WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1332 - Michael Che

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

Michael Che wanted out his life on the Lower East Side, but his initial path was not comedy. It was painting and fine art. Michael tells Marc how he became enamored with standup while living in his brother's basement, how he came to love the grind of building an act, and how he puts everything he's learned into his sketch show, That Damn Michael Che. They also talk about the growing pains of doing Weekend Update on SNL and why hosting award shows isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die we control nothing beyond that

an epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel to show your true heart is to risk your life when I die here you'll never leave

Japan alive FX's Shogun a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney Plus 18 plus subscription required T's and C's apply.

Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucking ears? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to it. Michael Che is on the show today. You know him from Saturday Night Live, where he's the co-head writer and he co-hosts Weekend Update with Colin Jost. He also has his own sketch show, That Damn Michael Che, on HBO Max. That's the name of the show. I'm not saying that about him. That Damn Michael Che.

Season two premieres next week. I talked to him in my hotel room in New York City, and it was great. It was great to finally hang out with Michael. So I'm going to be in D.C. tomorrow night at the Kennedy Center. I think we'll have a pretty good turnout. But also, here's the weird thing. My old college roommate, Lance, lives in D.C. and I see him maybe once a year, less. I haven't seen him a whole lot in the last, I don't know, how old are we? When was it? 35 years. But it's an interesting thing that we were, you know, pretty close. We lived together for two years in college housing and then for another two or three years, I think off campus, but then you kind of, your life goes different ways. So I'm going to see Lance and I think I'm maybe going to do an episode with him. I'm going to talk to him,

which I'm nervous about because what is that sort of like, let's go over what you remember about me, but we'll see, you know. To talk about life with somebody. And then it turns out in Red Bank, New Jersey, where I will be on this Saturday, the other two guys we live with, Brad and Tony, are coming to the shows. Now, I haven't seen these guys really much. I can count them on one hand in the last 35 years. And it's just wild. I don't know.

Maybe I can get them all on tape. We'll see. But it's going to be wild. It's always wild to see people after so long. I can't even imagine what Tony looks like. I mean, I used to see this guy like every day, pretty high, but I'd see him every day. We were all pretty high.

I don't know how we amounted to much of anything, but maybe we can fill in some blanks in each other's lives. I'm kind of looking forward to it. I've been fairly emotional lately. I'm trying to do the enjoy life thing. I'm trying to do that. And I think I'm having some success at it. I actually have to pay attention to moments where I'm like, hey, dude, just enjoy what you have in your mouth. Why don't you try that? Why don't you just enjoy sitting on your porch? Why don't you just enjoy it, man?

The clock is ticking, bro. Why don't you enjoy giving love to your cats and being empathetic with other human beings? Why don't you do that? Why don't you do what you can? Why don't you like focus in on who you're voting for in this California local elections and state elections? Who are you voting for? Why don't you do a little research? Why don't you try that? Why don't you order some stuff online that'll make you feel better? Like those little things you put in a drain that catch the random food so you don't have to use your garbage disposal and fuck up your plumbing? A lot of people don't know that.

Garbage disposal is not for garbage disposal. It's just for loose shit that gets in there that shouldn't be in there anyways, so you get rid of that. Don't fucking put your whole life into your garbage disposal. Don't do entire cakes or the end of celeries or any of that. Don't fucking put your whole life into your garbage disposal. Don't do entire cakes or the end of celeries or any of that. Don't, don't use it like that. Like my mother used to use it like a mouth that wasn't hers. That's how my mother used her garbage disposal. It's like, all right, there's a cake on the counter. I'm going to eat one piece of it compulsively and

fast and without any joy whatsoever. And then I'm going to aggressively shove the rest of the cake down the garbage disposal. That's my second mouth. The garbage disposal will keep me from gaining weight. Sorry, man. Stream of consciousness. You never know what's going to happen. My mom's okay. Thanks for asking. She's a little dizzy. I think she's going to be all right. I don't know what I'm going to do at the Montreal Gala. I got to figure out some time. Shit. There's a lot going on.

I got to work on some new material. Look, I'm already doing like two hours. Lay off. Back off. You know what's lovely, though? I'll tell you what's lovely, honestly, is that I'm getting a lot of emails about the bad guys. And first of all, there's a lot of kids that walk out of there, according to their parents,

and say that I'm their favorite character, which I find very moving and touching. But I'm also getting a lot of emails from parents who are fans of mine, who now have this experience of me with their kid that they couldn't have, obviously, just watching my standup or something, but they can both have these separate but common experiences with me. Now, this isn't a selfish thing. I just find it very sweet that it's happening.

I'm glad that that movie did so well, and I'm glad that people enjoy it, but it's definitely something I never thought in my life would happen, which is that I'd have some fans who are under 10. So that's exciting, right? Fans under 10 for the snake. The snake's a great character. So Michael Che and I had this lovely conversation a few weeks ago in New York City in my hotel room. This Saturday is the season finale of Saturday Night Live. Season two of That Damn Michael Che premieres next Thursday, May 26th on HBO Max.

And we've never really talked. So we've met a couple times, but this is the first time we talked. And it was great. It was great. This is me talking to Michael. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company

markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun. creative. Just to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun. A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.

Jimmy, like, whether it's a voice or an expression, he knows how to... Right, right, right. You're working with a dude that knows how to hold... I love Jimmy. He's a good guy, right? He's a great guy. He's always been great to me. How long did you work with him over there?

I never worked with him. We never overlapped. But my first show... No, my second show at snl as a writer yeah uh jimmy was i mean excuse me justin was hosting yeah so like jimmy was around oh because you know what i mean yeah so i kind of met him very very quickly and then uh and then like you know like he'd always be around like he'd be around like he hosted i think like the next season or something like that so you're around him and very, very quickly. And then he'd always be around. He hosted, I think, the next season or something like that, so you're around him in that way. And he's just in the building.

He's always been in the building, yeah. So he's right on six, and I know Amir and them. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was like I kind of, I don't even know how long, I don't know how I've met him. That's how long I feel like I've known him. Yeah, I think everybody in that building loses track of loses track of time yeah yeah it's like a casino like no clocks or windows type thing it's true right yeah literally yeah oh shit I never thought about

that but it's kind of like that I mean I've only been there a couple times and I was like have I been here a week yeah it's it's got that feeling it's it's forever. Yeah. So I went over. I did the full spread at Katz's about an hour ago. I did the whole thing. Isn't it crazy there's a line wrapped around the block for that? I know a guy. You could probably get in. I could probably get in. I think you've earned that.

I would hope so. Go into the sandwich place. But it's just crazy. I remember going there as a kid. Like, my grandma, like, that was our Sunday treat. My grandmother would go to Katz. Oh, really? And, like, we'd all, we'd share, like, a pastrami sandwich.

My grandmother would always get the hot dog. Yeah, yeah. And so, like, that place just reminded me of, I don't know, it just feels weird that people want to go there. That's all that's left, dude. Yeah, it really is. Like, there's no other delis anymore there's like there's no jews no they go there but they look at meat and they look at jews yeah still the best pastrami though i think so i mean it must have been when you were a kid though like

how you grew up around here i grew up yeah i grew up on allen street really yeah what was the situation then oh that was public housing, man. Right here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How old are you? I'll be 39 in like a week. So what year was that you were born then? 83.

Huh. Because I came down here in 89, and I was on second between A and B. Yeah, that's a lot of, yeah all this was all kind of dope yeah yeah this is all dope so it was it's it's sad but it's also like funny like people will say oh man i missed the gritty new york and i'm like no you don't yeah no you don't do you have do you have uncles in prison still do you have you know what i mean cousins that od'd and shit like that like you don't you don't miss it it't miss it. It's nice now. I like it now.

I like it right now. Well, those people don't know what they're... I mean, I think I was one of those people until you start to realize, like, I don't know, dope's better than crack, I think. Yeah. I mean, if you got to take one. Right. Because it was always...

It was weird down here. It's a lot easier to catch the guy stealing your shit if he's on dope than if he's on crack. Because he'd stop and he didn't know he stopped. Yeah, he's just stuck there. You could just take your shit just take your shit just take the book back right off of him he won't know the difference but i i just remember the whole like when i was on second it was there was a dope doorway right next to my house and they had these guys i think it was i don't know if it was colombians or dominicans i don't know it was latino for sure yeah but they had these guys. I think it was, I don't know if it was Colombians or Dominicans. I don't know. It was Latino for sure. But they had the guys

at the end of the street, on each side of the street, the lookouts. And then they had, and junkies would line up like 30 deep. Like it was a movie. It was crazy.

It was crazy. It's crazy that everyone knew it, but cops did nothing about it. So you grew up in that area? Yeah. It was like a tidal wave, I remember. In the 80s? You would just hear about people nothing about it so you grew up in that area yeah it was it was like a tidal wave i remember like just you would just hear about people that you you know lived in your building right lived in

other buildings for years and the next thing you know that 30 years 20 years 40 years in prison or dead prison yeah well i mean i don't know if they're dead for 30 years i mean or dead or dead or dead yeah yeah for sure because that was when the dope got really clean and so because they realized that white people would snort dope but they wouldn't shoot it so there was a period there in the 80s where the heroin on the street was so good that people were dying pretty easy i feel like it was i feel like it was for my neighborhood it was more crack oh really yeah was, for my neighborhood, it was more crack. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, okay. For my neighborhood, I think you would hear more about people going away for selling crack. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's where all of the time came down because it was so fast and everybody was doing it. Right. And it was so easy to get. Yeah. That it was just like, it was crazy. Makes people crazy. Yeah. And it was like all at one time.

Yeah, yeah. It was just a celebration of psychosis on the street. Yeah, it was like the first iPhone. It was like everyone had to have it. They were lined up to get it. You can't remember life before it. And then you stay connected to it. You stay connected to it. stay what your life is that's

all it is it's your it's your uh your your like an appendage yeah yeah the pipe yeah how how many kids in your family i'm the youngest of seven oh my god is that a lot that's not a lot what are you talking about what are you two oh i mean it's well i mean I don't know. Catholics, blacks, Hasidic Jews. I guess seven's not a lot. That's not a lot. No. It is a lot. Wait, what's your background?

Are you... I'm a Jew. Yeah, but Jews don't have a lot of kids? Not the regular ones. Oh, okay. The hatted ones seem to have quite a few. I was just at the Hertz, and I saw some woman and a Hasidic guy. They had like

seven kids and she didn't even look like she was 40 yet well she was wearing a brown wig a brown wig and she looked tired and sad and lost yeah that's a rough one that's i always feel bad for for those women because yeah every time i'm at a like a bar late night or randomly you'll just see like one hasidic man just come in, drinking, trying to touch the girls. You're like, your wife is at home right now, covered up, and you're out here. With nine kids.

With nine kids, and you're out here drinking. Yeah, or driving around your station wagon looking for hookers. Exactly. Yeah. All you see is him down on the Lower East Side driving around looking for trouble. It's the saddest thing in the world.

But I heard there was some sort of loophole. Oh. Like, you know, I don't know. Like, they can fuck hookers or something. What? It's biblical. I don't know. Oh, is it kind of like, well, because they're doing the work?

Or something. One of the things, like, you know, you can't touch, you can't use the electric, but you can let somebody else push the elevator button for you on a Saturday. Oh, it's the Sabbath thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't fuck your wife, but you can fuck a hooker if she's not Jewish? Maybe. I don't know.

Or you can have somebody fuck her with your dick. Technically, she's doing the work. Yeah, sure. Yeah, man. So where are all your sibs at? All spread out, man. We left Lower East Side when I was about 10. We moved to Jersey City because we got out of public housing,

but still Manhattan was way too expensive. And you lived with your mom? My mom, yeah. And your old man? My parents were separated, like, I think when I was conceived even. Oh, really? I was the last one i'm the youngest and he was out he was gone yeah they were married but he was gone yeah and do you have a

relationship with him yeah oh that's good you know what's interesting is i think it's because we're very similar people but i get along way better with my dad but i'm closer to my mom yeah i don't know why like me and my dad have never had like a falling out or argument or anything well i mean if you accept that he wasn't there well he was he wasn't it's not that he wasn't he was there he wasn't in the house oh well yeah i mean well that that makes sense that was the easier one you love your mom because she took care of this yeah there was probably like kind of that that weird like, all right, I'll do it. But your dad was more like, hey. No?

I don't know. Because me and my mom, I don't know. I guess maybe that's a good way to think of it. She took care of you, and you were able to have a good time with him. No? Maybe. Isn't that usually the way it goes? Maybe.

The one who's got to shoulder the burden of bringing the kid up. And that's where the love is. Oh, man, I've been kicked out of the house so many times. By her? Yeah. For what? Oh, man, I don't know. The first time I got kicked out of the house, I was 14.

Then I was 16. Wait, you just go to your dad's? I went to my sister's first. Then I went to my dad's. What'd you get kicked out for 14 i'm not going to school so that was gonna make it better get out yeah let's go to school live in the street yeah that was i don't i didn't understand the logic yeah it was one of those things like my you know my my family background is like if you don't follow the rules, then you're out. We don't care how old you are.

It's that kind of thing, which is crazy to think now. I think, oh, good God, 14 now. But back then, I was like, yeah, okay, that makes sense. I guess it's time to go on my own kind of thing. 14, I don't know. How old's your oldest sibling? I was tall, if that makes sense. Yeah.

My sister was 12 years older than me. The oldest sister yeah that's not that much and then they come down then there's how many you're i'm the last so it's like but there are how many brothers it's 15 14 12 10 9 8 and then me oh so there's so they're way yeah there's a huge gap i was gonna say my parents were separated right when you when they had you when they had me oh i see so it was like uh like a kind of uh like you want to just try it we're both lonely i don't know the cable was out or something i don't know what happened what are you doing how's it going over there yeah yeah i don't know what happened so you're getting thrown out of the house a lot or no as a kid i used to a lot i was very like

i thought i was older than i was you know i thought i was a little bit more uh you know i i just always thought i i had my mind made up if i was against something i could stand up i didn't realize yeah super stubborn yeah tourist they say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Superstable. But you didn't get fucked up? No. That's good. No, I didn't. That's good. What do you mean?

Like, how? I mean, like, yeah, drugs or anything? No, no, no, no, never. Fucking that. At least you thank your parents for that? Well, my dad was an addict. Oh. Still an addict, I guess, but he's been recovered for over 30 years, I guess. Oh, yeah?

Or in recovery. I don't know the tenses for it, but he's been recovered for over 30 years oh yeah but uh or in recovery i don't know how to i don't know the tenses for it but but he's been in recovery sober for as long as i know but um so i i've always and also too like you know if you grow up in a neighborhood with a lot of drugs and all of that stuff you there's kind of a fine line between people that use drugs, even people who sell drugs. Yeah. You know what I mean? There's a hierarchy.

So it wasn't cool to do drugs in my community. You know what I mean? In my neighborhood. It was like, oh, you've crossed the line of drug addict. Oh, really? Yeah. It was like a stigma because we lost a lot of people. You see, there was a lot of pain that came from that shit.

So people knew it existed and they knew about it. Oh god but they didn't you didn't want to do it you just want to be on the wrong side of it yeah if you sold you could get more respect selling drugs and doing drugs okay which is crazy because the destruction seems to be in the you seem to be marketing yeah yeah but but it's and it's just as addictive. Both are just as addictive, which we didn't know. Interesting. But I always stayed away from it just because of just seeing. From both. Well, yeah, just seeing the depth, seeing the.

It's so weird, dude. It was rough to watch growing up. When I lived down there, because that was like the first time I got sober. Yeah. I moved down the way we sat. I came here to New York. I'd been sober a little while. And I just see these junkies come down.

And you see the same dudes every day. And you'd be like, what the fuck? They look terrible. They're sweaty. Just like ghosts, like zombies. And I'm like, god damn, is this the best thing to see? Being sober, just see these fuckers all fucked up every day as a reminder. But it's weird how the junkie brain or the addict brain works.

Because I'm there about a year. And it slowly starts to shift to like, that shit must be really good. Must be really good. Yeah, something. He's coming back? Looking like that? He's willing to give up everything for whatever the fuck is in that doorway? Must be not bad.

Yeah, yeah. Must be worth something. Yeah, but I guess it's also different too as a kid you start to if you grow up in it you start to see like your friends moms or your friends oh right right right you know what i mean dads and family members and people who used to be you know normal normal or not normal anymore and then it's just like quick just a quick fall off yeah like wow where's her teeth you know all that stuff that's right shit like that you gotta deal with the kid all fucking angry and sad it's like getting bit by a zombie where you're like oh

just wow you want nothing to do with it but you never saw your old man like that no never never never my dad i think his his biggie was booze. Booze. Old school. Yeah. I mean, he definitely, you know, did what he did. Yeah. But I think, like, his big one was booze. But so did your siblings see him drunk? Oh, sure.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So that's interesting. You probably got the best version of the guy. Yeah, I did. I remember, it's so crazy to say, because I remember when I was a kid, I thought my dad was the nicest guy in the world. And every time I would tell him that, he would get so embarrassed. Like, dude, you have no idea who you're talking to.

You know what I mean? Don't ask your sister. Yeah, yeah. So it was just like a fun thing where I just thought he had low self-esteem. I had no idea he had a history. You never asked your siblings about him? I knew but you know people aren't gonna tell you bad things sure about your dad when you're a kid when you're a kid yeah yeah not till later yeah and then they tell you then they tell you that's the funny the statute of limitations on shit you shouldn't tell

your kids runs out when you're like i think in your 60s right yeah but i but i don't think it was ever like even then it wasn't ever that he was a bad guy right just drunk it's just a fucking sick you know yeah fucked up guy it's just fucked up yeah it happens yeah i mean i know people like and it's funny the kids of uh of drunks go either way they either become a drunk or they become a complete control freak like yeah i'm not going to be a drunk. Oh, now boozing is, I could see it. Yeah. Oh, that's a rough one. Yeah.

I try not to drink too much so that I don't ever have to quit. Yeah, right, right. You know what I mean? I'm trying to keep it. I'll take a couple days off. Oh, really? Yeah. Just to make sure.

You like it though? I like it a lot, man. Especially for like, I feel like the way you start performing is what you become addicted to. It's almost like a baseball player's socks, you know what I mean? Sure. Like on a hit streak, like you don't want to change a fucking thing. So I was doing comedy drinking starting out. Sure.

And now it's like in the back of your head of have a drink. It's a ritual. It is. It all becomes a ritual. Hang out at the bar, have a drink, talk with your friends, do this, that, shit on somebody, go have another drink. Then you ride in that high.

Yeah, yeah. That performance high. There are guys that can't do it without drinking. Yeah. But I don't think, I know I've performed on everything. Yeah. But I don't think I perform better.

No, no one does yeah no one does but i can understand the sort of like the one drink to get that to ease you into you know it probably make your first four minutes better but then if you get another drink i don't know it just makes what you're willing to try better sure it just it's like like you said like i think it's it's just a slower start maybe only because of your apprehension of being sober thinking you can't do it but it's all the fucking same you got it all in you yeah you know what i mean yeah and you wouldn't be that good if you needed to drink yeah i don't i can't imagine it anymore it's hard for me to but i definitely

was doing it at some point so when you when did you start doing stand-up? I started in 2009. I was 26. Oh, you were old. I was an old dude. Well, what the hell did you do before that? Man, a little bit of everything. I wanted to be an artist somehow, but I didn't know what it was.

You mean like anything from painting? like what it was you mean like anything from like painting anything from painting to to acting to directing to something i just wanted to be in not cubicle world when did you start doing something i started well i went to art school in high school i went to la guardia and uh oh that's down here yeah well no it's up it's up on uh 65th and amsterdam so are is it that is that the fame school fame school you know i ask everyone i've talked to has ever gone there if that's the fame school and i should know by now but every time i ask i'm completely earnest about it yeah because i don't fucking remember but also it's like fame's not a thing anymore no that's true But that's how everyone knew that. That's how everyone knows it.

But it's like, if you ask anybody under 30, you ask Chalamet who went there. Is that the fame school? He'd be like, what? Like, he probably doesn't know what the fuck fame is, man.

Was Chalamet from Planet Earth? I don't know. I think he's... What a strange little guy. He's a good dude. No, I mean, he's a good dude. I don't know him.

I don't know him. He seems like a good dude. He seems like a sweetie. I'm excited to see him get old. Yeah, it's gonna be weird. It don't know him. I don't know him. He seems like a good dude. He seems like a sweetie. I'm excited to see him get old. Yeah, it's going to be weird. It's going to be weird. A little skinny mustache. Like a little French old man.

Yeah. He's going to be all right, though. Yeah, he'll be all right. But this is his time. This is it. This is his. He's new Leo. Yeah, he is.

He might grow up to be Leo. Maybe. But Leo kind of like, like, Chalamet has a different look new Leo. Yeah, he is. He might grow up to be Leo. Maybe, but Leo kind of like, like Chalamet has a different look than Leo. Leo was like a troubled kid. You know what I mean? Yeah, I got you. He looks like he's having a really good time.

I got you. Leo looked like the world was weighing on him a little bit. Chalamet just looks like nothing's going to hurt that kid. Well, famous last words in Hollywood. Nothing's going to hurt me. I think Corey Feld words in Hollywood. Nothing's going to hurt me. I think Corey Feldman said that first. Oh, yeah. He did.

Yeah. None of those child stars really kind of go the distance like Leo has. And he's still so fucking good. It's rare. It's rare. But when you see it, it's... I mean, look at Kenan. Kenan's frigging still going.

He was a child star. he so that's right you almost don't even think of it who's nickelodeon nickelodeon and he's got nothing but funnier that guy exactly it's like the best it's the best thing yeah keenan got so funny as he got so confident he's so good he's so funny i can't imagine the show without him well it's neither and working with them can anybody yeah neither can anybody he's he's like it's neither can working with them neither can anybody yeah neither can anybody he's he's like it's incredible but wait so you go to that school and what do you what does it prepare you for what are you doing there honestly it's i mean you get your major you get you know just art performing you know art and drama and all that shit but

so you're acting and stuff while you're there no i was doing painting you were you were painting i was doing fine art yeah really yeah like figurative painting yeah you good yeah no but you i would have stuck with it if i was good yeah yeah i wasn't that good it was uh i tried i liked it but i i knew it was like not my first language uh-huh i knew i knew how to do it because i knew how to do something else and i could you know what i mean it like not my first language uh-huh I knew I knew how to do it because I knew how to do something else and I could you know what I mean it wasn't my first sport yeah yeah I knew comedy and performing was probably gonna be the thing I just was afraid to do it it didn't so you weren't doing that in the high school no I mean in the cafeteria right just for fun yeah so when did you like i just nutted up one day i was broke it was like this oh but it wasn't i got fired i got fired from some job i think i was working at

a car dealership wait so you get out of the performance going all you do is paint and fuck around the i mean you had like i had like you know i was also 2019 yeah 19. Yeah. So you do odd jobs, fast food, waiter, bar back. But that's six years. Oh, so you did all of them. Did everything. In the city. No, in Jersey. Oh, you were in Jersey City.

I moved to Jersey because it was way cheaper. I couldn't afford Manhattan anymore. But your family was out there too, right? My family was in Jersey City, yeah. And you were living in Jersey, working at restaurants? Living with my brother. Oh, what did he was a barber still a barber no i don't know what he does anymore i think he's like a truck driver i think i think he's you have his number i do i do but i don't i try not to ask people about their finances because it gets really expensive for me

but you're the guy it's never it's never i'm doing great don't worry about it you know it's funny you should ask i don't know what i think he's a truck driver though if i'm not mistaken well so you live with your brother in new jersey working in restaurants that's like that's that's the that's the the the petri dish of desperation that pushes somebody to- Basement apartment. Oh. Basement apartment. That's subterranean Petri dish.

Yeah. No windows. Oh, shit. In New Jersey. A lot of time to stew. Wow. Yeah. So what were you on the edge of?

Depression. Yeah. Yeah, it was like I had to do something, man. I was like, at some point i was just all i wanted was just try to not to justify not going to college still at 20 something at 20 something you're like i still gotta show the world yeah well because i had friends that were like already graduating and starting their careers and shit yeah you know what i mean and they're like what do you do that's the worst what are you up to

exactly well we're all hanging out we're all going to eat somewhere and i got eight dollars for the week and like i can't do anything it was embarrassing yeah i know that feeling it's but you're so lucky that like at least you landed on a show that's pretty visible like you know even when i was doing well early on my parents are like i don't know that show what what network is your show on ifc where is that all right yeah yeah i dealt with that it never ended for me i got lucky i got lucky in that way that it was it was a show that known thing yeah i swear to god i just got an email or a text from my cousin uh because i just they just did a piece on me in people magazine and she goes look what i found and she took a picture of the

pieces because i guess you really are a big deal 58 that's happened that happens to me still though like i remember like five or six years ago my mother called me and she was like i just saw you on a commercial. I was like, a commercial? I'm on television, every appointment television. I was like, yeah, but a commercial. She saw the commercial. Which one?

I think it was an American Express commercial I did with Tina that Tina pretty much gave me. Shout out to Tina Fey. Pulled you in? That was a while back. Yeah, that was a while back man yeah it's a while back but i really appreciated it yeah those are good so all right so tell me about that first time what the hell like you're you're in the basement you decide to do comedy like who are you watching what what made you think you could do it i'm watching Jerry Seinfeld Comedian I'm watching Howard Stern Show

Yeah I didn't really follow Opie and Anthony Because I didn't know about it Until later on Yeah And that's when it got Not great

Yeah Because I didn't know about it then Like just I didn't drive I didn't have a car or anything Sure because I didn't know about it then. I didn't drive. I didn't have a car or anything. So I didn't really have all that stuff. How I was starting was still, I think, was still free. I think it was still on K-Rock. Right.

I remember when I did ONA, your primary concern was like, am I going to be dragged into something that's going to be problematic? Yeah. You're like, is there going to be a porn star in here doing something horrendous or am i gonna be asked a horrible racially loaded question well like i all i knew about ona was they were like they had the uh the people have sex in the church oh yeah like that's what i knew about that's what that's what got them thrown off yeah and then after that it was like obscurity for them like i didn't know according to me you know what i mean like that's when they went to serious that's when they went to serious when i wasn't paying for a satellite radios i thought they were dead and gone yeah

yeah i only did it at serious yeah yeah so then so so at that time it was for me i really didn't know much about them but would you like who were you following his oh my god patrice you jim keith jim norton keith robinson gerald like all of those guys were like guys i wanted to be one of those guys loved them yeah you know uh obviously quinn i tell you man gerald and patrice i i miss them yeah i miss seeing them it was always good to walk in there and have Patrice take your legs out from under you somehow. Geraldo was so good. Toddlin. Toddlin.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I saw it. You know, it's so sad because he was such a ball buster. Yeah. And I always liked him. He liked me, so I was okay. But the last time I saw him, he was blind. Yeah okay. But the last time I saw him, he was blind. Yeah.

I think the last time I saw him, he was blind. It was in Montreal, and I put him on an elevator. An elevator. It was one of these situations that opened up, and I just saw Todd standing there looking away. I'm like, Todd! He's like, what? Like Mark Maron. He's like, oh!

And I'm like, holy shit. So I had to bring him in the elevator. It's rough. It was rough, man. Really rough. People don't know him either, but he was one of the great assholes. Yeah. One of the all-timers.

One of the all-time assholes, famously. So where do you first do it? How do you get the post to do it? I started vetting. I started going, hanging out at the cellar, buying tickets to shows and shit, or the comic strip, because it would just be places that i'd hear them talk about sure so you'd go yeah but because i don't think you guys even realize or maybe you do but like you that exposure to comedy was like the first time i ever saw comedy

not in a theater but like the working part of comedy. Yeah, the gym part. Yeah, the grind of it. You know what I mean? One after another. Yeah. Like to me, I thought, oh, you write a special, you go to a theater, and you say what you wrote, and then that's how you do it.

I didn't know it took years and years of noodling and 10 minutes at a time and five times a day, that kind of thing i didn't know that right but watching those shows and seeing that that documentary where jerry's like yeah where he's like coming back for me was like oh that's so it's it humanized it yeah it made me feel like oh this is something you can work at and get good at this is the job yeah yeah you don't have to be eddie murphy immediately right almost nobody is you know what i mean and sometimes it doesn't end well for people like doesn't

most times but uh all right so you watch all that and you go into the shows when do you finally go up and and ask one of us like hey man never never when i did when i did stand i went to the i don't know if a man I don't know if you even know this place because I don't know how long it existed but it's called the comedy corner it was on McDougal it was yes to that restaurant like the next block oh yeah I knew it it downstairs yeah downstairs yeah yeah I did I did an open mic there they used to have the guys that that hosted it more or something Morris or no with glasses the one I did a woman hosted it more as something more as a guy with glasses. The one I did, a woman hosted it.

Her name was Amy Carlson. It's a little tiny place downstairs. Tiny place downstairs. Someone's standing in the corner. It's like, oh, you didn't go to the cellar? You want to come here? Yes. And I did that open mic.

They had an open mic. It was like $5. You had to pay? You have to pay $5. And bring people? Nope. Just pay $5. And if you get of the night you get your five dollars joke of the night who decides that shit the host oh so just somebody who can't get work at the cellar decides whether or not you're

good i'm so i'm so bad i understand they're probably nice people and they you know they probably were pretty reasonable it was you wanted that five dollars i'll tell you that you wanted it back you damn sure right you wanted that shit back you wanted that five dollars back because i was a whole other mic i know that's a good testament to the scene at that time was that like you really wanted to win it yeah you did of course you did you just want to be the funniest guy in the night you don't want to be the funniest guy ever you just want to be the funniest guy in the night. You don't want to be the funniest guy ever. You just want to be the funniest guy on the show. $5 back. So do you remember who was doing shows with you?

It would be like Nimesh Patel, Jared Freed, Jermaine Fowler, Kevin Barnett, late Kevin Barnett, Mark Norman, Mike Lawrence. Mike's funny, huh? Yeah, yeah. You'd see like- Mark's funny too, actually you'd see like funny too actually i just saw mike you got like i haven't seen mike in years he's he's all right he's good they have a baby i think they he's married yeah he's writing he used to open for me that guy was like you know to be as

profoundly nerdy as him and then just and to be able to fucking swing that fucking dick like he did to do jokes yeah go up for anybody well do it it would be like that it would be like you start to meet guys that were that are around yeah and then they'd start telling you about better rooms where you don't have to pay better you know they start booking shows and everybody has their own backup bar room show or whatever and uh then you after a while you develop somewhat of a reputation and the next thing you know you're working yeah because people are like that guy's good and someone brings you out with them and you open also doing them kind of nerdy rooms was good if he was black and good because they wouldn't have that many black guys yeah working those

circuits so you could get a lot of stage time yeah right i don't know how guys get good in other cities where they're getting up once a week i don't know how guys get good in other cities where they're getting up once a week i don't know that you do that easily i mean when i started it was just open mics real like clubs yeah none of those rooms but i mean how you were getting up every day well once i started working sure but the very beginning i guess like i kind of got i i started out weird because i came in i was up in boston and I was doing open mics and I was at the comedy store for a while, but then I came in second in this contest and I just got thrown into working.

Yeah. And all these regional gigs all over new England, they'd send you out with two man show opener did a half hour headliner did 45. Sometimes you had to drive the guy, but that was how I started. It was like right abruptly from mics and small sets to like fucking fill in a half hour one way or the other in some shitty fucking bowling alley yeah

yeah totally that was the way i did it but here it was like yeah it was all it's it's pretty much the same it's just we had so many open mics right and so many comedians had their own kind of rogue shows that's right and then once you once you start to because there were still guys that were doing like those kind of bar shows and all that shit for 10 years or so right and then got in the club yeah right couldn't couldn't get clubs you know what i mean and so how did it go how did it play out for you you're just always doing what you're writing jokes i got i was were you talking about yourself no i see you always start out writing jokes you always you always think you're really yeah a good joke

writer until you realize you're not then i realized i kind of figured out that being comfortable on stage was more paramount than writing jokes so i learned how to just be on stage and look like I knew know what I'm doing right and then the jokes come the first 10 years or so of your it's just uh like 80% of your energy goes into pretending like you're not afraid exactly yeah exactly yeah and then and then the next 10 uh sounds just try not to sound like who you sound like and then eventually you become you some way and then some the part of you that lives up there exactly anyways yeah exactly so when do you start getting paid uh about three years in to open mics about three years into doing like bar shows and stuff i started

doing clubs pretty regularly which club well i it all kind of happened at the same time i started doing caroline's i started doing uh i got caroline's eastville and uh yeah marco no i know that place if the sound wasn't so horrible there i would have i would have played there more i think uh playing in a it was kind of like a bathroom wasn't all like heart yeah i guess it was kind of like it was because i think it was like a lot of tile yeah i guess i never i'm weird about attention today no shit yeah you're right so okay so you started doing those rooms the seller oh you started doing the seller i got the seller less me too eight years in and yeah i didn't get to sell her till she saw my hbo half hour well i can't i can't relate to that esty loved me immediately well she i what i fail to understand

is that people understand me better than i think they do like you know because she's like you're too angry and i'm like no i'm not which is a nice way to say that you're not being funny that's not what i was saying no i know but that's what she was saying and she was right in retrospect yeah because like i because that that room to me angry is funny it is if you're angry funny but if you're just angry and it just lands as anger people are gonna be like i don't know fair enough but you know to be i'm yeah i'm i'm dark and angry but it took a while for me not to do it as a fuck you right you know what i mean it was a defense mechanism angry tired is funny cranky angry cranky tired yes yeah yeah sure that's that's but that that took me a long time to relax into but i think ultimately a lot of these people

were right to not give me breaks or to criticize me because you know i thought i was doing something like i thought i was saying something yeah but they're like to be funny first and right yeah i could do it i'm being hard on myself what do you mean you can do it you you do it i i did it yeah i've been out there i'm not even taking an opera anymore i'm just going out there and doing an hour and 45. What, did you go like Europe or something? No, I've been, I was in, I just did Tarrytown, Boston, Portland, Maine, and Providence, Rhode Island. But I mean, what stopped you from opening? I mean, having an opener.

I just, like, I got tired of, like, it was one of these things. I think it was in order to um make right something in my past whereas like i just i i'm like all right the part of me that had to learn how to do comedy by going up cold and shitty fucking rooms yeah like i feel pretty good now i've got the time right you know they're here to see me right why drag it out no 100 i was just i'm curious about this because I was just talking to Gerard Carmichael about the same exact thing. And he was saying, he's like, I don't need an opener. He doesn't use an opener anymore. And I was just like, but I remember not using an opener when I would do the UK.

Right. Whenever I would go to Europe, I wouldn't have an opener. Right. And I would just go up. Yeah, they have a whole different thing. Understanding of theater there. That's normal there. They'll let you launch into a story to start your show. In America

that's got to be a lot trickier, right? If you think about it, that's only because we came up in the context of stand-up. We came up in this context where you bring someone with you, you're giving someone an opportunity. The opening slot is to get everyone situated, get the audience focused but the truth is is they're there to see you they're focused right the idea that they may not all be seated that's another

problem right so like i've had to deal with that a couple times yeah well i'll just go out and i'm like are you kidding me you guys can't get here on time oh you thought there was going to be opener well now there isn't right i'm doing the time this is the opening slot yeah and in a way you can do you can start off by fucking landing it like that and then i'm just trying to most of my audience is you know older you know kind of grown-up people i don't got any real fucking yahoos or anything so i just want it to be like an evening with as opposed to like you know here's a new guy who's gonna you know close with everything he has and then bring me up it's interesting how like to me uh i don't know if this is too heady but your career plays out the way your set plays out sometimes yeah fragmented

inconsistent up and down you you kind of you kind of start out a little bit faster to win them. Oh, yeah, exactly. And then as the set goes on, it starts to slow down and you start to launch into it. And I feel like you're at a point in your career where you're like, I don't need to do the dick joke now. I've done that a million times. Now I could just launch into that hour, two-hour chunk. Sit down. Sit down and take my time.

I don't need the open. That's where you're at. It's almost like Jedi level shit though. Right. Well, that's how I'm thinking about it. Yeah, it's very impressive. Here's the other thing. It's like, if I'm going to do an hour and a half.

Yeah. And my audience is mostly grownups. They're going to get to a point where they're like, okay, this was good, but he could have ended. Yeah. A little bit like i said even doing an hour 45 i said it the other night because i felt it happen i'm like oh you guys are like i looked at my watch i'm like i could have ended like 20 minutes ago it would have been great now you're all gonna walk out going like wow that was you know that got long yeah is he okay exactly i feel like he didn't want to go home right i feel like he didn't want to go to the hotel i don't know so but that's uh also when you have an older audience time is a lot

more valuable it is and and they then they get tired but they've they've been good i'm just sort of like i think what i'm i'm trying to say and what the truth is, is I'm having a good time. They're there to see me. If I ramble or if it's loose because I like to improvise and shit, who cares? That's what they want. But you sit down. I watched your last special.

I don't usually sit down, though. No? I don't know why I did that. Because it's time. It was time to sit. I just saw a stool and I just started sitting. I wanted the

audience to... I feel like people listen different based on the way you perform. If you sit down, you can bring them in. No matter how big the room is, it becomes an intimate space. I just wanted it to feel a little bit more intimate. It's almost more control. I wish I would have done it in a smaller venue, personally. I was surprised. It was big. Which was it? It wasn't the intimate. It's almost more control. I wish I would have done it in a smaller venue, personally.

I was surprised. It was big. Which was it? It wasn't the Fox. It was Fox. It was the Fox. No, it was Fox, but I wanted to do it in like a 500 seat. Yeah, that's where-

Like a club kind of. That's what I like to perform in. Yeah. Five to eight, and then- I always say, I don't know what it is about 500 seats, but to me, that's where I have the most fun. You keep it intimate. I've played giant places.

500 is where it's the most fun. Because you don't have to change your timing. You don't have to change your pacing. Like, you get up around 900, you got to wait. Yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah, totally. But like, and also the new special, open with the big dick closer.

I liked it. I liked it. That was another one. It's supposed to be a throwaway joke. Right. And I just started with it. I don't know why. It was funny.

It was a very strange kind of... The old kind of thought with the 80s style was like, he closed with the dick jokes. You're like, he's coming right in. Coming in hot with the dick stuff up front. But it was important because I think in the middle of the newest special, what you were really working towards was that turn where you were like,

where is the line? Right. So you had to make sure you had laid some pretty good groundwork to see what they would take. So by the time you said, oh, is that the line, you had crossed it whatever it was before, and they really had no recourse right yeah i was trying to take uh no thank you i appreciate that you even watched it first of

all but i i do think like i was trying to take what seemed like an obvious joke just make it a little a little bit more thoughtful yeah and then i i do think that the line gets blurred the more thoughtful you are or the more you let people think yeah do you know like if you if you exactly if you didn't qualify that joke no the r kelly joke if you didn't qualify it at all right and and just and do the you know one's harder to clean yeah, if you didn't sort of make it, you know, cute. Right. You know, it would have been problematic. Right.

Just take one more second to think about it. Yeah. No, I like it. I like those kind of jokes, and I like that, you know, we can still do that kind of stuff. It's fun. I get kind of weirded out.

I hate when people, especially comedians, like, we always like to make our jobs seem more complicated and difficult than it is because we're stealing money but i do think that it's suddenly relatively wrong way about people saying jokes you can't do it's like yeah you can you can do it you can always do it you can always fucking it's just like you know if it if it goes sideways you just gotta prepare to shoulder the burden. Then it went sideways. For you? No, I'm saying that's what happens.

When it goes sideways, then it went sideways for you. But you did the joke. Yeah. They didn't take you off in handcuffs like Lenny Bruce. You know, like he could. It wasn't that. It's not that. They didn't try to set your house on fire like dick gregory or

something like that like it's it's literally the stuff that any of us can say and certainly some of the stuff you were saying you know that was that would have got you in life-threatening trouble but not yeah it was not but but then in in that climate you know it wasn't canceling it was you know burning your house lynching shooting somebody yeah so the progress has been made tons of progress has been made this is the greatest job in the world man we get to watch people laugh at us but i can't i really have a hard time with this culture of like uh anti-woke you know like this panic around cancel culture because a lot of those dudes that as a point of view is hack absolutely it's hackneyed and it's these guys who are saying like they can't get work

because it's like i bet you it's for something else if that's why you were getting work in the first place then your time is up you know what i'm saying like it's not it was it was never or else you're just gonna be with those people exactly it's like you want to talk like that go hang out with the people that talk like that. And there's people that can make a living doing it. Of course. Yeah. Like, it's also, you can't have everything.

No. It's not going to be everything. But it's also like, I think what we were talking about before in relation to this and, you know, in acknowledging the time it takes to learn how to write and then the time it takes to land in your own skin, that if you're coming from your heart and you're genuine and you're decent, you can kind of do whatever you want because you're going to balance it out naturally.

Right, right, right. But if you don't know where your heart is and you haven't resolved some of your issues yet, you'll be doing stuff for the wrong reasons. It's so hard to do, though. What? Well, just finding out where your heart really is so i guess but as a performer on some level if you're that kind of performer it probably pays off to do it it absolutely does i don't know if you can do it on purpose some guys are fucked up yeah especially in this field for sure isn't it

let's see it's all right is that telling that we picked a job where most fucked up people thrive? It's just one of those things. We obviously don't fit in one place. We don't want to do it a certain way. We want to get away with something. We don't like listening to other people or being told what to do. Back in the 80s, there's this whole range of people that just hit the road. That were running away

from the government running away from ex-wives running away from prison time i mean it was like it was like the preaching racket yeah yeah yeah like carnies exactly right but we're our own carnival yeah yeah literally yeah the circus is in town it's one guy and they just threw him out of the hotel he was staying at what is it for you what what is it what's what's the ceiling of of the line of joy oh geez joy when you're for when you're oh when i can when you're working when i can get like when i leave enough room for myself to have freedom of mind enough to... Because I feel all my jokes are delivered to me on stage. I go up with ideas and they kind of form on stage over time, over talking.

And I always add things. So if something is delivered to me, I'm like, I don't know where that comes from. It comes from being in the position to be funny. Like it happened the other night. I was talking about how some people have great relationships with their mothers you know and i just talk about like i would never i don't want to call my mother i don't want to talk to her i don't have kids there's no reason for me to really engage with that much and i sort of do a phone call like i make fun of a phone call with her and then i said there are these people

that like they have problems they call their mother it's like are you fucking kidding me here's how that would go and I go hey mom I'm in a little bit of trouble and she says do you want to call me back and that came from nowhere and I'm like thank you right grad new bit yeah no that's that's wow god I'm a lot like your mother. What do you mean? Well, yeah, I don't like to hear people's problems. I don't mind. I mean, it depends what they want from me, you know?

Sometimes you just got to listen and then it's done. I'm a good listener, but I can't... But I'm not a... Solution guy? I'm not a solution guy. Well, what's a ceiling for you the joy for performing yeah what do you i think it's the same i think it's it's finding something new it's like it's the discovery of something that wasn't there before that's been there the whole time right and and what and then bringing it to the next audience right so it's almost like can

it work they give us the bit kind of because we don't really know it's a bit until they say you know till they hear it yeah and responding like oh there's something here yeah and then bringing it back to them they're like well you know it's kind of strange why did it take on the will smith thing that i don't think anyone did and you know i was like so thrilled with it because i don't want to talk about it really to me it was all terrible yeah it was just terrible it was awful ugly and I think to everybody it felt like

an uncomfortable it was like watching somebody's parents fight where you're like I don't want to see this yeah and the entire community of Hollywood act like abused children yes don't do don't look don't say anything yeah literally yeah literally just's put their heads down and ate their dinner.

Right, and then Denzel and Tyler, they group around him to pray. It's like, they're all weirdos. They're all weirdos. When the fuck did Tyler Perry get such good seats at the Oscars? What has Tyler Perry done that got him front row at the Oscars next to Denzel and Will Smith?

He's done a lot, and he just hasn't been given any credit for it. So they just keep giving him better seats. Imagine watching Oscars like, oh, yeah. And then Ernest had to talk to Tom Hanks and calm him down. Ernest? What the fuck is Ernest doing at the Oscars? You know Ernest. Oh, but my take was just say like, look,

there's a guy that for my entire life and to this day, there's part of me inside that just wants to fuck everything up yeah and i've got to be in constant conversation with that guy you like i just sort of like i gotta keep him kind of you know like he'll be he's like come on i'm like no no no so like for 30 years so fucking true for 30 years you know will smith was the nicest guy in hollywood and you know on the biggest night of his life he'd do it and i just said you got to respect that self-sabotage long game yeah yeah oh god right it was like that was that was the that was everything he was working for in his entire life and boom he slapped the clown and like i'm not chris is gonna be fine i don't think

will gonna be i don't think will's gonna be fine that he's gonna be always the guy that does that now now he's sean penn yeah like for just but isn't that crazy how you can be so good for so long and when you do something when you do one thing wrong that becomes what you're known for as opposed to somebody who does a little wrong all the time that's right that's right where it's like oh he's that he well of course that guy did that yeah not the guy that does that and it's like you really do it yeah you're like oh my god like i always thought that's why trump will beat hillary clinton a hundred times out of a hundred because... They see him as honest.

He's really who he is. Yeah, to me, Hillary was like... She was like a white suit with a ketchup stain on it. Yeah. All you see is the stain. Right, and Trump... Trump was like a guy

with ketchup all over him. Yeah. And you're like... And he's telling everyone it's not ketchup. Yeah, and you're like, like a guy with ketchup all over him. And you're like... And he's telling everyone it's not ketchup. Yeah, and you're like, all right, this guy just likes... It must be the suit. It must be a pattern. I did this on purpose.

Yeah, he was like, oh, he must have. Because who would have that much ketchup all over him? I get it. He is what he is. He is what he is. I couldn't believe that thing, to be honest with you. I just couldn't believe it. Watching it, I didn't see it. I saw it in real time. I didn't see it i saw it in real time i didn't see it half watching you know doing other shit

it's one of those moments where it's like if chris had just said what the fuck is wrong with you yeah it would have been an entirely different thing yeah well the the worst part was they made him give out the award still well could you imagine how little of a fuck you have to give about somebody did they make you oh he just finished he kept reading the prompter right but what you think if tilda swinton would have got slapped they would have they would have just let her read the prompter no i know i know but i don't know what i don't think anyone knew what to do it was like 9 11 they would have known what to do if it was anybody else right they would have known what to do if it was you're saying they're like, it's between

them. If Julianne Moore got slapped in the face, she would not be reading the prompter afterwards to give out the next award. They would have dumped a commercial. Something would have happened. They would have apologized to everybody watching. Somebody would have came out and said,

I'm so sorry about the actions of whoever the fuck did that. We don't tolerate that that it would have been a huge to do right this mother they didn't cut the commercial they made him give out the award for best director i thought like it's the one thing though it's a comic i kind of knew as a comic who's been tackled on stage before like all you're thinking in that moment from years of experience is like i don't want to look like an asshole please don't split an asshole. Please don't split my pants. Please. Please don't split my pants.

Somebody just slapped me in the face. I got to keep. I got to somehow stay. Fucking insane how little regard they show for Chris Rock, who is, by the way, by the way, if anybody did a Mount Rushmore of stand-up comedy and put chris rock there no one would scoff of course he absolutely has a place there and he walked he walked backstage alone alone and it was sort of like yeah that's what the comic does he's the most beloved comedian possibly of this generation it's crazy and that could happen to him on television. I thought it was gross. I thought it was fucking awful.

It was just so gross. It was disturbing. It was fucking awful. Disturbing. Imagine he slapped Steve Martin. I don't know what would have happened if it had been anybody. He would have been sprayed with a fire hose. I don't know what the fuck happened inside that dude's head.

I do not know. I don't know. But it was, I swear to God, it wasn't about the joke. It just had nothing to do with the joke. It doesn't make comics any less safer. It doesn't, it's just, I've never felt safe in my life. There has never been a year. No, yes, that's a great point.

Yes, I agree with that 100%. Like, I go on stage, especially when I'm doing politics in the fucking middle of nowhere, and I'm like, I'm giving a fake name at the hotel. I want to know if there's security at the club. I don't know what the fuck is in there. 100%. All these comics were like, I'm concerned for myself.

I have always been concerned. Yeah, absolutely. I've always known it could go that way. But when you're Chris Rock at the Oscars, you don't think about it. God damn. If ever there was a safe place. Exactly.

That's who has to be afraid now. Motherfucker. It's crazy. We should boycott as comedians, boycott award shows. Well, they're not asking me. So I'm not the top of the list. I might be now. Maybe it's going to open up something for me.

Yeah, you might. Any comics willing to take a punch. Yeah yeah we want you to give out these awards oh but i see i learned something from you though like i would i just happened to be at the uh fucking emmys because glow was up for emmys when you and colin hosted oh yeah and i'd never really been to one of those shows because there's never a reason to go and when i watch that i'm like oh this is the worst job in the world it sucks they're just they're sitting up there you can't make an audience out of an audience you've got to pretend like the audience isn't there you've got to play to the camera no matter what's going on in the room and the room's way too big to manage i can't and you can't and and you're out there with someone else well yeah well at least that that must have been

at least good no i i think it was it made it harder oh it did harder well because you're out there with someone else. Well, yeah. Well, at least that must have been at least good. No, I think it made it harder. Oh, it did? Well, because you're just hanging. Well, someone's talking and we're not doing bits together. He's doing bits and I'm doing bits. So it's like, it wasn't like banter. Or we could just be on an island kind of thing. We were just kind of running monologue jokes.

We were kind of doing update style jokes yeah but standing flat-footed in front of hollywood which is just i just i couldn't do it it wasn't it was something i didn't want to do it i tried to get myself out of it at least 13 times yeah uh i couldn't yeah and then does the lorn well there's there's a network yeah i think they just really wanted us to do it and i was set and i i was being kind of a team guy yeah uh but um it it taught me a lot though like as far as i don't know it it it was one of those things of like well i'll go with it because everyone wants to do it yeah you might as well try it if you got the opportunity but i i i didn't want to do it it seems so hard like that's one it's not even so hard it's just like we were talking earlier

it's like some people look better at that kind of thing right to me it's like well if i'm going to do that show yeah i want to do it the way I would do it. Right. You know what I mean? I don't want to do it the way the network needs it to be. To me, it feels like you're performing at someone's wedding where you're like, if I can't speak from my heart, then I shouldn't say anything. I don't want to emcee a wedding, you know? Yeah. Weird job.

It's a very strange job. Yeah. That's one thing I've grown to appreciate more from people I know or from opportunities I haven't really had or I've tried. Like, I would panic. No, you wouldn't. No? No, hell no. You'd be so competitive and, like, and ready to lock in.

You wouldn't. You'd think you would be until you get out there and then you're just doing jokes. wouldn't you you'd think you would be until you get out there and then you're just doing jokes but the kinds of jokes that we would we have to do for that kind of thing is just not exciting right i would if i'm gonna do it i would want to do it and be excited about what i'm doing sure right like like when you know what i'm saying when kimmel or rock hosts the oscars it's kind of it can engage yeah gervais does the golden gloves it's a lot different yeah it's a lot different you for you this felt like to me like it felt like a corporate gig of just like a shit so what about this uh you've done how many of those the damn michael

chase shows you've done five we did six. We've got six more this year. That's great. It's the perfect amount. But I mean, the show's good. Oh, thank you. You can engage all the stuff you like to do. Yeah, it's the perfect amount to do only because it's like, Sketch is so consuming. It's like, you know know you got to write like 30 little pilots

you know what i mean yeah yeah because they're all just ideas that live on an island kind of thing sure and you gotta you gotta pull them from the air and figure out how you've got to establish establish a premise and get to a punch line but you need show though like a bunch of different essentially a sketch show it's like some monologues. Yeah, this season is a little bit more sketch. We have a lot more kind of proper sketches or whatever. This is kind of the show that I wanted to do the last time but couldn't find. But is it still theme driven? Yeah, it's still theme driven.

It's looser. I think it's more fun, personally. And who do you got with you writing? Gary Richardson. We got a lot of people that we had last year. We had Gary Richardson, Reggie Conquest, Kevin Iso, Rosebud Baker. We had Yamanika Saunders. Rosebud just got hired at SNL, right?

Rosebud just got SNL. Iso's got Flatbush, Mr. Me Mr. Mina he has his own show Reggie's working on a show like everybody's kind of it's kind of a fun time like all my friends are doing good. And you started as a writer over there right? At SNL? At SNL I started as a writer 2013 After you did stand up for a while?

After I did stand up for a little while. Did you have to audition for Lauren to write? No. I came in as a guest while. Did you have to audition for Lauren to write? No. I came in as a guest writer. They was doing this guest writer program where they was asking two writers to come in every week or so,

every couple weeks. Who pulled you in? Jost. Oh. Oddly enough. How'd he know you? Stand up. I was doing,

we were doing Hannibal's show at Knitting Factory on Sunday nights. And he was like, yeah, you ever think about writing sketches? And I was like, I don't know nothing about sketches. He was like, you should come in. And then he brought me in.

Yeah. So you guys have been together. Is that when you met him? No, I knew him from stand-up. He was just like a guy I knew from stand-up. He was just a show of his stand-up like the rest of us? Well, no, he was head writer at SNL. Oh, at the time.

Yeah. I didn't know. I don't really start in as a stand up. Yeah. He started at SNL. He was at SNL before he did stand. Right. OK.

That's cheating. That's cheating for sure. It's doubling down. But by the time I met him, he was head writer of SNL already. OK. OK. And it was him and him and Seth. Yeah. Yeah. Not a stand up either, okay. And it was him and Seth. Yeah, yeah.

Not a stand-up either, but an improv guy. Improv guy, yeah. And crazy prolific writers. Like, insanely prolific sketch writers. Yeah. Like, if you... That's how they think. Oh, my God. If you, like, if you name the top 50 or your top 50 favorite SNL sketches of the past 20 years, Seth and Colin probably would make up half the list.

No shit. Yeah, you wouldn't even know. But probably, I would imagine their names would be on half of them. Yeah, I wouldn't even know how to start writing a sketch. It's easy. For stand-ups, it's easy. Is it? Yeah.

I have a hard time writing anything that doesn't- It's hard to write a lot stand-ups, it's easy. Is it? Yeah. I have a hard time writing anything. It's hard to write a lot that doesn't involve me immediately. Like, you know, if I'm not part of it. How about this sketch? I do this. Well, Larry David wrote. It didn't work, but he wrote there. He's close to that.

Yeah, but I think, like, it is a... What did he tell you? What did Colin tell you when he said out it's easy and you go in there seth is the one that actually told me why he was like well comedians always are like rich with premise yeah and we know how to punch up like we know how to make shit you know so even if you don't have a sketch in you could always help a sketch with just jokes and what would be funny to have the next kind of thing. Yeah, you write sketches.

Everything you just said, like five different sketches while we were talking right now. Yeah, okay. You think in sketches. It's just a different way of thinking. It's just you think of it from what your perspective. All you have to do is just start thinking about what everybody else is doing and boom, you got a sketch. How long did you write there before you got offered the gig? Two years, two and a half years, I think.

And how did it come down to you and Jost? I think Jost wanted to do it with me, and I think... Warren said you wanted to do update, to have Jost, and Jost said... Well, Jost was already doing update. Oh, okay. It was Jost and Cecily.

Right, Cecily. And I think Cecily, they wanted Cecily to be more in sketches. Yeah. And they were looking at combinations for Jost. I think Jost wanted to do it with me, and I think Lorne took the risk. And everybody's happy? Not for a while.

happy not for a while not until about two or three years in then everyone got a little bit less less scared really and then like because of what you were writing or what no it was just not it wasn't working we didn't have any chemistry like i i didn't know what I was doing. Yeah. It was fucking rough. You feel better now? I feel, no. You never feel, I feel better. You don't feel good. How much of the jokes that you're doing do you guys write? Well, it depends. I mean, now, it's to a point now where we have so much chemistry with the writers.

Yeah. That like. The guy who, you have update guys. Yeah, we have update writers. So it's almost like monologue guys. Yes. Yes. Yes.

But at this point now, it's like. Right. You're just sort of like, what if we do it this way? That looks good. Let's try that one. Yeah. In rehearsal. Exactly.

Right. Exactly. That's fun. Pete Schultz and Josh Pad padden and megan callahan shot like they've written so much shit like it's crazy it's so fun to like have jokes written and they're good jokes and you're like i want to try this but they write like they they've they figured out how to write like literally in our brains yeah you know what i mean which is like yeah you can't learn that in two or three years that comes from being together for so long that we we kind of

know how to write which like we are all we're constantly texting each other so like we'll write yeah we'll be texting and the next thing i know there's a joke in this frame of what we were writing oh that's great you know what i mean yeah yeah yeah or they'll have something i'm like oh this i need this just fucking perfect yeah yeah that's great and then we'll you know then i'll just read it sometimes i don't need to do anything to it it's just perfect that's great yeah it's interesting so now what what happens you're doing the hbo thing like what do you want to do are you doing it are you all done no man i i want to do more stand-up i miss stand-up someone did someone just tweet that or dm me that you just hosted an open mic in like minneapolis or something

yeah what the fuck is that i was doing a college in minneapolis and i always hate doing colleges because they're kids they're it was a it was kids but it's also like yeah it's weird no i i never get asked it's like anytime people are like it's great it's a college town i'm like i do not come to see me yeah there's a very certain type of young person that comes to see me it's a young person that i was like an angry overly intelligent young person that's too sensitive to get along with other young people yeah yeah it's just i can't imagine playing for them because you forget you know that it's like the ones that come to those shows they can't drink yet so a lot of them they're like 18 19 years old right yeah and

it's also like just uh just from a frame of reference of life experience right that's right it's not quite yeah yeah yeah they're kids i i said i said transvestite one time at a college and you would have thought i smeared doo-doo on the american flag like they looked at me like that word was and i was like wait a minute that's supposed to be an okay one it's that's not a crazy word it literally just means dressing in different gender clothes but isn't that what trans is short for no now it's gender and sexual but it's not vestite vestite is done and gone vestites over no more vestite apparently i looked it up because i got scared i was like did i had no idea this was like am i done trigger am i finished i thought i was that may be finished now but literally looked it

up and i was like oh no it's like an italian word for clothes that's like what was that word for cross-dressing it's an old word for cross it's an outdated term for cross-dressing transvestite that's all it is but they had never heard it so they just knew it was mean. Oh, but it wasn't mean. No, it wasn't mean. It wasn't even said in a mean context. But that's my point. All of that energy was spent when I could have moved on and did another joke.

Sure. For an adult audience, they would have kept it. Yeah, I remember Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sure, it's a learning moment. Now you had to look up Vestite, realize i guess you i guess i learned something in college i learned something in college so you want to get back out and are you doing i miss the reps i miss i miss doing the i miss doing like the six months eight months yeah year i'm obsessed with this material like it's why you know like with specials and stuff like i wish i could be four deep you know or whatever yeah it's just so right this

is the first one he did in five years four years so fucking hard to get and act together dude i mean i didn't know when during covet i was like the weird thing was is that you know like i didn't miss it and i thought like, maybe I'm all better. But as soon as we could start doing it and other people started doing it, I wasn't going to do any outdoor shows. But as soon as people started going to clubs, I'm like, all right, fuck. It's on. I did some outdoor shows.

I can't do it. Oh, man. You missed out on a good time. I did? People were so ready to laugh, man. To me, it was sort of like, I'm not doing that kind of shit. No. I'm not going to go perform for cars.

No, no, I didn't perform for cars. Okay. I'm with you there. But I had a parking lot show that I would do, like, every couple weeks. I needed that stage. I was on the back of a pickup truck. That's nice. It's all right.

Once I got back and I didn't know where the hour was going to come from, what I do is I just book out, dynasty typewriter for a month of like once a week and just start riffing yeah see what sticks yeah i'm going i'm going on the road this weekend just for that reason where's the milwaukee improv i'm gonna be in milwaukee next week oh yeah i'll be there i'm leaving friday i'll be there Friday to Sunday, I think. Oh, this Friday to Sunday. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to be there next week.

I'm going to be at the Pabst Theater somewhere in Milwaukee. Oh, I love that theater. That's the one with the great green room with the coffee and shit. Yeah, great green room and the record player. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, I think I sold a few tickets. We'll see. I should know the numbers. But yeah, that's where I'm going to be.

I'm trying to do like kind of- You're just working shit out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not doing no. But yeah, that's where I'm going to be. I'm trying to do like kind of- You're just working shit out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not doing no theater or nothing like that. That's good, man. I got nothing. Because you just dumped it? I dumped it.

It's all right. But now I'm back. I got some ideas, though. Like I said, I did the Minnesota shows and just like fun. Just go up there for 40 minutes and just fuck around. Yeah, figure out what you got. Figure out what you got figure out what you want to talk about

yeah yeah well it was good talking to you man this was so much fun man thank you yeah thanks for doing it alright there you go Michael Che

you know who he is Saturday Night Live the season finale is this Saturday also the second season of that damn Michael Chase Show premieres next Thursday, May 26th on HBO Max.

Alright, so this is me playing my new uh my new partner. My new uh, banker custom Leslie double cutaway P90 fucking just, this guitar is a monster.

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