from just a couple of folks. you know it's uh all records of stuff is fascinating like that people used to have to just write everything down yeah forget you know i was at the new york public library once and they at the new york public library the big one with lions in front they have every book there like ever and uh some of them you can look at anything you want something you got to put gloves on uh um because they're very old yeah and i i was looking for something about gloucester mass and the uh Um, it says, I don't want to describe what I was looking for because it's just boring, but I found this book that was like the shipping logs for Gloucester back in the 1700s.

And I, I read it and it's like an old writing and it just said on in this winter, you know, 16 ships were lost. Uh, there were 34 new widows and 54 orphans and stuff like that and just like, uh, just record keeping, but that would make you cry. You know what I mean? Um. Yeah, dude, things were so severe back then. We're fucking f***s, man. I'm not, but a lot of us are. Yeah, no, we...

But when it comes to our feelings, we don't wait, like, we're just, I don't know, we're just, we're softer now. Yeah, it used to be like... Or we're harder. I think people aren't feeling as much, you know? They're avoiding their feelings. I think people are scared of their feelings, but your feelings are native. Like, there's no feeling that's going to kill you. It's just not.

Avoiding a feeling will kill you, but... We do a lot, you know, in addiction and stuff like that to stay away from feeling something. Oh, yeah. I mean, even you were talking earlier about go, like a feeling is like a warm place. Sometimes you want to get right by it. Yeah. Like I was thinking the other day, and I've thought about this before, but I was rekindling the thought that, yeah, sometimes I don't want to change certain behaviors just because I don't want to, you part of you wants to have an excuse because it gives you an excuse not to. so that other things don't happen, you know?

Like there'd be times where I didn't want to quit smoking because I was like, well, if I quit smoking, then I'll have to find something else positive to do. I won't have the excuse that, oh, I can't do that because I'm smoking or I don't want to feel that because I'm smoking. Because I would go to smoking a lot of times if I was like, I had an intense feeling or if I, you know, felt rejected or I want to, you know, like it became this kind of like a bit of like a shower

curtain to shield me from like real moments, you know. Yeah, well, when your life becomes a series of shit you do, you know, I smoke, I eat, a barbecue, I eat, I drink at night, I watch this, then you can avoid, like, a day, a day of just being on earth under the fucking swirling sky is fucking intense. Like, if you're really, if you're really paying attention, if you really wake up to the present moment, it's fucking terrifying. it's constantly moving nothing's promised everything that you've accomplished is gone and you're just in this and so if you can just set out a bunch of stupid tasks and like and like uh habits yeah you know and whatever all uh ladies night at whatever it is bowling you know bowling and going to see that and now uh they've turned there's this this screen on your phone where you don't need to even choose what that is yeah uh you just let this feed just

kind of keep you glazed over. Just serving cunt. Serving cunt all night long. And nobody's even sleeping anymore. And you just kind of go to this thing. And you're just not feeling nothing. You're taking, these are fake feelings. These are fake feelings in a safe environment.

Can't believe she did that. I can't believe he said, what a piece of shit. Why are they getting on his case? Like all these just dumb things and like, you know, just keeping it going. It used to be that they used to call a thing clickbait where they make something so juicy that people would click on it. But nobody's clicking much anymore.

It's just going by. It's just that feed. So they're just going like this and that's living now. The thing I don't understand is who's benefiting because if everybody's doing this, I don't know, eight different people are getting incredibly rich. Oh, yeah. And the rest of us are really going to turn in a...

Just really really. And the phone is burning a circuit somewhere. You know, when your phone is doing that scroll, there's a physical thing that's like a little light that's burning somewhere, like in North Carolina and like a data farm. Yeah, this isn't like, it's not in the phone's not really doing the work. There's something else that's making that.

There's a processor that's doing that and put it on the cloud and bringing it to your phone. But there's smoke going in the air, hot smoke. every time you just go like this and everybody's doing this all the time oh in the middle of the night I'll wake up literally it's almost like I have to do it

for like a minute so I can go back to sleep I'm not even joking I'll wake up I'll see like four things I'll like okay yeah yeah racism murder yeah just to get just as a blanket

like murdered like a little yeah get you back to sleep yeah someone's dead okay good oh good a little bit of racism yeah finally I was gonna get a sip of water but that'll that'll do it No, it's very bad for you.

And it's such a lucrative addiction. Yeah. And people are convinced that that's where they're going to go to convince people of what's right and wrong. And that's where you sell stuff. Yeah. So everyone just gave into it. And it's like if we were all doing heroin, but somebody somehow stopped calling it heroin. And the machines that make the run those processes are going to get hotter and hotter.

AI and all that stuff. Oh, the data centers are getting crazy, man. Yeah, it's going to be nuts. I was reading an article about in Virginia, they want to use farmland a lot for the solar panel because the companies that do data don't like, they have a style, so they don't want to be, they don't want to burn coal, you know, they don't want to burn oil. Right, because it does, yeah, that seems bad. It seems not cool.

Yeah, so nuclear, no problem. All of a sudden, like, that's no longer a problem. And solar, right? But solar is like heavy. So they've, it takes a lot of those things, which are made in China and they, they pollute a lot just to make them. The panels? The panels. But anyway, in Virginia, there was this county where they're trying to get these panels out because they're putting them on the farmland.

So in other words, there used to be farm fields. Right. Where the sun, the natural sun would touch the soil and make green for to eat. and to make oxygen. It's like the most perfect thing. Right. And they're putting these fucking black panels on over the flowers to catch the sun and use it instead. So you and I can do it scroll.

And a lot of the data centers, they're using up like a lot of the water, right? They're using up a lot of like power in places. They're monopoly. And they're building them everywhere. everywhere and it's happening fast and we started to look at well like we were talking with that sam altman guy he's a chat gbt he's like started that right yeah and i was saying well do you feel like the earth could look like bring up that picture that we had it was like the whole earth is covered in panels and it's kind of what we see when we watch like star trek yes or like doctor who

i don't know if you ever watched that show but like there's if you if you look at um water towers like It used to be you go into an old town, like in the middle of Kansas or something, and folks are still wearing, like, cowboy hats are still driving old GMC trucks with faded side panels. Like, going into a place like that is very beautiful. When you look at the water towers now, which these faded, beautiful big tanks in the sky, they're crusted over with these cell phone things. You could probably find an image like that. Oh, they attached them all to them now?

Yeah, they're all over. And it's like they're completely covered in them now. And it's very ugly. And it feels like a mold. Like if you look at it, it feels like there's just this weird. And so when you look at the combination of that with people on the streets staring into a rectangle of black of nothing, you know what I mean? A black rectangle.

Yeah. And everyone's just going like this. And there's these crusty things. It makes it feel like a, like a creature in a way. But it's not. It's, I don't think, I don't have some idea that it's from the outside. It's like something inside of us wanted so badly to not feel or something. It started little, like, this feels good, you know?

With looking at our screens and stuff? Yeah, or like television first. I mean, it started with like theater maybe. Oh, dioramas, I remember. Remember that? Sure. Yeah. Or like stereo photos.

Yeah. People used to hold up a thing. You could see. Fucking peep in Tom and was good. Yeah. And like peep and like a girl with like, you know, little titties and have heavy hips. And you put a nickel in. That's where it's starting.

Yeah, porn is the whole thing. But that thing became, let's all go to a movie theater and everybody would go sit in a theater or vaudeville and then TV. Then we went home by ourselves to do it. And it got, you know what you mean? More and more. we definitely got really used to it yeah it happened gradually

but it's become something really fucking weird oh yeah I mean you're sitting there and you start to notice when you look at your screen and then when you'll come out of it you know but and you're saying it's like a mold like a crab like a shell yeah and they start to like get other like barnacles

and things on it starts to a chat oh for sure it's barnacles of avoidance of like love avoidance yeah you know what I mean and maybe it's because we like did you see the eclipse that happened back in a couple years ago or April I did man dude I heard one of the most racist things while I was watching it too I hate to even bring that up what did you hear I was standing next to a guy and I'm assuming the guy was racist

just because of what he said he was talking one of his buddies yeah and the eclipse was happening and he goes oh look at that even the sun wants to be uh and he said the N word oh my god I was like you know on its face you could take that as a being loving black people yeah even the son like if you say it like this

brother even the son wants to be a black man yeah you could take it like that yeah you could convert what the guy said

and make it that's a great point actually you know what there was a beautiful and that is actually most racism I think is envious oh for sure

everybody wants to be one of those guys man even the son I mean some racism gets beautiful because that's beautiful. Yeah.

That's poetic. Even the sun wants to be a black man. That's what he's, what's hurting them is not that black people are bad. It's that everybody wants to be one. Yeah. Damn it. That's a specific. Even the son, like somebody gets so racist that they become, that they, you know, I remember

when Obama was running for president and there was Sarah Palin's rallies, some people would yell out racist shit. Yeah. Every time she mentioned his name, they'd go, oh, here we go. So she said his name and this woman with a with a real like town, you know, a real, you know, old movies with a pitchforks and torches, you know. Some lady yelled out about Obama, you need gloves to touch him. And I was like, woo. But I thought there's a few ways to look at that.

Oh, it's priceless. Yes. And also, like, some part of her is going, I want to touch him. Why can't I touch him? But I need gloves because he's just, because he's precious. Or like, you need gloves to touch him. There's a lot of, there's a lot in that, you know? Yeah.

What do you want to touch him for? Yeah. Man, you need gloves to touch him. You need gloves. Well, you could also just leave him alone. But something in you really wants to touch him. But you're scared to. It's a complex thing.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. The truth of that, dude. Yeah. I remember the first time a black man touched my hand one time. Hmm. And it was different. Sure.

How old were you? I was probably 10 or something, nine. Why do you touch your hand? Well, I went over to my buddy's house and they were swimming just in like this little kind of round little, I don't know if it was a pool or just like it had tetanus in it or whatever. It was like just like a, it was like a something for animals that put water in it. So we're just playing in there and swimming in there, whatever. And this guy, this black man had come and he was kind of like tickling us and stuff sometimes. I think he was being okay.

I don't know if he was. But anyway, I don't know. But then he lifted me up out of the thing too. And I just remember also he like touched my hand and I just was like, oh, that's interesting. This was like kind of interesting. Dude, I remember I walked into a black doctor. this is in Nashville. This is two years ago.

I never walked into a room in my life with a black doctor. Huh, yeah. And I was like, whoa. Yeah. And I wasn't like, you know, I was just, I, and it's new. It's something that's new. Yeah. And I was like, you guys, everybody, you know,

books at the same books or charts or, you know, I just didn't know, you know, it's almost like when you're at foot locker and there's a white woman working in there. You know what I'm saying? And you're like, this is interesting. Yeah, I support. I'm here for it. Last time I was in a foot locker, I bought these in a foot locker, oatmeal colored

new balance. I got them in a foot locker in Salt Lake City. Oh, yeah. And a young guy, I mean, I am really an old man when I'm in a retail situation. I'm just older. And this young guy helped me. And he took me through a few different ideas and he let me try some different things. He took the stuff in. out of the sneakers for me, set me up. Yeah. And then I tried him on.

He was patient while I walked around feeling like, what's this like? Yeah. He really, it was like my mom, like, shoe shopping with me. Oh, yeah. And he was maybe 19. And I could tell he was kind of fidgeting, like, this guy's making me do a lot. But I bought the sneakers and I did something that I think my dad used to do and that I used to do when I was, I don't know when.

But I shook his hand at the end. It's changed the money. And I said, thanks very much. And I shook his hand. And he was like, what the fuck is this? Like, he didn't know what that was. But that used to be. It's like, you know, it's the proprietor.

It's like you're going to the habitashry and you think, you know. Good work. Yeah. Thanks for your help today. Appreciate that. He was just like, what's being done with my arm right now? Yeah. It is crazy, though.

Yeah. That there will be a time soon, Louie, where people were like, so we used to take a guy's hand that you didn't know. Yeah. move it up and down. Yeah, you used to pump it. For two seconds? Yeah.

Yeah, some people dapp. Dap's okay. The handshake was for real. But then now people are nervous, too. I think when they're around other people, people have wet hands. And that is scaring a lot of people. Well, when you shake hands,

you really connect because every finger has a different intention in the thumb, and you grip someone with the perfect balance of like, I don't want to hurt you, but I don't want to make you feel like you're here with me. I want to... You know what I mean?

Yeah. And then we're gonna... I don't know what the shake is about, though. Yeah, bring that up. Why did the hands shake after they touched? I could see them touching. You know, like, whenever they try to make movies about like Middle Ages or like, you know,

the places of lore, like Lord of the Rings or like the future, they always reinvent like they do like the clasp of the... Oh, yeah. You do this thing. But a handshake is a globally widespread brief greeting or parting tradition in which two people grasp one and you do it.

And two people grasp one of each other's hands and it is often accompanied by a brief up and down movement of the grasped hands. Customs surrounding handshicks are specific to cultures. The handshake may have originated in prehistory as a demonstration of peaceful intent since it shows that the hand holds no weapon. I like that.

Another possibility is it originated as a symbolic gesture of mutual commitment to an oath or promise. One of the earliest known depictions of a handshake is an ancient Assyrian relief of the 9th century BC depicting the Assyrian king Shalmaneser, the third,

clasping the hand of the Babylonian king Marduk Zakir Shumi. So there's a picture of that down there, right? Yeah, two guys, two kings that were probably just fighting. And they said, hey, let's settle it. I can't hurt you for this one second. Right, no swords.

Yeah, because I'm using my fighting hand. It's going to be punched with the left. It's going to be weird. That's a good point because they both have a staff in one hand that shows that they've been walking. The other hand would grab the sword there. That's your sword hand. Yeah, brother.

You can get close to me. It's all right. You've got my hand. I've got yours. Right. Or even Steven, brother. But that gives me back to that fucking eclipse. That racist eclipse.

Yeah. Because I saw the eclipse in Vermont. Up in Stowe, Vermont, or where were you? In the center of Lake Champlain. At the time, I was dating a woman who was very wonderful. We were together for about a year. We're not together now, but... She sounds hot.

She was great. So we decided to, we wanted to see the eclipse totality. You know, like there's certain places. where there's like a line across America, like this diagonal line, and only if you stood in that line, could you actually see the sun totally... Oh, okay.

So it's a real hotbed. To a real hotbed for Eclipse? Yes, it's where you see the actual... The moon totally cover the sun and you go into total darkness. It's called totality. Any other place you'd get a little... It's a little off, and it's still basically daylight.

Got it. And so we decided to go, and I looked on that line and the place that was best for where we were in New York was an island in the middle of Lake Champlain and she's like I have a cousin who lives on that island

it's like North Hero Island I think it's called and so we went there and it was kind of like a thing to get we got we were kind of just we got there an hour before the eclipse started and we're seeing people scurrying to where they're going to watch the eclipse it was like the world

was coming to an end folks were getting coolers with stuff and folks were you know everyone and the closer we got the more quiet the streets got and now people were just sitting in lawn chairs all over Vermont like just like this getting ready and they all had these glasses

on yeah and it was just like and we're the only car it was like a end of the world movie hell yeah and we get there and her cousins are all they're all carrying big baggies of cigarettes

because they buy their cigarettes at an Indian reservation where they don't sell them in boxes. They get a deal on them? Yeah, they get a big... Oh, God, yeah. So they just walk around with a bag and just take it and smoking. And these were great people. We were like right in the right place.

It's just a dead end road on an island in a Vermont, you know. And we went out into the middle, me and this woman, we went out into the middle of this field. And we could hear... So as the thing started and everything started going not black but brown, there was this brown, the sun disappeared behind the moon and every bird fucking lost its mind. Every bird was like, what the fuck? Like you could hear every bird in its own language saying, bitch, this is fucked up. Shit.

Like just screaming. And then people going, woo, and then everything was dark and cold. like really cold and I it was an incredibly moving thing and I thought and then I heard people there was fireworks going off and the feeling I had was the meaning of thought I had was this is what the end of the world is going to feel like hmm the end of the world is going to be beautiful because it's going to bring everybody together because you can finally just forget it all you can finally just go here it's you and me brother you know yeah make a sandwich yeah let's just we let's just I got nothing in against you like boxers at the end of it like just seconds ago i was and now i just love you so much that everybody's going to that nothing that has ever happened is going to matter at all like warding goddy man yes warding gody like just fine at the end just going like man i loved struggling with you i got to know you so well in fighting with you i got i saw your wounds i saw how you hurt me and oh my god and it's going to be this ultimate especially if we end it you know what i mean

yeah we're just going to be like fuck you fuck you fuck you oh thank god finally finally i got in close enough uh and we're together now and there's nothing all that's left is this one second yeah because i don't think that time is like like my sister asked me once are you afraid when you die it's not going to feel like it was long enough are you afraid when you die you're going to feel like that wasn't enough life yes are you i think so i'm not anymore because when i get a full moment of living like when I feel open bore fucking you know aperture 0.08 uh that feels so good I feel like that's it I got it you know what I mean like when you get a real moment of existing yeah I'm like that's enough right like it can be and those moments can happen in all types

of ways all types of ways yeah sometimes it's just hugging a kid sometimes it's seeing a parent you know wipe a kid's cheek or something sometimes it's standing on a subway platform and seeing somebody's phone is next to the track and going like, no. Yeah. Like, I see life now. There's so much in that one thing.

That's so shitty. Sometimes it's reading that sentence by Flannery. Yeah, sometimes it's that, but sometimes it's just the dumb little... Oh, yeah. Just seeing somebody in their dumb little thing. Seeing one shoe on the fucking interstate? Yeah, just one.

Fuck. That's not me. And then driving by the next day and it's not there anymore. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and you've got it on, and then you're like, oh, yeah, it's just getting good. Oh, but yeah, some people used to think the eclipse was just a time when you can use racial slurs and it didn't get it. That's right.

It didn't. But somebody heard it. Yeah, but still. Now a lot of people heard it. Oh, yeah, but there is a little moments you're like, yeah, that's life. Yeah, so I don't know. I think it's enough. I'd really be ambitious to live more.

I love it. I'm getting a really love living a lot. Really? Yeah. Dude, remember we went to Chris Rock's birthday together? You took me there. That was an incredible night. First, we went for Italian food.

That night had no right to be that great. Oh, we were. All we did was go to an Italian restaurant and go to birthday party. Yeah. Can we say that I went to his birthday party or not? It's okay. It wasn't private. Yeah.

It was a big party. Madonna was there. Yeah. I think we can say that we were there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we felt like misfits, remember? Yeah.

Yeah, we were like, this is, because it was super, super famous people. And yet the center of attention, Chris is like my best friend. Right. But it was like, this is not. I don't belong here. And I didn't belong there, neither one. So we were just like a pair. Yeah.

I was like, I was an outcast and you were and not let in. Yeah. Of the same party. So we just had each other, dude. There was so much fun. And we were just standing in the corner just going, this is so fucking weird. And looking at all the famous people there. and then Chris went up and he said he took a microphone and he said I feel like my life must have

been good because I got all these these because all these people are here and especially the comedians who came to see me and he said Theo Vaughan and Louis brought Theo here it was like the first thing out of his mouth was that I brought you there and how much that meant to him and he said it like three or four times it was interesting I couldn't even believe he said that more to him than all these other like big shots it was like really you know and i hope that's okay for me to share but but no i think it is i mean i think it just showed that he was happy that you were there you know and that you were there oh i couldn't believe that he said my name but it was also just that like yeah it was just so funny that we were there we felt uncomfortable and that he made it

so we didn't feel uncomfortable that's right that's what i mean yeah but you know theo you're like a bridge you know as a person that's the way i think about you yeah yeah because when i first saw you as because you invited me to be on here three years ago something like that yeah 2002 2020 2020 two three or four years ago and uh somebody said this guy wants you in a podcast i wasn't i hadn't done any interviews for a long time and then i was just coming out to do interviews for the first time i was pushing a special whatever i was doing and i saw a little clip of you and I was like and I'm as bigoted

as anybody. Oh yeah. So I was like mullet, red state, I don't know fucking southern you know. Oh yeah. There's Jim Crow. Mudflap fucking yeah. Yeah. And without contempt because I love every kind of American. So I was just like

but you reached out with like we'd really like to have them on and I was like well, just meet somebody new. Meet somebody new you know. And and then I and listened to your stand-up and I just couldn't believe how funny it was to me and how inventive and how beautiful like just really eloquent and funny fucking shit had me laughing so hard and then we sat down and and talked and I never met anybody like you yeah I never met

anybody that had such sort of open sensitivity and such honesty and um and you you're ambidextrous you run all over the you can be loved by anybody who's willing you know and I've gotten to know you You're a beautiful. I love you, man. You're a great guy. And you're an example of when somebody brings people together, folks get a little scared of them. You know, there's nothing. You're just willing.

You're just, you know what I mean? You listen to anybody. It's the way I feel. But you're like a really important guy in the world to me. Thanks, dude. I think. Yeah. Well, well, thank you, dude.

That's nice to you. Yeah, I couldn't believe that. Yeah, I just appreciated you bringing me over there. It's been fun. become friends and like you know like be able to talk to it's like yeah i don't know you just you're able to just to think without a lot of judgment of yourself and i think that a lot it gives us so much information not a lot of people are like i don't know if it's bravery if you're just missing a governor inside of yourself right that needs to be well we have something in common you

and me because we're we're born in very different parts of the world uh different lives but we both are broken the same way. Yeah. They'll have the same problem. Oh, yeah. And when you have that, that's like a language barrier crosser. You know what I mean? It really is.

You just go like, oh, I get you. I've seen this, man. I've seen it. Believe me. You go, you really, you see it? Oh, yeah, I know. I fucking see it, man. So, and you've helped me a lot.

You've been very kind of me and helped me a lot. Oh, thanks. And you're younger than me, but I, you know, you've kind of given me guidance and help me. But that's the thing that makes people the closest is that is their common like you were fucked up the same way oh yeah oh yeah you're fucked up i'm fucked up yeah yeah thank god thank god you're fucked up oh yeah because if i had to look at you and think that you weren't fucked up like me i just break my heart yeah dude you know dude yeah i think um when yeah like there was one time you said oh because you've been through you'd been through like

a lot of like stuff in your career you'd had like you know this is when things you got and kind of crazy in your career with accusations and all types of stuff and yeah and uh and accurate accusations and uh whatever they were yeah um yeah but but you said man i feel so free and there was something about that to me i think about that once a week yeah because i think about just like the little pieces of ourselves that we like that we try to manage and operate and we don't even know what they are and we don't even know why they're in pieces yeah it's like trying to put a like some glass together so you can get a clear reflection of yourself huh and it's just like fuck how did this i didn't even break this and i'm just so tired of cutting my fucking fingers trying

to get a look at myself yeah you know um trying to piece together that broken mirror and cutting your fingers that's beautiful it's true and um when the when life fucks it up for you when it gets torn up it's a relief that's why i felt free you know yeah because i had i had tried to man these problems I had inside of me for so many years. And I tried to feel like I was like a normal person. Or that I was like what I thought of as a

good person. But I was doing shit in the background in my life that I was ashamed of. I was hurting other people and trying to tell myself I wasn't. And, you know, those things on the edge, like using another person, but you got their permission first. You're still using another person.

You're not being with them. You're using them. Right. That took me a long time to learn about that stuff. But when you're doing that stuff and creating more and more problems, they just keep getting bigger and bigger. And then the worst thing is if you're having a good life that's successful, because you're feeling

this incredible rift between the way you're representing yourself and who you really are, and it's getting really. And I used to try, I think some of the early versions of talking on stage really honestly were me trying to get out and say, I'm not, I'm corrupt. I want everybody to know it. Right, I'm a corrupt file. Yeah.

And a corrupt file, yeah. And, but all of that is like, you can't manage it. And so when you're in front of the world and that's going on inside you, it's just like real, it's real hell. And so when it, and also when you are successful, because we live in America and there's like, you're taught. It's a working community. Like, you've got to succeed.

So when you're succeeding, you believe it's a perfect good. Everything you're getting is important, right? you're getting stature, you're getting work, you're getting money, importance, people are saying good things about you, these things, you just believe that after a while you need those things. Anyway, when life comes along and just fucking,

by the grace of my own fucking mistakes, my own fuck-ups, they all came back and took everything away from me. And it was the most thing I was most afraid of in the whole world. And it happened. The scariest possible thing. and it happened.

Like now people know about me. They know, they like deeply know and not perfectly either. Like there's, you know what I mean? Because it's fantastical fame world. So they hear their own version and I'm sitting there going like, wait, no, it's not quite like that and all that.

It's like the worst thing that could happen happens. Yeah. And you lose everything you were working for. And you, the people you hurt, everybody knows about it now. And also people who love you are hurt by it. I heard a lot of people who love me by by mismanaging that and letting and and willfully becoming big enough as a famous

person that the um that the downfall hurt a lot of people. Hmm. People I love. So it was like unbearable. Fuck. And you have to be saying on stage one time and I'll let you finish your thought. Am I messing up by interrupting you? Go ahead. for the old go there was i remember you saying one time i was trying to find a flight to somewhere but every flight was landed on earth it was all places to other places on earth yeah and it was so unmanageable yeah there was no i didn't feel safe anywhere in the world and i was full of a lot of self-pity i was full of a lot of anger too and also i just didn't feel safe in the world like i also didn't feel safe inside my own head anymore and it was kind of like fuck that's craziest

that's the hardest thing you can kind of handle anything except for the inside of your own head when that gets you know you know because I live in a world where like I said before like people coalesce they come together and that's our strength so when you get ejected love for yourself becomes antisocial do you know what I mean like sitting there going like I'm a good person and most people's mistakes when people are get fucked up the way that I had it's because of a low self-esteem problem to begin with. So you just can't, it's just can't, yeah, it's like. Yeah, you're just sitting there and you're trying to, like, feel something good about

yourself. It's difficult. And so it was just very overwhelming. And, but the losses that I, like, I had spent, like, I don't know, I was, I wasn't like an overnight success, you know, I was in my 40s when I got really famous. And I grew, I built to it very gradually. I worked really hard. learned a lot.

I got it my own TV show because I'd learned how to make a TV show from the ground up. Like I was a cameraman at a local access cable station. And then now I was a director and star. And I'd met so many people and had so many affiliations and, and, and a tapestry of a life, a career. And I remember thinking of it like all like tentacles coming off the back of my head connecting me with the world.

And when this thing happened, it. It was like someone twisted all of them into like a braid and put their foot on the back of my head and just pulled out all the wires. And all of a sudden I had no, nobody likes me. Nobody, everybody, you know, I can't talk to nobody. Nobody can, everybody's afraid of me. And I was just spinning. It was really wild.

But now I look at that, that thing as like a beautiful thing. It's like, I look at that as like, I look at that as like. God's hands, you know, or whatever you want to call it. That that was just like a good, caring thing that said, dude, you need to stop. Yeah. You got to be detached. You need to stop. You need out of all this.

And that's, for me, it was great. Not for other people in my life. Some people, it was hard for them. Oh, yeah. I couldn't have certainly imagined that. Yeah, I think it's scary. I think having, like, a different, yeah, I mean, I've run, like, I've had a lot of the same issues in my life with just, like, affection.

and those sorts of things and trying to like never having like any coaching on that and just having severe like and then you start to figure out all yourself and you make these crazy like like this crazy Tetris of what it's all supposed to be

and how love is and like and then it's also like I'd be a like but my low self-worth I was always trying to fill it with like things that weren't just just impossibility And then, I mean, for me, I got into watching porn, and that became this crazy, spades, like. Never-ending thing.

I missed my 20s because I was watching, you know, it's like. Same. I was a young kid, like, really obsessed with stuff that put me in a dark room when I should have been out in the sunlight. Yeah. And it twisted around my, and it was, that was all up behind this thing of wanting, just wanting someone lovely and female to look at me and tell me I'm okay. Oh, yeah. And tell me that I'm acceptable and even more so in level. And I had such a strange, twisted trip to that moment that I never really quite learned it.

And that's my shit. But those things when you're a kid, they're pain. And then when you get to be a grown-up with a life and you have effect on other people, it starts becoming a problem for other people. So, but I think that if I hadn't lost all of that, it just would have gotten worse because that's why I felt free when I said that to you. because I could see the real shape of the world. And I could see that nothing I had,

that you can't take anything away from me that's really mine. And that I realized I didn't have much that was worth having. I had my family, and that's private. That's a different thing for me. But I realized I need to start making a real treasure chest that has shit in it. That's valuable. That's valuable.

I need to stop thinking about why did these people turn their backs on me and ask myself, yeah, why did they? Like, were you a good friend to them? Who are you useful to in this world? Like, that's where I started was when I wanted to try to reach out and feel less isolated, was who can I be of used to? And I started to try to, but what was easy to let go of was like fame, money, and connection and red carpets. Yeah. It was easy. That was easy.

I don't want that back. Yeah. Oh, it seems like a fucking nightmare. It's shit. It's nothing. Work is different. And what we do is public. So it's like the hard thing was like I wish I was a carpenter.

I could just start making chairs again. I love stand-up comedy. I love it. It's my life. I love it so much and it's given me so much. And the other thing that happened too was that when a hard thing that happens to you that feels like an all all-encompassing thing, when you live with it every year, day, you go to sleep going, I can't do this. I went to sleep many nights going, my days are numbered.

I just can't handle this. This is more than I can handle. But then I wake up the next day. And I go, all right, I'm still here. It's still here. It's like a sirens blaring and it's not stopping. And at some point, you just got to make coffee and talk a little louder or whatever you got to, you know, it was like, all right, this is life now. Yeah. And I started to have to look at it and go like, well, everybody doesn't hate me. It's just not true. No. And there's people that love me and they're reaching out to me. And I should, I should take their hand. I shouldn't just sit there and be a little victim, you know. And so after like, what felt like a terribly long time of just feeling they hated by everybody, I started to see people coming up on the street and saying, where are you?

Where are you? We want to see you. And I thought, I want to start working again. To me, work was like the thing. I love it. I know I have value there. So I started working again. And then it was really hard because I lost a lot of friends for starting again. And that's crazy to me. It was, well, it was, everyone was, I used to react to all of this with a lot of anger and confusion, but I started to do psychedelic drug therapy and see that everyone was acting in their own needs and everyone is doing what they need to do and life is really hard for everybody it's really hard and these times have been really hard for everybody the thing that ripped my life and half had been ripping lives around all over the world and everybody was dealing and

some people were so scared that what happened to me would happen to them and you know it was a lot of stuff going on so i had to see that right and uh but i also saw that a lot of people that now knew about me. We're like, what do you got? And I thought, I'm willing and I'll get, I was getting shit for trying again. But I'm like, that's okay. It's okay. I don't, my rule with that whole thing now is I don't take part in it and I don't interfere with it. There's a thing about me, I became a symbol for something, which is on me because I made a trillion carbon copies of myself and threw him out of a helicopter and said think whatever you want about me so when people started to think bad things about me that's how they use this image and that's i can't go around the world

and fix that i can't make people that are mad at me not mad at me anymore i can't like uh i can't confront this thing on a global level because i'm not a globe i'm one guy and trying to live that way was what got me in trouble in the first place and the damage is done and i can't fix that. But what I can do is be a good man to my friends to my one to one. I can shake one at a time. I can be a good father and I can take care of myself. I can constantly try to revise what I think is right and wrong, not depend on it, but just keep asking myself. Because I thought I was a good guy in a lot of moments where I wasn't. And I have to go back and go, that wasn't okay. And try to make amends when I get an opportunity.

And it was really confusing to do all that. And then you can cut it out if you don't want it set on the air, but you told me about this program. You told me about SLAA and about a 12-step approach to what I was suffering from. Yeah, I was so amazed that you didn't have some of the familiarity with it. I never heard of it, and I didn't think it was for me at all. You told me about it and I was like, yeah, that's, yeah, that's not for me. And you become such a role model to me through that program, man.

You've become like somebody that, like, when you talk, I listen, when you want to know how I feel, I know you mean it, you know, when you like, yeah, man, I mean, you become like just a real role model to me, you know. You become somebody that I aspire to be able to get through some of the problems that I have. Because I've seen you get through them, man. Well, look at that, Theo, because you brought me into this shit. Oh, that's crazy. So it's like, if you reach out to somebody that's on the outside and take their hand and pull them in, they can end up teaching you something.

And it's the same for me because, like, when we were, I loved having you as a, I wouldn't have gone into it if I didn't know somebody. And then, by the way, you took me behind this curtain. I was like, I know a bunch of these guys. I had no idea. But I remember, like, I mean, to get specific for a second, there was one point in my life where during, when I got into this program where I was like in what we call withdrawal. So I was like, this crazy idea to me, don't have sexual release for several months in a row. What, like, I mean, since I first fucking came clear liquid, I've done it every day, you know. And then what that did to the relationships of my life and my inability to.

feel real feelings, and then the kind of reckless behavior and the things I did with other people that came out. But there was a point where I was like, okay, so just don't, like don't at all. And the thing I loved about it, it's like a time that's so important. I remember when you were doing that, I was like, dang. Yeah, because I would call you. This dude's going deep. Yeah, and you're like, how long has it been?

And I'd say, like, two months since I jerked off, and you would go, what's it like out there, man? And when you said that, like, I think about that all the time. What's it like out there, man? It was like I'm an astronaut who cut from the court and I'm just out. And that's what it started to feel like. I got out of the gravitational pull. I got out of the cycle. Because every time you want something and you get it, you just go back to square one.

You keep going back to just. Oh, that's my cycle. It's just been like, for years, I was texting women, right? And like, let's meet up sometime. And we would never meet up, right? And it got to a certain point of certain years. I didn't even know if we knew who each other were anymore. Right.

But we would both. I meet almost every day. Should we meet up this week? Yeah. I mean, for years, but just little moments of trying to get approval, right? Yes. And then going back to like, and the group isn't like everybody's not like, everybody, maybe people have some perversion and stuff, but a lot of it's just like kind of pornography,

intimacy disorders, like inability to connect. It's not like. Well, it's huge. When you do the steps, you learn how you got to where you are. And you learn what in your history made you this way. Yeah. And you get some guidelines for trying to undo it. And the thing about going through withdrawal is that by not pressing the reset button, you go to a new place every day.

Every day you don't do it. You're in a new place. You feel new feelings. And I started realizing that my feelings, my actual emotions were coming online for the first time, really in my life. And I saw everything really differently. And I saw that everything that had happened with me was because of me. And by the way, that's great news because that means you could do something about it. Right.

And that everyone else is doing what they have to do. And so I had to start, like, being a man about it. And I can't, like, prove that to the world. Right. And I can't, like, do, you know, a big gesture. I can just do it in my private life. I can talk to you about it. People can see this, whatever.

You know, I have mixed feelings about it that scares the shit out of me to talk about it. Yeah. but and that had its own thing like I kept thinking I have to fix this I have to fix this reputation I have to go back to where people have at least a neutral feeling about me and I realized I just can't I just can't I and also for some people the kind of people I probably would want to know it's happened naturally right and dude I was shocked whenever we would hang out that you thought so many people thought that you were like like such a pari or something I was like dude Louis like people care but they're They don't care that way. Yeah, no, I'm the last one who gives a shit. Right, and not even in a bad way, but like, you wouldn't even seem like that bad of a guy. You know what I'm saying? Well, I don't know.

For some people I am. No, that's a good point. Sorry. But those, no, it's okay. Those, for some people, there's a, there's a, there's a, yeah, you're a boogeyman. And that's the way that is. And it's like if I did a movie for Marvel and now I'm on a McDonald's cup, you can still get. And I can't really change that.

I made the movie. I did that. So, and maybe it's good for those people in some way. I don't know, but, but, and I don't like the way it affects people in my life and my family. I know that. That's hard. That's what I still carry and, and I can't, but I'm responsible for it. That's the thing.

And what it helps me, the past and the way it's still present in the air around me helps me because my life was completely unmanageable and I had no power to change it. And now I've changed it hugely. My life is so different now. I have real love in my life. And, uh, but I need to remember like where I was, you know, and I also need to remember what is important, you know, so, so I'm, you know, and I'm writing, I, I'm writing novels because I, I don't jerk off every 15 minutes. It's really all it is. And I don't look, I don't look at

the phone because for a long time, the phone was a gun pointing directly at my face. So I completely extricated myself from social media and from scrolling. I haven't scrolled. I haven't scrolled in I mean it's a it's a guilty pleasure about once every month I'll go and look but the chronic looking I had to it would have kill me to keep looking at it so I got I'm so lucky what happened to me because of the what I was ejected out of and also the culture since this happened with me in 2017 the world has gone completely insane and and I've just been watching like I haven't had to comment about it I haven't had to to pick a side.

Yeah. I've just been sitting back going like, wow, you guys are, I mean, like, I'm on the bottom of the sea, but I look up and I see, you know, like there's a, there's still a full on fucking battleship royale up there. And once in a while, I see a body, like a blue body float down. And I'm like, hey, man, I remember you. And he's like, hey. And we're all collecting.

And there's more people down here now than there was up there. And it's quiet down here. Oh. You know, there's fish and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, it is, dude, it is like, I don't know, having a support group and being in a, like, being able to go to meetings and share what's going on. Listen to somebody else say something that just unlock something in you that you never could have unlocked.

Yeah. Fuck. It's huge. It's beautiful. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's unbelievable. It's like you could spend the rest of your life trying to figure that out. And then suddenly somebody just helped you get to a new place. One thing I love about meetings is like, you know, there's like the structure.

to these meetings like in any other 12-step program where you get three minutes to share, right? And the regimen of that, it's like perfect. It's kind of like the way baseball is perfect. Like someone figured out just the right amount of feet to make the, you know, that the throat of first is always close. Yeah. 12-step meetings have like this perfect,

this three minutes, and there's a spiritual timekeeper, a guy who just says when you're one minute away from finishing. Yeah. It says one minute, and you acknowledge it. you know thank you one minute right does that thing but in two minutes you can get really lost into what a guy's saying and you get to have this moment where like a guy's going like you know i keep a lighter fluid under my pillow because of the days that my father used to come to my room and i'd want to burn him alive thank you one minute and i like these little interruptions and

because it reminds you yeah you're in your shit but right wrap it up there's other guys waiting to talk and the world's going around and it's you know that was a long time ago man get over it on someone glad you're sharing it but you only get three minutes you know yeah dude it's monday brother yeah that sounds like a fucking thursday share yeah i need to check in some shit about what i did today you know oh dude yeah even things like i mean i was looking at pornography the other day just being able to like text somebody to say that to him you know just like and then just like how many times I want to go back to this feeling of after I look at pornography, I just feel like empty, you know? Or I just don't feel like myself the next day. That's been the biggest thing that helped change it for me is like noticing that like the next day, I don't feel like myself.

I feel like I'm a little scattered. I feel like I still need to recover from something. I still need to like put my aura back together a little bit. Yeah, because you ran away into pornography. So when you, when you feel you get, it's like you froze yourself. Yeah. And the next day you start to thaw and that's uncomfortable. It's like feeling your leg coming back to, uh, you know, after falling asleep, it's tingles and it's bad, it's a bad feeling. You want to be in one of the other, you know. So it's hard. The hard thing about being a recovery from addiction, something like what we have is that you can look at something like pornography, but it's, you're aware now.

So you know, there's a cost to it. Yeah, you know there's a cost. But that's, but thank God, because you get so much of life back. And being able to tell another guy, like, I'm doing this, because there's a lot of shame involved with sex and love addiction like all this kind of thing it's when so when you tell somebody and I'm an alcoholic people have a lot of sympathy for that yeah this one's a little tougher so you really need the group because these are a bunch of guys who get it and so when you tell them um I'm struggling not to do this the the the genius of that is just that someone else knows it now that's

all that it's too much for you to carry at some point for anybody who's an addict or not life got to be too much to handle. It just was overwhelming. So you found a way to shift away from it. And thank God you did. Like, thank God I had that when I was a kid. I don't think I could have handled life without this thing that was right there to soothe me. Yeah, if I didn't have that thing, I mean, I found pornography. And then I would, right, when I would get home, I would go, I would look at pornography and stuff like that. Because it was a way to make myself feel good. It was like, I felt so horrible, you know, and I didn't even know I felt so horrible about myself. I just felt like a fucking cavern you know i felt like i mean i felt in like i didn't even want to impose

myself on people because i didn't i don't know i just nobody had time for me right and so it made me think that i wasn't worth people's time so i always just felt like i just couldn't say what i needed to say i just didn't want to waste your time i didn't want to waste your time because you would see that i was a waste of like yeah if i could just how old were you probably 10 11 I mean, imagine a 10-year-old kid. Like, look at a 10-year-old kid's face and imagine that he feels like a cavern inside. That's a hard thing to carry.

And so you take on this thing that helps you just simplify life. Right. I do this. I search, I push, I push. I get to ecstasy. I'm calm. Right.

And then... It's homeostasis. It regulates me. It's just regulating. Right. And when you... If you're exposed to sex early in life, which I was in a way that was...

yeah you get you that's it that's it that's what you got and then later in life when your feelings are supposed to be developing they're they're still under this muffled thing so they're not developing properly and you and you're ashamed of what you're doing yeah but when you the thing about a fellowship it's just so simple it's not god it's not something that's better than you it's a bunch of guys who just have the same problem and you're able to just go you know I'm having this problem they go yeah get it they don't give you a solution they just go I know it too now and you go like now I got two souls to carry this problem. And I'm there for him when he needs that.

Yeah. And that just makes it a tiny bit easier so that you can go to the alternative, which is, why do I do this thing? It's because I feel like a cavern. And the detaching from the behavior and stopping the thing I couldn't stop doing gave me the opportunity to go, what's in that cave? What's in that? Is there something in that that's worthwhile? How bad is it? What's wrong with the cave?

Is it that I'm alone in there? Am I alone in there? It gave me the courage to sit in the cave alone and take a look around and go like, you know, with a flashlight. Man, there's like crystals on the roof. It's fucking cool in here. You know, how'd I get in here? There is a, there's a little door. where does that go and starting to really be okay with i'm just here i'm in here and then a feeling

comes that the kind of things i used to run from you know like deep sadness i miss my mom something like that i don't just have it i just want to have it now i just want to have it and i've got a new habit which is that when i get that huh that used to lead to an addictive moment when i get that i know that if i pull away from it it gets worse It actually only hurts if I pull away. But if I get up to it and I go, what do you got? And I see colors and I see beautiful things, you know? And that's the potential is to welcome every feeling.

And then you don't want out. And I love my life so much now that the last thing I want to do is grayed out with a kind of chronic sexual half-release fake thing. watching a sad person on a video in a weirdly lit room and I'm in it I just don't come on buddy and I don't even know who I'm cheering for

when I was in pornography that's crazy yeah which team are you won yeah yeah and you're like tie let's just have a tie yeah um but oh dude yeah it's like oh that sedative

and it's just a full body sedative but yeah I would um yeah I didn't have It marred really my ability to make a lot of connections because, like, I'll even notice still in my life, and I still have, I still need to go through my steps again. I need to check in with my sponsor today, but, like, if I'm face-to-face with a woman and they say something nice about me, I can't stay there for a second. Really? I cannot, like, even a woman looking at me, really, I just, I can't, I just have to. What happens?

What makes you run away from it? Like, inside of me, it feels fucking, like, it almost feels like a dirty electricity. Yeah. Comes inside of me that's, or just, like, shows up at the front of me. It's a power. It's a weird electronic, it really is like touching a third rail. Yeah. Love and sex are both extremely powerful, and they ain't all good.

It's what I learned after, like, months of not jerking off. and then I decided I talked to my sponsors like it's time to try oh yeah I remember that big weekend we were all excited I think I've on one of those Amish fireplaces

I just feel some of the distant north out there but weren't you out of town weren't you? You up in New York somewhere weren't you? You had to be in the totality of my first jerk off

like you had to be in that one stripe that's right in the island I was in I was out in Shelter Island And I said, okay, you're going to visit this. And you're not doing this for pleasure. You're doing this to visit.

You're going to go to the country. You left. And I did it. And it was like an electrical shock. It wasn't like this pure pleasure. And I realized that's what it's always been like. But I've been putting like wet towels and asbestos and shit over my whole life so that I could barely feel it.

So I had to really, really rub hard and with the most penetrating fucking. up thoughts in order to find it. And I've been doing it since I was a kid. And I'm like, I can't believe I felt that as a kid as a child. Wow. That's crazy. Because I really felt it's raw strength again. And I said, I don't, my little conversation I have in my head with this presence I call Wally, it's just my own thing. And I said, after I did it, after I came, I said, that's no joke. And Wally said, no, it's not. And I said, I think I need some rules. I should not go there alone very often. And I should never go there with somebody who I don't trust.

And Wally said, that sounds smart kid. And that's what I've been living by. I've been respecting sex as a very hot fire. That's beyond electricity. Your feelings are fires that you can sit by and warm yourself. But sex is electricity, that you have to deal with real discipline and thoughtfulness. and so is love because that's a two-way thing

you've got somebody else involved and the other thing that the steps did was looking at my life really looking at it and I was writing down my history of my sex life you know from it was the first assignment I was given and I got to like I've blown up my life like twice

really and the first time I blew up my life I looked at that moment I was writing it and I yelled onto the paper I said stop to myself you gotta stop and i felt this huge remorse because i realized i can't hear it he can't hear it that happened i can't change it oh but then i heard a voice say please stop and i realized it's my future self whose life kept getting wrecked and he said please stop and i'm like i can hear him i can fucking hear that guy and i can actually i'm in this moment but i thought yeah but i can't i'm

not strong enough and i asked the universe to i just said somebody fucking help me because i want to live i want to really live my life and uh that was a big moment for me so that's powerful i can hear that guy now saying thank you dude and please keep it going because you could still You have to keep going in this better direction. That's all just from this stupid 12-step thing that you get. It's like a DMV fill-out thing. Anybody can do it. When you go to these SLA meetings that are like on Zoom and stuff,

there's like a hundred dudes on every meeting. It's like, and a lot of it is young guys in like their 20s, some are 19 who can't, who are addicted to porn. Yeah. Because they were born into a world where they're being. encouraged to go to their phone for love and acceptance and power and money and that's where they find sex and it's all addictive they've they've turned every human endeavor into an addictive act and these kids are so overwhelmed by it everything the most important ones well one of some of the

things that i've learned are i mean well the crazy part is so say i'm sitting there i'm jerking off and then there's some just because i'm jerking off on my phone some county out of in Iowa is they're losing water because they're having to run a data center. That's right. That's flaring up a little icon. That's right. So now some kid can't even take a hot shower

because some other... Because you just need a little... 40-year-old kid won't stop jerking off somewhere in the distance. Oh, it's unbelievable. I mean, and here's one of the crazy things. We had a lady that came on who told us about Pornhub and a lot of these sites. A lot of the content on there is

isn't even consensual. Right, of course. So now you start to realize, oh, I'm jerking off to crime. Yes. I'm jerking off to possible sexual crime. Like, they found like 70% of it was non-consensual. This lady Lila McElwight is her name.

She came on. It was fascinating to learn about it. Yeah, and if you're jerking off to anything on that site, you're supporting that. Even if the thing you're watching is consensual, it's all the money's going into the same pot. It's financing this shit that's not consensual. And then also one great thing about being in the program, and I've never really talked about it.

This one, I've talked about it with one other comedian on here, actually, is that we have a buddy in the program named Steve, and he's awesome. And he runs a program called Valor, and this isn't really an advertisement for it, but we do free ads for the Valor on the podcast. And it's a lot of young dudes in there, and I'm in some of the meetings, and it's a lot of dudes in there who are just going to, who are getting help yeah because it's really hard to unlearn this shit and it and it does make you it gets dangerous because it does make you an unthoughtful person that's the way i got in the trouble that i got into because i wasn't stopping and thinking i was like so blinded by what i wanted that i didn't and i would just get this basic feeling of like this is okay i would tell myself that but i wasn't stopping and thinking and i i just have so many you know like when you're in a

if you have a power boat and you're pulling water skiers or people on a two that kind of boat has an elaborate system of ignition. You know what I mean? So that you don't chew somebody up with the propeller. So like when someone's in the water, you turn the ignition off.

And when you turn the ignition on, it beeps really loud before you start the motor. And that's before you go in gear. You have all these movements before you're harming. And that gives everyone a chance. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

So I got all these beeps and triggers in my life now. Like, especially if I'm looking at a moment, of of ecstasy. If I'm looking at something that's going to make me feel euphoric, I go, you might be being selfish right now. Like, that's an automatic thought to me now. Like, you might, who's, who, is someone paying for this? Is someone looking like they're okay when they're not? Is somebody saying yes when it was tough for them to get there? Can you just wait a second? Can you cool off? Can you take a breath? Because you might be going too fast. You might be

so desperate to get this moment that's going to give you that, assuaged me that kind of like I'm okay feeling that you're not thinking you're not in it you're not in the room with somebody you're not in the room with yourself even you're not you're hurting yourself you're using yourself oh yeah so that's new for me that's new and and and it's become an installed part of me so yeah I just move slower and uh that life has a speed and if you can get on the same track with it you're okay like the thing I get from like I every morning I look at the sky I just look at the sky and the world and nature. And I just, the, the, there, there's a message I keep getting, which is that you're meant to be here. You're designed to be here. You don't even have to

look at it as like some conscious being made you. It's just that you're of this earth at this time. Yeah. So chances are you match if you're willing to be in it the way, as long as you're willing to be in reality, the way things really are, accepting what's not there. And because we're human, going for it a little, trying a little, trying to make things happen. I think that the universe, when we fuck around to find out, goes like, huh, nice. Yeah, nice. I like this motherfucker. Yeah.

And so there's a little, there's an edge there that you want to be at where you're just like, I'm here, which means I belong here. And everything that happens will basically be okay with me if I really take it in as reality. And I don't try to just like think my way out of it. But I'm a clever little fucking monkey And I want to try some shit too, you know And it means I'll fall Yeah You know

Try to try to try only as high As the fall won't break you When you get up really, really crazy high in life You're too high You're Madison Square Garden And all this kind of crazy shit that I was doing It's like the fall will kill you And

Because it's not a human height It's not human And there's no oxygen up there and there's no drag on your wings and it's lonely and it doesn't have it it's not affected by your feelings anymore it's just this other thing but when i went back to work and i was like i'm doing clubs again how's that going to feel and i'm sitting in the funny bone in st louis and the the machine that sends coke to the bar is is next to my head and i'm sitting there and there's the smell of chicken wings and pizza and I'm doing retail comedy when you know I was happy as fuck

I was so happy to be telling the jokes to people whose faces I could see and whose admission prices is they're giving that to me as a as a gift and they're going home happy and I got back to that level of comedy and it was really beautiful that's where I live now I mean I do the theaters because I'm still a fucking pig I still want I still like it but one some of them are nice Some of them are nice. The Ryman in Nashville, beautiful. I'm excited to come over there. Well, dude, I just knew I came over to your place and you were making art and you were

sculpting and sending me stuff. And then you sat me down one time with a friend when I was over there and she had made something and you were reviewing it or she was reviewing a project you had made. It was like a some type of a cartoon, I believe. It was a silent film. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah.

It's a movie that I was starting to make and we were making an animatic with charcoal. Yeah. It was just fascinating, like, oh, this dude is a fucking artist, man. And that's when I realized, oh, this guy really, like, he likes being an artist, you know? Yeah, it just feels good. It's just fun. Yeah. And if you can share this stuff, it's great.

And it was just, yeah, it was, it was great. And then you said this, and I was like, wow, this dude's really in his spot. But yeah, I agree, man, having that, like, having that, like, need for attention from women or having, watching pornography or watching porno and stuff, it's, taking a lot of things moments in my life. You know, I was on, one time I was on a vacation and, and with, with, uh, with my girlfriend instead of like, spinning, I was like, like, like, texting some other woman or I was like watching pornography. And it took us out of this great weekend where, we're supposed to.

And it's like, and that call, it's like, you know, I can never like, get that right in a way, you know, like, because, but it's, it's understandable because you have that feeling that if you're with somebody, you're too much for them. You're scared to be alone with her. You're scared. So you're finding a way to not be in the room. Yeah, and it's just that old pattern, though, that if I don't try and get it under control,

if I don't try to do better. And I think even this year's been tough for me. It's just like, yeah, I just feel like work's gotten busy, and it just makes me scared kind of a little bit. And it's like, you know, and then popularity makes you scared, and that's kind of scary. And then you're just like looking at yourself.

And you're just like, what am I even? You're like, I can't even feel like I can't even, the controls feel far from my hand sometimes. Not like I'm doing crazy stuff or anything, but just like, you know, I just, I don't know. No, it's, it is scary and it should be. That's the thing is it's like another electricity. You've got to respect it. It's not a small thing being famous and it can go bad. And it's, it's your fault because you got into it.

Yeah. But that's, I don't know, it's also a human thing to want to share your work and want to to be out there, you know. But once, when it goes bad, you get in this predicament of like, I want to go to each person's house and tell them what really happened and what, you know, the little things that are, that aren't in the way this, you know, and that's just never going to happen. Yeah. And at this point with all, to me, I just want to get, I just, I just want to live and I want to, like, I haven't talked about this the way I'm talking about it to you. And we can take it out if you want to be. It's scary. We'll talk about it after. Okay.

But there's so many times where I just want to come out and tell people like, I'm fucking sorry, I'm really sorry, I hurt people. And I feel, I've felt like in the way that it was so hard to take all of that at once, that much anger at once, it's like, I just don't have a sorry that covers it. And so, and I don't have only one feeling. Sorry is not the only feeling I have. And so I don't want to say something. And I'm scared of the way that I, anything I say, can be used by other people there's all kind of fears that come up and I'm very raw in that space

but that's all because I made this I'm making these choices to stay in this and it's because I love the work and I want to share it so I guess like I really wish there was like I could have a simple kind of watershed where I can say

just yes to everything that happened and I'm sorry I really am and I'm just trying to do better and I don't think I can prove that to everybody because it's a private thing. It's a one-to-one man thing. It's not a famous guy act.

But I got work that I want to share with people. I have work that I think is worthy. And there, like, if you don't like you, you don't like it, that's always okay with me. When I'm on stage and I'm talking and people aren't accepting it, like, oh, that's okay. That's fucking. That's fair.

Fair enough, man. And I don't, nobody owes me nothing. I'll just, I'm trying. We'll see what happens. dude i'm kind of like in a weird way like i know this sounds maybe crazy to say it's almost like well i think so many of us probably needed we needed a guy like you to have some of the same problem because you have such an ability to look at things and kind of like examine them and it's like we needed an astronaut like i know it sounds crazy but it's like we needed like a neil armstrong like

you well you know i felt out there and report what you're feeling under your feet because it's like so many people are struggling and you say things, dude, that like, I mean, the rest of us just cannot put it in a words. And it's just such a gift that you have, you know? Well, it's, it's been a little bit painful because I know it has. Well, because, because, uh, I felt that and when it happened, like, hey, this is an opportunity. I can tell people what this is like and I can really, I can, I can, I can come back with something great to say. But I just, I'm not, I just couldn't. Like, I just couldn't do it. I was too scared and I was too fighting for my life and also worried about other people in my life. Everything I say affects people that love me. I know that. And people that

I'm related to. And I can't just decide like what's going to fix it. And also I'm completely confused by it. I still live with this thing every day. It's still part of my everyday life. It still imposes limits on me every day. And I still don't know what to do about it. I really don't. It's really confusing but so I wish I could feel like I'm like a shitty astronaut I'm like an astronaut who's not cut they sent the I'm what's his name? Don Nauts

in that whatever I think he did an astronaut one right? If he didn't he should have to do it yeah there it is yeah the reluctant astronaut that's me yeah it's no good and I'm Gus Grissom I blew the hatch

and I just was I was just too weak man and I flailed through it, you know, I said some things out of confused anger, because I am who I am on stage. I'm pretty raw up there, you know, so I'm not like vetting what I say. I'm not careful about it. You know, but you may be the reluctant astronaut, but I think it's like what we all are. It's like we all just want to try and like figure out whatever the truest stuff that's going

on inside of us. That's right. And that's the part that I think you report back. Like I'm just saying like, well, life will, you will never choose. the hard road for yourself. Never. And the choices you make in life are a combination of, like, fear. You do things because of what you're afraid of, to avoid things you're afraid of, most things in life. You work for financial success because you're afraid of being poor more than anything else. And you work towards acceptance because you're afraid of being

alone. Yeah, and sometimes you look at pornography, you do stuff like that because you're afraid of going in and sitting with talking with your spouse or your girlfriend. Just talking about things that are scary to you. That's right. So that's how life, that's how a person in, it's understandable. It's like people just do their best. 100%. But when life throws a bomb in the middle of your life and you survive it,

you are given this beautiful opportunity to go like to see everything from another angle and go like, what is even breathing? Like what is even like, why do I put a sock on? like what am I doing here and it breaks everything that takes everything away and it goes start again and you look back at your life and you go that was a fucking mess and you're met with real remorse about your mistakes you don't have time to regret when you're let live in life but when it's cut off and you just go wow that was fucked up and I can't even fully fix it for some people I just can't I just what do I do now put a sock on

Maybe another sock. Maybe on the same foot. Maybe two socks on one foot. What's wrong with that? And you get, I got my sense of humor back that way. So it's just like, this is all pretty silly. It's all pretty fucking silly in a sense. Don't you dare take life seriously.

It's like one of my big things. Even as a comedian, you sort of think, I'm a great comedian. Yeah, lighten up, buddy. You know what I mean? And the shows I've been doing on the road now are just, I called the show ridiculous because it's back. to I just want to be I just want to surprise people with what I'm saying yeah and I just want to be a bit of an asshole for a little for an hour it's just fun um but also just seeing that I don't

think I would have seen these things if life didn't force me to uh so it's good it's good like right now for me life is just so fucking good way better than it was before would it be able to live in such fucking I mean just to be able to like really face some real challenges in your life that's pretty fucking crazy I mean you walk away going like I can do that yeah and and it's okay and what happened that was terrible was okay and it wasn't all terrible some of it was so beautiful because when you're exposed to the hardest part of life you're also exposed to the most wonderful like I was looking the other day I don't know why this is but the word compass and the word compassion, like they share the first, what, seven letters?

I don't know why that is, but you get some direction out of life, but you only find real compassion by seeing real pain. And you go, oh, wow, life is really tough, you know. And then that's all you need. All you need is to understand how much life can hurt. Because it's, well, I don't know, sort of spitting out with what I'm saying. but it's okay it's uh yeah life is uh better now and i also the what's happened to me can be an example for other people and like in fellowship when when i go to a meeting in person and i

and there's a guy who's really hurting his life's fucked up and i approach him and i go hey you should and he's not sure about being in this program and uh and he goes oh i i ruined my life and i go do you know who I am? And he goes, yeah. And I go, I'm doing pretty good, buddy. And the fact that my wreckage can be a mountain for folks to lean on, take a little load off, that's a beautiful gift. You know? Yeah.

Well, it's been awesome, man. It's so funny. I never really got to know you as a comedian. I mean, I got to know you on stage. But I've gotten to know you. I feel like as a man. Yeah. You're my brother.

Yeah. I've gotten to know you just by being kind and being cool. And, yeah, man, I just, yeah, I hope one day have a cool kid like you, man, that's creative and fun and brave and fucking weird. And, you know, not afraid to hide somewhere and fucking jerk off a little, but also be fucking cool. Yeah. Yeah, open up. Stay open. Yeah.

So I hope that one day have a cool kid like you. And, yeah, I just feel really proud that I just feel like, yeah, thank you for being a role model to me, man. Same deal. you do a good job of that and I think you should know that you know thanks bro that you do a really good job of that of being important to people Louie and it's definitely been that for me so thank you thanks bro yeah I think you're brave dude and uh yeah man I'm excited to see you guys tonight so get the fuck out of your shit's getting fucking gay dude but this book is great coming out of your eyes there's jizz

coming out because it's backing up very that's where the gauge is comes out the eyes Oh, God. Yeah. It's true. That's true. Oh, I know it is. Yeah. Oh, I've given, I did a four-part series on it online.

Engram is great. It's kind of, it's like a, it's a new kind of Tom Sawyer, but it's just good. It's written well. It's not like, oh, this is a big name writing a book, and that's why it's going to be good. This book is good if anybody wrote it. It's magnificent. And I'm so glad that you finally get to a place in your life where you feel you have the time and the ability to make such magic like this, man.

Thanks, bro. This is really cool. Thank you. All right, Louis C.K., thank you so much, bro. Thank you, Theo. Yep. Now, I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this piece of mind I found I can feel it in my bones. I thought it's gonna take