Joe Rogan Experience #1046 - Owen Smith
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 57 minutes
Words per Minute
199.13988
Summary
In this episode, the boys discuss the death of Garrison Keillor and Matt Lauer, and how they are being missed by the public. They also talk about their first trips to Australia, and what it's like to grow up in a small town in the middle of nowhere, Alaska. Also, a new segment called "The Cuttlefish" is on the menu, and the boys talk about what it means to be a female cuttlefish, and why it's a bad idea to get too close to them. We hope you enjoy this one, and if you like it, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and we'll make sure to bring you quality content in the future. Thanks to our sponsor, Lake Mobegon! Don't forget to support the cause by becoming a patron patron. Don't Tell a Friend: bit.ly/tweettweet and let us know what you thought of this episode and what you'd like to see us do on the next episode! Thanks again for supporting the cause, and stay tuned in next week for a new episode of the podcast! ! Thank you so much for all the love, bye! Timestamps: 3:00 - The Cutlefish 4:30 - Who's a feminist? 5:15 - What do you think of it? 6:20 - Who do you like them? 7:40 - What are you scared of the cuttlefishes? 8:00 9:00- What do they like? 11: What are they scared of? 12:30- What's your favorite thing? 15: How do you want to be close to you? 16:20- What you don't like them the most? 17:15- What kind of fish? 18:40- What s your favorite type of fish are you worried about? 19:30 21:00, what do they get? 22:40, what are you getting? 25:30, what's your biggest piece of meat? 26:00s? 27: What is your favorite part of the day? 28: What's the worst thing you're a female type? 29:00 | What are your favorite piece of food? 30:00? 31:00 & 30:20 32:40 36:00 Is it a woman s role model?
Transcript
00:00:15.000
A lot of Australians come to the store, and when I perform at the cellar, a lot of Australians.
00:00:27.000
You ever see a hot dog spot, and this is world-famous hot dog?
00:00:31.000
I feel like when I talk to an Australian, I can say I'm world-famous, but I've never been over there.
00:00:37.000
Well, I think a lot of them come over here just like, oh, fuck it, mate.
00:00:40.000
Let's go to Australia and, you know, fucking fly over to Los Angeles and see what it's like over there.
00:00:45.000
They've got more people in their state than we have in our entire country.
00:00:49.000
There's more people in the greater LA area than in all of Australia.
00:00:57.000
You know, and they're as big as the United States.
00:01:01.000
So it's the size of the contiguous United States, I think the lower 48, I don't think it's Alaska included, but it has less people than Los Angeles.
00:01:09.000
I learned that lower 48 term when I was in Alaska.
00:01:25.000
Lower 48. Yeah, I used to have a joke about Sarah Palin.
00:01:40.000
That was the new word for, like, it was a booger on my spoon, man.
00:01:53.000
Whales, like, breaching, you know, in Resurrection Bay, I think is where I went.
00:02:00.000
I went in April, so it wasn't too cold, but it was still cold as shit.
00:02:03.000
Yeah, it's weird up there because the people are just, they're so accustomed to, like, the trials and tribulations of nature.
00:02:14.000
They're not consumed with, like, the stuff that we are bothered with.
00:02:19.000
Like every other person had a plane in their backyard.
00:02:45.000
Public Broadcast Radio could use your donations.
00:02:47.000
We love bringing you quality content, but it comes at a price.
00:02:52.000
Yeah, the first guy to go down was that John Gomeschi guy.
00:03:08.000
He was like, Mr. Calm and quiet and progressive and I'm a feminist.
00:03:18.000
I'm not the best human being in the world, but I swear to God, what you see is what you get.
00:03:23.000
You gotta be careful with these fucking male feminists.
00:03:31.000
Was it Eric Weinstein that was telling us about a particular type of cuttlefish that pretends to be a female so that he can get in close with the males because the males don't recognize him as being a threat.
00:03:53.000
Yeah, and he can operate like underneath the large cuttlefish and with all the females and he bangs them on the sneak tip.
00:04:07.000
Yeah, so it literally is like a transgender cuttlefish.
00:04:12.000
But really, it's just trying to get some pussy.
00:04:15.000
And its strategy is not to be the big, you know, ever-present, dominant male, but instead just slip around, just like the girls.
00:04:24.000
That's like the one straight dude in a ballet joint.
00:04:29.000
And he's like, the women complain to me about all the other guys, and then I end up smashing them all.
00:04:37.000
Yeah, you know when you see those guys who they really are?
00:05:08.000
He was probably the, you know, just the intellect, man.
00:05:41.000
It's the Weinstein of it all, and then it's, I don't know, Matt Lauer of it all.
00:05:47.000
But then there's the Louis C.K. angle, where he doesn't even touch you.
00:05:54.000
Like my boys say though, he's like, you don't know what it's like to have a dick.
00:06:01.000
Because you think about it, who would put everything in peril to just jerk off in front of somebody?
00:06:10.000
So it has to be something with your dick that makes you go, I have to do this.
00:06:16.000
I think it's one of the things that makes people funny, too, is that ridiculous way of viewing the world.
00:06:21.000
You're just chaotic, impulsive, and you do nutty shit.
00:06:24.000
And the next thing you know, you're like, can I jerk off in front of you?
00:06:33.000
Yeah, you want to see where people's lines are.
00:06:38.000
That whipping out, like the whipping your dick out thing, like I know dudes that people tried to get me to do that in college.
00:06:44.000
They were like, yo, you should just pull your dick out.
00:06:48.000
And I was like, I never had the courage to just pull my dick out in front of a girl.
00:06:56.000
But when it does work, you're like, holy shit, I gotta figure out what the rhythm is here.
00:07:04.000
Because there's some times where it can work, and you're like, what?
00:07:10.000
But then other times where you'd pull your dick out and the girl would be like, what the fuck?
00:07:18.000
You can't bat baseball averages with your Nick pullout game.
00:07:24.000
But if you get crazy and hit that one out of a hundred, it was worth it!
00:07:36.000
And if you have like a freak girlfriend, like when you're in high school or something like that, and it just ruins your perception.
00:07:45.000
They hang out there, so they have this false reality of what...
00:07:50.000
So then when they go out and just try to talk to a regular woman, they're like, well, you gotta get to know me first.
00:07:56.000
There's a little bit of that, but there's also you just getting used to dealing with freaks.
00:08:03.000
It's not like the lady in the office that handles accounting.
00:08:08.000
But that is nice when you meet a woman who has agency over her body and knows what she likes.
00:08:14.000
That could fuck you up when you go and you're dealing with somebody that's not that free.
00:08:21.000
Where girls just, they're not, free's the right word, right?
00:08:24.000
They're not just relaxed enough or comfortable enough in their own skin or know what they like and just can tell you and you're like, yeah?
00:08:32.000
And that's when you have to decide if you really like her because if you do like...
00:08:36.000
Focus on her and bring that out of her and you don't like her, it's going to be hard to get out of there.
00:08:48.000
And I loved having sex with her, but I hated hanging out with her.
00:09:14.000
You got what you wanted, and then you had to sit through that moment of her being upset with you.
00:09:19.000
You knew it was coming, but you already got what you wanted.
00:09:23.000
Well, part of her behavior was like a game to try to get me in.
00:09:28.000
You know, like part of her freak shit was just like, she knew that that's what I wanted from her.
00:09:33.000
You know, so she would just act like the freakiest.
00:09:41.000
You're like, I didn't know what was on the menu, but I'll take it.
00:09:50.000
Like some part of like that behavior is like they know that other girls don't behave like that.
00:09:54.000
So if they just turn this shit up to nine, like, whoa.
00:09:58.000
And then you think about them all the time and then it gets exciting.
00:10:01.000
Then after she's mad at you, then that's when I would date her.
00:10:11.000
Yeah, a friend of mine was talking to me about this, about a girl that has been real open about all the different guys she fucked, and now she's going to settle down, but...
00:10:23.000
I was promiscuous in the past, and I'm not doing that anymore.
00:10:27.000
When a guy hears that, you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
00:10:52.000
But you gotta just let people be who they are, man.
00:10:55.000
When you see that, the thing is, like, this is what men do and also what women do.
00:11:00.000
We're like, oh, this dude doesn't dress good, but if I just get him the right clothes and just teach him how to groom his hair and, you know, get him to wear more stylish things.
00:11:18.000
I had a buddy of mine who would get girls and get them to go on a diet.
00:11:21.000
He would date cute girls that were like a little chubby.
00:11:28.000
He's like, no, this way, like, they really like you.
00:11:35.000
I mean, it might work, but it's like the whip the dick out thing.
00:11:48.000
You know, a girl takes a chubby dude and brings him to the gym all the time.
00:12:10.000
Even though I worked out every day on vacation, I worked out every day.
00:12:46.000
It's like that feeling when you come home from the store, though, and you're like, damn, I'd like to eat something.
00:12:55.000
Having something to drink at night, like a glass of water or something like that, because it's always like 4 in the morning and I don't piss.
00:13:03.000
You get up, you gotta piss, you go back to bed again.
00:13:05.000
But a couple nights I've been fucking good and disciplined, where after a certain time, no liquids, and I sleep like a baby all through the night.
00:13:12.000
You wake up and you feel like you did something.
00:13:16.000
Another thing I do now is I work out in the morning.
00:13:26.000
I started wearing a heart rate monitor finally.
00:13:28.000
And I try to burn a thousand calories in my workout.
00:13:35.000
But if I can get to the 1,000, then if I eat 1,800 calories that whole day, then that 800 is...
00:13:53.000
Well, I mean, I try to be more on a plant-based tip, but I'm not a vegan because I wear leather and all that stuff.
00:14:06.000
I love what it represents, but I think their marketing, that's not the best word.
00:14:15.000
There's a lot of people that are vegan that are just cunts.
00:14:17.000
I had C.T. Fletcher on yesterday, and you know who he is?
00:14:21.000
The famous power lifter, very motivational guy.
00:14:25.000
But he was saying that he doesn't even say he's vegan anymore because people are so goddamn militant.
00:14:34.000
So he's like, I just say I eat vegan most of the time.
00:14:40.000
But the vegans that are good people that are just doing it because they care and they're kind, they get a bum rap because of all the psychos.
00:14:46.000
And those psychos almost always have like vegan in their name.
00:15:05.000
I'm going to do a segment when he comes to town.
00:15:30.000
Yeah, one with milk and butter and all the stuff that you had growing up.
00:15:35.000
And then I made one vegan one just to see what people would like.
00:15:42.000
And man, it was just one slice taken out of the vegan pie.
00:15:57.000
I had to wrap it up and take it back home with me.
00:16:16.000
And instead of using half and half, you use like, it'll be like almond milk mixed with like coconut.
00:16:32.000
But eggs, you can't taste eggs when you eat them.
00:16:38.000
When I was in Hawaii last week, we made gnocchi.
00:17:04.000
You just got to go to a good Italian restaurant.
00:17:06.000
Yeah, just find a good Italian place that has pasta.
00:17:13.000
And it's not spelled N-O-K-I. It's a G. There's a G in front of it.
00:17:17.000
When you open a menu and, you know, I was like, you know, I'm fucking with that.
00:17:26.000
If they have, like, lamb chops and gnocchi, like, those gnocchi, like, suck.
00:17:32.000
It's probably been sitting there my whole life going to fancy Italian restaurants and just never...
00:17:37.000
It's an interesting pasta, because it's a pasta made with, like, they make it with potatoes.
00:17:42.000
They boil potatoes, and they smash them down, and then they get it to a certain consistency, they cool it off, and then they add a certain amount of flour.
00:17:52.000
We chopped it up, we pressed it into, you roll it, you roll the flour out into like a little tube, and then you cut little sections of it, you make your gnocchi with the sections.
00:18:01.000
And do you have to then, do you bake that, or do you?
00:18:12.000
The chef cooked it with three different sauces.
00:18:34.000
I think if you just cut out bread and cut out pasta, those are the two big ones.
00:18:46.000
It's not as good for you as like some things, but I don't think it's nearly as bad for you as grain.
00:19:08.000
And it was all talking about the Roundup chemicals that they spray.
00:19:14.000
And they were talking about how people say, well, it only affects bacteria.
00:19:18.000
And they were saying, yeah, but you have bacteria in your fucking gut.
00:19:37.000
Like, to be the type of person that can sit down and do that kind of research.
00:19:46.000
Those people are the only ones that are going to do it.
00:19:50.000
You need those people doing tests and then just explaining to you the dangers of complex glutens in the group.
00:19:59.000
So I'll check back in with you in like six weeks, see if I'm where I need to be.
00:20:06.000
I'm usually really private about what I'm doing.
00:20:08.000
I think talking about it publicly is important.
00:20:10.000
Hey man, once you get over 40, I feel like you can eat whatever you want until you're 40. Because you only get one intestine.
00:20:22.000
So then you have to start Your body loses enzymes that will break it down as vigorously.
00:20:30.000
And his energy is high, you know, and all of that.
00:20:33.000
But when you get older, you lose some of those enzymes.
00:20:36.000
I feel like enzymes are like government workers.
00:20:39.000
Like, you eat a steak, they're like, who gonna get that?
00:21:04.000
And then like a couple hours later he's like...
00:21:11.000
Well, in the beginning, they say sign language is a really good thing to teach kids because they can't really formulate the words yet.
00:21:16.000
That's why they get frustrated and they start crying because they can't tell you what they want, but they know what they want.
00:21:29.000
And so my wife got me a dope record player for Christmas and We play Prince's Purple Rain on there.
00:21:37.000
If I play anything else, he just wants Prince right now.
00:21:41.000
And I'll go, you want to hear some music with dinner?
00:21:44.000
And he'll run to the record player and he'll start trying to...
00:21:51.000
I'll be like, get the ball, and he'll get it, and then we'll play, but...
00:21:56.000
Occasionally he'll sit and just start mocking me.
00:22:05.000
LAUGHTER I literally just start saying, trying to say what I just said in the same rhythm.
00:22:18.000
And just while I'm talking to them, I'm talking to them about what we're talking about.
00:22:23.000
But most of my brain is like, I can't believe you can talk!
00:22:38.000
My kids are way too aggressive with me physically, though.
00:22:44.000
My seven-year-old, she fucking tackles me all the time.
00:22:51.000
She takes MMA, so she will slam into me, grab a single leg, throw her shoulder into me.
00:22:57.000
If I plop down on the bed, she gets on top of me.
00:23:03.000
She thinks it's hilarious, because I'm like a toy.
00:23:11.000
She's like, this motherfucker can just carry me.
00:23:20.000
Man, I want my son to know how to do all that stuff.
00:23:25.000
So that way, like bullies and conflict, it won't bother them because they know how to fight.
00:23:41.000
I grew up in Maryland, so we had public transit and stuff.
00:23:46.000
So whenever I would be on public transit, I would always see the dudes like, yo, we got one.
00:24:00.000
It's like, oh, this guy's not trying to be dominant.
00:24:11.000
When I grew up in these apartments, Pembroke Apartments, in Prince Shorters County, Maryland, there was this one bully who would steal people's bikes and shit, and he would start fights and whatever.
00:24:21.000
And so I had, I played sports, you know, so one of my trophies broke and my mom took me to some place to fix it and I did not know that there was a place that existed where you, I just thought trophies appeared.
00:24:35.000
So when I saw this was the spot, what I used to do is I would save my allowance and I would go to the trophy spot and buy like a karate trophy.
00:24:47.000
And just walk around the neighborhood just long enough for this one dude to see me who I knew would be like the town crier.
00:25:10.000
And then like, you know, a couple of months ago, I go by and buy a little bigger truck.
00:25:27.000
Like, if you heard a dude did karate, that was enough.
00:25:51.000
So I was acting at an early age, all that shit.
00:25:56.000
As soon as he saw me, I'd go back in the house.
00:26:02.000
Psychologically, you knew the right guy that couldn't keep his mouth shut.
00:26:20.000
Because that was, in our neighborhood, it was, people were afraid to dream out loud.
00:26:27.000
Like, I wanted to be a comedian since I was nine, but I ain't telling nobody.
00:26:31.000
Because I saw somebody else say, I want to be, whatever, man, you ain't going, you can't, you know what I'm saying?
00:26:37.000
Isn't that funny how people want to squash dreams?
00:26:39.000
Yeah, because it's their fear, but you don't realize that until you're older.
00:26:46.000
And so, in their own way, they think they're helping you.
00:26:52.000
Yeah, and you were in Boston, so you had this too.
00:27:25.000
And there was this guy that worked in the dispatch.
00:27:32.000
I was 21. And he was probably like 26 or 27. But he had given up.
00:27:43.000
And then after I did the eight-hour shift, I'm like, hey man, I gotta go.
00:27:47.000
And he's like, a lot of guys here work 12 hours a day.
00:27:53.000
They're like, well, we need some airport pickups.
00:27:57.000
I go, I'm not working more than eight hours a day for you guys.
00:28:02.000
This motherfucker called the place where I was supposed to be performing.
00:28:09.000
And something happened and I got switched to another place.
00:28:11.000
Like the booking agent said, hey, why don't you work at this place instead?
00:28:17.000
He goes, you weren't at that fucking place you said you were last night.
00:28:19.000
I go, I was like, first of all, dude, I'm done working.
00:28:28.000
And we're just looking at each other like, this guy just doesn't want dreams.
00:28:32.000
He's like, yeah, you're out there doing comedy?
00:28:43.000
And I remember he was this big fat guy who had a Cadillac.
00:28:46.000
And that was the thing they were saying, you know, John over here, he works, he doesn't bust his ass.
00:28:58.000
He's just sitting there and everybody's like, wow, John's got a Cadillac.
00:29:03.000
Yeah fat dude just could tell you where the best veal scallopini is He just sat in his car all day driving around yeah, and then I remember thinking like this poor fuck like John makes about $60,000 a year He doesn't have to bust his ass.
00:29:18.000
Yeah, it's a good living and they point to him look at his Cadillac We were always like this is prison this guy's working 16 hours a day like what the fuck is going on here, man?
00:29:37.000
So our thing, we used to always have little singing groups.
00:29:40.000
And we have this, it's a local music called go-go music.
00:29:50.000
It's really local in the D.C., Maryland, Virginia area.
00:29:58.000
It has some national hits, like Doing the Butt is a go-go song.
00:30:14.000
In the 70s, there used to be music programs in all the schools.
00:30:19.000
So all these cats were coming out, learning instrumentation, composition, all this stuff.
00:30:31.000
So we would all try to form go-go groups, but we couldn't read music.
00:30:42.000
We would always try to do that, or we would be in a little singing group or something like that.
00:30:49.000
And I just remember when my mom, we moved away when I was 13. I remember hoping that he would keep singing.
00:31:37.000
I don't know how old I was, but there was a knock on my door.
00:31:43.000
And so then Mambo Sauce is the name of Go-Go Band he was in.
00:31:47.000
And they have a hit song called Welcome to D.C. that I saw on the video channel.
00:31:54.000
And it plays all the time, like in the Redskins, where the Redskins play and where the Washington Wizards play.
00:32:03.000
And he just went viral for marrying his wife like he proposed to his girlfriend and then married her the same day.
00:32:26.000
He said, my mother want to know if you got a cup of milk, we could borrow.
00:32:31.000
And my mom was like, okay, yeah, we got a cup of milk.
00:32:37.000
He said, because they said when I was born, I was so black that I looked like the sound of ghost makes.
00:32:43.000
So then my mom gives him a cup of milk, and then he walked back carefully with it 15 minutes later.
00:32:51.000
My mother want to know if you got a half a cup of sugar she could borrow.
00:32:57.000
My mother want to know if you got one egg she could borrow.
00:33:11.000
My mother wouldn't know if you got a quarter cup of oil, she could borrow.
00:33:15.000
My mom gives him a cup of oil, comes back 15 minutes later.
00:33:19.000
My mother wouldn't know if you want to come over for pancakes.
00:33:29.000
He became my best friend, like, just like that.
00:33:33.000
And you could hear his mom go, I had that, you know?
00:33:41.000
Like looking back at it, it was like basically all single moms in that apartment complex.
00:33:47.000
And so all raising young boys and we would all go outside and play and give each other bad information.
00:34:04.000
It was just a great time in my life, because I was born in the Bahamas, and then when my mom left my dad at nine months, she moved to D.C. for like a year, and then the Pembroke Apartments.
00:34:16.000
So I was in Pembroke Apartments from there until like 13 or 14. Where'd you start doing comedy?
00:34:22.000
I started doing comedy in Maryland, man, at the Greenbelt Comedy Connection.
00:34:29.000
Outside was a huge picture of Martin Lawrence and Dave Chappelle was just bubbling, starting to like pop.
00:34:46.000
He went up and he was doing his stuff and it was a black crowd.
00:34:51.000
So at the time, we were both 19. And he was, like, just trying to figure it out.
00:34:57.000
And I thought he was great, but somebody was like, boo!
00:35:06.000
Then he walked off stage and he sat right next to where I was.
00:35:12.000
He was just like, he ain't gonna look at nobody.
00:35:16.000
Like, that happened, and this guy named Tony Woods went up after him.
00:35:20.000
And so then Woodsy goes up, and Woodsy goes, man, that was great!
00:35:27.000
Then they walk off, they walk out together, get in the same car and drive off.
00:35:37.000
And then, I started in that environment where I learned how to perform first, right?
00:35:45.000
I just knew how to, I was trying not to get booed.
00:35:57.000
But everyone in that environment was so nurturing.
00:36:01.000
When you got off stage, other comments were like, yo, that's funny.
00:36:09.000
I never had other black men be that excited about something that wasn't sports or women.
00:36:24.000
This is, you know, and it was a guy I went to eighth grade with a cat named Mike Brooks.
00:36:37.000
So my goal that summer was to just get paid, because I believe if you got paid, I'm a professional.
00:36:41.000
So at the end of the summer, this guy named Pops gave me a crumpled up $25 to perform in front of like six people in this big place in the Greenville, the Comedy Connection of Laurel.
00:36:55.000
Because we had performed in, it's a lot of spots called cabarets, where The audience is not facing you.
00:37:02.000
So you're on stage and they're at long tables eating crabs and stuff and they have to careen their next bag and look at you.
00:37:09.000
And if I would get like a laugh or something, I was like, oh, okay, I'm doing it.
00:37:14.000
And we would do crazy stuff like a headliner would like...
00:37:21.000
And we would go up after a headliner and eat it.
00:37:37.000
Because the headliner didn't want to do the drop check spot.
00:37:52.000
Yeah, one time, this is when I took another Sweet L. It was that same summer.
00:37:59.000
And then Mike said, hey, man, let's go to Comedy Connection.
00:38:04.000
Chris Thomas is coming down early or something.
00:38:16.000
He used to do this move, and he does a lot of impressions.
00:39:13.000
And then I don't think I got booed, but it was just silence.
00:39:21.000
But Mike, he used to do this trick where he would pad his intro with shit he never did.
00:39:35.000
And he was like, you got to figure it till you make it, Jordan.
00:39:40.000
I just learned a lot of lessons in that era, you know, like how to keep going, like if this shit ain't working, you know, just keep going.
00:39:49.000
And I really had so much confidence because I feel like that area was some of the toughest environments to get laughs.
00:40:05.000
This is going to be so easy to make, you know, to be.
00:40:07.000
And so I started a comedy, a funny bone opened up in South Bend.
00:40:12.000
I became like the house MC there and I would watch the national headliners come through.
00:40:20.000
Like I was like, okay, I got to, I got to have something to say.
00:40:23.000
Isn't it interesting, too, if you would work at a place like that?
00:40:25.000
I remember how it was in Boston when I was first starting out.
00:40:29.000
If I was lucky, I'd get a hosting gig, and I would get you to see the quality of some people's material versus others.
00:40:37.000
You would see a guy coming in as a headliner, and you're like, really?
00:40:48.000
And then the next week it'd be Bill Hicks or something.
00:40:58.000
People are tuning in to what you're saying in some sort of a weird way that hasn't totally been defined yet.
00:41:06.000
You know, and when someone is up there and they just got some great material, they got great shit, it's like it puts a smile on your face, like it gets, your brain lights up, like, ah, I like where he's going with this.
00:41:17.000
I was like, oh, I didn't know you could do that with comedy.
00:41:19.000
I didn't know you could do that with the art form.
00:41:20.000
It is, it is like a, it's such a personal thing for me, like when I see somebody abusing it, I do get it like, ah.
00:41:26.000
But now that I'm a little older, I just go, ah, ah.
00:41:32.000
Yeah, when I first started out, I would get offended by the pack material.
00:41:40.000
Yeah, I think it's just you realize what's a waste of energy.
00:41:46.000
To look at your own material and go, ah, why the fuck am I doing this?
00:41:51.000
But doing it to other people, it's just a waste.
00:41:56.000
Like, oh yeah, like I was telling you before we started, when you're talking about Australia, Franklin Ajayi was, because I used to...
00:42:05.000
He lived there, and I asked him, I go, why'd you move to Australia?
00:42:11.000
But he said the money wasn't on part of what he could be making back in the States, so that's why he came back.
00:42:31.000
But I remember the first comedy album I heard of his is a picture of him.
00:42:35.000
I can't think of what the name of it is, but I was listening to it because I was in Oklahoma.
00:42:43.000
At that time, I used to go to flea markets to buy albums.
00:42:46.000
And we listened to it at his spot and we smoked some weed and we were listening to it.
00:43:36.000
He goes, watch the Olympics, watch the dude who comes in last.
00:43:44.000
And then reality starts saying, man, I don't even have a fucking job.
00:43:51.000
I could have not trained and still came in last.
00:43:54.000
He was the first black comedian I heard who didn't grow up.
00:44:04.000
He went to law school and he just talked about it.
00:44:08.000
Because when I first started, a lot of comedians taking the stage, they all felt like they had to fit into this.
00:44:15.000
But then when you talk to them offstage, it's like, You're way more interested in Offstate.
00:44:21.000
Do you think it was because they felt like they had to fit the mold of the popular comedians?
00:44:27.000
People wanted a certain kind of comedian and they felt like, oh, I got to talk about the shit that people want to hear.
00:44:32.000
And then if you stay in it long enough, you start to just go...
00:44:36.000
Because for a time, I had an act for a black room and an act for a white room.
00:44:47.000
I don't even stand here and talk to these people.
00:44:49.000
Like, you just kind of become what you, you know, already were.
00:44:53.000
That's why those people that work those alt rooms get in real trouble when they come to a real comedy club.
00:45:00.000
I've seen some people in alt rooms go to the store and follow Joey Diaz, and it is horrendous.
00:45:07.000
Because they're just used to witty references and clever subject matter.
00:45:24.000
If Joey Diaz went there, they'd be like, what the fuck?
00:45:35.000
I liked the fact that they were like, I can't get any heat over here, so I'm going to go create this over here.
00:45:41.000
But once it started taking off, I didn't like that they were...
00:45:50.000
Yeah, there was a lot of shitting on people that try too hard, which I was like, what?
00:46:03.000
Yeah, people get weird about what they're doing.
00:46:08.000
That's more, we're talking, it's a waste of energy.
00:46:16.000
Tony Woods, I met Tony way back in New York in like 92 or some shit like that.
00:46:25.000
I'm sure he is, but there's a few dudes like him and even Franklin Ajayi.
00:46:32.000
Yeah, but how'd that guy not, like, who takes off and who doesn't?
00:46:43.000
I know for a lot of comedians who are mad funny, usually marriage or divorce is where they...
00:46:57.000
You gotta pay someone who's fucking some other dude.
00:47:00.000
You gotta keep sending them checks every month.
00:47:05.000
And you get to see your ex-wife and you pick up your kid and your kid's like, Mom says you're a loser.
00:47:18.000
Mom says you need to get a regular job and stop chasing your dream.
00:47:24.000
I think if you marry the right person, it can make you better.
00:47:36.000
It definitely can make you more stable, more comfortable, and you learn more about yourself when you're totally intimate with a person.
00:47:47.000
Yeah, I want to thank you for the compliment you gave me.
00:47:51.000
I had my wife listen to it first because someone said that you mentioned me.
00:47:55.000
And I'm always nervous when I... I was like, I don't know what Joe said!
00:48:15.000
I said, I think you're one of the top 20 guys in the world.
00:48:30.000
Some things that I've always wanted to do years ago, but I didn't know to ask for it, right?
00:48:36.000
That was the thing I always thought that people would see your work and then go, hey!
00:48:41.000
Well, what happened with you, I think, is you started working as a writer.
00:48:45.000
That's when they give you a job, and then you think, like, this is what I do now.
00:48:54.000
Like, to get that money for that job is nice, and it gives you stability, but it takes away from the potential earning of your stand-up.
00:49:01.000
And then the dude that you started out with, they're balling out of control.
00:49:05.000
They're selling out places, and people don't know who you are.
00:49:08.000
When I see you on stage, I'm like, this guy is a world-class headliner.
00:49:31.000
What I was just describing, his is documented on camera.
00:49:45.000
Like, he used to be, like, yelling, they get you, and then I'm not falling for it.
00:49:49.000
Like, he was like, and I was like, oh, and then when he cut his dreads, he was, like, more centered, more zen, just standing there talking.
00:49:55.000
Well, then he became vegan, and now he falls asleep constantly, so he has no energy.
00:50:00.000
When I get on the plane with him, I just take pictures of him.
00:50:02.000
I have, like, ten pictures on my phone of Ian, out cold.
00:50:12.000
I can, like, write his face and take pictures of him.
00:50:15.000
And then I send him to him with a bunch of Zs on it.
00:50:19.000
But I trained myself to go to sleep on a plane.
00:50:24.000
Like, when I'm on a plane, I just make myself go to sleep.
00:50:31.000
If you can get really comfortable with just falling on, you know, like, especially those six-hour across-the-country flights.
00:50:39.000
Yeah, I'm about to take the first move of my son now that he can walk now, so I won't be able to sleep.
00:50:52.000
I kind of look forward to it, though, but I'm like, ah.
00:50:56.000
It's sad when they get earaches and they start crying and then you can't do anything about them.
00:51:08.000
Sometimes gummy bears or something that they have to chew, it'll help pop their ears open.
00:51:16.000
They're gummy bears, but they're made out of essential fatty acids.
00:51:49.000
Like, my wife says when he hears my voice, he lights up, like, if I call him, you know, on the phone.
00:51:55.000
Sometimes, when I first had him, I didn't know what to say to him, so I would just do old, like, hip-hop lyrics.
00:52:14.000
And then I just started, I would talk to him about my day sometimes.
00:52:19.000
It's a very weird feeling to see a little tiny human being that's dependent upon you.
00:52:32.000
Well, I talk about that all the time that I look at people as grown up babies now.
00:52:36.000
I used to look at people in a static state, like I'd see an 80-year-old dude.
00:52:45.000
Yeah, and he had dreams, and he tried shit, and did it work, and did it not work.
00:52:52.000
Yeah, the shattered dreams and people with failed expectations are some of the saddest people you're ever going to meet.
00:52:57.000
If they just, for whatever reason, it didn't work, they didn't figure it out.
00:53:00.000
Whatever mental block, whatever the problem was, they just never figured it out.
00:53:04.000
Yeah, and that's when those charlatans sneak in that pretend to be able to sell them.
00:53:13.000
You gotta dream big, and you gotta set your goals!
00:53:17.000
With an easy workshop that we're gonna have down here.
00:53:35.000
Yeah, the motivational speaking marketplace is a saturated cesspool of most people in it having accomplished jack shit.
00:53:46.000
Most of them, their accomplishment is that they're motivational speakers.
00:54:00.000
And when you meet him, when you see him out, he's always flinchy a little bit.
00:54:04.000
You know, he's flinchy like a dude with a side family.
00:54:23.000
Yeah, there's a lot of those guys out there listening to this.
00:54:41.000
And the college gigs, they make you both do an hour.
00:54:43.000
They don't know how to just go, hey man, you do a half.
00:54:46.000
And so he was hotter as far as credits because he had, you know, Comedy Central.
00:54:52.000
And they were like, so they were like, Owen, you go first.
00:55:01.000
And I was like, it was like one of those quiet things where I go, you know how you go, I'm going to do, I'm going to destroy this shit.
00:55:08.000
Yeah, because sometimes, if it's somebody you like, you'll do all right.
00:55:12.000
I was like, let me go ahead and just show this dude what this could really be.
00:55:29.000
Like, I saw him reevaluate, and I think, I feel like at that moment, he was like, yeah.
00:55:36.000
He probably had, like, another two-year run, like, you know, but that...
00:55:40.000
I was at a vegan restaurant that I eat at occasionally, and this dude was in there with all of these people that he works with.
00:55:53.000
He came up to me when I was with my daughter once, and he's like, I'd just love to talk to you about a transformative experience that I've had.
00:56:14.000
People are doing things, but there's a real problem with people that are just motivators.
00:56:24.000
I'm always getting these fucking memes from people.
00:56:35.000
It's weird to be a motivational speaker who's never done a thing.
00:56:51.000
But the weird thing is some of them, like, there are trainers that have never had professional fights and they're great trainers.
00:56:58.000
But they have studied the game, like, so deeply.
00:57:01.000
They understand all the various aspects of the game.
00:57:08.000
Because they're, like, real legitimate analysts.
00:57:12.000
Can you be a person who has never really accomplished much in terms of nothing creatively?
00:57:21.000
You're not some guy who's gone out there and accomplished great things.
00:57:24.000
You're not like Sebastian Junger, a war journalist.
00:57:27.000
You're just some guy who's like, what you gotta do is realize that you face fear in the eyes.
00:57:42.000
But I feel like you're a bigger motivator than a motivational speaker because you motivate by example.
00:57:53.000
Like, that's more motivational than telling people, I'm going to tell you how I do what I do.
00:58:20.000
People are always looking for some sort of a shortcut.
00:58:27.000
I have C.T. Fletcher, who I had yesterday on the podcast.
00:58:31.000
But he's a six-time world champion powerlifter.
00:58:34.000
And when he talks about hard work and dedication and, you know, like, fuck your excuses.
00:58:43.000
But I think there's a lot of people out there that want to be that guy, but they don't want to do that kind of work.
00:58:48.000
They don't want to accomplish some great task before they go out and do all this motivational stuff.
00:59:02.000
You want those girls who are trying to improve themselves.
00:59:15.000
There are so many freaks in the yoga community.
00:59:25.000
I go to yoga, and I do my thing, and then I'll look, but I'm like, I don't even know how to make this my spot.
00:59:38.000
I heard one of my yoga teachers hit on a student, and the line was so lame.
00:59:55.000
I feel like I've practiced something, something, something with you before.
01:00:44.000
I try to keep it no less than once a week, but I fucked up since I did Sober October.
01:00:52.000
We had 15 classes that we had to do in a month.
01:00:56.000
Me, Tom Segura, Bert Kreischer, and Ari Shafir, we made an agreement.
01:01:01.000
No pot, no booze, 15 hot yoga classes, 90 minute hot yoga classes in a month.
01:01:09.000
It broke me in terms of my enthusiasm for yoga.
01:01:14.000
Because what really broke me was not just the 15 classes, I could have done that, but I did nine in a row to end it.
01:01:22.000
I had some days after that too that I couldn't, but I was like, no, I'm going to burn this shit out.
01:01:27.000
I was going Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
01:01:36.000
When Russell Simmons gave me a month free at his Tantra's yoga spot.
01:01:47.000
Tantric is where you hold your comeback, right?
01:01:55.000
They just, at their job, they squeeze their dick muscle.
01:02:02.000
That's like the weakest muscle I have in my body.
01:02:18.000
Like if I have to squeeze my arms, like my choke muscles, like...
01:02:22.000
I feel like I could choke the fuck out of somebody right now.
01:02:25.000
But like choke my own dick with my inner dick muscles, like...
01:02:48.000
I don't know if you ever did this, but somebody told me if you press on that area really hard for a couple of seconds that it won't do it.
01:03:04.000
You gotta just get a gable grip and go down there and smash the base of your dick like you're choking.
01:03:22.000
And I'm like, listen, I don't hear what anybody says.
01:03:24.000
This is to tighten up your butthole for butt sex.
01:03:40.000
But regular control of the bowels is pretty much 100%.
01:03:54.000
So, growing up, like, shit would happen to me, and I would just be like, well, what the fuck is that?
01:03:58.000
So, when I take, like, really good shits, like, I cry, like, out of one eye for some reason.
01:04:07.000
So, but this is when it worked at my advantage.
01:04:11.000
He was doing something and me and my wife couldn't figure it out.
01:04:14.000
And then one tear was, I go, oh, he's taking a shit.
01:04:24.000
And my wife, if she watched it, she'll find out.
01:04:31.000
But that's how I was able to crack that mystery, because everything is a mystery.
01:04:36.000
He was just sitting there, but he had this look on his face.
01:04:59.000
Like, sometimes I'll just be driving down the street and a tear will roll down my cheek.
01:05:13.000
If I'm in a room and I'm supposed to be awake, you ever get sleepy sometimes?
01:05:29.000
Well, sometimes I'll be in writer's rooms and I'll get sleepy.
01:05:34.000
So then I'll try to go to the bathroom to throw water on my face.
01:05:51.000
But if you get an erection near them, like, what the fuck is going on over here?
01:06:00.000
Yeah, but you can't, especially in a mixed company.
01:06:06.000
Just think about all the sexual harassment that people just sort of like, that was the way they behaved.
01:06:20.000
They couldn't wait to get to work to chase whomever was there.
01:06:26.000
I mean, my mom had a thing like that when I was a kid.
01:06:39.000
What my mom did is she just kept elaborate notes because she knew it was going to be his word against hers.
01:07:01.000
Even if you keep notes, man, it's still you against them.
01:07:11.000
Who, I think, who had, somebody else had, the Weinstein thing, somebody kept, like, notes.
01:07:16.000
And that's why, I mean, because when you have a lot of money, you can definitely litigate it.
01:07:22.000
But when somebody, you know, and I think all his legal team looked at it, they were like, you better go to Europe for some deep counseling.
01:07:41.000
Well, if you look at the Kevin Spacey thing, that's how he would run a set, apparently.
01:07:47.000
He'd be on the set and he'd just be grabbing dicks on the set.
01:07:52.000
I mean, I don't know if that's the truth, but all the people in the House of Cards set, this is what all the complaints were coming out, was that he would grab guys' dicks that were taken in places, and he'd have a PA that had to take him somewhere, reach in his pants and grab his dick.
01:08:13.000
He grabbed his son's dick with him in the room.
01:08:27.000
And I think this is their social environment as well as their working environment.
01:08:30.000
They're constantly around all these people and they're in this king role.
01:08:35.000
If you're a star of a show that you're the executive producer of and it's a giant hit for Netflix and you're the king.
01:08:48.000
This is one of the things they're saying about House of Cards is that 2,000 people could be out of a job.
01:09:02.000
So he would show up at work and he was like, where's my bagel?
01:09:09.000
You know, and I think that is like natural male predatory behavior.
01:09:14.000
I think when a man gets into a position where he's the king and all these people, sire, maybe we get you something, sire.
01:09:20.000
Like if you're on a set and you're like the big star and all these people are stumbling around, sire, maybe we get you something, sire.
01:09:29.000
Like if you're Harvey Weinstein, like think about all the people that covered up for him.
01:09:36.000
I mean, but also just think of that work ethic, man.
01:09:44.000
And then the part that trips me out is when people would show up to the victims and go, tell me everything.
01:09:57.000
You know how fucked up it has to have you walking around in the world?
01:10:00.000
But they're predators, man, and they look for...
01:10:04.000
Like, you know, it's this weird shit, but it's like if you, you know, they had like a parent or somebody going, baby, do you think it's safe to, you know, meet with him at three in the morning?
01:10:19.000
You know, and then when something happens, they feel like they can't say anything because they don't want the I told you so or they don't want to.
01:10:27.000
Whatever it is, and then that that moment can turn into two weeks and not saying a year six, then you're living, you know what I mean?
01:10:34.000
And so that's how it can happen when you're just so embarrassed, you know what I mean?
01:10:40.000
Or you don't want to embarrass or hurt other people.
01:10:43.000
Sometimes people don't say anything because they don't want to make their parents feel a type of way, you know?
01:10:49.000
Yeah, there's a lot of women That have been rape victims that the stigma of being a rape victim, excuse me, publicly, It's so hard.
01:11:07.000
Personally, I'm happy that people are finally speaking, coming out, because it's a lot of jobs opening up.
01:11:19.000
I'm really happy that people are finding that courage to just speak that truth.
01:11:23.000
We'll see what happens on the other side of it.
01:11:27.000
Well, I've been saying this for a while that I think that eventually we're gonna get to a point we could read each other's minds.
01:11:35.000
I think it's just a matter of time before no one can ever do anything like that ever again.
01:11:41.000
With this Harvey Weinstein shit and the Kevin Spacey shit and all this other stuff.
01:11:47.000
Some of them seem pretty innocuous, like Al Franken just likes to grab butts when he takes pictures.
01:11:52.000
Not the best practice, but not the worst thing in the world.
01:11:55.000
But I think we're going to get to a point where all of this is looked back on wearing powdered wigs or slavery or any crazy old shit that we just don't tolerate anymore.
01:12:05.000
Just nutty behavior that you just can't do anymore.
01:12:10.000
You're going to be able to talk to someone, and you're going to be able to see what's going on in their head.
01:12:15.000
And you would have to be a real piece of shit to victimize them, because you're going to get to see what their exact feeling is.
01:12:24.000
You just need this job, but you might have let me jerk off on you if you keep this job.
01:12:32.000
I think this is a direct reaction to us not communicating with one another.
01:12:48.000
Everything can be taken out of context, what have you.
01:12:52.000
But yeah, it is getting to the place where you're going to have to be really clear with your intentions.
01:12:55.000
You're going to be able to see intentions on people.
01:12:59.000
You know, another thing I think that is ridiculous, and I'm not pro-prostitution, but I think it should be legal.
01:13:04.000
And I think if it was legal, you would have way less of this going on.
01:13:15.000
But I think one of the things that would change...
01:13:18.000
Is that people that want, like, ugly dudes like Harvey Weinstein who just want sex.
01:13:24.000
But I think for him it's like a power thing, too.
01:13:26.000
I mean, he was banging all those really hot, like, famous chicks.
01:13:29.000
Yeah, this drug dealer told me a long time ago it was two things.
01:13:38.000
And if you can't whoop they ass, you better get a secret.
01:13:45.000
You know, I feel like Harvey doing that shit to a lot of people because they became huge stars, right?
01:13:51.000
There's no reason for them to ever have to respect him again.
01:13:55.000
But he was like, yeah, but you know what this is.
01:14:01.000
Well, that's what apparently he would negotiate it into deals.
01:14:03.000
He would say, if you fuck me, you'll get more lines, you'll get parts, you'll get this, you get that.
01:14:12.000
I mean, but that is, like, my man, he was like, so when do you know your worth, right?
01:14:17.000
And when do you know, well, if you, you know what I mean, I'm good, I don't need this here.
01:14:23.000
Or I've already, the work I've already done, like, my last work paid for all this shit.
01:14:31.000
You're getting your money from something I did.
01:14:33.000
Like, instead of thinking about it like, oh, you can give me more money.
01:14:57.000
And it's weird how long you got away with it for.
01:15:04.000
It's almost deflating every person that you look at.
01:15:08.000
You know what shocked me the most about Matt Lauer?
01:15:12.000
That motherfucker was making 20 million dollars a year.
01:15:25.000
I was just reading, they don't know if it's going to be finished through his 2018 contract, but he also was getting flown helicopter rides to his Hamptons house daily so he could spend more time with his family or something.
01:15:45.000
How much did Charlie Rose get when he had to step out?
01:15:48.000
But he was on PBS. He probably wasn't getting paid out.
01:15:52.000
O'Reilly paid $35 million in a sexual harassment settlement.
01:15:58.000
Like, what the fuck could you have possibly done?
01:16:01.000
Just think about the fact that they're like, okay, okay, if I give you 35 million, you shut the fuck up?
01:16:08.000
Hold up, Joe, this is fucked up, but that victim should be a motivational speaker.
01:16:15.000
That victim should motivate to talk to other victims on how to get paid.
01:16:35.000
I mean, another one, I think he paid 12. There was like several different ones that he had to pay off.
01:16:40.000
Like, this guy was on a rampage for years and years.
01:17:06.000
But one of the things that I think it is, is that...
01:17:12.000
All the men are like these powerful, wealthy men, and all the women are hot as fuck, and they all have short skirts on, and they're all talking about, like, American values.
01:17:27.000
Behind closed doors, there's button popping and fucking.
01:17:46.000
They don't teach sex education to younger kids.
01:17:55.000
There's definitely that, but it's also the suppression.
01:17:57.000
The ones that are super religious, super suppressed, those are the ones that have a need for an outlet.
01:18:08.000
So the amount that you put out, you equally have.
01:18:15.000
The senator or congressman or whoever the fuck it was that just got busted?
01:18:23.000
And it turns out he got busted having sex with a dude in his office.
01:18:33.000
Anti-LGBTQ lawmaker resigns over a gay sex scandal.
01:18:45.000
He may have also previously assaulted an 18-year-old.
01:19:10.000
There's certain taboos now that are just breaching them on stage.
01:19:16.000
Well, you know, yeah, I wish they did that, like, with comedy tickets.
01:19:20.000
Like, I understand when you buy a baseball ticket, the back is like an agreement that if you get hit with the ball, you ain't going to sue.
01:19:26.000
Yeah, like, you agree that if some debris hits you, hey, man, it's a part of the experience.
01:19:35.000
If your feelings get hurt, you've already agreed to experience a performance.
01:19:45.000
What I think is really important, you've got to ban people that interrupt.
01:19:54.000
Hecklers sometimes, man, you're setting up for a special, you're getting ready.
01:20:03.000
It seems like they always come out when you're setting up for something.
01:20:07.000
When you ain't setting up for nothing, you just rocking.
01:20:16.000
And the moral arbiters of what you're allowed to say and not say.
01:20:22.000
You're not even allowing this bit to take its full...
01:20:34.000
But that's a weird thing about live performance.
01:20:41.000
A tire will fall off one of the NASCAR things and launch in the crowd.
01:20:53.000
Well, also the real terrifying thing for me is the throwing away the material and then redoing your whole act every two years.
01:21:02.000
For me, it's about a year and a half, it seems like lately.
01:21:09.000
Like, right now, I'm super nervous, because I'm, like, a couple months out, and then once I film, I'm fucked.
01:21:15.000
I just figured out how to make these bits all work good.
01:21:26.000
But what you're talking about, too, is something that I've gone through.
01:21:35.000
When you're younger, you go, I know I'm going to come up with more shit.
01:21:38.000
I think my faith is better now than it was before.
01:21:46.000
How much time I'm actually spending writing and working on new shit and trying out new shit versus whether or not I think I can do it again.
01:21:53.000
As long as you're paying attention, there's always subjects.
01:21:56.000
I feel like subjects, too, are essentially like scaffolding.
01:22:00.000
And once you have the scaffolding, then you got to fill it up with jokes and build on it.
01:22:09.000
I'm at a place where I love it even more now than when I first started.
01:22:13.000
It was just a blind love for just how it made me feel.
01:22:18.000
But now I really like getting in there and trying to...
01:22:26.000
And it's like I feel so present and awake, you know what I mean?
01:22:30.000
When I'm on stage and I just, I'm excited about it.
01:22:41.000
That's all I want to do is stand up and family.
01:22:44.000
That's one of the reasons why it is so exciting is because it's just slightly out of your reach.
01:22:49.000
I mean, it's obviously within your reach talent-wise, but just like you still have this writing job, you still have this...
01:22:57.000
But the reason why I... I never intended to be a TV writer.
01:23:10.000
A friend of mine, he was a comic and then became showrunner of Everybody Hates Chris.
01:23:16.000
And he called me out the blue and said, Hey man, you want to come read lines with Chris?
01:23:25.000
So I went on set, and the job was to be his voice, because it was a voiceover show, everybody.
01:23:30.000
So I was his voice for the actors, for the pacing.
01:23:36.000
My mother always said, like, I'll just be reading with her.
01:23:41.000
I was like, this is like the best acting class.
01:23:43.000
Because I'm seeing, because at the time I was also like acting classes and doing all of that stuff.
01:23:48.000
Oh shit, I'm seeing what it's like on set, how to act.
01:23:51.000
Because I would watch co-stars come in and just crumble because it's not a safe acting class.
01:23:56.000
Like when you're acting on set, there's a boom guy that don't give a fuck.
01:24:03.000
So you have to know how to find it in these raw environments.
01:24:09.000
But because I'm a comedian first, when they would run lines, I would hear stuff that could be funny, and I would just write it on my script.
01:24:21.000
And then one day, showrunner, his name's Ali, he goes, hey man, this scene ain't working.
01:24:27.000
And I was like, do I? Yeah, she should say this.
01:24:31.000
I just wanted to make it better and then he laughed and then he threw the line in and she laughed and then they did it and the whole crew laughed and then they recorded it.
01:24:42.000
And I didn't even think like, oh, that was great.
01:24:44.000
I was just like, yeah, that's what it should have been like.
01:24:46.000
And then Chris Rock came up and he was like, fuck that.
01:24:55.000
And that was the first time I'd ever seen Chris like in person this day.
01:25:08.000
I had another one because I was like, If Chris would like me, this would be great.
01:25:19.000
And so then, at the end, everyone's in line shaking Chris's hand.
01:25:24.000
When I shake his hand, he puts his, like, does the elbow thing.
01:25:34.000
And then I went on a dumb plane and did like a college gig or whatever and came back.
01:25:39.000
And so then that grew into me doing what they call punch-up writing.
01:25:57.000
One time this older black dude was at the store and he said, stop helping other people get better.
01:26:06.000
It's like he came out the shadows and just said it to me.
01:26:09.000
When cats would get off stage, I'd be like, oh, man, you should do this.
01:26:20.000
Some people will listen, and some people have amazing careers, and some people are like, alright.
01:26:25.000
And then I started figuring out, oh, they don't want me to say nothing.
01:26:28.000
And then I did eventually just stop saying stuff.
01:26:33.000
But I used to be, I was like, I used to just love hearing what people were trying to do and then go, hey man.
01:26:39.000
Sometimes someone on the outside can see it better than you can.
01:26:42.000
Like, I wasn't like, but I'd be like, oh man, that thing, maybe this.
01:26:57.000
Because that was just the way this particular showrunner worked.
01:27:00.000
His whole philosophy was funniest wins and, you know, if you got it, you got it.
01:27:07.000
So he would bring stuff in from the writer's room, which I was rarely in, because I wasn't a writer at that time.
01:27:12.000
And then when they would put it on its feet, we could hear how certain people couldn't say—they would sound funnier saying a different word, or maybe it should just take a different turn.
01:27:22.000
And we were kind of on the same, so he would let me rewrite.
01:27:25.000
And that— Then I found out about writing and there's a writer's guild and all this stuff.
01:27:41.000
Years later, I went through a bad breakup here, and I wanted to go to New York.
01:27:46.000
You know them breakups that make you want to change zip codes?
01:27:51.000
I was so naive, I go, I'm going to write on Conan.
01:27:57.000
I ended up having to be here for another two years.
01:28:00.000
And then after I gave up that dream of wanting to just get a writing job in New York so I could live in New York, I ended up getting a writing job.
01:28:13.000
And so I would work on set all day and then race down to the cellar and perform at the cellar.
01:28:19.000
So I was living a life that I always wanted to do at 20, but I was afraid to move to New York.
01:28:28.000
At 20 because I didn't think I could afford it for some reason.
01:28:31.000
So I lived in Chicago and then I moved to LA. For some reason I felt like I could do those towns.
01:28:38.000
So I was living in Harlem and I was a comedian and I would write during the day.
01:28:45.000
And then that grew into, oh, I'm pretty good at this.
01:28:55.000
I came around the store on Everybody Hates Christmas.
01:29:04.000
Spring Break 1994. Me, Sunny, I can't think of her last name, but she's on The View now.
01:29:21.000
Me, my boy Floyd, he pretended to be my manager.
01:29:27.000
And then for spring break, we all came out together.
01:29:30.000
And I went to all the comedy clubs, because I was doing comedy at Notre Dame, and he pretended to be my manager.
01:29:39.000
And we went to all the comedy clubs, and everybody was nice to us.
01:29:42.000
Like, I'm a comedian visiting from the Midwest.
01:29:53.000
Come to the comedy store, a dude named Chewy is standing up front.
01:29:59.000
And some people, he was so intimidating, he made me lose the bass in my voice.
01:30:06.000
And he was like, do you know how they motherfuckers say they're a comedian?
01:30:09.000
And he chewed me out, and it scared me from the store.
01:30:28.000
Yeah, but so much so, I put a vendetta in my head against this dude.
01:30:40.000
And I just walked away, and I was like, fuck this guy.
01:30:49.000
And I was doing a lot of commercials in Chicago, right?
01:30:54.000
And I booked 10 national commercials for Blockbuster Music or something.
01:30:59.000
It was me and this dude named J.T. Jagadowski, I think his name is.
01:31:04.000
He is one of the Sonics guys, those Sonics commercials.
01:31:12.000
I was getting paid twice because they were using my hands, too.
01:31:19.000
And then my face was imposed on one of my thumbs and his was on another thumb.
01:31:23.000
And so I thought I was going to make a lot of, and it was supposed to air during the Super Bowl, the 2000 Super Bowl.
01:31:29.000
And then I booked, and then I did radio to promote a show, and they offered me, the program director liked my voice, and offered me a radio gig.
01:31:39.000
He was like, yo, you want to do the morning radio here?
01:31:41.000
And I did a test run for like a couple of weeks, and it did really well.
01:31:45.000
And out of nowhere did I get a call from Don Buchwald.
01:31:49.000
I don't know if he's still Howard Stern's agent, but he was like, Owen, Don Buchwald, we know.
01:32:00.000
So you figured you were going to be a big-time morning DJ guy.
01:32:02.000
Morning DJ guy, and I did not want to be a local celebrity at all.
01:32:09.000
I know, and wake up at 4. I did that for two weeks, and my body felt paralyzed, but my numbers were really good, apparently.
01:32:17.000
Because I had to meet with this dude named J-Bo something.
01:32:19.000
And he was like, oh, and your numbers are great.
01:32:31.000
And this is right when I think Clear Channel, somebody was buying up all the radio stations.
01:32:35.000
So base salary was maybe $60,000 or something like that.
01:32:41.000
So I just said, I was like, because I had these commercials coming.
01:32:45.000
He was like, all right, let me see what I can do.
01:32:48.000
So I was supposed to come out here for Y2K. I was supposed to come out here before the ball dropped, you know, 1999. But I had to stay an extra like six weeks, maybe four weeks while they negotiate.
01:32:59.000
So every Friday, Don would call me, Owen, we got it up to 120. Nope.
01:33:16.000
I wouldn't know him if he passed me in the street.
01:33:19.000
Owen, we got it up to 220. With your remote, you'll make your 250. Will you just take the gig?
01:33:54.000
Plus remotes, you would have made a quarter million dollars a year in 1999. Jesus, man.
01:33:59.000
Walked away, and it was already New Year, because I drove out here in my 1991 gray Honda Accord, drove through the southern route from Chicago, and stopped at Grand Canyon, yelled in there, I'm gonna be famous, famous, I'm gonna make it, all that shit.
01:34:17.000
Drove out, pulled in, and the copywriters from, because it was a Viacom spot, from the 10 national commercials that I did called me and said, hey man, we got some bad news.
01:34:29.000
There was an in-house legal dispute in Viacom between your spots and these spots called Thumb Wars.
01:34:34.000
And so we're not, there's aired already, so we're not going to be airing your spots.
01:34:40.000
We already edited a few, so we'll send them to you.
01:35:04.000
And I thought I was going to at least make a quarter of a million that year, at least.
01:35:09.000
So then I ended up sleeping on my boy's air mattress, Preacher Moss.
01:35:15.000
Did you ever think about calling them back for the radio gig?
01:35:20.000
Yeah, it was like, I didn't want to be a local.
01:35:24.000
My reasoning was, if you're offering me a radio gig at 26, I can get a radio gig at 56. Like, it's a voice.
01:35:38.000
I felt like I had done everything I could do in Chicago.
01:35:44.000
Because when shows were coming, I would get a co-star on it.
01:35:47.000
There was a few dudes that tried to make it out of those local markets.
01:35:56.000
And then him and Howard Stern had that crazy beef, and Howard Stern went after him.
01:36:02.000
Yeah, but he was like a guy who was like a Chicago guy that was sort of bleeding out into other markets, and then it all went away.
01:36:10.000
So when I came out, I was sleeping on the air mattress, got some pussy on it.
01:36:17.000
Did you get some sex on an air mattress and a girl likes you that much?
01:36:24.000
But yeah, I told her, I was funny, I was just like a poor man's waterbed, and you sound crazy, you know, whatever.
01:36:30.000
But I was there for 18 months, man, and I would drive up and go to acting class.
01:36:37.000
Boy, you meet some crazy fucking people in acting class, huh?
01:36:42.000
It was a great time, right, to just really learn the art form at a different level and just see who's out here.
01:36:50.000
I would drive past it, and I was doing improv, you know, once every two months.
01:37:00.000
And then it wasn't until I was on Everybody Hates Chris and Chris Rock was doing That special where he performed in South Africa and England.
01:37:11.000
And he just said, I'm going to the store tonight.
01:37:21.000
And at that time, I was, I wasn't in, I'm still not in the Laugh Factory, but I did the improv.
01:37:26.000
And I would do the Laugh Factory on like chocolate sundaes or whatever.
01:37:29.000
But the improv, it felt like You had to have your set already worked out.
01:37:36.000
And you couldn't really go outside the box of what a comedian is.
01:37:41.000
And so, when I was at the store, I saw a few comics go up before Chris.
01:37:46.000
And I was like, oh shit, you could be an artist here.
01:37:50.000
Like, you can do whatever you think is your thing here.
01:38:06.000
So then I started coming down on Sunday and Monday, and Tommy was doing it at the time.
01:38:12.000
And I would listen to Tommy talk and stuff, and What blew me away about Tommy was I had never met a person who ran a comedy club who knew that much about comedians and who was that passionate about comedy.
01:38:29.000
All the funny bones that I had worked, nobody gave a fuck.
01:38:34.000
About the lineups and kind of like his process.
01:38:41.000
And I was like, oh, shit, a lot of people probably don't talk to him.
01:38:43.000
And so then when he would talk to me about comedy, I was blown away by that he knew a specific history of it and Yeah, you didn't get a chance to see him emerge as the crazy fuck he became.
01:38:54.000
So he would give me the two-minute spots, and I would do the two-minute things.
01:39:00.000
And then he was like, I'm going to give you ten minutes.
01:39:04.000
And then he goes, I'm going to give you a showcase for Mitzi.
01:39:30.000
Well, the Chris Rock thing was 2007. So this is all of it after I had left.
01:39:53.000
You do the improvs, all the national improvs and stuff?
01:39:58.000
When I was a road comic, I used to, like Dave Stroop used to book me.
01:40:05.000
In Columbus, and he used to pay me, for a feature act, he used to pay me well, and then he would co-feature me, co-headline me, and then he'd just start boogieing me.
01:40:18.000
There was this waitress that worked there, and I fucked her.
01:40:33.000
But I'm going to say, when Dave paid me, he goes, out of blue, he goes, did you fuck so-and-so?
01:40:46.000
I didn't know if I would have gotten in trouble.
01:40:57.000
But if my dad, if I had some knowledge from that.
01:41:01.000
But I just was like, I'm not going to get her fired.
01:41:13.000
Is he the boss or are you a private contractor?
01:41:19.000
It's not like you're getting health and dental from him.
01:41:39.000
I get how they would see it was gross with the comedians hitting on the waitresses all the time.
01:42:07.000
If you're throwing the pussy at us, we won't pick it up.
01:42:11.000
Like, you have to literally be like, will you...
01:42:14.000
Like, when I'm there to do comedy, I'm not conflicting.
01:42:34.000
I think she asked me if we wanted to get something to eat afterwards, and we got something to eat, and we were just talking.
01:42:42.000
Oh, that's cool, but we were away from the club.
01:42:46.000
And then she made a, I need to come back to the condo.
01:42:48.000
It was like a weird, I was so goofy, like, alright.
01:43:00.000
Whoever she was mad at before, she was like, this dude, I want that.
01:43:12.000
That's a funny thing, because you're kind of working together.
01:43:16.000
But people in bars, they always wind up hooking up.
01:43:19.000
Like, that's, like, the constant thing in bars.
01:43:27.000
I mean, I would say in my 20s, I was more, like...
01:43:34.000
Like, I could change my act to get an audience member or whatever.
01:43:41.000
You know, and then I would know how to do all that stuff or go to the mall and invite somebody.
01:43:57.000
And I was just like, really, I just wanted to...
01:44:26.000
You know, so I had to learn how to, like, keep it moving.
01:44:29.000
But then I didn't really like talking to the audience that much afterwards.
01:44:32.000
If I'm doing, like, racial stuff, because it would always come back wrong.
01:44:36.000
I used to do this joke about how Busta Rhymes, I went to a Busta Rhymes concert, and it was all white.
01:44:45.000
And he yelled, oh, my real niggas, make some noise.
01:44:50.000
So the punchline is like, white people are niggas now?
01:44:54.000
And not only can we call them niggas, they are paying $85 for the privilege to be called niggas, right?
01:45:01.000
So then my joke would be like, white people, I'll call you niggas for $10.
01:45:11.000
And then I would be out selling my DVD, and always, you know, a drunk white person would come up and give me $20 and go, nigga.
01:45:27.000
That's the problem when you get forbidden words.
01:45:33.000
So we used to joke, like, what if that was my thing?
01:45:39.000
And I was like, y'all could just call me nigga at the back for $20.
01:45:42.000
And, like, just shake up the whole t-shirt, DVD selling thing.
01:45:46.000
Like, who is this guy letting white people call a nigga, you know?
01:45:55.000
Every comedian, every, I think, minority comedian wants to figure out race, like, in their 20s and early 30s.
01:46:01.000
They want to fix it or have some clever angle that no one's done before.
01:46:08.000
Like, if you work in Kentucky, the late show Friday, and here you come talking about, you know, a black man invented the golf tee because he was tired of holding the ball.
01:46:23.000
So now it's funny when I hear younger comics attacking race in that familiar place.
01:46:30.000
It's like, yeah, that's cool, but what's beyond that?
01:46:36.000
But it's also like you're dealing with talking to the audience.
01:46:39.000
And the problem with talking to the audience is you might run into seven people that are really cool.
01:46:45.000
And then you run into two drunk morons that ruin your entire night.
01:46:50.000
You're like, I can't even believe I have to talk to you.
01:46:54.000
The problem is you think you can make fun of white people.
01:47:08.000
Yeah, it's like you can't pick who you're meeting after those shows.
01:47:13.000
Yeah, so I was like, I just don't want to have to sell something.
01:47:18.000
Yeah, and then I'll talk to you afterwards because I did what you paid for.
01:47:28.000
You get on a plane with so much promise if I say, well, I know dudes who would ship their shit ahead.
01:47:34.000
They would ship boxes ahead, tape everything down.
01:47:53.000
It's an interesting world, the world of trying to figure out what your thing is.
01:47:59.000
But for you, we just got to let people fucking know, man.
01:48:04.000
You just got to be headlining on the road, man.
01:48:09.000
The two that I've done, I've done out of pocket.
01:48:14.000
I did one in 2007. I made a lot of money doing colleges.
01:48:20.000
Because I was like, how can I make some money in quick hits?
01:48:25.000
And I figured out what my act was for the college market.
01:48:29.000
And I finally, my agents would never put me in NACA Nationals.
01:48:35.000
And NACA is the National Association of Campus Activities where, you know, you get submitted in colleges, you know.
01:48:43.000
So, but I knew, and I never, I rarely or never got selected to a regional because my humor works best if...
01:48:53.000
People, if everybody can see it at that time, like what I was talking about.
01:48:57.000
So if I did something, someone from the South would be like, that's too...
01:49:08.000
And this is right when Kobe got accused of stuff.
01:49:11.000
And I had this Kobe joke that I did and my agents was like, keep it clean.
01:49:23.000
Once you get to their school, the act that people think they have to do to get the job...
01:49:38.000
Because everyone was coming out, you know, doing the safe stuff.
01:49:41.000
And then the Kobe joke that I told was, Kobe got paid $30 million to drink Sprite.
01:49:49.000
I go, for $30 million, I would drink my own cum.
01:49:53.000
I go, I know women out there who have done it for far less.
01:50:02.000
But there's a line around the corner at my booth because I was the only guy that talked about something that was happening like right then and I had a thing on it.
01:50:17.000
So you're saying that you made a bunch of money and then you put together a special?
01:50:20.000
Yeah, made a bunch of money, put together a special, called Anonymous, shot it in South Bend, Indiana, because I was in these writers' rooms where people were going, the Midwest doesn't get it, the Midwest doesn't get it.
01:50:29.000
And I was like, I want to show them that the Midwest gets it.
01:50:36.000
The director I wanted couldn't do it, referred another director.
01:50:39.000
I had already purchased the place and airtime and all that stuff.
01:50:44.000
And I had people from Everybody Hates Chris, they were going to do favors for me.
01:50:48.000
So my budget was at, say, it was at like $40,000, right?
01:50:53.000
Then I had to hire this other guy and he said, I don't like working with people I don't know.
01:51:13.000
And when we get on the plane to fly, the director says, the DP's not going to make it.
01:51:23.000
So now I'm performing my special that I'm spending now $100,000 on in front of four camera guys who have never seen my act.
01:51:41.000
This guy, the medium shot, saw focus both shows.
01:51:48.000
So all my punchlines are over my left shoulder, which is not how you, so I couldn't resell it.
01:51:56.000
So I had to put it on YouTube, and my boy calls it the most expensive demo tape on YouTube.
01:52:02.000
It's called Owen Smith Anonymous, and I was so, yo, I was stressed, man.
01:52:32.000
I could have done my whole act over without an audience.
01:52:41.000
It was this thing, because he had only done music.
01:52:47.000
And that whole year, every director that came and directed Everybody Hates Chris episodes, I would take them to lunch.
01:52:54.000
Because if I found out they did comedy specials, I would pick their brain on how to do them.
01:53:04.000
And so that put me, like, I was scared to spend my own money on anything.
01:53:20.000
I shot a comedy special, and then I returned the iPhones, videotape myself, returned the iPhones, and got my money back.
01:53:27.000
We sent that to Netflix, and at the time, not the people who were there now, but the people who were there before, I heard, they just said I wasn't famous enough to have a Netflix special.
01:53:37.000
There's a lot of people that aren't very famous that have Netflix specials, though.
01:53:42.000
And so that was another, you know, so I just put that up on YouTube.
01:53:47.000
Those are the two Oh, so those are available now?
01:53:54.000
How much did that cost to shoot it all with iPhones?
01:53:59.000
I paid an editor, so if I didn't pay him it would have cost me...
01:54:14.000
Do you remember when Dave Vittell did something where he gave people in the audience cameras and let them film him?
01:54:23.000
Yeah, if you got something to say, it don't matter how the moment is captured, I feel like, if you're saying something.
01:54:44.000
I used to go up after him a lot at the cellar and it was like, it was beautiful.
01:55:03.000
He's always writing, like constantly writing, you know?
01:55:10.000
So yeah, so those are the two that I've done, but nah, not yet.
01:55:13.000
Hopefully somebody approached me because I have some stuff that I really would love to...
01:55:20.000
Yeah, I mean, this store right now is so crazy how many talented people are there.
01:55:28.000
I don't want to tell any of his bits, but goddamn, he had me crying.
01:55:34.000
There's so many people right now that are so good.
01:55:42.000
I mean, I started there in 94, and the level was terrible.
01:55:45.000
There was a bunch of bodaks, a bunch of guys from the road.
01:55:48.000
They had started out there in the 70s, and they were still around.
01:55:53.000
I mean, there was literally some people that started out there in like 78, and they were still floating around in 94, and they were just fucking terrible.
01:56:01.000
And then somewhere around 2000 and maybe like 4 or 5 started picking back up.
01:56:11.000
Then I bolted in 2007 after the Carlos Mencia thing.
01:56:15.000
And I didn't come back until 2014. And now it's just hot.
01:56:26.000
The lines around the corner too are so inspiring.
01:56:30.000
And the store helped me tremendously, especially the OR, because you can't charm your way through a bit.
01:56:43.000
I love that it challenges you as an artist to really...
01:57:00.000
It used to be, like, you'd get away with way more there.
01:57:09.000
Because then when you go anywhere else, it's like...
01:57:19.000
And you're going to be on the benefit that we're doing.
01:57:27.000
They build wells in the Congo, and that's going to be at the Comedy Store.
01:57:30.000
It'll be you and me and Tom Segura, Tom Papa, Tony Hinchcliffe.