The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #1286

00:00:02.000 Two.

00:00:02.000 One.

00:00:03.000 Yee-haw!

00:00:04.000 Hello, Anthony Jeselnik.

00:00:05.000 How are you, sir?

00:00:06.000 Great, Joe.

00:00:07.000 Good to see you.

00:00:07.000 What's going on, buddy?

00:00:08.000 Are you fully committed to the beard now?

00:00:10.000 Yeah.

00:00:11.000 I want to keep it as long as I can.

00:00:12.000 Are you going to go mountain man?

00:00:14.000 Or are you going to just trim?

00:00:15.000 Do you trim a little?

00:00:16.000 I trim a little bit.

00:00:18.000 The lady who cuts my hair trims it every four weeks when I go in for a haircut.

00:00:22.000 But I don't touch it at all.

00:00:23.000 I'm afraid if I tried to trim it, I would just ruin it.

00:00:27.000 But I love, love having a beard.

00:00:29.000 Why do you love having a beard?

00:00:31.000 It's like sunglasses for the bottom half of your face.

00:00:34.000 Oh, you can hide from the world.

00:00:36.000 Kind of, yeah.

00:00:37.000 It chills me out a little more.

00:00:40.000 Yeah.

00:00:41.000 Especially on stage.

00:00:44.000 You're under the lights, you know, and my lip would start to get a little bit sweaty.

00:00:48.000 And I'm thinking about my lip and I'm like, should I wipe this?

00:00:52.000 Should I move it?

00:00:52.000 Then I start to sweat more.

00:00:54.000 But now that I have the beard and mustache, my lip gets a little sweaty.

00:00:57.000 You can't tell.

00:00:58.000 So I don't get more anxious.

00:01:00.000 Interesting.

00:01:01.000 Yeah.

00:01:02.000 So you used to like think, boy, there's a little couple of beads on that upper lip.

00:01:06.000 Yeah.

00:01:06.000 Yeah, and I'm like, can they see it?

00:01:07.000 Should I wipe?

00:01:08.000 Is it too much if I'm wiping?

00:01:10.000 It drives me crazy.

00:01:11.000 You know what gets me?

00:01:12.000 Boogers.

00:01:13.000 If I think I have a booger.

00:01:14.000 Like, what is going on with my nose?

00:01:16.000 What is that?

00:01:17.000 Is that a booger?

00:01:17.000 Shit, can they see that?

00:01:19.000 Oh, I check for sure before I go on stage.

00:01:21.000 There's always a booger check.

00:01:22.000 But I'm so animated, and I'm always yelling and screaming.

00:01:25.000 I'm always worried that something is hanging off the tip of my nose.

00:01:29.000 And the people in the front row can't even enjoy it.

00:01:31.000 Like, what the fuck, man?

00:01:32.000 Your nose, bro.

00:01:34.000 I've had definitely a fly-down situation, but never like a booger that ruined the show.

00:01:41.000 Those are two things that people love to laugh at.

00:01:44.000 You fly down, and if you put a beer down on stage, and the foam comes over the top.

00:01:49.000 Like, oh my god, your beer's coming!

00:01:53.000 Those are those things, right?

00:01:55.000 Mm-hmm.

00:01:56.000 High humor.

00:01:57.000 Yeah, high humor.

00:01:58.000 Sweat, like weird sweat stains.

00:02:02.000 When I've done specials, speaking of which, Anthony Jeselnik's new comedy special comes out tonight, I hear.

00:02:08.000 Yep.

00:02:08.000 This evening.

00:02:09.000 Midnight, I guess?

00:02:10.000 Netflix does it.

00:02:11.000 Ah, excited?

00:02:12.000 Very excited.

00:02:13.000 Wow, I've been seeing your set.

00:02:14.000 It's fucking fantastic.

00:02:15.000 Thank you.

00:02:16.000 I think this is the best I've ever done.

00:02:17.000 So I'm pumped for it.

00:02:19.000 It's the beautiful thing about comedy, man.

00:02:21.000 Keep working.

00:02:22.000 Keep paying attention to it.

00:02:23.000 You get better at it.

00:02:24.000 You know, really?

00:02:25.000 I mean, Don Marrera and I had this conversation just a couple of months ago.

00:02:28.000 He's like, Joe, he goes, I've never been better.

00:02:30.000 He goes, I'm fucking a thousand years old.

00:02:32.000 He goes, I've never been better at comedy.

00:02:33.000 Yeah.

00:02:34.000 As long as you don't quit, you don't ever get worse, I don't think.

00:02:38.000 Right.

00:02:38.000 As long as you don't give up.

00:02:40.000 Because some guys don't quit, but they give up.

00:02:43.000 Exactly.

00:02:43.000 Yeah, they just go through the same material every single time.

00:02:46.000 You're like, what are you doing here?

00:02:47.000 You're just trying to get out of the house.

00:02:49.000 You're not trying to get better.

00:02:51.000 There's a little of that, yeah.

00:02:53.000 Yeah, it's like, if you're not right, I guess that's the difference between also guys who put out specials, or I say women too, and people who don't.

00:03:02.000 Some people just don't put anything out, you know?

00:03:04.000 Yeah, once you put it out, like I put it out because I'm like, I'm done with this now, it's getting boring, it's not going to get better, it's as good as I can make it, but because of that, then I have to come up with a new hour.

00:03:15.000 You have a pretty specific schedule you like to follow too, right?

00:03:18.000 If I'm correct?

00:03:19.000 Yeah.

00:03:19.000 I try.

00:03:20.000 I did a year in LA, like at the store every night.

00:03:23.000 You know, and like once a month I do Largo and try it all out at once.

00:03:27.000 And then at the end of that year, I had about 40 minutes.

00:03:30.000 Went to clubs for a year, every weekend for a year.

00:03:33.000 And then once that, I had the hour after that.

00:03:36.000 Then I did a year of theaters.

00:03:37.000 And at the end of that year, I taped the special and was done with it.

00:03:41.000 So you're on like a three-year plan.

00:03:43.000 Right.

00:03:44.000 Pretty much.

00:03:44.000 Yeah.

00:03:59.000 I was trying, I think two years seems to be right for me, but it might be better to give it a little more time, right?

00:04:06.000 Just a little more time to tighten things up and polish and, you know, add layers and extra punch.

00:04:13.000 It's like, you know those guys, like, when I started out in Boston, there was guys that had been doing the same set forever.

00:04:20.000 There's pros and cons to that.

00:04:21.000 And the pro is, god damn, they had that shit down tight.

00:04:25.000 Where it was just punchline, rapid punchline, pause punchline.

00:04:29.000 They knew the economy of words was perfect.

00:04:32.000 There was no fat in the bits.

00:04:35.000 They had tightened all that stuff up.

00:04:37.000 Yeah.

00:04:37.000 One of my biggest fears is taping the special...

00:04:43.000 And then coming up with a great tag.

00:04:45.000 You know what I mean?

00:04:45.000 That I want it to be done when I shoot it because that feeling is awful.

00:04:50.000 Yeah, it's the worst.

00:04:51.000 I've done that.

00:04:52.000 Yeah.

00:04:53.000 So have I. It sucks.

00:04:55.000 It sucks.

00:04:56.000 What do you do?

00:04:58.000 I once went back in my last special, Thoughts and Prayers.

00:05:01.000 I ADR'd a line.

00:05:02.000 I walked off stage and was like, oh, fuck.

00:05:06.000 I should use this word, and it just occurred to me in the moment that I was using the wrong word, so I went back and ADR'd it, and you can obviously tell.

00:05:14.000 It's like me talking, and then it's clearly a different voice, just one word, but I had to do it.

00:05:20.000 What does ADR stand for?

00:05:21.000 I know what it means, but what does it stand for?

00:05:24.000 Jamie knows.

00:05:25.000 He's an actual audio guy.

00:05:27.000 Automated dialogue replacement.

00:05:29.000 And why it's automated is lost in my head forever, but that's what it means.

00:05:32.000 Ah, okay.

00:05:33.000 I wouldn't have guessed that in a million years.

00:05:34.000 I knew what it meant.

00:05:36.000 I've done ADR. Yeah.

00:05:38.000 I did it like Fear Factor, like every episode.

00:05:41.000 I had to do ADR. It was the worst.

00:05:43.000 Why?

00:05:44.000 Because you were just mispronouncing names?

00:05:46.000 No, it was usually because they wanted to tighten segments up.

00:05:49.000 We would film for three days, and we'd have to slam that down to 44 minutes.

00:05:54.000 So sometimes you needed brevity, or sometimes...

00:06:00.000 Yeah.

00:06:21.000 Sometimes when you would want to put it on TV, you'd want to be more precise or more concise.

00:06:26.000 Yeah.

00:06:27.000 So every fucking week I had to do ADR. I hated it.

00:06:30.000 You did?

00:06:31.000 It seems like it would be fun.

00:06:33.000 Fear Factor?

00:06:35.000 Fear Factor, but just ADR seems like easy, it's relaxed, you're just in the booth.

00:06:39.000 No, it was boring.

00:06:40.000 No?

00:06:40.000 No, I didn't like it.

00:06:41.000 No, the fun thing about Fear Factor was when the checks came.

00:06:45.000 That was a fun thing.

00:06:46.000 And then when nice people won, that was fun too.

00:06:48.000 Yeah.

00:06:49.000 Those things were fun.

00:06:50.000 But really, that was a great job.

00:06:53.000 But it was a job.

00:06:55.000 It was like a job.

00:06:56.000 Like, you know, if you had a great, like, yeah, I really like working here.

00:07:00.000 Whereas, you don't really say that about stand-up.

00:07:02.000 No.

00:07:03.000 I mean, I don't think about it as a job.

00:07:04.000 It's just fucking fun.

00:07:05.000 It's awesome.

00:07:06.000 Oh, absolutely.

00:07:07.000 Absolutely.

00:07:08.000 It's a get-to-do.

00:07:09.000 Yeah, a get-to-do.

00:07:10.000 Yeah.

00:07:11.000 That's my new thing.

00:07:12.000 It's a get-to-do versus have-to-do.

00:07:14.000 How long have you been doing it now?

00:07:15.000 Almost 17 years.

00:07:17.000 Wow.

00:07:17.000 Isn't that crazy to say?

00:07:19.000 It is.

00:07:20.000 It blows me away.

00:07:22.000 17 years just seems like forever.

00:07:26.000 And I had in my head that 20 was an important number.

00:07:29.000 When you get to 20, that means something.

00:07:32.000 I think I must have made that up.

00:07:33.000 People say 10 years is a big deal, but 20 doesn't seem to...

00:07:38.000 I thought that's when you're really relaxed.

00:07:41.000 Ten years seems like you're a pro.

00:07:43.000 When I see someone, I'm like, how long have you been doing it?

00:07:45.000 Eleven years.

00:07:46.000 Alright.

00:07:47.000 I buy it.

00:07:48.000 When someone says, six years, I'm like, good luck.

00:07:51.000 You might quit.

00:07:52.000 Yeah.

00:07:53.000 I hate the people who are like, I've been doing it for like 12 years.

00:07:56.000 When's the last time you got on stage?

00:07:58.000 Six months ago.

00:07:59.000 Oh, no.

00:07:59.000 No, you started doing stand-up 12 years ago.

00:08:01.000 Yeah.

00:08:02.000 You've not been doing it.

00:08:03.000 Yeah, you've got to go fuck yourself.

00:08:04.000 Yeah.

00:08:05.000 Those people that take giant chunks of time off and then come back and want to go on the road with you, I'm like, hey, man.

00:08:12.000 Yeah, it's like, no, that's not how this works.

00:08:15.000 You gotta be putting in the work yourself, otherwise, why am I doing you a favor?

00:08:20.000 Yeah, well, it's just, it's one of those things like, if you wanted to run a marathon, you have to run all the time.

00:08:26.000 Or, you're gonna be really sore and tired when it's over.

00:08:31.000 You know, you're not gonna really be able to do it.

00:08:33.000 You wanna be able to actually do it and really run.

00:08:36.000 This is the same with stand-up.

00:08:38.000 For whatever reason, it seems so fucking easy when you're watching.

00:08:43.000 When you're watching someone do it, this is one of the reasons why everyone thinks they can do it.

00:08:48.000 Because we're just talking.

00:08:49.000 It's not like we're doing Cirque du Soleil up there.

00:08:52.000 And some people are like, oh, that's not that funny.

00:08:53.000 I could be not that funny.

00:08:56.000 It's not that big a deal.

00:08:57.000 Yeah, you could.

00:08:58.000 Yeah.

00:08:59.000 Maybe.

00:08:59.000 Uh-huh.

00:09:00.000 Yeah.

00:09:02.000 When you started out, what city did you start in?

00:09:05.000 Here, Los Angeles.

00:09:06.000 Did you really?

00:09:06.000 Where?

00:09:06.000 What was your first club?

00:09:08.000 My first ever show was at the Belly Room in the Comedy Store.

00:09:11.000 I took a class.

00:09:12.000 I took a class.

00:09:14.000 Greg Dean.

00:09:15.000 I was working at Borders Books and Music.

00:09:18.000 It was my first job in LA. Remember that big bookstore?

00:09:21.000 I just found the thinnest book on stand-up comedy that they had and bought that and read it.

00:09:28.000 At the end, it was like, this guy teaches a class in Santa Monica.

00:09:31.000 So you went, and people were surprised that I took a class.

00:09:34.000 It's like, the class didn't teach me how to be like this.

00:09:37.000 It just kind of gave me the courage to go to open mics.

00:09:40.000 And I don't think I could have just gone to an open mic.

00:09:43.000 I was too scared for that.

00:09:44.000 I was like 23. But after the class, I had a seven-minute set that I would go and do.

00:09:51.000 What did the class teach you?

00:09:52.000 How do they start a class out?

00:09:54.000 There were two sessions.

00:09:56.000 It was like beginning and advanced.

00:09:58.000 And they would talk a little bit about joke structure.

00:10:00.000 They would talk about simple things like taking the mic out of the stand.

00:10:04.000 But be careful because some people walk up and they take their teeth out.

00:10:07.000 You know what I mean?

00:10:08.000 Things like don't run the light, show up early.

00:10:11.000 Things that were just, may not have been common sense, but it gave me comfort to know the rules so that I could try to break them.

00:10:19.000 You know, later on.

00:10:20.000 And then did a set at the belly room, like, with a bunch of other, like, people in the class who are all terrible.

00:10:26.000 None of them are doing stand-up anymore.

00:10:27.000 And I, like, killed.

00:10:29.000 Like, I thought I killed.

00:10:30.000 I had the tape.

00:10:31.000 I sent it out to everyone.

00:10:32.000 And one of the jokes from that first set I ended up using in the Donald Trump roast.

00:10:36.000 Really?

00:10:37.000 So I was like, oh wow, maybe there's some gold in there.

00:10:39.000 And I went back 10 years after I did it and watched the set again and had a panic attack watching myself.

00:10:46.000 The way it was in my head was not what was on screen.

00:10:50.000 It was bad.

00:10:51.000 Do you think that's just psychological protectants that you throw up?

00:10:57.000 What is it that makes you think that you were better back in the day?

00:11:01.000 I think it's excitement and just being stupid.

00:11:05.000 When people get into stand-up later on in life, I'm like, I don't know if you can do this because you have to kind of be dumb enough to go through the things you have to do when you start out.

00:11:15.000 But I'm glad I was 23 when I was running around to open mics and not knowing any better.

00:11:20.000 That's a really good point.

00:11:21.000 Yeah.

00:11:22.000 Yeah, I was 21. I was really dumb.

00:11:25.000 You just went right to an open mic?

00:11:27.000 Yeah, well, I went to an open mic to watch first, and that's what gave me the courage to go on stage.

00:11:33.000 Because I had always thought, like...

00:11:36.000 Stand-up comedy was going to be Jerry Seinfeld or Richard Pryor.

00:11:39.000 And if you go there, like, you know, and I wrote a bunch of stuff and I practiced a bunch of stuff into a tape recorder and it was terrible.

00:11:45.000 But, you know, I was trying to say it like a comedian.

00:11:49.000 But then when I went to an open mic and I realized how bad some of those people are, I was like, well, I can be that bad.

00:11:54.000 I can do that.

00:11:55.000 I know I can pull off what they're doing.

00:11:57.000 Yeah, there's something about, like, performing for comedians that really angered me.

00:12:03.000 If an audience wasn't laughing, it was like, alright, whatever.

00:12:05.000 But if comedians, it's like, no, you guys should get me.

00:12:08.000 That really ticked me off.

00:12:10.000 That I didn't have any friends in the open mic community.

00:12:13.000 That would laugh?

00:12:15.000 No, I didn't have friends at all.

00:12:16.000 I was just the guy who showed up and did a set and would just get angry and angry.

00:12:21.000 Why?

00:12:21.000 Why were you angry?

00:12:22.000 Because I was mad that they didn't get that I was funny.

00:12:26.000 It's my job to prove it to them, but I was like, these people should understand that I'm funny.

00:12:33.000 If a comedian doesn't like me or doesn't respect what I do, I'm just like, I can't believe you're a comedian.

00:12:39.000 I really feel that way.

00:12:43.000 That's a funny way of looking at it.

00:12:45.000 Well, it's one of those things where you want to be good so bad, you'll sort of convince yourself that you're good.

00:12:52.000 Or you convince yourself that you're better than you are.

00:12:54.000 Like, I remember the feeling of...

00:12:56.000 Being at an open mic night and not being sure whether or not I was going to go on stage or not having a spot.

00:13:02.000 And watching these guys going, God damn it, I want to go up there.

00:13:05.000 If I got up in front of that crowd right now, I could kill.

00:13:08.000 You just convince yourself that you were good.

00:13:10.000 Yeah, I mean, I knew that my performance was bad.

00:13:13.000 I knew I was funnier than what I was putting out there.

00:13:16.000 And that was what frustrated me.

00:13:17.000 It's like I've got to keep writing new jokes to get to be able to prove myself.

00:13:22.000 To get to your potential.

00:13:23.000 Exactly.

00:13:24.000 Yeah.

00:13:26.000 Yeah, it's an interesting thing because it occurs in almost everything that's difficult to do.

00:13:31.000 It's like you see the path, you're like, okay, just keep going.

00:13:35.000 Like martial arts, for example, it's a perfect example.

00:13:38.000 It's like you'll practice with a white belt and you kind of think like, oh, I kind of get this.

00:13:43.000 I'm going to get good at this.

00:13:44.000 And then you'll practice with someone who's really good, who does it every day and is a black belt.

00:13:49.000 And you just feel helpless and you feel like, goddammit, I'll never get to that spot.

00:13:53.000 And I used to feel like that about stand-up.

00:13:55.000 There was a guy, when I first started out, you probably never heard of him, but he's one of the best comics of all time.

00:14:01.000 His name is Teddy Bergeron.

00:14:02.000 And he was a Boston legend.

00:14:04.000 He had a problem with substances, to put it mildly.

00:14:09.000 And his timing was impeccable.

00:14:13.000 He went on a Tonight Show back in the day, and he would play piano as well.

00:14:17.000 And he had like...

00:14:20.000 Like, the ultimate set on The Tonight Show.

00:14:22.000 I mean, just fucking murdered.

00:14:24.000 Sat on the couch with Johnny.

00:14:25.000 I mean, and just was killing it.

00:14:27.000 And just super...

00:14:28.000 And then went off the rails.

00:14:30.000 Like, the pressure of success and everything.

00:14:32.000 And pills and booze and woo!

00:14:35.000 And the whole thing.

00:14:36.000 But when I was an open miker, one of the early, early sets that I did, I remember I did a set and then he went on You know, there was a bunch of open micers and then some professionals would hop on and do like five, ten minutes.

00:14:50.000 And he went out but did that.

00:14:51.000 And he was so fucking good and so polished, I almost quit.

00:14:56.000 I was like, what am I doing?

00:14:57.000 I'm terrible.

00:14:58.000 I don't have a point of view.

00:15:00.000 I don't have perspective.

00:15:01.000 I don't have that kind of timing.

00:15:03.000 I definitely don't have that kind of swagger.

00:15:05.000 Like he had a casual swagger on stage.

00:15:09.000 Did you have like an idol, like someone you were trying to be as a stand-up?

00:15:14.000 I think there's probably a bunch of guys.

00:15:16.000 I sounded a lot like Richard Jenny in the beginning.

00:15:18.000 I was kind of stealing.

00:15:20.000 Like, almost stealing his timing.

00:15:22.000 And then I realized that one time I was on stage and I heard myself sound like him and I was like, alright, I gotta fix this.

00:15:28.000 Yeah.

00:15:28.000 You know?

00:15:29.000 I did that with David Tell in New York.

00:15:31.000 Everybody did a tell.

00:15:32.000 I would run downstairs and watch a tell set and then one day I caught myself not doing one of his bits but like one of his mannerism kind of things.

00:15:40.000 Yeah.

00:15:41.000 It's just fun to do and I felt I was like I gotta stop this and I went and told Esty the woman who books the comedy seller I was like I gotta stop watching Dave Attell and I said it like a confessional and I thought she was gonna be like you're not a real comic then everyone watches a tell and she goes good like more people should stop watching Dave Attell like People are just ripping him off,

00:16:00.000 and I understand why.

00:16:02.000 He's got such a bizarre sense of timing, and it's so infectious, you know?

00:16:08.000 Oh, yeah.

00:16:08.000 Just so fun.

00:16:10.000 So fun to watch.

00:16:11.000 I've known Dave for like...

00:16:13.000 28 years, I think?

00:16:14.000 And he's always been like that.

00:16:16.000 He's always had that very strange way of talking!

00:16:19.000 You know?

00:16:20.000 Oh, it's a box!

00:16:22.000 I've known him maybe 10 years, and I don't know him at all.

00:16:25.000 You know what I mean?

00:16:25.000 We've talked a couple of times, but I don't know anything about the guy.

00:16:30.000 Yeah.

00:16:30.000 And I think I met him after he had quit drinking.

00:16:33.000 So I think he was a different guy.

00:16:35.000 Oh, yeah.

00:16:35.000 I knew him in the heart.

00:16:37.000 When he was on that show, Insomniacs, and he was getting blasted out of his gourd every night.

00:16:44.000 Every night he was going to these places, and it was killing him.

00:16:47.000 Yeah.

00:16:47.000 And he stopped doing the show for that very reason, because everywhere he would go, it would just be shots, shots, shots.

00:16:53.000 And...

00:16:55.000 And then he, one time I ran into him at the improv and it was like 1 o'clock in the morning and I was headed home and he's like, hey, is there an after party?

00:17:02.000 Where do we go?

00:17:03.000 I was like, where do we go?

00:17:05.000 Like, go home.

00:17:06.000 Go to sleep.

00:17:08.000 Yeah.

00:17:08.000 And then the next time I saw him, he was totally sober.

00:17:12.000 He's one of those guys, though, that got sober and didn't stop being hilarious.

00:17:16.000 No.

00:17:16.000 A lot of guys do.

00:17:18.000 Yeah.

00:17:19.000 They sober up and then they become annoying.

00:17:21.000 And then they want to talk about their sobriety.

00:17:24.000 I cannot stand recovering addicts.

00:17:31.000 Yeah, man.

00:17:32.000 They're worse than people who just find yoga.

00:17:34.000 They just won't shut the fuck up about recovery.

00:17:37.000 I'm guilty of that with many things.

00:17:40.000 If I get into something, I can't shut the fuck up about it.

00:17:45.000 We're good to go.

00:17:54.000 Yes, and they always get a little judgy.

00:17:55.000 They're like, are you sure?

00:17:57.000 Like, do you need that last drink?

00:17:58.000 And I'm like, yeah, I do, and I can handle my shit, so leave me alone.

00:18:02.000 Hey, I'm super sorry you got that fucked up gene.

00:18:04.000 Yeah.

00:18:05.000 Yeah, whatever it is, bro.

00:18:06.000 I'm sorry you went too far with it, but I've got it under control.

00:18:08.000 I like being a little buzzed.

00:18:09.000 I like it.

00:18:10.000 And luckily, the drugs in the drinking that I do, if I'm going to drink, I drink high-quality stuff, smoke a little weed, but the other drugs don't really do it for me.

00:18:21.000 Have you fucked with the other drugs?

00:18:22.000 I've tried just about everything.

00:18:25.000 I've done cocaine and the next day I've been like, I just feel stupid.

00:18:29.000 I feel like everything that came out of my mouth last night was dumb.

00:18:31.000 I feel like hell.

00:18:34.000 Weed chills me out.

00:18:35.000 I like beer and wine and vodka and whiskey.

00:18:39.000 I have not done a lot of things.

00:18:41.000 I've never done mescaline or peyote.

00:18:43.000 I think they're pretty much the same thing.

00:18:45.000 I've never done coke.

00:18:47.000 I've never done meth.

00:18:49.000 I've never done any real amphetamines.

00:18:51.000 I've always been scared of those, though, because those are the ones that I've seen people really lose their lives for.

00:18:57.000 Yes.

00:18:57.000 I don't mess with amphetamines at all, and I don't enjoy it.

00:19:00.000 Someone who grinds their teeth, that's awful.

00:19:04.000 And I found with comedy, you can't be funny on cocaine.

00:19:09.000 I'm always shocked at comics who do cocaine and are funny.

00:19:14.000 Because I just find it to be like, I can't laugh at anything, and I can't, like I'm talking too fast, my timing's off, and I'm not thinking in a funny way.

00:19:23.000 But I've always been surprised at comics who have coke problems.

00:19:26.000 Yeah, Joey Diaz talked about that, because Joey Diaz did coke for years, but he's never done coke and gone on stage.

00:19:32.000 He goes, every time I tried it, I was fucking terrible.

00:19:34.000 He goes, it takes away your soul, your heart.

00:19:37.000 You got no heart when you're up there.

00:19:39.000 Yeah.

00:19:39.000 You know, I guess, again, I've never done it, but what I get is just, I get that whole speedy thing where you just like, your sense of how people are perceiving you is distorted.

00:19:53.000 Your timing is distorted.

00:19:54.000 Yeah.

00:19:55.000 Like, I don't even go on stage high.

00:19:57.000 I may have a couple beers.

00:19:57.000 I don't want to be slurring.

00:19:59.000 If I haven't even smoked pot at all that day, it's a worse show for it.

00:20:02.000 Really?

00:20:02.000 Yeah.

00:20:03.000 I wonder what that is.

00:20:04.000 I think I'm just in my own head.

00:20:06.000 You know, it makes me want to get through the set as opposed to being present and enjoying it.

00:20:10.000 Like, I just want it to be over so I can go chill out.

00:20:13.000 You know?

00:20:14.000 That's interesting.

00:20:15.000 It's only with weed.

00:20:16.000 One of my favorite things to do when I would take guys on the road with me is get them so high that they could barely talk and then put them on stage.

00:20:24.000 Dude, the first two guys I would open for on the road, it was Doug Benson and Brian Posain.

00:20:30.000 Jesus Christ.

00:20:31.000 And they were like, they wanted to smoke all day.

00:20:33.000 That I was like, every time I was a feature act, like almost every time I was a feature act, I was terrible.

00:20:39.000 Because I thought like, I have to smoke.

00:20:41.000 I have to smoke with these guys so they won't take me on the road.

00:20:43.000 But I'm like barely getting through this half hour and I'm terrible.

00:20:47.000 It's not a smart move for someone who's just getting going.

00:20:50.000 To be that high on stage.

00:20:51.000 But one time I did...

00:20:52.000 I really didn't smoke pot until I was 30. Like, really smoked pot.

00:20:58.000 But I did it a handful of times when I was younger.

00:21:00.000 And one time, when I was like 21, I was living with my buddy Jimmy.

00:21:06.000 And him and one of his friends came over and he had pot.

00:21:11.000 And we smoked some pot during the day.

00:21:12.000 I think we had a barbecue or something.

00:21:14.000 And then I had a gig like six hours later.

00:21:16.000 I was still high.

00:21:17.000 And I remember being on stage...

00:21:20.000 And my timing was excellent.

00:21:23.000 And I was so locked in and focused.

00:21:25.000 And I remember being terrified that I was going to be terrible.

00:21:28.000 Terrified.

00:21:29.000 But I really nailed it for whatever reason.

00:21:32.000 But then I never did it again.

00:21:33.000 And I was like, boy, I got away with it.

00:21:36.000 And then I started smoking when I was 30. And it kind of changed my act.

00:21:42.000 It made my act more introspective.

00:21:47.000 I started talking about weirder subjects.

00:21:50.000 I started talking about things that I was actually more interested in.

00:21:53.000 Did you start to write on stage more when you were high on stage?

00:21:57.000 Yeah, I kind of always have written on stage a little bit, but mostly tangents.

00:22:04.000 I'd go off on a weird branch.

00:22:05.000 If I knew how to get back to the river, I would take a weird stream off to the right.

00:22:10.000 As long as I knew how to get back to the river of whatever the fuck I was talking about, I'd be fine.

00:22:16.000 But when I'm high...

00:22:18.000 I'll just, like, go wandering through the woods.

00:22:21.000 Like, I'm not even concerned about the river.

00:22:23.000 I'm like, you know, there's the river of thought, the pattern that you're following.

00:22:27.000 But when I'm high, I'm like, who the fuck wants that?

00:22:30.000 Why would you be that person?

00:22:32.000 And then I start thinking, like, I remember when I was a kid, and then I'll just, like, out of nowhere, have this idea, and I'm hoping it's going to go somewhere.

00:22:41.000 And those moments, I feel like, they're like, it's like, Foraging for food, like occasionally you find it.

00:22:51.000 Like if you go out looking for mushrooms, you don't know where they are.

00:22:53.000 You might find edible mushrooms.

00:22:55.000 Hopefully you're going to find them.

00:22:56.000 Sometimes you won't.

00:22:57.000 Sometimes you come home with an empty basket.

00:22:59.000 But sometimes you get them.

00:23:01.000 And the only way you find out is if you forage.

00:23:04.000 And that's kind of what it feels like when I'm high on stage.

00:23:08.000 But then I'm also really worried that I'm going to be boring.

00:23:13.000 I know I'm trying to develop material, but I also know I'm entertaining these people in the present.

00:23:21.000 So it's like a fine line.

00:23:22.000 Yeah, I don't have that confidence to waste the audience's time.

00:23:25.000 Do you know what I mean?

00:23:27.000 I'll see Chris Rock.

00:23:28.000 Chris Rock's a friend of mine and he'll go up and just like with nothing and just sit there and like very comfortably for 45 minutes and just kind of talk and look for things and has no problem with it whatsoever.

00:23:41.000 What else?

00:23:42.000 What else?

00:23:42.000 He'll go, what else?

00:23:44.000 What else?

00:23:44.000 And he'll like stare at the sky, look at the ground.

00:23:46.000 I can't.

00:23:47.000 You know who was the master at that?

00:23:49.000 It was Damon Wayans.

00:23:51.000 Oh my god.

00:23:52.000 Who a lot of people forgot.

00:23:53.000 A lot of people forgot was one of the fucking still is one of the best comics ever.

00:23:58.000 Damon was a goddamn murderer in the 90s.

00:24:01.000 Oh, I loved him coming up.

00:24:03.000 But I remember going to the Ha Ha Cafe.

00:24:06.000 They would do like a show every Tuesday that my friends would run.

00:24:09.000 And Damon Wayans would always drop in.

00:24:12.000 And do an hour and ruin the show.

00:24:14.000 Like, he would have no material, and he would just attack people in the crowd.

00:24:19.000 By the time he was offstage, like, the audience was furious.

00:24:22.000 Like, they went crazy when he came out, and then by the end, they were just like, why is he doing this to us?

00:24:27.000 And we were like, oh, fuck, Damon Wayans is here.

00:24:30.000 And it was so funny, somebody looked up to as a kid and, like, loved.

00:24:33.000 You're just like, oh, man, this asshole again.

00:24:35.000 Wow, that's crazy.

00:24:36.000 I wonder why he was doing that.

00:24:39.000 I guess it was probably because he couldn't do it at the store anymore.

00:24:42.000 Yeah.

00:24:42.000 How many years ago was this?

00:24:44.000 I mean, at least 10, 12, 13 years ago.

00:24:48.000 Yeah, see, that makes sense, right?

00:24:51.000 Because that's around 2005. Yeah, that's like probably he stopped going to the store.

00:24:55.000 The store probably tightened up the way they used to.

00:24:58.000 Because they used to just let anybody just drop.

00:25:00.000 Like, Eddie Griffin would drop in.

00:25:03.000 Wasn't on the schedule.

00:25:05.000 He would drop in at 9 p.m.

00:25:07.000 and get off stage at 3 a.m.

00:25:08.000 And that was real.

00:25:10.000 Yeah.

00:25:10.000 Yeah, that was real.

00:25:11.000 Six hours.

00:25:13.000 That would kill me.

00:25:14.000 That would kill me.

00:25:16.000 And then when he was done, he'd be like, who's next?

00:25:20.000 Who's next?

00:25:22.000 Who's next, dude?

00:25:22.000 You did six hours.

00:25:24.000 What's the longest set you've ever done?

00:25:26.000 I think an hour and 40 minutes.

00:25:29.000 Maybe a little longer.

00:25:30.000 I don't remember.

00:25:31.000 But I think an hour and 40 minutes is probably the longest I've ever done.

00:25:34.000 Yeah.

00:25:35.000 Yeah.

00:25:35.000 But that's too long.

00:25:36.000 Too long.

00:25:37.000 Yeah.

00:25:38.000 An hour and 20 is more than anybody should ever have to hear you talk.

00:25:41.000 Yeah.

00:25:41.000 And even that is like pushing it.

00:25:43.000 I like to do, when I do like a theater, I do an hour or an hour and 10. And I just want to just start and then finish.

00:25:54.000 Just come on down.

00:25:56.000 Go!

00:25:57.000 Ready?

00:25:57.000 And then for one hour, I want everything to be tight and concise, and I would way rather have an hour and ten minutes that people really enjoyed versus an hour and a half where they're like, oh, an hour of it was really funny.

00:26:10.000 Because then it leaves you with this, even if it's the same hour...

00:26:13.000 That extra time.

00:26:15.000 I also just think the audience doesn't want to see more than an hour of comedy.

00:26:20.000 People are like, oh, I did three hours the other night.

00:26:22.000 Why?

00:26:23.000 The audience must have hated it.

00:26:24.000 Chappelle used to drop in at the cellar.

00:26:27.000 He and Dan Cook were going back and forth for who could do the longer set.

00:26:30.000 Longest ever.

00:26:31.000 World record, right?

00:26:32.000 They had world records.

00:26:33.000 Yeah, and I think Bob Marley eventually broke it or something.

00:26:36.000 Bob Marley from Maine?

00:26:37.000 Oh yeah, didn't he do like two days on stage?

00:26:39.000 Yeah, he did something insane.

00:26:42.000 But Chappelle was down there one time and I was like, oh, I'm gonna go check it out.

00:26:44.000 And it was like almost unwatchable.

00:26:46.000 Yeah.

00:26:47.000 Because it was like the pacing that you have to do in order to be on stage that long.

00:26:51.000 And he was funny, but it would be like not funny for long stretches, then a big punchline.

00:26:55.000 Yeah.

00:26:55.000 And then back into it, you're like, all right.

00:26:57.000 That was when Dave was on hiatus, right?

00:27:01.000 That was when Dave kind of took time off of comedy for a long time.

00:27:05.000 He wasn't doing specials, but I think he was doing surprise shows.

00:27:10.000 He was always kind of on tour in weird venues.

00:27:13.000 He's still doing that now.

00:27:15.000 He's not always doing big, giant theaters.

00:27:18.000 He'll just want to book a 20-seat room and make his agents crazy.

00:27:22.000 Well, he's been doing the lab at the improv, that little tiny room, which is what, 50?

00:27:28.000 50 seats?

00:27:28.000 Maybe.

00:27:29.000 Yeah, he did it.

00:27:30.000 Aziz did it.

00:27:31.000 That's a place where comedy dies.

00:27:33.000 That little fucked up room.

00:27:34.000 I have always hated that room.

00:27:35.000 That room sucks every dick on the planet.

00:27:37.000 When people are like, oh, you can try out new stuff.

00:27:39.000 It's like, I can try out new stuff in the main room for a good crowd.

00:27:43.000 Like, why do I want to do this little terrible room?

00:27:46.000 I don't know why it's even there.

00:27:47.000 Well, it's a weird one, because the belly room is perfect.

00:27:51.000 The belly room works.

00:27:52.000 Yeah.

00:27:53.000 But for some reason, that lab seems like, why is there comedy here?

00:27:57.000 Why is the door right there?

00:27:59.000 Why is the street right there?

00:28:00.000 What is this?

00:28:01.000 Yeah.

00:28:01.000 What is this here?

00:28:02.000 What do you got going on here?

00:28:03.000 Everything about it is bad.

00:28:04.000 Yeah.

00:28:04.000 I was trying to tell them.

00:28:06.000 I go, turn that into the comic screen room.

00:28:07.000 They're like, no, there's good comedy there.

00:28:09.000 I'm like, shut your mouth.

00:28:10.000 You shut your mouth, you turn that into the comic screen room.

00:28:12.000 Yeah.

00:28:14.000 They used to be where the bar was, remember?

00:28:16.000 They used to be where everybody would hang out before the show.

00:28:18.000 It was great.

00:28:19.000 It was great!

00:28:19.000 And you'd go in the other room to go on stage.

00:28:21.000 And you would go from that part to go on stage.

00:28:24.000 Now everybody goes from the front door to go on stage, so you're trapped in that little hallway.

00:28:28.000 And you're like, where the fuck?

00:28:30.000 Where do I hide?

00:28:31.000 Yeah.

00:28:32.000 There's nowhere to hide.

00:28:32.000 That's why I love the store so much.

00:28:34.000 Because there's so many places to hide.

00:28:35.000 But the store has that little problem with the OR. Right before you're about to go on stage, you're in the hallway.

00:28:42.000 Yeah, I don't like the hallway, but I like those seats against the back.

00:28:45.000 Just for comics, you can kind of sit there and go over your notes and leave you alone.

00:28:49.000 I love that back bar.

00:28:51.000 That back bar is my favorite.

00:28:52.000 The back bar is the shit.

00:28:54.000 The secret comedian's bar.

00:28:57.000 What they've done in this new generation of managers and the people that run the place now...

00:29:04.000 They've sort of really paid attention to what's going to make these guys happier?

00:29:08.000 What's going to make this better?

00:29:10.000 You've got to give them a place where they can hide.

00:29:12.000 So give them that back bar.

00:29:13.000 And you go to the back bar any day.

00:29:14.000 It's filled with people just hanging out, talking shit.

00:29:18.000 It's fun.

00:29:19.000 It's like a fun place.

00:29:20.000 I go there.

00:29:20.000 I gravitate.

00:29:21.000 And I get into the back air.

00:29:23.000 I'm like, oh, look at all these cool people.

00:29:24.000 This is a great spot to hang out in.

00:29:26.000 Yeah.

00:29:27.000 They did that.

00:29:28.000 They added security.

00:29:31.000 It's night and day to the way it used to be.

00:29:33.000 Oh, I never used to go there.

00:29:35.000 I didn't like hanging out there.

00:29:36.000 I didn't like any part of it.

00:29:38.000 And then once the new management took over, I was like, oh, great.

00:29:41.000 I once did a show there.

00:29:43.000 I did a benefit.

00:29:44.000 There was a kid who died.

00:29:45.000 I forget his name.

00:29:46.000 He was a comic who died in a car accident, and they had a benefit for his family.

00:29:51.000 Oh, yeah.

00:29:51.000 That's Josh Adam Meyers' friend.

00:29:53.000 Yeah.

00:29:54.000 Angelo, yeah.

00:29:55.000 Yeah, Angelo Bowers.

00:29:56.000 I did not know him.

00:29:57.000 I didn't know him either.

00:29:58.000 But I guess he was like a fan of mine.

00:30:00.000 And I was like his favorite comic that they could get.

00:30:04.000 And I'm like, I'm on the marquee.

00:30:06.000 It's a sold out show.

00:30:07.000 I have a great set.

00:30:07.000 I walk off and Tommy comes up and he's like, the old manager's like, Anthony, that was great, man.

00:30:11.000 We got to get you around here.

00:30:13.000 You got to start hanging out.

00:30:14.000 You got to start hanging out and doing the open mic and stuff.

00:30:17.000 And I'm like, Tommy, my name is on the marquee right now.

00:30:20.000 You just watched me headline this show.

00:30:23.000 Like, what are you talking about?

00:30:27.000 We're good to go.

00:30:43.000 Yeah, well, there's two reasons.

00:30:45.000 One, I had to go physically to the store because Ari was filming his Comedy Central special.

00:30:58.000 Ari's just one of my best friends.

00:31:01.000 And I knew him from the time he was a doorman.

00:31:04.000 And I knew that him filming his special there was so important.

00:31:08.000 And there was no way I was going to miss it.

00:31:10.000 I was like, I have to be here.

00:31:11.000 Like, I have to see this at the store.

00:31:14.000 So I was like, ah, fuck.

00:31:15.000 All right, I got to go back.

00:31:16.000 And so I decided to go back.

00:31:17.000 I think he was filming on a Wednesday.

00:31:20.000 What night is Bros Battles on Tuesday, right?

00:31:23.000 So I went down there on a Tuesday.

00:31:24.000 I said, let me go down on a Tuesday just to see what's up.

00:31:27.000 And I went to Roast Battle, and I was like, holy shit, this place is electric.

00:31:31.000 This is crazy.

00:31:32.000 Like, the environment is so much different.

00:31:33.000 It's so creative.

00:31:35.000 And the night that I was at Roast Battle was fucking fantastic.

00:31:38.000 It was so good.

00:31:39.000 There were so many funny roasters.

00:31:41.000 And I remember thinking, wow, this place is just different, man.

00:31:45.000 It just feels so much different.

00:31:47.000 And it wasn't like it is now.

00:31:50.000 Like, now, like, you'll go on a Saturday night.

00:31:53.000 They'll have six sold-out shows.

00:31:55.000 Mm-hmm.

00:31:55.000 They have two shows in the belly room, two in the OR, two in the main room.

00:31:58.000 Everything sold out, packed with headliners, and it's chaos.

00:32:01.000 It wasn't like that.

00:32:02.000 It was still sort of shitty in terms of the numbers, but the vibe and the creativity was way different.

00:32:08.000 And the new guys and girls that were coming up, they were fucking good, man.

00:32:13.000 I was like, wow, this is a different vibe.

00:32:16.000 I had been gone for almost a decade.

00:32:18.000 Yeah.

00:32:19.000 So that brought me in.

00:32:20.000 Like I said, I had to be there for Ari.

00:32:22.000 There was no way.

00:32:24.000 There was no way I could miss it.

00:32:26.000 I had to be there.

00:32:27.000 So I'm like, alright, I'm just going to swallow it.

00:32:29.000 And that was probably what Adam for sure helped, but I might have stayed away forever if it wasn't for Ari.

00:32:35.000 I just had to see it.

00:32:37.000 Do you like Ghost Battle?

00:32:38.000 Do you like judging that?

00:32:40.000 I cringe sometimes because they're so fucking mean.

00:32:45.000 Yes.

00:32:46.000 Yeah.

00:32:48.000 Sometimes people are so mean, you know, but I do like it.

00:32:54.000 I do love the writing aspect of it.

00:32:56.000 I love the fact that it's a joke writers form, but I don't want to name any names of this one comic that I'm friends with.

00:33:03.000 That does really well on Roast Battle.

00:33:05.000 And I said, hey man, how come you, when you roast, you have all this good new material, but you're doing the same stupid shit when you go on stage all the time?

00:33:12.000 Like, you were doing the same set for years.

00:33:14.000 You're not advancing.

00:33:16.000 Because you're not writing a lot.

00:33:17.000 But you're writing a lot when you write for roasts.

00:33:20.000 And I'm like, you should treat your material the same way you treat your material when you have to roast.

00:33:27.000 The thing about the roast is, say, if you are going to roast with Tony Hinchcliffe.

00:33:32.000 You guys know each other.

00:33:33.000 You know who you're writing for.

00:33:35.000 All right, Tony, what does he look like?

00:33:36.000 You start fucking around with, oh, I know this about Tony and that about Tony.

00:33:41.000 This is going to be funny.

00:33:42.000 And it forces you to be creative.

00:33:44.000 Whereas I think there's so many guys that they develop a framework of a set.

00:33:50.000 And then they just kind of like, that is their comfort.

00:33:53.000 The comfort is in the fact that they know, even if it's not good, they know that they can go from this to that, and that to this, and they know where they're going, and they're not lost.

00:34:02.000 And I think that the beautiful thing about the roast is none of that material you can do in any other place.

00:34:10.000 You can only do it right there.

00:34:11.000 So you have to work on that.

00:34:12.000 And so oftentimes you see what a comic's capable of when they're roasting.

00:34:16.000 Versus what they're doing when they're actually doing the real set, which seems stale.

00:34:21.000 Yeah.

00:34:21.000 Yeah, I feel like it's almost...

00:34:24.000 I agree with everything you're saying that it's almost like it's not beneficial to be like a really good at roast battle and not as a stand-up.

00:34:32.000 It can take away from stand-up and people think it's like this path to glory and I'm not sure that it is.

00:34:38.000 No, I don't think it is.

00:34:40.000 I think it's a good exercise if you're treating all of your comedy the way you treat the roast battle.

00:34:46.000 Like you're always working on it.

00:34:47.000 But I think there's a lot of guys who just aren't working on it.

00:34:49.000 I think part of our problem is There's no other art form, like stand-up, where there's, like, you were telling me, you were saying how you took a class to learn to get on stage, but you were quick to add, and almost every great comic does this, that you really didn't learn anything in that class.

00:35:05.000 But it got you to the stage.

00:35:07.000 That's weird.

00:35:09.000 That there's nothing, like, the best...

00:35:11.000 The education that we have is talking to each other.

00:35:15.000 Like, how do you write?

00:35:16.000 How do you do it?

00:35:17.000 And I'm always, I've been doing comedy 30 years, and I'm always like, how do you do it?

00:35:21.000 What are you doing?

00:35:22.000 What are you doing this way?

00:35:22.000 Are you doing it that way?

00:35:23.000 What do you write?

00:35:24.000 Do you write it out?

00:35:25.000 Like, everybody's got a different thing.

00:35:27.000 Like, Bill Byrd doesn't write anything out.

00:35:29.000 He has notes and he works it out on stage.

00:35:31.000 He has these ideas in his head and then he rants and he uses his podcast to develop a lot of his material because his podcast is unique and it's just him talking.

00:35:42.000 But everybody's got a different thing and there's no one who's right.

00:35:45.000 No.

00:35:46.000 No one's right.

00:35:48.000 Stan Hope who said that if you give a comic advice, you're just telling them how to be more like you.

00:35:53.000 You know, that I kind of agree with it.

00:35:55.000 You can say, like, write more, get on stage as much as you can.

00:35:58.000 You know, that's important.

00:35:59.000 But there are things even in comedy that, like, you hear early on that it takes 10 years to understand.

00:36:05.000 Yeah.

00:36:05.000 You know, like, I remember the movie...

00:36:08.000 The movie Comedian with Jerry Seinfeld was like a huge influence on me.

00:36:12.000 And there's one point where Seinfeld's kind of depressed and he's like, Colin Quinn's like, what's the matter?

00:36:16.000 He's like, I just don't know when I'll be back.

00:36:18.000 You know, when I'll feel like I'm back again with this new material.

00:36:20.000 And Colin Quinn says, when you're on stage and you're killing and you're miserable, that's when you'll know you're back.

00:36:27.000 Like when you're just like, great, I'm making these idiots laugh.

00:36:29.000 And Seinfeld is dying laughing.

00:36:30.000 And I was like, I saw that and I didn't understand what he meant.

00:36:34.000 And now I know exactly what he meant.

00:36:36.000 You know?

00:36:37.000 Well, if I could go back to when that was filming, I would grab Orny Adams and go, don't do it.

00:36:42.000 Don't let them do this to you, man.

00:36:44.000 How long have you been doing comedy?

00:36:45.000 Don't let them do this.

00:36:48.000 They're doing this to make Jerry look better.

00:36:50.000 Don't let them do it.

00:36:52.000 I mean, he must have thought it was the biggest thing in the world for him.

00:36:56.000 Yeah.

00:36:57.000 And I'm so mad.

00:36:59.000 I love that movie.

00:37:00.000 I watch the DVD once a year, and there's no Orny Adams commentary track.

00:37:04.000 They should give him one, right?

00:37:06.000 They'll reference it.

00:37:07.000 Like in the other commentators, they'll be like, Ornie will talk about this in his, and I think he was so angry with the way he was portrayed that he refused to do one.

00:37:14.000 Well, that's weird.

00:37:15.000 They just edited him, the worst aspects of it.

00:37:19.000 They didn't want to give a nuanced perspective on who he is and what he's doing.

00:37:23.000 They just wanted him to be like the young guy who's trying to figure it out versus the old, you know, legend.

00:37:31.000 Mm-hmm.

00:37:33.000 But my friends would use them as an example.

00:37:35.000 If I was acting like a jerk, they'd be like, you're behaving like Orny, Adam.

00:37:39.000 I came in second in a comedy competition, and I was mad about it.

00:37:43.000 And they were like, don't be like Orny.

00:37:44.000 And I was like, thank you.

00:37:45.000 Got it.

00:37:48.000 Well, he's doing great now.

00:37:50.000 I mean, Orny's doing fine.

00:37:52.000 I've met him a couple times.

00:37:54.000 He's always been nice to me.

00:37:55.000 I once did a show at the Improv.

00:37:58.000 This is years ago.

00:37:59.000 And it's an 8 o'clock show.

00:38:01.000 I'm not the headliner.

00:38:03.000 Orny's going on after me.

00:38:04.000 But it's like I'm the biggest name on the marquee.

00:38:07.000 And I get there and there's six people in the audience.

00:38:10.000 And two of them were like friends of mine who had never seen me perform before.

00:38:14.000 And I was like, this is humiliating.

00:38:16.000 I'm like yelling at the staff.

00:38:17.000 I'm like, how do you have six people here at 8 p.m.

00:38:20.000 on a Friday?

00:38:20.000 I can go to the store right now and the five rooms are sold out.

00:38:23.000 Like, what's going on?

00:38:24.000 And I get on stage, and I'm so embarrassed that my friends are seeing me, that I'm yelling at the staff.

00:38:30.000 Staff members are walking by, and I'm screaming, yelling at the sound guy.

00:38:33.000 I don't even do a joke.

00:38:34.000 I put the mic down, I'm like, fuck this place, I'm never coming back, and I leave.

00:38:38.000 And I see my friends a couple days later, and I'm like, so sorry about that.

00:38:41.000 They're like, no, you were funny.

00:38:42.000 They go, the guy who went after you, that guy was angry.

00:38:46.000 And I'm like, that guy was angry?

00:38:48.000 I yelled at the sound guy for 15 minutes, like, what the hell did he do?

00:38:53.000 The improv had those dark moments.

00:38:56.000 They still kind of do sometimes.

00:38:57.000 Like, Sharp did a show there recently on a Friday night.

00:39:00.000 There was 25 people in the crowd.

00:39:02.000 I blew up at the new booker.

00:39:05.000 They called me up and were like, we would love to have you back.

00:39:08.000 We see you at the store.

00:39:09.000 What can we do to get you back at the improv?

00:39:10.000 And I'm like, email me once a week and tell me what spots you have and I'll tell you when I can go.

00:39:15.000 Like, alright.

00:39:16.000 I'm booked for a Wednesday.

00:39:17.000 I see the lineup.

00:39:18.000 It's like me, five people, Tiffany Haddish.

00:39:20.000 I'm like, great.

00:39:21.000 Should be a good show.

00:39:22.000 Day of.

00:39:23.000 The improv emails me and they're like, listen, Tiffany Haddish wants to do an hour and she wants you to introduce her.

00:39:30.000 So it's just going to be the two of you guys, no MC. And I'm like, did you just bump me down to opening act?

00:39:37.000 And not asking if this is okay, just like, you're now the MC going up cold.

00:39:43.000 And I'm like, alright, I'll be there, but know that I'm furious.

00:39:47.000 And they're like, why don't you just cancel?

00:39:49.000 And I'm like, because I want you to know how mad I am, and I'm never coming back here.

00:39:52.000 And Tiffany was great, I was nice to her, but I couldn't believe that they would treat me like that.

00:39:58.000 I'm there tomorrow night.

00:39:59.000 At the improv?

00:39:59.000 I'm there all the time.

00:40:00.000 Yeah.

00:40:01.000 You want to do a set?

00:40:02.000 Maybe.

00:40:02.000 It was sold out.

00:40:03.000 It was sold out.

00:40:04.000 Actually, I'm going to dinner to celebrate the special.

00:40:08.000 Damn.

00:40:08.000 Yeah.

00:40:09.000 It's good if you catch it with a packed crowd.

00:40:12.000 It's just they didn't have...

00:40:15.000 The right approach to marketing.

00:40:19.000 Yeah.

00:40:19.000 That's all it is.

00:40:20.000 But when I first started, that was the club.

00:40:22.000 Yeah.

00:40:23.000 Well, that was where I went when I left the store.

00:40:26.000 When I left the store for seven years, I did my sets at the Improv, at the Ice House, Ha Ha.

00:40:30.000 I did just anywhere else but the store.

00:40:34.000 Laugh Factory?

00:40:35.000 No.

00:40:36.000 Never?

00:40:37.000 They film you.

00:40:39.000 Yes.

00:40:40.000 Yeah.

00:40:40.000 And they put people up.

00:40:42.000 They've done it with me.

00:40:43.000 They put your shit up online.

00:40:45.000 And they say they don't do it anymore, but it's too late.

00:40:47.000 You can't just do that.

00:40:48.000 Yeah.

00:40:49.000 And their attitude about it was very disappointing.

00:40:51.000 Like, when I told them that I wanted them to take my shit down, they were not...

00:40:57.000 They weren't...

00:40:59.000 They weren't understanding or apologetic until it became a big deal.

00:41:03.000 Yeah.

00:41:04.000 Like, big deal.

00:41:05.000 Like, you know, like how to get other people involved.

00:41:08.000 It was not good.

00:41:09.000 It's not wise to think that you could just film people and put them online when they're working out for free.

00:41:15.000 Yeah, and not tell them.

00:41:16.000 Yeah, especially like a guy like you, who's going to do a fucking Netflix special, so you're going to release this stuff and put it online long before Netflix gets a hold of it?

00:41:26.000 And the attitude about it just wasn't good.

00:41:28.000 I mean, it's a great club.

00:41:29.000 I've worked there many, many times.

00:41:31.000 I just don't do it anymore.

00:41:33.000 Yeah.

00:41:35.000 Get it together.

00:41:36.000 You know, this is the fucking big leagues.

00:41:38.000 We're in Hollywood.

00:41:38.000 This is not like some fucking shithole comedy club in the middle of nowhere that nobody goes to.

00:41:44.000 This is on the Sunset Strip.

00:41:46.000 This is in Hollywood.

00:41:48.000 And you're doing that?

00:41:49.000 Like, what are you guys, what are you doing?

00:41:51.000 Yeah, you couldn't trust them.

00:41:53.000 It just was ridiculous.

00:41:54.000 But it's a great club.

00:41:56.000 I mean, you go there, you'll see great comedy.

00:41:58.000 It's a fucking killer setup.

00:42:00.000 You know, there's a lot of the pieces are in place for it to be amazing.

00:42:05.000 Yeah.

00:42:05.000 I was going back for a little bit, but they would use me to promote the whole show.

00:42:09.000 It's like as if it's just my show, but I'm just doing 15 minutes and making the same money as everybody else in the lineup.

00:42:15.000 If I'm at the comedy store, it's like me, you, Delia, Sebastian.

00:42:19.000 You don't feel that pressure, and we're all in it together kind of thing.

00:42:23.000 I enjoy the store a lot more than just the way they promote.

00:42:28.000 I feel less pressure.

00:42:29.000 Yeah, the quality of the comedy is better at the store.

00:42:33.000 And there's something about that that I think is like, one of the things that's happened from the seven years ago, or the seven years when I was gone versus now, which I've been back like almost four years, it'll be four years in November, or five years in November, is that...

00:42:49.000 It's better for me to see guys like you and to see guys like Neil Brennan and all these, just working with killers, just this lineup of like, where I know that if there's 400 people in that audience,

00:43:05.000 they're coming to see everybody.

00:43:06.000 They're not just coming to see me.

00:43:07.000 And I think that's critical for developing material.

00:43:11.000 I think it's critical for putting, piecing stuff together and putting an act together.

00:43:16.000 It's like, I need a balanced audience.

00:43:19.000 I don't want to perform for the converted.

00:43:23.000 You know what I mean?

00:43:23.000 Exactly.

00:43:24.000 I feel like the store is like a gym where you're working out.

00:43:28.000 I don't get the same laughs at the store that I do if I go to Largo and every single person there has paid $30 just to see me.

00:43:37.000 It makes it easier, but because I've worked at the store, it's like I've earned that at Largo.

00:43:43.000 But if I just did Largo all the time and that was it, I wouldn't be as good.

00:43:47.000 You need to suffer a little bit.

00:43:50.000 They're so nice at Largo.

00:43:53.000 I did Whitney's show at Largo.

00:43:56.000 It was so nice.

00:43:58.000 I did this bit about mocking feminists.

00:44:02.000 And I could say, like, I don't like feminists for the same reason why I don't like white people who are only into white people.

00:44:08.000 Like, I like people who like everybody.

00:44:10.000 Like, I'm not interested in anybody who's really only into one thing.

00:44:15.000 You know, like, come on.

00:44:17.000 Stop.

00:44:17.000 Like, it's nonsense.

00:44:19.000 Like, do women need equal rights?

00:44:21.000 Of course.

00:44:22.000 Of course.

00:44:23.000 Yeah.

00:44:23.000 But I don't want to hear you talk about it all the time.

00:44:25.000 It's annoying.

00:44:26.000 And you can see the tightening up, like someone saying that they don't like feminists.

00:44:31.000 It's like, oh, you guys are indoctrinated.

00:44:33.000 I see what this is.

00:44:34.000 And so then I felt like, and it helped me actually develop this one piece that I was doing, and that sort of a It rounded out this one piece I was doing because I was trying to figure out a way that I could explain it to someone who might have a preconceived notion about who I am.

00:44:52.000 To say it in a way that makes people that were hesitant Laugh.

00:44:59.000 You know what I mean?

00:45:00.000 Versus savages at 11.30 on a Saturday night that are hammered.

00:45:06.000 Yeah, so Whitney Cummings' crowd wasn't into your anti-feminist?

00:45:10.000 They laughed!

00:45:10.000 They laughed.

00:45:11.000 Because the punchline was good, and I had a place to go with it.

00:45:14.000 And the place to go was ultimately mocking men's rights activists.

00:45:18.000 The real thing was...

00:45:22.000 The setup for that joke is, I don't like anybody who's into one thing.

00:45:26.000 And I go, but what drives me the most fucking crazy is men's rights activists.

00:45:30.000 Like, every men's rights activist I ever met, I just want to grab them and go, dude, we got them all.

00:45:35.000 We got all the rights.

00:45:36.000 We got them all.

00:45:38.000 I can't believe that's a real thing, a men's rights activist.

00:45:40.000 Well, it's a real thing if you get divorced and you have child, it's for child custody.

00:45:45.000 Those things are real.

00:45:47.000 Like, guys really, I know men who have gotten really fucked over in divorce, where their wife hired a fucking killer lawyer, and they dragged them through.

00:45:57.000 See, the thing about, and I learned this from Phil Hartman, Unfortunately, before he died, I was trying to tell him to get divorced.

00:46:04.000 And I said, just give her half, man.

00:46:06.000 You'll make more money.

00:46:07.000 He goes, it's not half.

00:46:08.000 He goes, it's two thirds.

00:46:10.000 He goes, the fucking lawyers take a third.

00:46:11.000 It's a goddamn scam.

00:46:12.000 You know, he was furious about it because apparently he had been trying to figure it out, like how to do it.

00:46:17.000 But I had a friend whose wife, ex-wife, Dragged it out on purpose because she wanted him to pay the legal bills.

00:46:25.000 So he had to pay for her lawyer, he had to pay for his lawyer, and then he had to pay for all of the times that she decided to change the goalposts and renegotiate.

00:46:40.000 No one can say that you can't renegotiate.

00:46:43.000 So she would just renegotiate and just drag things out.

00:46:47.000 And her goal was to try to drain him financially.

00:46:51.000 So she was doing this on purpose, like targeting him.

00:46:54.000 So he was essentially paying for the general of the army that was plotting to murder him.

00:47:00.000 And he was slowly going crazy and I was watching my friend go crazy and it took several years for it to be completely resolved and he's still paying her.

00:47:09.000 He's been divorced for I think 12 years now and he still pays her.

00:47:14.000 Jesus.

00:47:14.000 They didn't have a child.

00:47:16.000 And he has a family now.

00:47:17.000 He's married with children now.

00:47:19.000 And he still pays this person.

00:47:22.000 Like, he fucked her so hard she can't work.

00:47:24.000 12 years later.

00:47:26.000 Yeah, so that's where men's rights activists have a point.

00:47:29.000 Because if you're in a state that's particularly progressive or liberal in regards to alimony and child support...

00:47:39.000 Well, the only thing that we win on that is Tom Arnold.

00:47:42.000 We got one on the board for Tom Arnold.

00:47:45.000 But the problem with that is I love Roseanne more than I love Tom Arnold.

00:47:49.000 No offense, Tom.

00:47:50.000 But I do.

00:47:51.000 So it bothered me that Roseanne had to pay him.

00:47:54.000 Get the fuck out of here.

00:47:56.000 You can work.

00:47:58.000 How come when you were the successful person, if that successful person says, fucking kick bricks, get out of here, you have to pay them?

00:48:06.000 That person has to pay the person they're getting rid of?

00:48:09.000 Why?

00:48:10.000 Oh, he's used to her lifestyle.

00:48:12.000 What?

00:48:12.000 That I'm used to it is the craziest thing.

00:48:16.000 It's crazy!

00:48:17.000 The only thing that makes sense is childcare.

00:48:19.000 That makes sense.

00:48:20.000 Like, hey...

00:48:22.000 This person is taking care of the children.

00:48:24.000 They're your children.

00:48:25.000 You guys had these children together.

00:48:27.000 You have to contribute to the money that it costs to raise a child.

00:48:32.000 100%.

00:48:32.000 I get it.

00:48:33.000 What I don't get is alimony.

00:48:36.000 I just don't get it.

00:48:37.000 We're not together anymore.

00:48:38.000 Know how we were before we were together and you didn't have any money and then you met me and now I have money and then you got used to having money?

00:48:44.000 Well, you're going to have to get used to not having money because now you don't have any money because now we're not together anymore.

00:48:49.000 Or like a year, maybe.

00:48:50.000 You know what I mean?

00:48:51.000 Like, let her take some time to get back on her feet.

00:48:54.000 Don't be a prostitute or anything.

00:48:56.000 Yeah.

00:48:56.000 You don't have to be a...

00:48:57.000 I think it's just bitterness.

00:48:58.000 It's like, I want to take you for everything that I can.

00:49:00.000 Like, one of my friends who was going through a divorce, he was like, of all my friends who've gotten a divorce...

00:49:06.000 80% of them, if they have kids, the wife accuses the husband of molesting the kids.

00:49:11.000 Oh, Jesus Christ.

00:49:12.000 Just for visitation.

00:49:15.000 For negotiation.

00:49:17.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:49:18.000 Well, lawyers are onto that now.

00:49:20.000 This is actually something that my friend was warned of when him and his wife were splitting up.

00:49:25.000 Like, is your wife malicious?

00:49:27.000 Will she make some sort of a baseless accusation?

00:49:30.000 And he's like, how so?

00:49:31.000 And then they went into that.

00:49:33.000 Yeah, man, there's evil people out there.

00:49:35.000 And there's also this thing that happens when people break up with someone.

00:49:39.000 If there's someone who doesn't want to be with you anymore, someone that you deeply loved and cared about, you want them to suffer.

00:49:45.000 It's weird.

00:49:47.000 It's weird.

00:49:48.000 I mean, it's normal.

00:49:49.000 So I guess it's not that weird.

00:49:51.000 But the evil, vicious jealousy.

00:49:54.000 You know, like, you see that vicious jealousy in chimpanzees?

00:49:58.000 Like, one of the things that chimpanzees do when they attack people, one of the things they attack people over is unfairness.

00:50:04.000 Like, there was a terrible story about a guy who had kept a pet chimp and then brought the chimp a birthday cake on his birthday.

00:50:12.000 Brian Posehn has a whole bit about it.

00:50:13.000 Do you?

00:50:14.000 Does he really?

00:50:14.000 Yeah.

00:50:15.000 And the other chimps found out that this chimp was getting a birthday cake, and they saw it, and they weren't getting any cake, and they were fucking furious.

00:50:21.000 So someone had inadvertently left one of the gates open, so the chimps got out and tore this guy apart because of a birthday cake.

00:50:29.000 But it's that thing.

00:50:30.000 It's not like it was affecting them.

00:50:32.000 It's like he was doing something bad to them, so they got out and killed him.

00:50:36.000 No, they ripped his dick off because they didn't like the fact they gave the other chimp a birthday cake.

00:50:40.000 Took his dick, took his fingers.

00:50:41.000 Took his feet.

00:50:42.000 Yeah.

00:50:43.000 Yeah.

00:50:44.000 Posehn's bit's so funny.

00:50:45.000 He's like, the worst thing about that story for that guy is that everyone's going to want to hear it forever.

00:50:50.000 Because it starts with, so I was bringing a birthday cake to a chimpanzee, and then you've got to hear the rest.

00:50:57.000 But that anger and jealousy, there's an evolutionary basis for it.

00:51:02.000 Oh, is that what he looks like now?

00:51:04.000 Yeah.

00:51:04.000 Oh my god.

00:51:05.000 I'm not going to show it.

00:51:06.000 It's tough.

00:51:06.000 His fingers are missing.

00:51:08.000 His face is missing.

00:51:09.000 He's got one eye.

00:51:10.000 His nose is gone.

00:51:11.000 Oh, look at that frown.

00:51:13.000 Oh my god.

00:51:14.000 Well, his face was ripped apart.

00:51:16.000 He probably stitched it together that way.

00:51:18.000 Awful.

00:51:20.000 Yeah, it's fucking awful, man.

00:51:23.000 Yeah, you can't own a chimp, you crazy assholes.

00:51:26.000 They're the most vicious of all the primates next to people.

00:51:30.000 Aren't they good for, like, you can put, like, train them for, like, the first, like, five years of their life, and then they forget everything.

00:51:36.000 They just decide they're gonna fuck you up.

00:51:38.000 Yeah.

00:51:38.000 And they're so strong.

00:51:39.000 What is that one doing?

00:51:40.000 Is that the chimp?

00:51:41.000 No, no, but it just popped up in the same group of pictures.

00:51:44.000 Jesus.

00:51:45.000 Hairless chimp.

00:51:45.000 They're so mean.

00:51:47.000 It's such a mean species.

00:51:50.000 You know, there's a problem with colobus monkeys in parts of Africa where chimps live, because they've eaten so many colobus monkeys that their population's down 97%.

00:52:01.000 Yeah, they rip them apart and eat them while they're alive.

00:52:05.000 Are they tiny colobus monkeys?

00:52:06.000 No, they're not big.

00:52:07.000 No.

00:52:07.000 Big enough to eat.

00:52:09.000 But this is a David Attenborough documentary from the 90s where they first discovered that chimps eat monkeys.

00:52:15.000 They really didn't know.

00:52:16.000 They thought the chimps were basically herbivores.

00:52:19.000 And then they got this video footage of them hunting these monkeys and the way they would corral them and beat them through the trees and catch them.

00:52:27.000 And this monkey's screaming while this chimp is ripping it apart from the hips, just chewing it and pulling it apart.

00:52:35.000 And he's like...

00:52:37.000 And he's like basically ripping his legs and his ass end off and just eating it alive.

00:52:43.000 Goddamn.

00:52:43.000 They're fucking mean, man.

00:52:45.000 They're fucking mean.

00:52:46.000 It's a mean animal.

00:52:48.000 But I get the fact that, look, everything's mean in the jungle.

00:52:52.000 There's big cats and poisonous snakes and spiders and it's just a hard, hard, hard world.

00:52:58.000 But the thing that gets me is the jealousy.

00:53:02.000 Because I don't think other animals experience jealousy.

00:53:05.000 The way chimps do.

00:53:06.000 Is that it right there?

00:53:07.000 From the Attenborough documentary.

00:53:09.000 The end of the clip where they actually caught it.

00:53:10.000 Yeah.

00:53:11.000 So that's a monkey in his hand.

00:53:13.000 Jesus.

00:53:14.000 Yeah, dude.

00:53:15.000 The videos of it, killing it while they're pulling it apart.

00:53:20.000 But that jealousy that, I want you to suffer.

00:53:22.000 I didn't get that fucking cake.

00:53:25.000 Oh, you don't let me have that cake?

00:53:26.000 I can't get any cake?

00:53:27.000 I'm going to pull your fucking dick off.

00:53:29.000 I'm going to bite your nose off.

00:53:30.000 That is a...

00:53:32.000 That's a strange trait for an animal to have.

00:53:35.000 Oh, yeah.

00:53:36.000 I think it's a terrible trait for a human being to have.

00:53:39.000 Oh, yeah.

00:53:39.000 We are animals.

00:53:40.000 Yeah.

00:53:41.000 It's something you've got to work on.

00:53:43.000 But when it comes to divorce, that's that same thing.

00:53:45.000 It's like that same, I want you to fucking suffer.

00:53:49.000 I want to pull your dick off.

00:53:50.000 And that's why people hire hitmen and shit to kill their ex-wives and kill their ex-husbands.

00:53:55.000 Well, yeah.

00:53:55.000 People don't get less crazy as they age.

00:53:57.000 No.

00:53:58.000 No.

00:53:59.000 No.

00:54:00.000 No, no, [...

00:54:01.000 A lot of times they get more, because then they realize it's almost over.

00:54:04.000 The ride's over, and now, you know, you're a 65-year-old lady, no one wants to fuck you.

00:54:10.000 And you're a 65-year-old man, no one wants to fuck you either.

00:54:13.000 And now, all of a sudden, you guys are battling, you know?

00:54:17.000 Yeah.

00:54:17.000 Battling over finances and this and that.

00:54:20.000 I gave you the best years of my life.

00:54:22.000 That's my favorite.

00:54:23.000 I did a girl once when we broke up.

00:54:25.000 She said, I wasted all this time with you.

00:54:27.000 I said, oh.

00:54:29.000 I go, I thought we were dating.

00:54:31.000 Yeah.

00:54:31.000 I didn't know you were investing.

00:54:33.000 Yeah.

00:54:34.000 I wasted it.

00:54:36.000 Oh, you wasted it.

00:54:37.000 Well...

00:54:39.000 I guess every relationship when it's over is a waste.

00:54:41.000 Like, what?

00:54:43.000 That's so bizarre.

00:54:44.000 Yeah.

00:54:45.000 Bizarre way of looking at it.

00:54:46.000 Yeah, enjoy the present.

00:54:47.000 Enjoy the time you had together.

00:54:49.000 Yeah, but if you're thinking about it in terms of, like, hitching a rod on a successful train.

00:54:54.000 Yeah, if your goal is to get married, and you're with someone for five years, and then you break up, like, oh, you know, I should have been with someone else.

00:55:01.000 Yeah.

00:55:01.000 Who would have married me?

00:55:02.000 Now I gotta find someone else.

00:55:04.000 Yeah.

00:55:06.000 The jealousy thing about the breakup, it's so normal.

00:55:10.000 It's so hard for people to not be jealous.

00:55:13.000 Very few people ever break up and go, Hey man, she's cool.

00:55:17.000 It just didn't work out.

00:55:18.000 I was a dick.

00:55:19.000 She needed some growing.

00:55:21.000 We both needed time away.

00:55:23.000 Hey, I wish her well.

00:55:24.000 I've never really gotten jealous.

00:55:25.000 I always like when they move on.

00:55:27.000 You know what I mean?

00:55:27.000 When they get a new boyfriend, you're just like, oh, thank God.

00:55:30.000 But that's because you're a comic.

00:55:31.000 You have opportunities.

00:55:33.000 Yeah, true.

00:55:34.000 But it's like you're not their responsibility anymore.

00:55:36.000 You know what I mean?

00:55:37.000 If they're single, they can still call you up in the middle of the night.

00:55:42.000 Get mad at you.

00:55:42.000 Yeah.

00:55:42.000 Still get mad about things.

00:55:44.000 Let's talk about this again.

00:55:46.000 Once you're dating someone else, you're like, all right.

00:55:48.000 You're someone else's problem now.

00:55:49.000 The best is when they have a kid with someone else.

00:55:51.000 You're like, yeah.

00:55:51.000 Yes!

00:55:52.000 It's over, baby!

00:55:54.000 Yeah, never talk to you again.

00:55:55.000 I'm free.

00:55:57.000 It's interesting, man.

00:55:59.000 It's an interesting thing when you decide to...

00:56:03.000 Touch naked bodies with a person.

00:56:06.000 You create this bond by doing things with your bodies and spending time together.

00:56:11.000 And then you separate.

00:56:12.000 But you're always going to have this, yeah, but I used to touch naked bodies with her.

00:56:17.000 Yeah, we used to get together and we used to do things together.

00:56:20.000 We don't do it anymore, but I did it.

00:56:22.000 I did it back in the day.

00:56:23.000 I got her naked and we got naked together.

00:56:25.000 Yeah, you had history.

00:56:25.000 Yeah, it's history.

00:56:26.000 It's weird.

00:56:28.000 She'll never forget.

00:56:29.000 I won't either.

00:56:30.000 We touched each other.

00:56:32.000 Yeah.

00:56:32.000 I like the idea of relationships, looking back fondly on relationships.

00:56:36.000 I never felt like, oh, I wasted my time.

00:56:38.000 There are people that I've dated that I'm like, probably shouldn't have done that.

00:56:41.000 But for the most part, I try to have good feelings about it.

00:56:45.000 You don't want to hate a period of your life.

00:56:48.000 No, it's pointless.

00:56:50.000 But there's lessons learned.

00:56:51.000 Those ones that I've had that were like, ugh.

00:56:54.000 That's how you know when you date someone and it's cool.

00:56:58.000 When they're good, you get it.

00:57:00.000 I dated this girl a long, long time ago who was super negative.

00:57:03.000 Just super negative all the time.

00:57:05.000 And then I dated this other girl right afterwards who was not negative at all.

00:57:08.000 She was always laughing about stuff and joking around no matter what.

00:57:12.000 Even if her car could get in an accident, she'd take a deep breath and go...

00:57:16.000 Well, that car's fucked up!

00:57:18.000 And she would start laughing.

00:57:20.000 And I was like, oh, there's different ways to handle things.

00:57:23.000 Like, if you get stuck with your high school sweetheart, and she's a pain in the ass forever, like, you never understand.

00:57:29.000 Like, there are the exact same circumstances.

00:57:32.000 One person is going to handle it completely differently.

00:57:35.000 And if you're with that person, it's going to be a totally different experience.

00:57:38.000 Where it'll be a bonding experience versus them woe-is-me-ing for the next six months and bringing it back to...

00:57:45.000 I can't even look at a Taurus because it reminds me of when I got in that accident.

00:57:49.000 A Taurus hit my car!

00:57:52.000 Like, fuck, that was a year ago!

00:57:54.000 I like when people are together for a long time, they break up, and then the guy gets married to the next woman he runs into.

00:58:00.000 Instantly.

00:58:01.000 Instantly.

00:58:02.000 He just found the opposite of what he'd been dealing with and was just so over the moon about it.

00:58:06.000 They had to marry her right away.

00:58:07.000 That happened to a buddy of mine.

00:58:09.000 He dated an actress.

00:58:10.000 And then it was just brutal.

00:58:13.000 Everything was career this, career that.

00:58:15.000 It was about her career.

00:58:16.000 He was trying to help her career.

00:58:18.000 And then they broke up.

00:58:20.000 And he's like, I'm never getting married again.

00:58:21.000 A month later, he's with this new chick.

00:58:23.000 And he's living with her two months later.

00:58:24.000 And then he's married six months later.

00:58:26.000 I'm like, what happened?

00:58:27.000 He goes, I realized it wasn't that I didn't want to be married.

00:58:31.000 He goes, I just didn't want to be married to her.

00:58:33.000 Because I realized, like, there's some people out there that I get along great with.

00:58:37.000 And if you don't bail on a bad relationship, you don't know that there's, you can be, and you are going to be different.

00:58:45.000 That's the other thing.

00:58:46.000 Like, I'm different with different people.

00:58:49.000 You're different with, like, you react better to certain people.

00:58:53.000 And certain people's personalities, you jive better with them.

00:58:57.000 You have more fun with them.

00:58:58.000 It's more entertaining.

00:58:59.000 And you get to reintroduce yourself.

00:59:01.000 The other person knows you for this five-year period of time when maybe you weren't at your best.

00:59:07.000 But you've already used all your tricks.

00:59:09.000 If you give a girl diamond earrings, you can never give her diamond earrings again for as long as you live.

00:59:16.000 That present is over for now.

00:59:18.000 And then when you get this one with someone new, it's a clean slate.

00:59:22.000 Right.

00:59:22.000 You can impress them.

00:59:23.000 Yeah, they haven't heard your fucking dumb stories already.

00:59:26.000 You can be like, I'll listen to this.

00:59:28.000 Well, I always tell guys, strive to be the person you pretend to be when you're trying to get laid.

00:59:34.000 If you can be that person, that real person all the time, which is very difficult to do, but if you can be that person most of the time, if not all the time, you'll have a better life.

00:59:44.000 Yes.

00:59:44.000 I would agree with that.

00:59:46.000 Yeah.

00:59:46.000 But it's fun to try to impress people.

00:59:48.000 It's fun when you meet someone.

00:59:49.000 Like, boy, wait till they see how witty I am.

00:59:52.000 Yeah.

00:59:53.000 I think it's weird, like, with me, I'm like...

00:59:56.000 I don't like, when someone's just into me just because they know who I am, you're a famous comedian, I'm like a little annoyed, but if they have no idea who I am, I'm also a little annoyed.

01:00:05.000 You know, it's like, there should be perks to this that I'm missing out on here.

01:00:09.000 Yeah, did you not Google me?

01:00:11.000 Yeah.

01:00:13.000 Yeah, you're not a comedy fan?

01:00:14.000 What?

01:00:14.000 Are you from another country?

01:00:16.000 What's going on?

01:00:16.000 Could you imagine dating someone who didn't like comedy?

01:00:18.000 Anthony, I love you.

01:00:20.000 You're amazing, but I don't like stand-up.

01:00:24.000 I mean, if it was someone who just didn't like stand-up but thought I was great, I could handle it.

01:00:30.000 They didn't like stand-up in general, but they like your material in particular.

01:00:33.000 Like, do you watch a lot of stand-up?

01:00:35.000 Me?

01:00:35.000 Yeah.

01:00:36.000 I watch it at the clubs.

01:00:37.000 I very rarely sit down and watch a special.

01:00:40.000 Yeah.

01:00:41.000 Do you?

01:00:41.000 Do you watch a special ever?

01:00:42.000 Like, right now I'm working on it and trying to put together a new hour, so I'm trying to go back and watch stuff, but for years I didn't watch anything.

01:00:50.000 But like, it's funny, like the three comics that I watch are you, Delia, and Sebastian, because I follow you guys at the store.

01:00:59.000 So it's like, I'm in the room sitting there, and you're the only three that I watch.

01:01:03.000 I could like recite your act word for word, and I don't watch anyone else.

01:01:08.000 It's so funny to me.

01:01:09.000 Well, I think it's great to be, again, at a place like the store where you can see all these different styles and all these different people doing it.

01:01:18.000 And you also see how we kind of influence each other in the slightest bit.

01:01:21.000 And, you know, that we're all working in these really hot rooms where it's all packed.

01:01:25.000 But I think it's good to sit down and watch, you know, John Mulaney when he did his, what was that?

01:01:32.000 Where was his?

01:01:32.000 Radio City?

01:01:33.000 Radio City.

01:01:34.000 Or, you know, Dave Chappelle, wherever he did his.

01:01:37.000 He did his in D.C., I think, right?

01:01:39.000 The big one.

01:01:40.000 Wasn't it in D.C.? The last one.

01:01:41.000 I think it was in L.A. The last one?

01:01:43.000 Well, he did the store with the belly room with the little one.

01:01:46.000 He did the belly room.

01:01:46.000 He did the other one where he's wearing like the military shirt.

01:01:49.000 Yeah, with the C on it.

01:01:50.000 The O.J. thing.

01:01:51.000 We talked about O.J. That was in L.A. And there was one in Austin.

01:01:55.000 There may have been one more in D.C. I thought the most recent bigger one was in D.C. But either way, maybe you're right.

01:02:03.000 Well, Jamie will find it.

01:02:06.000 But I think it's good to see.

01:02:09.000 It's good to see how different people do it.

01:02:12.000 I always enjoy watching Cat Williams, particularly in the beginning, because a lot of times he'll just run out on stage.

01:02:20.000 And he's running around on stage for five or ten minutes before the fucking first joke comes out.

01:02:25.000 And he's pointing at people in the audience and sweating and going crazy.

01:02:28.000 And it's so different than the way anybody that I know does it.

01:02:32.000 It's good to see that, too.

01:02:33.000 Yeah.

01:02:33.000 I think the most discussed stand-up special of the past year was not in Annette.

01:02:40.000 It was Cat Williams.

01:02:42.000 Did you see it?

01:02:44.000 Yes, the one he did from Florida, where it opens up with 10 minutes of Florida material.

01:02:47.000 Like 15 minutes of Jacksonville material that is apparently destroying it.

01:02:52.000 I couldn't get enough of it.

01:02:54.000 We watched it 100 times.

01:02:55.000 Yeah, but it tapered off pretty hard.

01:02:58.000 Oh, yeah.

01:02:59.000 Yeah, I tapered off real hard when he was doing the Trump stuff.

01:03:02.000 It's like, wow, this stuff is like half-baked.

01:03:04.000 Yeah, it looked like he had a bit that they made him cut.

01:03:08.000 And so he had to just do the hour anyway.

01:03:10.000 That's what I assumed from having watched it.

01:03:13.000 I doubt they do that, though.

01:03:14.000 They don't tell you to do shit.

01:03:16.000 They don't tell me to do shit.

01:03:17.000 I don't think they're going to tell him to do shit.

01:03:19.000 They may have been like, this is already a bit.

01:03:21.000 Do you know what I mean?

01:03:22.000 As simple as that.

01:03:23.000 I don't know.

01:03:24.000 It seemed to me that it was almost like he had some shit to say, but maybe hadn't been doing a lot of stand-up.

01:03:31.000 I don't know how much that guy works out.

01:03:33.000 I don't see him anywhere.

01:03:35.000 I always wonder about those guys.

01:03:37.000 The guys who you don't see in the clubs...

01:03:39.000 You know, like, Bill, you know, Bill Bird saw a special one day, and we were doing a set together at the Ice House, and he came into the green room, like, frothing up his mouth, and he's like, he goes, the fucking guy, I forget, I know who he was talking about,

01:03:55.000 I'll tell you later, but he was like, the fucking guy doesn't do the clubs anymore.

01:03:57.000 He doesn't do the clubs.

01:03:58.000 He goes, he's watching this cringy bullshit, and he was, like, angry, you know, he's like, you gotta do the fucking clubs.

01:04:05.000 Yeah.

01:04:05.000 People get too comfortable.

01:04:07.000 It's only their fans.

01:04:08.000 They're just preaching to their fan base.

01:04:10.000 A guy like Bill Maher, who's not changing anyone's mind, just like people are applauding.

01:04:15.000 They know they're going to applaud before they even get there.

01:04:18.000 I would never do a comedy club.

01:04:20.000 He doesn't do comedy clubs at all?

01:04:22.000 I'm sure he does not.

01:04:23.000 Whew.

01:04:24.000 Yeah.

01:04:25.000 I think you really have to.

01:04:27.000 Yeah.

01:04:27.000 No, I think so, too.

01:04:29.000 Yeah, well, he's in this weird category, too, right?

01:04:31.000 Where he's not just doing comedy.

01:04:33.000 He's got to do, everything has to be political.

01:04:35.000 Because this whole thing is about political shit.

01:04:38.000 Like, his show, his persona, who he is.

01:04:41.000 You know, he donated a million dollars to the Democratic Party.

01:04:45.000 Like, he's, it's all politics.

01:04:47.000 Oh, all of it.

01:04:47.000 And I can't stand political humor just because it's so easy.

01:04:51.000 You're either making everyone mad or you're making everyone really happy, but it doesn't really matter what the joke is.

01:04:58.000 Yeah.

01:04:59.000 Yeah.

01:05:01.000 Yeah, it's, uh...

01:05:04.000 And then, if you're doing stuff about, like, the Speaker of the House...

01:05:08.000 Oh, my God.

01:05:09.000 When someone's like, so the Mueller report, it's like, fuck, man.

01:05:12.000 Like, no.

01:05:13.000 Yeah.

01:05:14.000 You know who's, like, super deep into politics on the right is Nick DiPaolo.

01:05:17.000 Like, every time I talk to him...

01:05:19.000 Yeah.

01:05:20.000 He wants to talk about the fucking Steele dossier.

01:05:23.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:24.000 Let's talk about all this different, all the shit Obama did.

01:05:28.000 How about when Obama did this?

01:05:29.000 Yeah.

01:05:30.000 How do you know?

01:05:30.000 Yeah.

01:05:31.000 How do you even know this?

01:05:32.000 I know.

01:05:32.000 The knowledge of it, like, I once got a phone call, like, before the last election, like, you know, a year ago.

01:05:39.000 And they're like, we want to ask you about, like, how involved would you say are you with politics?

01:05:44.000 And I'm like, very, actually, I'm pretty passionate right now.

01:05:48.000 And they're like, how informed would you say you are?

01:05:49.000 I'm like, I'd say I'm very informed.

01:05:51.000 And they're like, okay.

01:05:52.000 And they start asking me questions, and I did not know what the fuck they were talking about.

01:05:56.000 Like, I hadn't heard of any of these things, any of these bills.

01:05:59.000 Like, I have no idea.

01:06:00.000 I have no idea what's going on.

01:06:01.000 It's like the difference between a casual sports fan and someone who really understands all the drafts and all the picks from different colleges, and this guy's got potential, and this guy needs to work on his defense.

01:06:12.000 Another 40 times.

01:06:14.000 Yeah.

01:06:14.000 Yes!

01:06:14.000 Yeah, the people who know the combine numbers.

01:06:16.000 Yeah, bench press 225, 47 times.

01:06:19.000 There's people that know that stuff.

01:06:22.000 It's exhausting.

01:06:23.000 Because it's so involved.

01:06:26.000 If you really want to be paying attention to everything that's going on with Nancy Pelosi, you've got to be paying attention to that all day long.

01:06:35.000 And most of the people that do that, they're nuts.

01:06:37.000 It's like sports.

01:06:39.000 It's sports, but in a different way.

01:06:41.000 This is the thing that you're wrapped up in.

01:06:45.000 Although, it does shape our world.

01:06:49.000 As right-wing comics go, though, there's not a lot of them.

01:06:53.000 Nick DiPaolo's the king.

01:06:54.000 Because he's actually really fucking funny.

01:06:56.000 He's right-wing as a person, and he's conservative, but he's also a great stand-up comedian.

01:07:04.000 But did he get more rights?

01:07:05.000 Yes.

01:07:06.000 As he got older?

01:07:07.000 Yeah.

01:07:07.000 I remember DiPaolo.

01:07:09.000 He's one of my favorites when I would see him on TV as a kid.

01:07:13.000 And I know him a little bit now.

01:07:14.000 But the right things seem to come up more and more in the past 10 years.

01:07:20.000 Yeah, he was always an angry guy.

01:07:22.000 But he became like an old angry guy that's really into politics as he got older.

01:07:29.000 Yeah.

01:07:31.000 I mean, I guess part of it is it works for them.

01:07:35.000 People love to hear it.

01:07:36.000 There's not a lot of those guys.

01:07:39.000 Like, who does the right have to bank on in terms of, like, comics that they could go see?

01:07:46.000 Tim Allen.

01:07:48.000 Barely.

01:07:48.000 Does he do stand-up anymore?

01:07:50.000 I think he does, like, I think he goes up to the Laugh Factory.

01:07:53.000 Does he?

01:07:53.000 Yeah.

01:07:54.000 Okay, so maybe he's one of those guys, like, when was the last time he went on stage?

01:07:57.000 Six months ago.

01:07:58.000 You know what I mean?

01:07:58.000 Yeah.

01:07:59.000 You know what I mean?

01:08:00.000 I don't know.

01:08:01.000 Maybe I'm wrong.

01:08:01.000 But who else?

01:08:02.000 Okay, so you got Tim Allen and Nick DiPaolo.

01:08:05.000 There's gotta be more.

01:08:07.000 There must be.

01:08:08.000 I mean, Norton kind of leans right a little bit, more libertarian.

01:08:15.000 But he doesn't do a lot of politics jokes.

01:08:17.000 He'll talk about it.

01:08:18.000 But who the fuck else?

01:08:19.000 There's, like, no one.

01:08:20.000 But if you wanted to, like, left-wing comedians, you could start with Michelle Wolfe and work your way up.

01:08:25.000 Oh, yeah.

01:08:25.000 There's millions of them.

01:08:27.000 Michelle Wolfe wasn't even, like, left-wing.

01:08:29.000 I think the correspondents, everyone's like, this is a star-making turn, and I think it almost ruined her.

01:08:34.000 Really?

01:08:35.000 Like, yes, because her show, Netflix, was called The Break.

01:08:39.000 Like, it was called The Break, and it was like, we're going to take a break from all of this and just talk about, like, other things going on in the world.

01:08:45.000 We don't need to be focused on politics.

01:08:47.000 And after that, after the correspondence dinner, it was like, the opening show was like her going after Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and you're like, oh, you got forced into this, you know?

01:08:57.000 You found a niche.

01:08:58.000 Yeah.

01:09:00.000 Yeah.

01:09:01.000 It's tricky.

01:09:03.000 If you find a thing that, like, works, and then people are like, you should really concentrate on that.

01:09:08.000 Like, I remember Jamie Massad gave a friend of mine advice once, way back in the day.

01:09:12.000 He's like, you should be Generation X guy.

01:09:15.000 When you go on stage, you should be, I'm from Generation X. Every time, you know, like, my generation, Generation X think this and talk like that.

01:09:25.000 Like, he was giving him advice.

01:09:26.000 And I was like, listen to me.

01:09:27.000 Don't listen to that.

01:09:28.000 Has Jamie Massad ever given good advice?

01:09:30.000 I don't know.

01:09:31.000 Ask Tiffany Haddish.

01:09:33.000 He manages her, right?

01:09:35.000 So he's doing something, right?

01:09:36.000 He manages her?

01:09:37.000 Yeah.

01:09:38.000 Like, recently?

01:09:39.000 I heard she fired everybody.

01:09:41.000 Maybe she fired him, too.

01:09:42.000 Yeah.

01:09:42.000 I don't know.

01:09:44.000 She's a wild woman.

01:09:45.000 She can do whatever the fuck she wants now.

01:09:49.000 I'm so happy for her.

01:09:51.000 I knew her when the shit wasn't going well.

01:09:54.000 She's always been wild, though.

01:09:56.000 She's a wild person.

01:09:58.000 In a good way.

01:10:00.000 She's one of the two people that I saw on stage and was like, oh, you're going to be a star.

01:10:04.000 I didn't know anything about her, but I was like, you're just a star.

01:10:07.000 Was it when she was queefing into the microphone?

01:10:09.000 No.

01:10:10.000 No?

01:10:10.000 It was not that.

01:10:11.000 It was not that.

01:10:11.000 You ever see her do that?

01:10:12.000 No.

01:10:13.000 Dude, she can make the most ungodly sounds with her vagina.

01:10:16.000 Like, for real?

01:10:17.000 Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

01:10:18.000 She takes the microphone, she puts it on her pussy and goes...

01:10:22.000 Like, she knows how to do it.

01:10:24.000 She has, apparently, she has an ability to make a noise with her vagina on cue.

01:10:29.000 Man, I'm glad I did go before her at the improv.

01:10:33.000 If I had to follow that, I'd be furious.

01:10:35.000 In front of six people?

01:10:36.000 Yeah.

01:10:38.000 Can I get a new mic, please?

01:10:40.000 Yeah, I've followed her before.

01:10:41.000 I didn't even think about it.

01:10:42.000 I probably should've.

01:10:43.000 Yeah.

01:10:44.000 I figured, like, the genes are filter enough.

01:10:46.000 Yeah.

01:10:47.000 You'd hope so.

01:10:47.000 Yeah, we'd hope.

01:10:48.000 Yeah.

01:10:49.000 Still, it's not ideal.

01:10:50.000 Yeah, like, that type of person, like, that wild personality that, like, a gal that has, like, what the fuck else could she have done other than stand-up?

01:11:00.000 I don't know.

01:11:01.000 But there's a lot of those people out there that never find stand-up.

01:11:04.000 Oh, sure.

01:11:04.000 And their life just becomes chaos.

01:11:06.000 Like the crazy person at the office.

01:11:08.000 Yeah.

01:11:08.000 You know, it's just stuck there.

01:11:09.000 And, you know, you get fired from enough of those jobs, you can't even get that office job anymore because, you know, word gets out.

01:11:15.000 Oh, yeah, don't hire Tiffany.

01:11:16.000 That crazy bitch, she's never going to be there.

01:11:19.000 And when she is there, she's going to queef into the fucking loudspeaker.

01:11:23.000 Yeah.

01:11:24.000 Yeah.

01:11:27.000 I mean, part of me says, no, I don't wish that there was some sort of an organized program to get into comedy, because figure it out.

01:11:35.000 I figured it out.

01:11:35.000 You figured it out.

01:11:36.000 All of us did.

01:11:37.000 But then part of me says, man, there's so many kids out there.

01:11:40.000 There's probably a 16-year-old kid right now who sees the hypocrisy In all the things these adults are doing, and he fucking hates class, and he's sitting there right now going nuts, or there's a girl who's feeling the same way about all her stupid friends and her mom and all these fucking people that want her to be a certain way,

01:12:00.000 and she's like, Jesus Christ, I gotta get the fuck away from these people.

01:12:03.000 And she makes her friends laugh, but nobody ever tells her, hey, listen to me.

01:12:07.000 You could do this.

01:12:09.000 You could talk shit about things.

01:12:10.000 You could be a really funny comedian.

01:12:12.000 You gotta figure out a way to do that.

01:12:15.000 Nobody does that.

01:12:17.000 It's so...

01:12:18.000 The number of people that have the...

01:12:20.000 How many people have you ever met in your life that have the potential to be a comic, but never did it?

01:12:25.000 You're around them, you're like, damn, this guy's funny.

01:12:27.000 Could have been a comic.

01:12:28.000 Five or six.

01:12:29.000 There are people who were as funny as me in college, who just went on and got jobs, and I got funnier.

01:12:36.000 You know, like, I knew people like that.

01:12:38.000 One of the funniest guys I've ever met in my life was, like, an executive producer's PA. But he was so goddamn funny, I couldn't believe it.

01:12:46.000 But he, like, I don't think it would have translated to the stage.

01:12:48.000 There's something, like, there's something you have to figure out in yourself to become a good comedian.

01:12:53.000 Even if you're the funniest guy in the world.

01:12:55.000 Yes.

01:12:55.000 You know, it's a different muscle, you know.

01:13:00.000 Yeah.

01:13:00.000 And I like that there's so many different ways to do it.

01:13:03.000 Like, I started in L.A. And people are like, you should not start in L.A. Hinchcliffe did, too.

01:13:07.000 Yeah.

01:13:07.000 Ari did, too.

01:13:08.000 I think it helped me because it was like you had to get good right away.

01:13:11.000 Well, Ari did open mics in D.C. at first, but then basically started out in L.A. When I met him, he was a doorman at the Comedy Store and just a raw open miker.

01:13:21.000 It's hard to start out in LA, but it can be done.

01:13:24.000 Especially now.

01:13:25.000 Especially if you don't know any better.

01:13:27.000 I found out years after I'd started in LA that you should not start in LA. It wasn't like I was going to move and go.

01:13:34.000 I was already living here when I decided to do stand-up, but I wasn't going to move to Chicago and start there.

01:13:41.000 Some people do.

01:13:43.000 It doesn't seem to work.

01:13:45.000 No.

01:13:45.000 I don't know anybody who's ever moved from LA to, like, a satellite community, like Denver or somewhere like that, unless they were, like, already really established.

01:13:54.000 I don't know anybody who was starting out who moved somewhere where it worked out well.

01:13:57.000 No, they always, they come back or, like, they go to Austin, you know, I'm going to try it out there, and it's like, it doesn't, you're just starting over.

01:14:05.000 Yeah, you got to start there.

01:14:07.000 There's, yeah, there's no right or wrong way to do it, but, man, it would be nice if somebody sort of, I've collected thoughts on what to do and what not to do.

01:14:19.000 Yeah, some people are like, oh, you've got to get in the road.

01:14:21.000 Just get in the road.

01:14:22.000 And it's like, no, that's not great advice if you're doing C-rooms.

01:14:26.000 It's just going to make you hate the road.

01:14:28.000 I've seen people who just look worn through.

01:14:32.000 Every night they're going up and they either have to be a crowd pleaser because the person's just coming to see comedy.

01:14:38.000 I'm so lucky people come to see Anthony Jessel and not just a comedy show.

01:14:42.000 Yeah.

01:14:42.000 Because that can be brutal and painful.

01:14:45.000 And I know a lot of people who are like, no, just get in the road.

01:14:47.000 And then their act suffers.

01:14:48.000 They have this hacky act all of a sudden because they had to do it like that.

01:14:51.000 You know what gives me serious anxiety?

01:14:55.000 When I find out that someone got a Vegas residency.

01:14:58.000 I go, how many nights a week?

01:15:02.000 Six.

01:15:03.000 Six nights a week at the stratosphere.

01:15:06.000 It sounds...

01:15:07.000 I mean, someone told me David Spade was thinking about doing one.

01:15:11.000 And he went to go see Louie Anderson, who was doing one.

01:15:14.000 This was before Baskets.

01:15:15.000 And he was like, it was just the saddest thing I'd ever seen.

01:15:17.000 That was like Carlin's Last Stand was a Vegas residency.

01:15:20.000 Did he have a Vegas residency?

01:15:22.000 Yeah.

01:15:22.000 Where was he at?

01:15:23.000 I forget where he was, but he had a meltdown where he went off on the crowd, just calling them all pieces of shit.

01:15:31.000 Really?

01:15:31.000 Yeah, and then had to go to rehab.

01:15:32.000 Was like, I'm addicted to painkillers.

01:15:35.000 And then I don't think he ever performed again.

01:15:39.000 Well, he died before...

01:15:41.000 He died like he was performing when he died.

01:15:45.000 I mean, I think he was at a hotel.

01:15:48.000 Yeah.

01:15:49.000 I'm pretty sure he was sleeping in a hotel that he was performing at when he died.

01:15:53.000 I would believe that.

01:15:55.000 But that last special he did was terrible.

01:15:58.000 He's reading half of it.

01:16:00.000 Oh, I didn't see that.

01:16:01.000 It was just like a swan song for him.

01:16:04.000 But I think that was after the Vegas residency, so he must have been doing more.

01:16:07.000 Yeah, his schedule was very, very hectic and unusual.

01:16:11.000 He was doing one hour a year.

01:16:14.000 An hour special that he would film, and he would write it all out.

01:16:19.000 He would write it all out and then tweak it a little bit, but it was more of a monologue than it was set-up, punchline, jokes.

01:16:27.000 He was falling into this more of a social commentator in some aspects than he was a stand-up towards the end.

01:16:37.000 You know what I mean?

01:16:38.000 Oh yeah, and someone told me that a lot of the reason he did an hour every year was because of tax problems.

01:16:45.000 The IRS was coming at him hard, and so he had to be working that much, and it kind of made him miserable.

01:16:50.000 You know the story about his 9-11 story, right?

01:16:56.000 Tell me.

01:16:56.000 Where he recorded a special called I Kinda Like It When A Lot Of People Die.

01:17:02.000 That was the name of the special.

01:17:03.000 Oh, that's right.

01:17:03.000 And he has this whole, it closes with a big long 20 minute thing about like when he hears about people dying, he like the more the better.

01:17:10.000 And he filmed it on like September 10th.

01:17:14.000 And then the next day came in and was like, we've got to cancel this.

01:17:17.000 No one can ever see this or hear this.

01:17:19.000 And now you can get the album.

01:17:21.000 But even in the album, he's reading it.

01:17:23.000 They destroyed the actual footage from the taping.

01:17:26.000 Really?

01:17:26.000 Yeah.

01:17:27.000 They destroyed it?

01:17:28.000 Oh, he was just like, no one can ever see this.

01:17:30.000 Wow.

01:17:31.000 He recorded it in Vegas at MGM Grand on September 9th and 10th.

01:17:36.000 September 9th and 10th.

01:17:38.000 That's crazy.

01:17:39.000 Yeah.

01:17:40.000 What was it called?

01:17:41.000 I kind of like it when a lot of people die.

01:17:45.000 Jesus Christ!

01:17:47.000 He must have woken up the morning of September 11th and go, did I manifest this?

01:17:53.000 Yeah.

01:17:54.000 Look at that.

01:17:54.000 I kind of like it when a lot of people die.

01:17:56.000 And so the audio CD, it's just him talking?

01:17:59.000 It's like him working out the...

01:18:02.000 Wait a minute.

01:18:03.000 It says streaming.

01:18:05.000 Like the audio streaming with Amazon Prime's audio.

01:18:08.000 So there's no video of it?

01:18:09.000 No.

01:18:10.000 See if there is.

01:18:11.000 Some person who works somewhere might have preserved it.

01:18:16.000 I mean, I feel like I would have heard about it.

01:18:17.000 I mean, I listened to the bit, and he's like, I've got to read this.

01:18:21.000 This is how I do it.

01:18:21.000 So it's like a very early version of it.

01:18:23.000 But it's not great.

01:18:25.000 But I mean, I can't even imagine taping a special on September 10th.

01:18:30.000 He had some dark moments in his career.

01:18:32.000 I took some friends to see him in 1988 at the Hampton Beach Casino.

01:18:39.000 I think that's what it was called.

01:18:41.000 In Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.

01:18:42.000 It was like a place where people would go up for vacation.

01:18:45.000 And we went to see George Carlin there way back in the day.

01:18:49.000 And he always had the same opening act.

01:18:51.000 I kind of knew even back then.

01:18:53.000 I guess I was an open-miker then.

01:18:55.000 I was just starting out.

01:18:57.000 I knew there were certain guys who took people on the road with them that were terrible.

01:19:01.000 They took people on the road with them that just didn't...

01:19:03.000 They weren't good comics, but they made them look like heroes.

01:19:06.000 They did it because they were friends with them, or because they just wanted to have the worst comic ever go up before that?

01:19:11.000 It's a good question.

01:19:14.000 I guess it would vary.

01:19:16.000 But for sure, there's certain comics that like it when people go out in front of them suck.

01:19:20.000 They want that.

01:19:22.000 There's certain comics that you see them taking people on the road and you look at it and you're like, what the fuck?

01:19:27.000 You're taking that guy with you?

01:19:29.000 What are you doing?

01:19:29.000 Why are you torturing people like that?

01:19:31.000 Yeah.

01:19:33.000 But the opening act did better than George.

01:19:36.000 He had a terrible set.

01:19:38.000 He had this whole rant that he was doing.

01:19:43.000 Unquestionably one of the greatest comics of all time.

01:19:45.000 But he had hours that were just not good.

01:19:47.000 And there was a period of time where it seemed like he just missed it.

01:19:51.000 Like it was missing.

01:19:53.000 Whether it was his personal life was off or whatever it was.

01:19:56.000 But he had this whole rant that was like, fuck this.

01:20:00.000 And he was like, and fuck Israel.

01:20:02.000 And fuck comedy clubs.

01:20:04.000 Like, he was saying, fuck comedy clubs.

01:20:05.000 Like, this is like this whole bit.

01:20:07.000 And he was reading it off of a yellow legal pad.

01:20:09.000 And the whole audience was standing there not understanding where this was going.

01:20:13.000 We're waiting for the jokes.

01:20:15.000 Where's the hilarity?

01:20:17.000 And it just didn't exist.

01:20:19.000 And my friends were mad at me.

01:20:21.000 Really?

01:20:21.000 Because I had taken them from where we live.

01:20:24.000 We lived in Revere.

01:20:25.000 And we all drove all the way up to New Hampshire.

01:20:29.000 Like, yeah, we're going to go see George Carlin.

01:20:30.000 It's going to be awesome.

01:20:31.000 And it was terrible.

01:20:32.000 It's funny.

01:20:33.000 I remember Louis C.K. in an interview years ago was talking about how the pressure came off of him to always have a good show.

01:20:41.000 But he said audience members love saying, oh, I saw George Carlin once, and he was awesome.

01:20:47.000 But they really love saying, you know, I saw Carlin once, and he was horrible.

01:20:52.000 Like, they still get the experience and the story of it.

01:20:55.000 And it's theirs forever.

01:20:57.000 I guess.

01:20:57.000 So you don't have to worry about doing a bad show.

01:20:59.000 It's way better, though, if they say you were funny.

01:21:01.000 I think to see a legend bomb would be great.

01:21:07.000 Well, if you were a Carlin fan, you got to see those.

01:21:10.000 If you went to see him live a bunch of times.

01:21:12.000 Yeah, he had those rough spots, man.

01:21:15.000 You know, it's one of those things.

01:21:17.000 If you're going to do an hour of stand-up every year, you're going to have some rough ones.

01:21:24.000 There's no way around that.

01:21:25.000 Oh, 100%.

01:21:26.000 It seems like that's just...

01:21:28.000 I mean, it can be done.

01:21:30.000 I think it can be done.

01:21:32.000 I mean, I think you can put together...

01:21:34.000 Like, I'm six months in from my last special.

01:21:37.000 I think I could do another special in six months, but it wouldn't be as good as my last one, I don't think.

01:21:42.000 I just don't think it would.

01:21:44.000 I just think you need time.

01:21:45.000 Yeah.

01:21:47.000 One a year is crazy.

01:21:48.000 One a year is insane.

01:21:49.000 There are guys like Jimmy Carr who, while they're touring, they're writing jokes and just putting them away.

01:21:55.000 So at the end of the tour, when they tape the special, they have all these jokes they can go through and look at and then start the new tour.

01:22:03.000 From that, that seems like...

01:22:05.000 Mm-hmm.

01:22:18.000 Yeah.

01:22:29.000 I feel the same way.

01:22:30.000 And I feel like those people that watch that, when you do do that, man, if you don't acknowledge that you fucked them over, they're never going to trust you again.

01:22:37.000 If you don't say, hey, look, that one wasn't a good special.

01:22:40.000 I gave it a shot.

01:22:41.000 It just wasn't right.

01:22:42.000 It didn't come out right.

01:22:43.000 I thought it was pretty good.

01:22:44.000 And then the taping didn't go well.

01:22:47.000 If you don't do that, they're not going to listen to you, man.

01:22:49.000 They're like, this is my best work.

01:22:51.000 Oh, this is your best work?

01:22:52.000 Yeah.

01:22:53.000 Well, what the fuck?

01:22:54.000 You can fool them once.

01:22:56.000 You know what I mean?

01:22:56.000 If I went on tour right now and just did the same material from the special, people would be like, okay, but they're not coming back the next time.

01:23:04.000 Right.

01:23:04.000 They're going to get mad at you.

01:23:06.000 Yeah.

01:23:07.000 Yeah.

01:23:08.000 When you do a special, once it's on Netflix, you're done with that material.

01:23:12.000 It's over.

01:23:13.000 Done.

01:23:13.000 Some people don't.

01:23:14.000 I try not even to remember it.

01:23:16.000 I'm an idiot in the way that I assume that the entire audience has seen everything I've ever done.

01:23:22.000 Good.

01:23:23.000 I really do think that.

01:23:24.000 Even if it's one guy in the back who's like, I've heard these before, no one else has heard it, it still drives me crazy.

01:23:30.000 I've got too much pride.

01:23:32.000 I have the same feeling, and I'll say sometimes, too, and here's, like, if something comes up, I go, I have an old bit on this, and I'll say the bit, but I'll let them know, this is an old bit.

01:23:43.000 Like, this is, you know, I got this old bit.

01:23:46.000 Yeah, some people though, when someone comes to see Jim Gaffigan, if they don't see Hot Pockets, they get fucking mad.

01:23:55.000 I saw Gaffigan in Toronto a couple years ago, and he did a killer hour, just walks out, does the hour, says thank you, goodnight, walks off stage, walks right back on.

01:24:08.000 We're good to go.

01:24:23.000 Maybe if I had more stories, I could get away with it.

01:24:26.000 But once you hear the joke, you know, it's over.

01:24:30.000 It doesn't work again.

01:24:33.000 Yeah, Seinfeld still does old, old stuff.

01:24:36.000 He does really old stuff.

01:24:37.000 And he's done two specials of old stuff that he's already put on specials.

01:24:43.000 I went and saw him at the Palladium about a year or two ago, and it was one of the worst shows I've ever seen.

01:24:50.000 I had a splitting headache, and I was furious.

01:24:53.000 And one of my friends, another comic that I respect a lot, gave him a standing ovation.

01:24:58.000 And I was like, are you fucking kidding me?

01:24:59.000 And he was like, I understand why you feel the way you do, but I just love seeing the act.

01:25:03.000 And I was like, I couldn't believe it.

01:25:05.000 And then I saw Seinfeld again at Clusterfest, He was on the big outdoor stage for kids.

01:25:11.000 Completely different hour and murdered.

01:25:13.000 Like destroyed.

01:25:14.000 He has corny stuff depending on what the audience is.

01:25:20.000 If everyone's sitting there wearing a yarmulke, he's got one act.

01:25:23.000 And if it's a bunch of kids, he's got a cool hip act.

01:25:26.000 Really?

01:25:27.000 Yeah.

01:25:28.000 So you went to the yarmulke crowd?

01:25:29.000 Yeah.

01:25:30.000 Interesting.

01:25:32.000 What was bad about that?

01:25:34.000 It was aggressively corny and just...

01:25:38.000 Aggressively corny is a funny phrase.

01:25:40.000 Yeah.

01:25:42.000 Like, thank you for coming to the show.

01:25:44.000 I know.

01:25:44.000 You know, we're like, should we go to the show?

01:25:46.000 Should we go?

01:25:46.000 Should we go to the show?

01:25:47.000 Should we get...

01:25:47.000 Do we need an Uber?

01:25:48.000 How do we get to the show?

01:25:49.000 Do we really want to go?

01:25:50.000 And I'm like, I can't believe he's doing this right now.

01:25:52.000 But people were eating it up.

01:25:54.000 Like, everyone around me was going nuts and loving it.

01:25:56.000 But it was just like...

01:25:58.000 Old Man Corny.

01:25:59.000 Old Man Corny!

01:26:01.000 Because you see Seinfeld on a talk show, and he's mean and kind of biting, and you're like, oh, this is great.

01:26:06.000 He's hilarious, and I expected more of that.

01:26:08.000 But when I saw him at Clusterfest, I got that.

01:26:11.000 What is Clusterfest?

01:26:15.000 It's the third year this year at that festival in San Francisco.

01:26:18.000 It's at Comedy Central and Coachella put together a thing.

01:26:22.000 It's all comedy?

01:26:24.000 Comedy music.

01:26:25.000 There's some music there, too.

01:26:26.000 Whenever I see festivals, I always assume someone's getting ripped off.

01:26:30.000 That's what I think.

01:26:31.000 My impression is, alright, who's getting the money?

01:26:33.000 Who's getting the money out of this?

01:26:35.000 That's how I feel about Montreal.

01:26:36.000 But there's the occasional, there'll be a festival where you're like, okay, this much for one show in Toronto?

01:26:42.000 Like, yeah, I'm totally in.

01:26:44.000 I'm totally in.

01:26:44.000 So sometimes it's great, and sometimes it's nothing.

01:26:46.000 Yeah, the Just for Laughs thing, my issue with that is I got in when I was a zero.

01:26:53.000 Like, I got in Just for Laughs...

01:26:55.000 When I was four years into comedy, I think?

01:26:58.000 Five?

01:26:59.000 I was terrible.

01:27:00.000 You know, I had like a ten-minute set that I could do, and I could get some laughs, but I became a part of Just For Laughs.

01:27:07.000 It was helping me.

01:27:09.000 I wasn't helping it.

01:27:10.000 But then when I see festivals where I see a lot of names on a thing, and I'm like, well, who's funding this?

01:27:18.000 Sponsored by Southwest Airlines.

01:27:20.000 What is this weird corporate mishmash that you've put together?

01:27:24.000 And who's profiting off of this?

01:27:26.000 It's not the comedians.

01:27:27.000 I get you put it all together, but then you find out how much the comedians are getting.

01:27:32.000 Well, where's the rest of the money going?

01:27:33.000 There's a lot of money in that audience.

01:27:35.000 This is a big place.

01:27:36.000 Yeah.

01:27:38.000 Some are better than others, but like...

01:27:39.000 And sometimes they're just like, we're going to take a loss.

01:27:41.000 All the sponsors are going to lose money on this, but we're going to...

01:27:43.000 Like that Riot Fest in LA they would do every year.

01:27:46.000 It's done now, but they did it like four or five years in a row.

01:27:49.000 I don't know what that is.

01:27:50.000 And they never made money.

01:27:50.000 It was a comedy festival in downtown LA. Really?

01:27:52.000 Yeah.

01:27:53.000 See, that's how much I have an aversion to those things.

01:27:56.000 I don't even know when they're taking place, because I say no to everything.

01:27:59.000 I'm like, no.

01:28:00.000 You're not just priced out of it?

01:28:01.000 No.

01:28:02.000 Because people are like, oh, I haven't done a college in years.

01:28:04.000 And it's not like I've got a problem with colleges.

01:28:06.000 It's just like they can't afford...

01:28:07.000 Well, I stopped doing colleges when they could afford me.

01:28:11.000 Because I would be performing in front of 18-year-olds.

01:28:14.000 I'd be like, this is ridiculous.

01:28:16.000 There's too many of them that don't have life experience.

01:28:19.000 They're growing minds.

01:28:22.000 And you can make them laugh at some things, but they haven't experienced...

01:28:25.000 What I like...

01:28:27.000 It's like, I'm happily married, but if I wasn't, I'd like a chick who's a little bitter.

01:28:31.000 I like an older chick who keeps herself fit, who's experienced a lot in life, who understands.

01:28:37.000 She understands that life is up and down.

01:28:39.000 There's hardships.

01:28:40.000 I'm not interested in anyone who's young and delusional and bubbly.

01:28:44.000 Yeah.

01:28:45.000 No.

01:28:47.000 When you go to perform in front of 18-year-olds, they have this delusional version of what the world should be, and social justice, and all these ideas about the economy, and all these ideas about socialism, and all these ideas.

01:29:01.000 I'm like, I'm exhausted already.

01:29:02.000 I can't.

01:29:03.000 I can't do this.

01:29:04.000 I still think it's fun.

01:29:05.000 I think it's fun to watch them just be like, holy shit, you don't have to do one show.

01:29:09.000 You know what I mean?

01:29:09.000 It's like, maybe they can leave if they want.

01:29:13.000 I don't feel any pressure.

01:29:15.000 I mean, now I do casinos more than colleges.

01:29:18.000 But I love, like, even if it went bad, it was an interesting bad.

01:29:22.000 And you're getting paid so much money that you're like, I don't care.

01:29:25.000 I don't care how this goes.

01:29:26.000 And I've had some go real, I used to go to the college and say, what should I not talk about?

01:29:32.000 And then whatever they said, I would open with that.

01:29:35.000 And it worked every time except Colorado School of Mines.

01:29:39.000 What is that?

01:29:40.000 Colorado School of Mines?

01:29:42.000 It's an engineering school.

01:29:45.000 Like a good one.

01:29:45.000 Yeah.

01:29:46.000 School of Mines?

01:29:47.000 Mines, yeah.

01:29:48.000 It's a famous...

01:29:48.000 M-I-N-E or M-I-N-D? M-I-N-E-S. Oh, okay.

01:29:53.000 Like digging...

01:29:53.000 I thought you were saying Mines too.

01:29:55.000 I thought I was with Joe.

01:29:56.000 But yeah.

01:29:58.000 And they said, do not talk about abortion.

01:30:01.000 And I was like, okay.

01:30:02.000 And I went up and opened with an abortion joke and then died for an hour.

01:30:05.000 Like, they never forgave me.

01:30:07.000 I just completely ate shit.

01:30:09.000 Was it a good abortion joke?

01:30:12.000 I assume.

01:30:13.000 To have a bad abortion joke, if you're going to have a joke about abortion, it better be great.

01:30:20.000 Or you're in some real trouble.

01:30:23.000 Well, there are those people that think that when you touch on controversial subjects, There's weight to objects, right?

01:30:31.000 There's certain things that have more weight to them.

01:30:34.000 If you can get through, if you can actually get the bit to work, it will have an artificial amount of momentum connected to it because of the fact that it has all this weight.

01:30:44.000 Yeah, it's more tension.

01:30:45.000 But if you can cut that tension, the laugh is bigger.

01:30:48.000 Yeah, sure.

01:30:49.000 But if you can't, it's over.

01:30:52.000 They're just like Matty for even trying.

01:30:54.000 Yeah.

01:30:55.000 I don't think people get mad, really, that people make jokes about awful things.

01:30:59.000 They get mad at the idea that people think it's funny.

01:31:02.000 Yeah.

01:31:02.000 It's not so much you told a cancer joke, it's like, you think cancer's funny?

01:31:05.000 It's like, no, I don't.

01:31:07.000 That's why I'm making a joke about it.

01:31:09.000 That's the process.

01:31:11.000 But I really think it's hearing an audience laugh at it more than hearing a comic.

01:31:15.000 If a comic tells a cancer joke and it bombs, no one really gets mad at them.

01:31:19.000 If it's killing, that's when people get upset.

01:31:22.000 Well, your act is so controversial.

01:31:25.000 You have so many subjects, and there's so much tongue-in-cheek, and there's so much where you say mean shit on stage.

01:31:34.000 I would imagine that you get people upset at you quite a bit.

01:31:38.000 I used to, and honestly, now it's like I've been grandfathered in.

01:31:42.000 It's funny, I used to get people, I would tweet a joke, and some people would, the comments of people getting mad at me.

01:31:47.000 And now what happens is I tweet a joke, And then my fans start tweeting their own jokes underneath it, like tagging them.

01:31:54.000 And people get mad at them.

01:31:56.000 It's like, I'm just like the guy who is allowed to do it.

01:31:59.000 People just stopped getting mad at me all of a sudden.

01:32:00.000 Well, you had a show called The Jesselneck Offensive.

01:32:03.000 I mean, you are sort of grandfathered in, but it's also like your style.

01:32:09.000 It's like being mad at Slayer for being loud.

01:32:13.000 I'm like, what do you...

01:32:14.000 That's what they do.

01:32:15.000 Exactly.

01:32:16.000 What are you talking about?

01:32:17.000 Yeah, but I like classical music.

01:32:19.000 It's like, so what?

01:32:19.000 Go listen to that.

01:32:21.000 That is the weird thing about comedy, too, right?

01:32:24.000 It's like, when you go to see comedy, you can see all sorts of different styles, whereas when you go to see music, if you go to a club, it's like a blues club, you expect to see blues.

01:32:34.000 Like, you're going there on purpose.

01:32:35.000 It's not like a blues band followed by a country band followed by a hardcore band.

01:32:40.000 Like, it doesn't...

01:32:41.000 But that's what you get when you go to a comedy club.

01:32:43.000 You can get Guns N' Roses followed by Barry Manilow.

01:32:46.000 And you're like, what is this place?

01:32:48.000 A main room show on a Saturday night.

01:32:51.000 You're going to get virtually every genre of comedy there is.

01:32:56.000 I mean, I like that.

01:32:57.000 I'm glad it's like that.

01:32:58.000 Because I hate, like, when I used to tour, and I couldn't bring my own opener.

01:33:02.000 I would get to town, and they'd be like, oh, Jake has been begging us to open for you.

01:33:05.000 He wanted to open for you so badly for months, so we're letting him open for you.

01:33:09.000 And he does my act for 15 minutes before he brings me on stage.

01:33:12.000 I was like, I hate this.

01:33:14.000 Have you had someone actually do your actual material?

01:33:17.000 Not my material, but my mannerisms, short, dark jokes, my attitude.

01:33:25.000 They've just taken it.

01:33:26.000 And they're like, oh, if Anthony sees me, he'll be like, oh, you're like me.

01:33:30.000 Come do that.

01:33:30.000 And I'm like, I don't want to see me.

01:33:32.000 You know, I don't want to see anyone like me.

01:33:34.000 Ever.

01:33:35.000 I don't want to, like, someone's like, oh, this guy does really dark one-liners.

01:33:37.000 You'd love it.

01:33:38.000 I'm like, I don't ever want to see it.

01:33:40.000 I don't ever want to look at it because that's what I do.

01:33:42.000 Right.

01:33:43.000 You know, I like, I want to see goofy, silly, just like the opposite of me.

01:33:47.000 Yeah, Joey Diaz likes to bring girls on stage.

01:33:49.000 He likes to bring girls on the road with him because he said he wants the audience to see something totally different and he wants to give the women in the audience that are with their boyfriends that are there to see him He's like, this is good.

01:34:00.000 It'll balance it out.

01:34:01.000 I bring a lot of female openers.

01:34:04.000 I want completely different.

01:34:07.000 I don't want them talking about the same subjects as me.

01:34:11.000 That usually avoids it completely.

01:34:14.000 I don't know how much I'm doing it for the girlfriends of the guys who come.

01:34:20.000 There are people who come afterwards and they're like, I liked you better than the headliner.

01:34:23.000 It's like...

01:34:24.000 It is weird when you start taking someone on the road with you and then their act starts morphing and becoming like yours, like their style.

01:34:32.000 They see what's working and so they start, it's like a natural thing, like you saying that you can't watch and tell anymore.

01:34:38.000 You know, especially with someone who's opening for you, you gotta think they're in the developmental period.

01:34:42.000 Oh yeah.

01:34:43.000 I've had MCs who by the end of the weekend are like, that's a great joke.

01:34:46.000 And I'm like, that's my line.

01:34:48.000 Like you can't, I know it's fun to do, but like you can't do it when you're opening for me.

01:34:52.000 Like you've just been watching me all weekend and now you're copying my manner.

01:34:55.000 That's annoying.

01:34:56.000 Yeah.

01:34:57.000 Cause then you have to think about it.

01:35:00.000 Or you have to watch them.

01:35:02.000 Is there any places where you just don't work anymore?

01:35:04.000 Like any cities where you're like, fuck this place?

01:35:06.000 Do you work in Miami?

01:35:08.000 Miami, I try not to.

01:35:09.000 I'll do a theater in Miami or close by, but I would never do a club down there.

01:35:14.000 Miami's like New Orleans.

01:35:15.000 New Orleans is one of my favorite cities in the world.

01:35:17.000 But they have shit going on.

01:35:19.000 They don't care about your comedy.

01:35:21.000 Miami, there's just too much else to do.

01:35:23.000 In New Orleans, they've got their music and their food and their alcohol.

01:35:26.000 They don't care about comedy.

01:35:27.000 You can do a show there, but it's not that fun.

01:35:32.000 It's not that fun.

01:35:33.000 Yeah, but...

01:35:36.000 Miami might be the one, but I'll do like Fort Lauderdale, you know, places around that.

01:35:42.000 Florida can be tough.

01:35:43.000 Miami adjacent.

01:35:44.000 Florida's tough, man.

01:35:46.000 It's tough.

01:35:47.000 That is the weirdest fucking state in the country, for sure.

01:35:53.000 I'm trying to think of any other place that I was just like, there are clubs I would never go back to.

01:35:56.000 What about Connecticut?

01:35:58.000 Connecticut.

01:35:59.000 I think I just did somewhere in Connecticut and had a great time.

01:36:03.000 They were grateful that I was there.

01:36:05.000 Some places you go and they're just like, I can't believe you came here.

01:36:08.000 This is awesome.

01:36:10.000 I went to one club where the owner of the club made the green room his office.

01:36:19.000 And would just sit in there and be watching TV and talking to me the entire time.

01:36:23.000 I'm like, surely you're going to leave with 20 minutes before I go on stage.

01:36:26.000 And just in your face the whole time.

01:36:29.000 That was why he owned the club, was to talk to comics.

01:36:32.000 And I just lost my mind.

01:36:34.000 Where was this?

01:36:36.000 I probably shouldn't say, but I will.

01:36:38.000 Don't say.

01:36:40.000 What did it sound like?

01:36:42.000 Columbus, Ohio?

01:36:46.000 I think Hoosiers.

01:36:48.000 Think what?

01:36:49.000 Hoosiers.

01:36:50.000 Hoosiers.

01:36:50.000 What are they?

01:36:51.000 Indiana?

01:36:52.000 Next Door.

01:36:52.000 Oh, okay.

01:36:53.000 Okay.

01:36:54.000 You ever been there?

01:36:56.000 I think I did a show there once.

01:36:58.000 Yeah.

01:36:59.000 Coming up, it was like a cool club to go do.

01:37:02.000 And then I finally got there like a year or so ago.

01:37:05.000 And I was like, you know, my friends, I was like, why does everyone love this club so much?

01:37:09.000 And they're like, we couldn't wait to hear what you thought of him.

01:37:12.000 We couldn't wait to hear how mad you would get at this guy.

01:37:18.000 The weird thing is when a guy owns the club, but then he's also the MC. Have you ever heard that happen?

01:37:22.000 Oh, the worst.

01:37:24.000 The absolute worst.

01:37:28.000 I can't stand that.

01:37:30.000 Yeah, that's not good.

01:37:31.000 No.

01:37:31.000 Yeah.

01:37:33.000 Is there any places overseas that you really enjoy working?

01:37:36.000 Yeah, I went on a big European tour this summer and did the standards.

01:37:43.000 I did a couple nights in London, a couple nights in Edinburgh during the festival.

01:37:46.000 Those were fun.

01:37:47.000 And then places off the beaten path.

01:37:50.000 I was like, I want to do Berlin and I want to do Warsaw.

01:37:53.000 And they were like, there's no market.

01:37:54.000 And I'm like, I want to do those.

01:37:55.000 Those are the two most fun shows of the whole tour.

01:37:58.000 And it was like 300 people maybe.

01:38:00.000 But they were just so grateful you were there and they were awesome.

01:38:04.000 And they understand English.

01:38:06.000 They understand it better than they can speak it.

01:38:09.000 So they laugh at every joke.

01:38:10.000 Nothing goes over their heads.

01:38:12.000 They don't have to change any references.

01:38:14.000 I really loved the European tour.

01:38:16.000 That's cool, because if you're doing a place of like 300 seats, even if it's a primarily German or Polish-speaking country, there's going to be enough people that speak English that can come to your show.

01:38:28.000 Yeah, a lot of expats, you know, and they all say they got comedy 10 years ago.

01:38:34.000 YouTube is what did it for them.

01:38:36.000 So they have these stand-up comedy scenes that are all 10 years old, and they're all like...

01:38:42.000 They're bad for people doing it 10 years old.

01:38:45.000 They're still hacky.

01:38:46.000 They're a generation away from getting good.

01:38:49.000 But I remember in Warsaw, they were like, this is a historic day for Polish comedy.

01:38:52.000 You're the first American comic, big American comic, to come here and do a show.

01:38:57.000 And now I think Burr's going there, or maybe just went there.

01:39:00.000 But they're getting more and more people.

01:39:03.000 Warsaw...

01:39:05.000 What is Poland like?

01:39:07.000 Honestly, we got into the airport, saw our luggage wasn't there, went straight to the gig, went on stage, went to the hotel, and the next morning flew to Budapest.

01:39:17.000 We didn't get to see any of Warsaw or do anything there.

01:39:20.000 That was one of those cities that was just nothing to do.

01:39:23.000 But when I had my old Comedy Central show, the Jeselnik Offensive, someone at Comedy Central says, listen, we can look at Google and tell you where you're Googled all around the world.

01:39:33.000 America, by far the most.

01:39:34.000 Canada, close second.

01:39:36.000 And then Poland is number three.

01:39:39.000 And I'm like, Poland, why?

01:39:40.000 And they go, they think you're Polish.

01:39:42.000 You look Polish, they assume you're Polish.

01:39:45.000 So I'm like, let's book a show there and have all these people come out.

01:39:48.000 And whoever told me that fucking lied to me.

01:39:51.000 Like, they were like, what?

01:39:52.000 We don't think you're Polish.

01:39:53.000 Like, why would you think you're Polish?

01:39:54.000 Like, no, we don't give a shit.

01:39:56.000 I don't know who's told you that.

01:39:57.000 But what is Jeselnik?

01:39:59.000 Slovenian.

01:40:00.000 Oh.

01:40:01.000 Yeah.

01:40:01.000 Do you ever go there?

01:40:02.000 No.

01:40:03.000 Never been.

01:40:04.000 Why don't you do a show there?

01:40:05.000 It's kind of...

01:40:06.000 I think I thought about it, but it was just like routing.

01:40:09.000 You know what I mean?

01:40:10.000 It's like, do I want to deal with what I have to deal with to get to Slovenia when I can just go from...

01:40:16.000 Do you Australia at all?

01:40:17.000 Yeah.

01:40:18.000 I just did Australia.

01:40:19.000 I did a few weeks, like one week at the very end of the tour.

01:40:24.000 What'd you do?

01:40:24.000 I did Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney.

01:40:30.000 Melbourne and Sydney is the only places I've done, but it's fucking amazing.

01:40:33.000 They're great.

01:40:33.000 I love those too.

01:40:34.000 Yeah, if the World War III hits and that place doesn't get nuked, that's the spot.

01:40:38.000 You think so?

01:40:39.000 Yeah, it's on the other side of the planet.

01:40:40.000 Wasn't there a book, though, where that happens and everyone goes to Australia, but there's a cloud of radiation coming that's eventually going to get them?

01:40:48.000 Fuck.

01:40:49.000 Maybe we just get a big fan.

01:40:51.000 Blow that shit to Russia.

01:40:53.000 I bet that would work.

01:40:54.000 Not for the giant fan.

01:40:57.000 Look, if they can figure out how to nuke an entire country with a few bombs they drop out of airplanes or shoot out of rockets.

01:41:03.000 They should be able to build a giant fan.

01:41:05.000 Build a big fan.

01:41:05.000 Yeah.

01:41:06.000 Why is that so hard?

01:41:07.000 Like, I was reading this shit about space junk.

01:41:09.000 Do you know how much space junk there is?

01:41:11.000 There's stuff floating around in space.

01:41:13.000 Thousands of pieces of shit just flying around.

01:41:16.000 Broken satellites and parts.

01:41:18.000 Is it all just broken satellites?

01:41:19.000 All kinds of shit.

01:41:20.000 All kinds of stuff.

01:41:21.000 Stuff from when rockets take off and then they eject and they leave little pieces of stuff up in there.

01:41:29.000 And is it like in a ring?

01:41:30.000 Like a Saturn type ring?

01:41:32.000 Or is it just everywhere?

01:41:33.000 It's everywhere.

01:41:34.000 It's all over the planet.

01:41:36.000 It's in the sky like it's in the ocean.

01:41:39.000 It's like there's pieces of shit just flying around above our head, and they have to be cognizant about it if they're going to launch a rocket.

01:41:47.000 You could run into it.

01:41:49.000 Space debris and human spacecraft.

01:41:52.000 They all travel at speeds up to 17,500 miles an hour.

01:41:58.000 More than 500,000 pieces of debris or space junk are tracked as they orbit Earth.

01:42:03.000 Think of that.

01:42:04.000 They travel at speeds up to 17,500 miles an hour.

01:42:09.000 Small enough for a relatively small piece of orbital debris to damage a satellite or a spacecraft.

01:42:16.000 Fuck.

01:42:16.000 They're not all that big.

01:42:17.000 That's how...

01:42:18.000 What was that movie with Sandra Bullock?

01:42:20.000 Yeah.

01:42:20.000 Gravity?

01:42:21.000 Yeah.

01:42:22.000 Isn't that space junk that comes across?

01:42:24.000 Yeah, they're like fixing a satellite and something comes by and like...

01:42:26.000 It hits them.

01:42:27.000 ...nicks it and the next thing you know.

01:42:28.000 Yeah.

01:42:29.000 Fuck.

01:42:29.000 That shit can happen.

01:42:30.000 And they don't know what to do either.

01:42:32.000 Like to throw a net up there?

01:42:33.000 What are you going to do?

01:42:34.000 I'm thinking like some kind of like magnet satellite that would just attract everything.

01:42:38.000 Right.

01:42:39.000 Right.

01:42:39.000 But then it would probably get too heavy.

01:42:41.000 I think it would probably take out things that you needed.

01:42:44.000 Yeah.

01:42:45.000 Is this the junk that we can track?

01:42:46.000 Over time.

01:42:47.000 It starts in 57. There's only two things out there.

01:42:50.000 Oh, God.

01:42:51.000 We're gross.

01:42:52.000 We're so gross.

01:42:54.000 I bet the ocean's a similar story.

01:42:56.000 Wow, look at all the shit around.

01:42:58.000 The ocean's even worse.

01:42:59.000 Oh, my God.

01:43:00.000 That's incredible.

01:43:01.000 That's all real?

01:43:04.000 2015, the entire near-Earth orbit is covered with shit.

01:43:11.000 Space debris.

01:43:13.000 Satellites and nonsense.

01:43:15.000 I mean, at what point in time?

01:43:16.000 I mean, we've only been traveling into space since the 1960s, right?

01:43:19.000 So when is this going to end?

01:43:21.000 Like, that's not that long ago.

01:43:23.000 That's 50-plus years ago.

01:43:24.000 What are we going to do when it's 100 years from now, 500 years from now?

01:43:27.000 I mean, are we going to be able to see the sun?

01:43:29.000 Are we going to just look up and just see space shit floating overhead?

01:43:32.000 It said it was only 500,000 pieces.

01:43:35.000 The Earth's pretty fucking big still.

01:43:36.000 We'd have to get a lot.

01:43:38.000 Yeah.

01:43:38.000 I guess.

01:43:39.000 I had a Snapple fact that if you dug a hole through the earth, it would take you 42 minutes to fall through it.

01:43:44.000 It's like, how fucking big is that?

01:43:46.000 It's a long drop.

01:43:48.000 Yeah, it's a long fall.

01:43:49.000 Then I was thinking, would you stop in the middle?

01:43:51.000 You'd die.

01:43:52.000 You'd get cooked.

01:43:53.000 I know, but in theory...

01:43:54.000 But if you didn't, yeah.

01:43:55.000 If it was just a tube, a zero temperature or neutral temperature tube.

01:44:00.000 I wonder how accurate Snapple facts really have to be.

01:44:03.000 Has anyone ever called bullshit on a Snapple fact?

01:44:06.000 I don't drink that shit, so I don't read those things.

01:44:09.000 I didn't even know they had Snapple facts until you just said that.

01:44:11.000 What?

01:44:12.000 I didn't.

01:44:13.000 They used to have little things on the caps.

01:44:16.000 You say it, it makes sense to me, but I don't think I've ever read one of them.

01:44:21.000 I used to always read them.

01:44:22.000 Really?

01:44:22.000 Yeah.

01:44:23.000 I can't remember any of them.

01:44:24.000 You ever get angry?

01:44:25.000 Have a snap effect?

01:44:27.000 No.

01:44:28.000 I have gotten mad at like a Bazooka Joe comic.

01:44:30.000 It's been like, this fucking...

01:44:31.000 Are you kidding me?

01:44:32.000 No.

01:44:34.000 Yeah, they phone it in sometimes.

01:44:36.000 Yeah, big time.

01:44:37.000 Well, comics in general, I think, there's great comics, there's really funny comics, but then there's comic strips that have existed forever and they're fucking terrible.

01:44:47.000 And for some reason or another, they just still exist.

01:44:50.000 Oh, yeah.

01:44:51.000 Do they anymore, though?

01:44:52.000 I haven't read a newspaper, like a physical print newspaper.

01:44:56.000 I think it's smaller and smaller than it ever has been before, but they're still cranking out Garfield.

01:45:03.000 Garfield's still a thing?

01:45:04.000 Yeah.

01:45:05.000 And the guy, Jim Davis, credit Garfield, has nothing to do with it.

01:45:08.000 He's, like, golfing and, like, collecting money.

01:45:10.000 And he's got ghostwriters.

01:45:11.000 So it's just, like, the worst shit ever.

01:45:13.000 Oh, wow.

01:45:14.000 So he hires people to do it, and he makes all the money.

01:45:17.000 Mm-hmm.

01:45:17.000 He's probably worth a billion dollars.

01:45:19.000 Oh, I guarantee.

01:45:21.000 The merchandise, those fucking things you stick in your car alone.

01:45:24.000 Remember how those were everywhere?

01:45:25.000 Yeah.

01:45:26.000 They're, like, yeah.

01:45:27.000 It's all...

01:45:28.000 So I think the Calvin and Hobbes guy would never let them make toys of Calvin and Hobbes.

01:45:33.000 Really?

01:45:34.000 He sold the books.

01:45:34.000 Yeah.

01:45:35.000 He didn't want that money?

01:45:36.000 Calvin and Hobbes blood money?

01:45:38.000 He didn't want his creation being like...

01:45:40.000 He didn't want to be like Jim Davis.

01:45:44.000 I think the best comic ever got to be Gary Larson's The Far Side.

01:45:51.000 Those things fucking hold up.

01:45:52.000 Did you ever read those back in the day?

01:45:54.000 He retired a long time ago, but they're still great.

01:45:57.000 Who did Doonesbury?

01:46:02.000 That's like the political one, right?

01:46:03.000 Trudeau?

01:46:04.000 Is that his name?

01:46:05.000 Maybe, yeah.

01:46:07.000 What the fuck?

01:46:07.000 Who the fuck was...

01:46:08.000 Is it Trudeau?

01:46:09.000 What's his first name?

01:46:10.000 Gary.

01:46:11.000 Gary Trudeau.

01:46:12.000 Isn't that...

01:46:13.000 What's the name...

01:46:13.000 The guy who runs Canada?

01:46:16.000 Justin.

01:46:17.000 Justin.

01:46:18.000 That guy.

01:46:19.000 Yeah, I never got Doonesbury.

01:46:20.000 I never like...

01:46:21.000 It was like too clever.

01:46:22.000 I was like, okay, I guess they're taking down Ronald Reagan or something, but I don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

01:46:27.000 Doonesbury's weird, too, because they basically...

01:46:31.000 They pigeonholed Hunter S. Thompson and turned him into this.

01:46:35.000 They had a character that they were doing.

01:46:36.000 I think he wound up suing them.

01:46:39.000 Yeah, there's his character.

01:46:40.000 It's basically the exact same guy, just slightly different.

01:46:44.000 And he was always shooting off guns and doing a bunch of crazy shit.

01:46:49.000 I forget his name.

01:46:51.000 I forget the name of the guy.

01:46:53.000 They gave him a different name, like Uncle something or another.

01:46:56.000 Yeah.

01:46:57.000 But that was their...

01:46:58.000 I mean, that was Gary Trudeau's take on Hunter S. Thompson, and it wound up driving Hunter S. Thompson nuts.

01:47:04.000 Is this still real?

01:47:06.000 He's still doing...

01:47:07.000 Like, he's doing Trump?

01:47:10.000 That's 2017. Wow.

01:47:13.000 No kidding.

01:47:14.000 Wow.

01:47:16.000 Yeah, but he...

01:47:18.000 So he created this character that was basically the most exaggerated versions of Hunter S. Thompson when Hunter S. Thompson was fucking around.

01:47:25.000 And it sort of defined who Hunter S. Thompson was to a lot of people.

01:47:29.000 Because instead of being this brilliant journalist who, you know, this great writer...

01:47:34.000 He also became this kind of, like, guy who just shoots guns and is always drunk.

01:47:40.000 Yeah.

01:47:40.000 And then you fall into that trap.

01:47:43.000 I think comedians that have a persona, like, oftentimes fall, like, you know, Dice, that's not, you know, his real name is Andrew Silverstein, and the Dice character was a part of his act.

01:47:56.000 He had a bunch of different things.

01:47:57.000 He would do impressions.

01:47:58.000 He would do drawings.

01:47:59.000 Travolta impression?

01:48:00.000 Yeah.

01:48:00.000 Phenomenal.

01:48:01.000 Yeah.

01:48:01.000 Phenomenal Travolta impression.

01:48:03.000 And then the dice man became a part of his act, and then he just decided that's the best part, so I'm just going to do dice all the time.

01:48:11.000 And then he decided, you know what?

01:48:12.000 Fuck living like a regular person.

01:48:14.000 It's going to be dice all the time.

01:48:15.000 So he became the guy in his act.

01:48:19.000 I mean, that's who he is most of the time.

01:48:21.000 Oh, yeah.

01:48:22.000 Yeah.

01:48:23.000 Kinnison?

01:48:23.000 Kinnison had a similar situation.

01:48:25.000 I never met Kinnison.

01:48:26.000 Kinnison, I mean, he died well before I got into stand-up.

01:48:29.000 But I've never met Dice.

01:48:30.000 And I've always, like, sang his praises.

01:48:32.000 Like, I think The Day the Laughter Died is one of the greatest comedy albums of all time.

01:48:37.000 And I've just never met him.

01:48:39.000 He's great!

01:48:40.000 Yeah.

01:48:40.000 I'll introduce you next time I see him at the store if you're there.

01:48:43.000 I've heard great stories.

01:48:44.000 He must, like, he must know who I am.

01:48:46.000 Oh, for sure.

01:48:47.000 He must be aware.

01:48:47.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:48:48.000 I once did Governors.

01:48:49.000 What if he wasn't?

01:48:50.000 Will you be mad?

01:48:51.000 I wouldn't be mad.

01:48:52.000 I would be surprised just because I've spoken about him publicly that, like, if he was wondering why he sold, like, a thousand copies of The Day the Laughter Died after I, like, talked about it on a podcast, like, he would hear that.

01:49:02.000 If someone says something nice about you, you find out.

01:49:05.000 Yeah.

01:49:07.000 But I was at Governor's once and they were like, Dice was here last weekend and he left one of his gloves.

01:49:13.000 You know, the fingerless gloves.

01:49:14.000 And I was just like, give it to me.

01:49:17.000 Like, what do I have to do to take this glove home?

01:49:19.000 But I still have it.

01:49:20.000 I wear it around sometimes.

01:49:22.000 It's fun.

01:49:22.000 Do you wear it and write jokes with it?

01:49:24.000 Oh!

01:49:25.000 I'll walk around just doing little O's.

01:49:28.000 Smoking cigarettes like this?

01:49:30.000 Yeah.

01:49:32.000 But yeah, love Dice.

01:49:34.000 But those characters, when guys get lumped into a character, when you get locked into that, it can be very self-defining.

01:49:41.000 Of course.

01:49:42.000 For Kinison, I think it was very self-defining.

01:49:44.000 Oh, big time.

01:49:44.000 I thought about that when I was creating my persona.

01:49:47.000 It was like, what's going to age well?

01:49:49.000 You know, like...

01:49:52.000 I think of a guy like Nick Swartzen, who's just like, party all the time, like he's a college kid forever.

01:49:57.000 It's like, how long can you do that for?

01:50:00.000 You know what I mean?

01:50:01.000 He still kind of has to do it.

01:50:02.000 And it's still great.

01:50:03.000 But I'm like, are you enjoying this?

01:50:06.000 I want to be able to kind of hold on to my dignity.

01:50:10.000 You know who's the best version of it?

01:50:12.000 Emo Phillips.

01:50:13.000 Yes.

01:50:14.000 That's the best example.

01:50:15.000 Because it's like, wow.

01:50:17.000 Because when he was a young, sort of cute guy, it was kind of strange to watch him do comedy like this.

01:50:25.000 When you're 60, though, and you're doing that, people are like, hey, man, this is just weird.

01:50:30.000 Yeah.

01:50:31.000 Like, Bobcat talked about that.

01:50:32.000 Like, that Bobcat had this moment where he stopped being Bobcat.

01:50:37.000 And people are like, hey, man, how can we not do the scream?

01:50:39.000 He's like, fuck you.

01:50:41.000 I'm not doing it!

01:50:42.000 He told me the best story ever.

01:50:43.000 He said he's at Comedy Works in Denver doing a weekend, and he's eating shit every show.

01:50:49.000 And every show he's just bombing and everyone's going, do the voice!

01:50:52.000 Do the voice!

01:50:53.000 And he's like, no, I don't do the voice anymore.

01:50:55.000 I'm not doing the voice.

01:50:56.000 Late show Saturday, someone in the back yells, we're from Aurora!

01:51:00.000 Do the voice for us!

01:51:02.000 And he goes, oh, you're from Aurora?

01:51:04.000 At least you learned to sit in the back.

01:51:07.000 And he said, and this is like a year after the shooting, yes, a year after that, and he said the entire audience, the entire audience just pretended he didn't say it.

01:51:21.000 They didn't boo, they didn't laugh, they just acted like nothing had happened, and he did the rest of the show, and he said it made the whole weekend worth it for him.

01:51:31.000 Just to say that.

01:51:32.000 Just to say that, yeah.

01:51:33.000 Dude, I was, speaking of which, I was watching a video today.

01:51:36.000 You know how YouTube, for whatever reason, just starts recommending things and you click on it?

01:51:40.000 Watching a video today on, oh, this is what it was.

01:51:44.000 I was looking at bulletproof clothing.

01:51:47.000 For whatever reason.

01:51:48.000 Because I was like, I saw an ad on Instagram where this guy had a bulletproof hoodie on and it looked like a regular hoodie and he shot himself.

01:51:55.000 Is it like a John Wick situation where it's like...

01:51:58.000 Yes.

01:51:58.000 It's like sewn in between the fabric?

01:52:01.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:52:01.000 So this guy had a regular hoodie and he shot himself in the gut with a 9mm just bang while he was playing this video with like a regular hoodie.

01:52:11.000 I was like, this is crazy.

01:52:13.000 And this hoodie, it looked like a regular hoodie but it's some sort of Kevlar or something.

01:52:17.000 So then it recommends this next thing.

01:52:20.000 And this next video that I watch Is on whether or not you should carry with a bullet in the chamber.

01:52:29.000 So it's this guy who's just speculating that there's two kinds of people.

01:52:35.000 There's the kind of people that thinks they're going to have enough time to rack a bullet, and there's a bunch of people that realize that when something happens, it's like being in a car accident.

01:52:45.000 It happens quickly, and you've got to be prepared.

01:52:47.000 You're not going to have enough time to rack a bullet.

01:52:50.000 And so there was this long discussion as to whether or not you should have a bullet in the chamber or not when you conceal carry.

01:52:59.000 And he was talking about how this guy was open carrying, but he could see that the hammer was shut down on the pistol, which means he was going to have to cock it, because it was a, not a revolver, but a, you know, whatever, an automatic, a semi, what is it when, what is it when you call,

01:53:14.000 what do you call one of those?

01:53:15.000 When you have to load it like that.

01:53:18.000 Like a 9mm, like a Glock.

01:53:20.000 What is the difference?

01:53:21.000 One's a revolver.

01:53:22.000 Revolver revolves.

01:53:23.000 So it's not a revolver.

01:53:24.000 It's just a pistol.

01:53:25.000 Anyway.

01:53:26.000 He was saying because of the way the hammer was, he could tell that this guy, you know, he was going to have to pull that hammer back.

01:53:32.000 He was going to use that gun.

01:53:34.000 And I was like, this is like next level thinking.

01:53:38.000 Like these people, everywhere you go, someone's worrying about shooting you.

01:53:42.000 And then I go on to Twitter, almost like this is...

01:53:46.000 Synchronicity.

01:53:47.000 And Eric Weinstein, who's a friend of mine, says, is this the year where the debate is something in terms of, is it appropriate to bring a loaded gun into a place where you worship now to protect yourself?

01:54:05.000 Because there's been so many attacks on people in synagogues and churches and mosques.

01:54:10.000 And I'm like, fuck, man.

01:54:13.000 Probably.

01:54:14.000 What is happening here?

01:54:17.000 I mean, it's bad.

01:54:19.000 I'm not a gun guy.

01:54:21.000 There's two more today.

01:54:22.000 What do you mean?

01:54:23.000 There's two more attacks today.

01:54:25.000 At synagogues?

01:54:26.000 One was in a church.

01:54:27.000 What were the ones that happened today?

01:54:30.000 There was two smaller ones.

01:54:31.000 There was the church that was in San Diego this weekend.

01:54:35.000 No, the synagogue in San Diego this weekend.

01:54:38.000 But there was another one.

01:54:40.000 Like, this morning when I was reading the news.

01:54:43.000 In Los Angeles?

01:54:44.000 Yes.

01:54:44.000 What was it?

01:54:45.000 A former 26-year-old U.S. Army soldier served in Afghanistan and has been charged with plotting terror attacks in Los Angeles area.

01:54:52.000 Rally in Long Beach?

01:54:56.000 It's on the front page.

01:54:57.000 You got some sounds leaking through that.

01:55:00.000 Did he do something or did he just got caught plotting?

01:55:03.000 It says he was accused of targeting Jews as they walked to a synagogue police officer's military facility and crowds at the Santa Monica Pier.

01:55:10.000 I think there was another one, too.

01:55:11.000 There was another one somewhere else.

01:55:13.000 It might have been outside the country.

01:55:15.000 Today.

01:55:16.000 It's like, fuck.

01:55:18.000 Like, this shit is ramping up.

01:55:20.000 Yeah.

01:55:21.000 It's getting worse and worse.

01:55:23.000 Are you a gun guy?

01:55:24.000 I have guns.

01:55:26.000 I wouldn't say I'm a gun guy, but I have them.

01:55:28.000 Hunting or just a case?

01:55:30.000 I have hunting guns and I have safety guns, like security guns or personal protection guns.

01:55:40.000 I hunt with a bow and arrow, mostly.

01:55:43.000 Of course.

01:55:44.000 I'm not opposed to...

01:55:45.000 Why do you say of course?

01:55:46.000 I've been sarcastic.

01:55:49.000 I'm not opposed to it.

01:55:50.000 What is this?

01:55:51.000 California synagogue attack latest.

01:55:53.000 San Diego, yesterday.

01:55:53.000 Oh, this is the yesterday.

01:55:54.000 They found a social media message, I guess, right before it happened.

01:55:58.000 Of course.

01:56:00.000 Jesus Christ.

01:56:01.000 I don't know.

01:56:02.000 I think there was another one that I saw.

01:56:04.000 I believe it was in another country.

01:56:06.000 That's all right.

01:56:08.000 It's enough.

01:56:09.000 There's so many.

01:56:10.000 I know.

01:56:11.000 I know.

01:56:11.000 You're just numb to it.

01:56:12.000 Well, also, they're targeting places of worship now.

01:56:16.000 Like, what the fuck, man?

01:56:21.000 Do you have guns?

01:56:22.000 No.

01:56:23.000 Would you ever own one?

01:56:24.000 They make me uncomfortable.

01:56:25.000 I'm not against.

01:56:26.000 People want to have guns, okay.

01:56:28.000 It's not on a hill I'm going to die on.

01:56:30.000 But I think what's happening with schools and churches is reprehensible.

01:56:37.000 We are the only country where this really happens.

01:56:39.000 Not anymore.

01:56:41.000 It's happening around the world, but it's a lot here.

01:56:45.000 Happens much more often here.

01:56:47.000 Yeah.

01:56:48.000 No, there's certainly an argument for that.

01:56:50.000 The real problem is the guns are already there.

01:56:53.000 It's like, what do you do when you live in a country of 300 plus million people with 300 plus million guns?

01:57:00.000 How do you ever eradicate that?

01:57:02.000 How do you shift...

01:57:04.000 The path that we seem to be on.

01:57:07.000 What do you do?

01:57:08.000 I mean, everything is like, you know, people talk about this, and they're like, you know, how do we do?

01:57:12.000 Is it the culture?

01:57:14.000 Is it this?

01:57:15.000 And you turn on the TV, and it's like a video game commercial or a commercial for a movie, and it's just a supermodel spinning around in circles, shooting everything she sees.

01:57:23.000 And you're like, you don't think this is having an effect?

01:57:26.000 Like, they just make it look so cool that if you want to be the hero, you've got to have a gun.

01:57:31.000 How about John Wick?

01:57:32.000 John Wick 3. John Wick's my fucking favorite thing ever.

01:57:35.000 And I'm like, this is the most glorifying gun shit ever.

01:57:38.000 But I love it.

01:57:39.000 That's a problem, right?

01:57:40.000 It is a problem.

01:57:41.000 I mean, it hasn't made me turn to guns.

01:57:44.000 I mean, I wouldn't say that video games are making people more violent.

01:57:48.000 I don't believe that.

01:57:50.000 I don't know if there's evidence to back that.

01:57:52.000 But I mean, I've always loved...

01:57:55.000 James Bond movies.

01:57:57.000 You know, things like where guns are a big part of it, and it's never made me want to pick one up.

01:58:02.000 Well, there's a real argument that that alleviates some of the need for violence.

01:58:07.000 That people like seeing it, and in seeing it in something like John Wick, it actually relaxes people.

01:58:13.000 There's a real argument for that.

01:58:15.000 And there's a real argument that you can make with that with video games too.

01:58:17.000 But that's not with everybody.

01:58:18.000 The problem is certain people are very susceptible to influence.

01:58:22.000 They're susceptible, they're vulnerable to being influenced or excited in one particular direction.

01:58:28.000 Whether it's excited to become radicalized and become a white nationalist and want to shoot up, you know, whatever, figure out whatever the group is.

01:58:38.000 Or whether it's, you know, there's certain people that, you know, They'll see something in a movie or a video game, and it'll make them want to act that out.

01:58:48.000 But they're usually mentally ill.

01:58:49.000 I mean, that's the real problem.

01:58:50.000 The real problem is mental illness.

01:58:52.000 The type of person that could go into a synagogue and just start shooting people, that's a mentally ill person.

01:58:58.000 Regardless of whether or not they have a gun or not, that's a sick person.

01:59:02.000 So we have to figure out what's causing this massive...

01:59:07.000 Amount of mental illness in this country.

01:59:09.000 Because that's a big...

01:59:11.000 The guy in Aurora is a perfect example.

01:59:14.000 That guy was...

01:59:15.000 They knew he was sick.

01:59:16.000 They knew there was something really...

01:59:18.000 I mean, if you see photos of that fucking guy, look at his eyes.

01:59:20.000 He was completely batshit crazy.

01:59:23.000 I think it's something too, like when they, now they've started to refuse to show the guy's face.

01:59:27.000 You know what I mean?

01:59:28.000 They won't show it because like this guy's getting glory now and the next shooter wants to top that.

01:59:32.000 Right.

01:59:33.000 But I think they're getting a little bit smarter about it.

01:59:34.000 But what's the quote?

01:59:36.000 No man chooses evil because it's evil.

01:59:38.000 They only mistake it for happiness.

01:59:41.000 Like I believe that.

01:59:43.000 Yeah, that's a good quote.

01:59:46.000 Yeah.

01:59:47.000 They mistake it for happiness or they want other people to feel what they feel.

01:59:50.000 They want other people to suffer the way they're suffering.

01:59:54.000 Yeah.

01:59:56.000 I mean, when you ever have a giant country filled with people, you're going to have a broad spectrum of people's experiences.

02:00:03.000 And so you're going to have a certain number of people that are on the low end of experiences.

02:00:08.000 The worst experiences all the time.

02:00:10.000 Sexual abuse, physical abuse, violence, mental illness, pills, drugs, this, that.

02:00:16.000 Boom.

02:00:18.000 But Japan is one of the most unhappy countries in the world.

02:00:21.000 The suicide rate is off the charts.

02:00:23.000 But they take themselves out.

02:00:25.000 In America, it's like, who can I take with me?

02:00:28.000 And I don't know what that is.

02:00:30.000 Well, Japan emphasizes humility and they reward it.

02:00:36.000 They emphasize being polite and orderly.

02:00:40.000 It's really interesting.

02:00:42.000 There was a...

02:00:44.000 A piece I was watching on YouTube of these people that live in cyber cafes.

02:00:49.000 They have cyber cafes that are open 24 hours a day in Japan and they have these little cubicles that you take in there and they're just online on their computer and they have all their things there and that's where they live.

02:01:01.000 They shower and they go back to their little cubicle.

02:01:04.000 But this woman was saying that it made her feel like she wasn't alone, but she wasn't with people either.

02:01:09.000 She likes that.

02:01:11.000 She wants to know that there's people around her, but she doesn't want anybody in her life.

02:01:17.000 This is dark.

02:01:19.000 Yeah.

02:01:20.000 That's super fucking dark.

02:01:21.000 Sad.

02:01:22.000 Just the loneliness.

02:01:24.000 That's a giant issue, apparently, in Japan, is how lonely people are, which is incredibly ironic when you consider that it's probably one of the most population-dense places on Earth, in Tokyo at least.

02:01:34.000 Oh, yeah.

02:01:34.000 I think they're just working their asses off.

02:01:36.000 I mean, they fucking love to jump in front of trains.

02:01:39.000 They live for it.

02:01:41.000 Like, it really is, like, of countries, it's the least happy country in the world.

02:01:46.000 Wow.

02:01:47.000 I think the happiest is like someone in Scandinavia.

02:01:51.000 Yeah, Sweden or some shit.

02:01:53.000 Yeah.

02:01:54.000 Finland, I think Finland ranks very highly on that.

02:01:56.000 Yeah.

02:01:58.000 Why is that?

02:01:59.000 The thing I was watching said it was like a sense of community.

02:02:02.000 A lot of them live together and they eat their meals together as like a neighborhood almost.

02:02:06.000 And they just like...

02:02:07.000 Everyone contributes and they're just happy and content.

02:02:10.000 That makes sense.

02:02:11.000 The numbers are smaller, too.

02:02:13.000 I think that helps.

02:02:15.000 Also, it's gorgeous up there.

02:02:16.000 That helps, too.

02:02:17.000 There's a lot of factors there, right?

02:02:19.000 Yeah.

02:02:20.000 Like, what's a big city in Finland?

02:02:22.000 Helsinki?

02:02:23.000 How many people is that?

02:02:24.000 50?

02:02:24.000 How many people live in Helsinki?

02:02:27.000 50. 50 people?

02:02:28.000 I bet 50, yeah.

02:02:29.000 I bet you're right.

02:02:31.000 I bet Helsinki has 1.2 million people.

02:02:35.000 How many people Helsinki have?

02:02:37.000 That's a wild guess.

02:02:39.000 I don't know why I had to put the.2 in there.

02:02:41.000 I'm hedging my bet.

02:02:42.000 If I was on the prices right.

02:02:43.000 This thing says it's the biggest, but the thing I pulled up doesn't say.

02:02:45.000 The second largest says $279,000.

02:02:48.000 This doesn't say what Helsinki does for some reason.

02:02:50.000 If you Google population of Helsinki...

02:02:53.000 This is the very first thing I had, which was the biggest cities in Finland.

02:02:55.000 I figured I would have had it.

02:02:56.000 It says it's $558,000.

02:02:59.000 558,000?

02:03:00.000 Yeah.

02:03:00.000 That ain't shit.

02:03:01.000 Wow.

02:03:01.000 That's it.

02:03:02.000 That's why they're happy.

02:03:03.000 It's basically like four Boulders.

02:03:05.000 Yeah.

02:03:05.000 Four Boulder Colorados and it's a whole country.

02:03:08.000 Yeah.

02:03:08.000 You go to Boulder, they're some of the nicest people ever.

02:03:10.000 Why?

02:03:11.000 100,000 of them.

02:03:12.000 That's it.

02:03:13.000 Hard to build there.

02:03:15.000 Beautiful.

02:03:16.000 Beautiful.

02:03:17.000 Beautiful.

02:03:17.000 Gorgeous.

02:03:18.000 Great people.

02:03:19.000 A little on the socialist side, but I get it.

02:03:21.000 A little too many Birkenstocks and Tevas and...

02:03:24.000 Girls can use a little bit more makeup.

02:03:26.000 Put a little makeup on, gals.

02:03:27.000 Follow it up a little.

02:03:28.000 It's not pronounced Teva?

02:03:29.000 I don't know what the fuck it is.

02:03:30.000 I always thought it was Tevas.

02:03:31.000 Maybe it is Tevas.

02:03:32.000 I don't know.

02:03:33.000 I haven't even heard the word in forever.

02:03:34.000 Weird leather sandals and shit.

02:03:35.000 But it's a cool place, man.

02:03:37.000 But I think that's what you get if you live around nature.

02:03:40.000 You get a bunch of fit people that like hiking and shit.

02:03:43.000 A lot of North Face jackets.

02:03:46.000 They got great weather.

02:03:47.000 Yeah, they really do.

02:03:49.000 They have blizzards and snowstorms and shit, but it'll be 30 degrees in Denver or Boulder, and then the next day it'll be 60. It doesn't make any sense.

02:04:01.000 Would you say Denver's the best comedy town in the country?

02:04:04.000 It's up there.

02:04:05.000 It's up there.

02:04:06.000 I fucking love it there.

02:04:07.000 Me too.

02:04:08.000 I'm going there in August.

02:04:09.000 I'm doing that place again.

02:04:11.000 I fucking love it.

02:04:13.000 Yeah.

02:04:13.000 It's one of my favorite places on the planet, period.

02:04:15.000 If I was going to leave LA, Denver's one of the spots that I would pick.

02:04:19.000 I think about when I eventually leave, where would I go in Denver?

02:04:23.000 Denver's at the top of the list.

02:04:24.000 I used to want to go to Seattle or Portland, and then I read that article, that terrifying article about how- Everyone talks about the big one earthquake in LA. They're like, what's really going to fuck shit up is the tsunami that's going to happen on that fault line.

02:04:39.000 They're like, Portland and Seattle are going to be gone with that tsunami.

02:04:43.000 100%, right?

02:04:44.000 100%.

02:04:44.000 Yeah, it's just whether it's 100 years from now or two.

02:04:48.000 Jesus.

02:04:49.000 Imagine if we wake up one day and Seattle's gone.

02:04:52.000 13 million people dead.

02:04:54.000 It goes deep into Washington State, all the way to Tacoma.

02:04:58.000 The ocean goes to Tacoma.

02:05:00.000 There was an article where they talked about how it would happen.

02:05:05.000 Minute by minute in Portland with this going on.

02:05:07.000 It was just terrifying.

02:05:09.000 Yeah, fuck that.

02:05:10.000 Too risky.

02:05:11.000 Also, seasonal depression's real.

02:05:13.000 Oh, for sure.

02:05:13.000 I have a buddy of mine who moved to Portland and started a jiu-jitsu school out there.

02:05:20.000 And I was like, do you like it?

02:05:21.000 He was like, dude, I fucking love it.

02:05:22.000 I go, you don't miss LA at all?

02:05:23.000 He was like, no.

02:05:24.000 I go, what about the rain?

02:05:25.000 Is it bothering you?

02:05:25.000 I was like, no, no, it's nothing.

02:05:26.000 Two years later, he's back in LA. I go, what happened?

02:05:29.000 He goes, the fucking weather.

02:05:30.000 I go, you liar.

02:05:31.000 I go, you were trying to convince me.

02:05:33.000 You were trying to tell me.

02:05:34.000 And he started laughing.

02:05:35.000 He's like, I'm convincing myself.

02:05:37.000 Yeah.

02:05:37.000 He bought into it.

02:05:38.000 He goes, I go, what happened?

02:05:40.000 He goes, I came back one time when it was raining out there and it wasn't raining here.

02:05:45.000 And I was like, what am I doing?

02:05:46.000 I go, I'm less happy there.

02:05:48.000 It makes you less happy.

02:05:50.000 If it's raining all the time, it makes you less happy.

02:05:53.000 If you live in LA and it rains, we're all happy.

02:05:56.000 You're like, oh, this is cool.

02:05:57.000 It's raining out.

02:05:58.000 Oh, vitamin D is important.

02:06:00.000 It's not just vitamin D either.

02:06:02.000 It's like a feeling you get.

02:06:04.000 Like you're going to be cold and wet.

02:06:06.000 You're going to be cold and wet and you're going to bundle up and get inside.

02:06:10.000 Quickly get inside.

02:06:11.000 You can't just be free.

02:06:13.000 You can't be outside sitting in the grass, eating lunch, just looking out, just relaxing.

02:06:18.000 I like my hammock.

02:06:20.000 Yeah, fuck that place.

02:06:21.000 And then fuck places that have, like, too much snow, too.

02:06:25.000 Like, all the people that want to move back to New York, I'm like, you can keep that.

02:06:28.000 Good luck with that.

02:06:29.000 Yeah, New York, the summer and the winter is what killed me in New York.

02:06:33.000 Like, waiting for the subway when you're just, like, dripping sweat was just brutal.

02:06:37.000 Dripping sweat with moist piss smell everywhere.

02:06:41.000 That moisture that's carrying those piss odor molecules in the subway.

02:06:47.000 You're like, what in the fuck are you people breathing in down here?

02:06:50.000 And I never got the rubber boots.

02:06:52.000 You know what I mean?

02:06:53.000 I always just had sneakers.

02:06:54.000 I was trying to get to Fallon at like 7 in the morning.

02:06:58.000 Walking to the subway through the slush.

02:07:00.000 It was like, it would be beautiful while it was snowing.

02:07:01.000 And then as soon as it was on the ground, you were just like, get rid of this shit now.

02:07:05.000 Did you write for Fallon?

02:07:06.000 Uh-huh.

02:07:07.000 What was that gig like?

02:07:08.000 I mean, it was frustrating.

02:07:11.000 I started when he started Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

02:07:15.000 I was one of the first guys there.

02:07:17.000 And they didn't like any of my jokes.

02:07:21.000 It was impossible.

02:07:23.000 Too mean?

02:07:23.000 Too mean or just like, this is going to make Jimmy unlikable.

02:07:26.000 It wasn't about being funny so much as coming off as smart and friendly and likable.

02:07:34.000 I was there for a year.

02:07:36.000 And they barely used anything I ever did.

02:07:39.000 But they knew I was funny.

02:07:40.000 They liked me.

02:07:41.000 And I thought, for some reason in my head, I thought that if I quit before a year, that it'll follow me.

02:07:46.000 People will be like, what happened with Fallon?

02:07:48.000 Why were you only there a year?

02:07:49.000 And then when I left, it was like, no one would have given a shit if I'd left after 10 weeks.

02:07:53.000 It wouldn't have mattered at all.

02:07:55.000 It was an interesting experience, but I did not enjoy it.

02:08:02.000 Being a writer for other people's voices has got to be very difficult.

02:08:05.000 For me, it's impossible.

02:08:07.000 I write in my voice, and you either like it or you don't.

02:08:10.000 I've written for Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, and if I loved a joke, they loved it too.

02:08:15.000 But with Fallon, it was not the case.

02:08:17.000 It was almost never.

02:08:19.000 He would laugh at the joke, but he'd be like, I can't say this.

02:08:23.000 I can't do it.

02:08:24.000 What are they trying to do?

02:08:26.000 What is he trying to do?

02:08:27.000 He's trying to be like middle America.

02:08:29.000 There's a market for that, right?

02:08:31.000 Is that what it is?

02:08:31.000 He just wants everyone to love him.

02:08:33.000 He just wants everyone to love him.

02:08:37.000 That's not a bad trait to have in a late night host.

02:08:40.000 Right.

02:08:40.000 Probably the best trait to have in a late night host.

02:08:44.000 I'd like to see him drunk one day, just shitting on everybody, though.

02:08:47.000 I think it would be hilarious.

02:08:48.000 It is hilarious.

02:08:49.000 Does he do that?

02:08:50.000 Oh, yeah.

02:08:54.000 I've heard that he quit drinking.

02:08:55.000 I don't know if that's true, but he liked to get drunk in shitty bars and hang out with the staff and the crew.

02:09:04.000 He's like a man of the people, and he didn't just want to go home and drink.

02:09:07.000 He wanted to go out and go to some weird bar that was in a subway that no one knew about and have beers.

02:09:13.000 He was a fun drunk, but he did a lot.

02:09:18.000 Yeah, there was always those rumors that he's got a problem.

02:09:22.000 Jimmy Fallon's got a problem.

02:09:24.000 Yeah.

02:09:25.000 Yeah.

02:09:26.000 Do you think that's, like, the pressure of just being this, like, super friendly, sweet guy on TV wanting everybody to love you?

02:09:33.000 That you're like, oh my god, get me a fucking drink so I can cut loose!

02:09:37.000 I think that could be part of it, you know?

02:09:40.000 That's why I always thought, like, with my persona, like, let's be the meanest person you can so that it allows you to be nice offstage.

02:09:48.000 It gives you a little bit of distance.

02:09:50.000 But the guys who come off as your best friend on stage tend to be monsters off stage.

02:09:55.000 Some of them, man.

02:09:56.000 Yeah.

02:09:57.000 I got another story I'll tell you when we get off the air.

02:10:00.000 About one of those.

02:10:01.000 Great.

02:10:02.000 Well, let's wrap this fucking thing up, man.

02:10:04.000 Your special, it's out tonight at midnight.

02:10:07.000 Yeah.

02:10:07.000 What's it called?

02:10:08.000 Fire in the Maternity Ward.

02:10:09.000 And you have...

02:10:10.000 Jesus.

02:10:12.000 Yeah, once you think of that title, you gotta go with it.

02:10:14.000 Yeah.

02:10:15.000 Every now and then when someone says a title of a special and you have to, whoa, that was one of those.

02:10:20.000 So you got me.

02:10:21.000 You have several, though.

02:10:22.000 So what are the other ones that are available on Netflix now?

02:10:25.000 Thoughts and Prayers is on Netflix.

02:10:27.000 Fire and the Maternity Award comes out tonight.

02:10:29.000 I've got a podcast on Comedy Central called the Jeselnik and Rosenthal Vanity Project.

02:10:35.000 Oh, that's right, yeah.

02:10:36.000 Who is it with?

02:10:36.000 My friend Greg Rosenthal is an NFL analyst.

02:10:39.000 We've been best friends since college.

02:10:40.000 So we just kind of like, we're supposed to talk about sports, but we just fuck around.

02:10:45.000 Like, we never talk about sports.

02:10:47.000 Yeah, it's fun.

02:10:47.000 Beautiful.

02:10:48.000 All right, well, good luck.

02:10:49.000 Good luck with the special.

02:10:50.000 Thanks for doing this, man.

02:10:51.000 Appreciate you.

02:10:52.000 Yeah, great to finally be here.

02:10:53.000 Yeah, for sure.

02:10:54.000 And I can't recommend his comedy enough.

02:10:56.000 For real.

02:10:57.000 If you're a fan of stand-up comedy, Anthony Jeselnik is the shit.

02:11:01.000 So thank you, sir.

02:11:02.000 Thank you, Joe.

02:11:02.000 Bye, everybody.

The Joe Rogan Experience - April 29, 2019

Joe Rogan Experience #1286 - Anthony Jeselnik

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