Comedian Joey Diaz joins Jemele to talk about comedy and comedy clubs and what it's like being a stand-up comedian in Los Angeles. He also talks about how he got into comedy and how he deals with the pressure of being on stage in front of thousands of people every night. He also shares some of the weird things he does to keep up with all the people he has to deal with on a daily basis. And, of course, there's a little bit of a quiz from Jemele! Thanks to our sponsor, Ralph's Ralph's, for sponsoring this episode! We hope you enjoy this episode, and we hope you have a great rest of the week! Cheers, Jemele xoxo. Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Theme by Mavus White. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. The opinions stated here are our own, not those of our companies. We do not own the rights to either of these songs, credit goes to original artists and labels. If you like them, please consider giving us a review on iTunes or rating and review on your favorite streaming platform. Thank you for supporting this podcast. It helps us out tremendously :) - Thank you so much for all the support and support we've gotten so far. -Jemele xxx -- Thank you, Aaliyah, Alyssa, J.D., J.J. & Matt, A.J., Aaliya and A.K. & A. -- J.Alicia J.R. Thanks for listening and supporting the podcast and supporting us. . -Aaliyahilah, J-A.D. & J.B. & J-D.A. Thank you J-O. J-E-YA-R. -J-O-R-A-Y-AJY-S. -A.M. -S.A-P.E. -P.S. & D.A., J-M. & R.AJ-E.E-M-D-C. -E.S-C-I-S-I. -M-AY-T-ABAY-P-A TH-A? -C-A -A-C? -S-AQ-S -PODCAST
00:00:04.000Isn't it weird when you run into a comedian that you don't normally hang out with outside the store?
00:00:08.000I mean, I would recognize you, but sometimes you'll meet someone that you met at a meeting and then it's like at a Ralph's and you can't place the context.
00:01:18.000Every time I go to LAX, I'll bump into, like, someone, Joe Coy, or last time it was Burt Kreischer, and, like, Jesus Trejo, we're going to do, I think, Utah.
00:02:46.000Like, whatever your seven minutes you want to do for the taping, they want you to sit on, like, on a Mac and open up Word and be like, how you guys doing?
00:04:23.000Well, yes, it's a weird way of looking at it.
00:04:26.000It used to be very valuable for comedians.
00:04:29.000Now it's very valuable for Just for Laughs because they have this enormous platform and you go there and everybody knows that all these great comedians are going to be there and they make an enormous amount of money off the comedians.
00:04:42.000It used to be the comedians would go there because the industry would go there, and the key to the whole thing was development deals for sitcoms.
00:05:41.000But I think a lot of times, you know, suits and everything, they just hear decibels or right place, right time.
00:05:47.000And they believe this lightning rod moment or whatever, this great set, is indicative of their entire comedic being instead of, like, a lucky role.
00:07:13.000It's one of those things, man, where, like, if it didn't work out and he didn't develop, it didn't, he didn't, he never became, like, a legit comedian.
00:07:24.000Yeah, I think if that had happened and he actually had, I don't know, the equity of a stand-up comedian and been doing it for long enough, that would be like a bump in the road, but you can come back from that.
00:07:36.000If that's just sort of like your lotto ticket, then that's why it was so drastic, I think.
00:08:23.000Like, when I was a younger comedian out here in my early 20s, when I moved from Seattle, like, when I first got reps and stuff, I was going out on these auditions for, like, CW shows or just whatever.
00:08:44.000It's like a kid, like a dance recital or something.
00:08:46.000They don't care as long as you're going to these auditions in the daytime.
00:08:48.000So they just hope that you hit on a series regular.
00:08:52.000And then that's some cash flow for the biz.
00:08:55.000But luckily, I mean, I don't know, I think your successes are carved by your failures.
00:09:00.000So I'm kind of fortunate that I would get some acting things here and there, but never anything substantial enough to take me away from stand-up.
00:10:03.000And the TV stuff, it's like one hand washes the other.
00:10:05.000If you let that go, you're letting go of this revenue stream so that when the acting gig is over, you're kind of fucked because this wasn't like building along with it.
00:10:14.000It also was a point of confidence where you understand what's funny and what isn't.
00:10:18.000You know how to be funny because you're funny in front of a live audience all the time.
00:12:49.000And it's kind of interesting, especially being in this industry, not taking advantage of that, because it's all, especially the store, like, you'll do a show, and they're like, hey, do you want these three bags, these three pillowcases of weed and CBD oil?
00:17:01.000It's really kind of weird about the more famous you get, the more people try to define you in a way that's Detrimental or a way that's dismissive and limiting.
00:17:13.000I've noticed that after this Bernie Sanders thing that I did.
00:17:16.000So anybody listening to this, if you're saying this, I am not right-wing at all.
00:17:29.000The only thing that stops me from, the only things that I disagree with about left-wing people is support for the military, support for police, and the Second Amendment.
00:18:00.000And don't you think he weighed the pros and cons of, like, it was an opportunity for him and I think Everyone thought it was a win as well.
00:18:06.000I don't think he had any idea who I was.
00:18:07.000I think it was one of his young staff members who's friends with Kyle Kalinske, who is a really good left-wing progressive talk show guy on YouTube.
00:18:28.000There's a weird thing that's going on right now.
00:18:30.000I thought it was a great platform for him to get his ideas out there and to be heard in something other than just sound bites that could be taken out of context.
00:18:36.000It's a great platform, I think, for anyone who's running for anything to have a long-form conversation.
00:18:42.000And it's good for us, too, because we get to find out who they really are.
00:18:45.000You really can't hide In a long conversation.
00:20:43.000Like, one of the things that I was getting during the Trump campaign when he was running for president the first time was like, this guy's not going away.
00:21:10.000But doing stand-up in some red states, you're with the people, you're doing jokes, and you get a temperature of an audience more so than someone who just has a desk job.
00:21:20.000But also, I have a lot of right-wing friends.
00:21:22.000A lot of right-wing friends, especially from the hunting world.
00:21:25.000I have a lot of friends that live in Iowa and Oregon, and they have a lot of right-wing friends, too.
00:21:33.000There's a whole part of the country that the big cities, New York and Los Angeles and the big Democratic-leaning cities, they were all dismissing.
00:21:43.000The Democrats thought that Hillary was the most experienced and Trump was a buffoon and that that grab her by the pussy tape, that was it.
00:21:58.000They thought she was some Sleazy politician who's been involved in the business forever and she licks her finger and figures out which way the wind's blowing and that's what she says.
00:22:10.000And that they thought that Trump was a straight shooter and he's going to drain that swamp and he's going to do this and bring jobs back and he's talking about clean coal.
00:22:19.000It's almost like I think he's just so outside of the system like that it seemed like he could have done anything.
00:22:25.000Just like we want someone to throw a wrench into it.
00:24:11.000They just weren't uncomfortable with that.
00:24:13.000You remember how, you know, the first photos came out of Will Smith as a genie?
00:24:18.000I love how little it takes to whip this nation into a frenzy.
00:24:22.000Like, I'll wake up and open up Twitter, and then the Will Smith genie, everyone is freaking out over that.
00:24:28.000And it's crazy how we put them on the same pedestal, like some sort of Trump scandal or like Pedophile Island, and then the Blue Genie or Sonic looks weird.
00:28:58.000It's like going from the Comedy Store to Uncle Fuckstick's Chuckle Hut on Monday night.
00:29:06.000It's like every other sitcom that I looked at, every other sitcom that I read for, or that I got scripts for, rather...
00:29:13.000I was like, oof, this is just not good stuff.
00:29:16.000Isn't it interesting when you get sides, like just sides, just like one scene or two scenes for a show, and you can tell it's good just from that?
00:30:18.000You ever been in an audition and it's terrible, but everyone goes through the motions where everyone's just cracking up like it's the greatest show on earth.
00:30:27.000Like it's Def Jam because the writers and the directors are in the room.
00:30:30.000They fake laugh to get everybody excited.
00:30:33.000Yeah, they have to because I think they need this rocket fuel to get this project off the ground.
00:35:33.000That's what exposes him is that he's a silly man.
00:35:36.000It wasn't like someone was being equally aggressive to him and he was defending himself.
00:35:41.000Sometimes if you're in a situation where someone's very aggressive to you, you almost have to be aggressive back just to let them know, hey, I'll go there with you.
00:35:49.000We could go to a dark place right now.
00:35:52.000And, you know, I'm not going to let you hit me.
00:35:54.000I'm not going to let you do something to me.
00:35:55.000If you think that I'm a pushover, you know, I'm here to defend myself.
00:39:09.000But I just don't like the idea of it because primarily I don't like the idea that there's some weird loophole where someone can get you to work for them.
00:39:16.000They're just showing up and you're signing these real quick and I'm going to sell them.
00:39:20.000Because you're asking someone to work for you, even if it only takes five minutes.
00:41:08.000Because you are a rarity, I think, of the comedians at the store who have gotten to a certain point where you kind of have a relationship with everyone at the comedy store, from the door guy to the waitresses to stand-ups like me or Santino or Ian.
00:41:22.000You have a relationship with everyone.
00:41:23.000You come through, you spend time at the store.
00:41:25.000You're being pulled by a lot of things, like UFC and the family and all this stuff, the podcast.
00:42:33.000It's bad for the person who becomes elite, even more so than it's bad for the up-and-comers.
00:42:38.000Because the up-and-comers, if you dismiss up-and-comers and you treat them like shit, you treat them like you're better than them, you're above them, you don't need to talk to them, you don't make eye contact with them, you ignore them when they're trying to talk to you.
00:42:57.000And I have been in that position before, where someone's dismissed me and been shitty to me, and then I surpassed them, fame-wise, and then passed by, and then they become friendly and weird with you.
00:45:33.000And if you get 30 years down and what you get out of those 30 years is that you're better than everybody and that you can act like you're better than everybody and you're aloof and you're dismissive, you've missed everything.
00:45:45.000Like when I come to the store, I like that I get hugs.
00:45:49.000I was surprised because when you first started coming back, like, I would just think, like, I'd be on the wall or whatever, but you're like, yo, what's up?
00:46:42.000I think I got passed in 2010. Yeah, that was three years into the Dark Ages.
00:46:47.000The Dark Ages started in 2007. Yeah, it's also crazy to know that, you know, the history and see the video and then, oh, I exist on this timeline now.
00:46:56.000The store was just, you know, when I'm living in Seattle, it's this faraway place.
00:47:00.000Even Hollywood and entertainment and all that, it's just this place that exists on a box.
00:49:59.000The main room, it's so big, and there's that second tier, you know how the step goes up, to be able to have that laugh wave hit that back row?
00:50:12.000And the stage is so big, you have to be more theatrical to kind of do a serviceable job in that room.
00:50:17.000But in the OR, it's like, literally, you're just watching a man gather his thought or woman, you know, just like, you can be real, you can be, you don't have to be like, you don't have to project as much.
00:51:18.000Another comic would just kind of know the timing of the club and just like plow into the next joke while they're still getting laughs from a theater.
00:51:26.000But I took, I was talking about this yesterday with Tom Papa, that one of the reasons, one of the best lessons that I ever had was actually sitting in the audience at one of Richard, not Richard, Lewis Blacks, not Richard Lewis.
00:51:45.000He was there the night before me and Joey Diaz and I sat in the audience and he would hit a punchline and people would laugh and then he would hit the tag and I couldn't hear the tag because all the other people were laughing around us.
00:51:57.000And I was like, oh, you got to be like a little more selective.
00:52:44.000It's different when you're like, I'll do some festivals sometimes, or back in the day you would do a college or something, and it's just outside.
00:52:51.000And if they don't know who the fuck you are, and it's daytime, and it's outside, you flew to pick up a check.
00:52:58.000All you got to do is not lose your mind on stage and you can collect your check.
00:53:02.000If you're like, shut the fuck out, then you're not getting your money.
00:53:05.000Well, it's a matter of whether or not you're having fun.
00:53:08.000If you're having fun and you enjoy performing and your material is good, so you know it's good.
00:55:36.000Yeah, I had my buddy Cam Haynes, who lives in Eugene, which is real close to there, was in that same place a couple weeks before that for a game.
00:55:45.000And he's like, dude, I can't fucking believe you're coming here to do comedy.
00:57:35.000The Dave things are crazy, though, because he brings a DJ, and Donnell Rollins gets out there and gets everybody hyped up, and the fucking DJ's in between the sets.
00:57:45.000It's like he's getting everybody hyped.
01:00:37.000But when I was working at Boeing, I had a co-worker who was learning, well, he had his hours up and everything, so he flew choppers, and during our lunch break, he's like, do you want to go in the chopper?
01:02:34.000And also, you have to understand how to read the gauges, because you've got to know what altitude you're at, and the gauges have to be 100% functional.
01:02:43.000I don't know what the whole story was with his death, but I believe...
01:02:48.000Google whether or not JFK's body had cocaine in it.
01:05:17.000And I'm wondering if it's old age or if it's just an overwhelming amount of data in my brain and my hard drive has just completely run out of space.
01:08:47.000If that was instead of a Miata, if that was a Tesla, if Tesla made an electric Miata that goes zero to 60 in one second, everybody would want that car.
01:10:11.000You know, what's happened with Tesla, it's interesting, because when you, for a while, you could be driving a Prius and no one knew if you were rich or poor.
01:15:22.000You become someone who is on stimulants all the time.
01:15:26.000And I know several people that have an issue.
01:15:29.000I know one guy has completely lost his fucking mind, thinks everybody's against him, thinks that everyone's done him wrong, and he's just out there cracked out in the middle of nowhere on fucking Adderall every day.
01:15:58.000If you can effectively do your job and you don't commit any crimes, and they can sell you that stuff and make a profit, and then you actually are more profitable when you're on that stuff than not, then fucking have at it.
01:16:51.000It just seemed like such an odd contraption.
01:16:54.000Some of the early podcasts, we vaporized with that bag and they're the dumbest conversations because we had no idea what we're talking about.
01:17:01.000I would like correct myself halfway into a sentence because I forgot what I was saying and then I would forget what the original correction was and then I'm like, no, that's not what I'm saying.
01:19:31.000And then when you go around the actual potted plants and they're all super healthy because they got this crazy hydroponic setup and they're all the right nutrients and these lush green plants in this perfect environment for growing because, you know, they're experts.
01:20:35.000He's like, concrete doesn't vaporize that way.
01:20:37.000I was like, what do you mean, vaporize?
01:20:39.000I used to try to do a bit about how, you know, you hear about white privilege and everything.
01:20:42.000I go, one of the things about white privilege people don't really think about that much is you're allowed to have any conspiracy theory you want.
01:20:48.000I can't be like, 9-11 was an inside job.
01:22:20.000You have a high threshold for academic pain because it is like a little painful, right?
01:22:23.000I think just it seems so daunting to the average person and they just don't want to be bothered with that to even get over the hump of learning something like that.
01:23:03.000I feel like that's my comedy DNA. But then I was 17. Like on my 17th birthday, we rented Delirious...
01:23:10.000So we watched Delirious, Eddie Murphy's Delirious, you know?
01:23:14.000It was like the greatest thing in the world.
01:23:16.000And that just planted the seed of comedy.
01:23:18.000So that coupled with my love for SNL, and I'm like, I don't know if Google was around even, or maybe, I don't know, I just researched how do people get on SNL. Maybe Google wasn't around.
01:24:13.000You have to dedicate your life to one or the other.
01:24:14.000I think it's very hard to be great at both.
01:24:16.000and there's not a lot of career paths for improv it's like you get to a certain spot and that's it like there's some people who are very very talented in groundlings in like ucb and then how do they monetize that if they book a commercial they're still beholden to a lot of other people they have to be the right guy or girl the right look there's so many variables that are outside of your control as a talented improv performer But as a stand-up,
01:26:20.000Like if you're at Juilliard and you're this instrument or whatever and it's like a top, top, top theater school and it's a feeder to like that world, okay, okay?
01:26:30.000Or if you're the son of like a huge actor or daughter, sure.
01:26:35.000But if you're like in, I don't know, Ohio and you're going to theater to school, you're just lighting your parents' money on fire.
01:26:46.000They're letting you go in a 20-year-old jungle gym for four years.
01:26:50.000The thing is, you see sometimes an actor, or rather an athlete or someone, will be an actor in a movie, and they'll do a fucking amazing job.
01:27:51.000So you're, like, you're teaching Shakespeare in class and anything anyone's ever going out for is like, oh, yeah, I used to come around here, like, two times a week.
01:31:45.000Yeah, so I did stand-up while I was going to college.
01:31:49.000My life was just school by day, stand-up at night.
01:31:53.000It would actually be stand-up on the weekends, because I was living at home, and it's 40 minutes of the club, so I would just do a lot of time on Friday and Saturday.
01:36:30.000I've just found, if you want to make broad strokes, I think in the Middle Eastern community, they love art, but their kids shouldn't be doing it.
01:37:05.000But I think like what I would do different when I have kids or whatever, I would explain the realities of how, you know, the whole theater degree thing.
01:37:12.000I'm so glad they made me do a degree with teeth because that allowed me to have a legitimate job to get me out here.
01:38:12.000As of late, you know what's so funny is like the progression of the alt scene is that first it was in weird spots like a washing or like a laundromat and then it was like a meltdown and then living rooms were a big thing.
01:38:24.000Living room shows and then backyards were hot.
01:38:26.000That's why I remember living room shows.
01:42:35.000So I just have all these ideas and I always write them down on my phone and Instagram, those like little one-on-ones is a way to get those ideas out in a very not precious way.
01:42:45.000And it's just idea driven and people respond to it, you know?
01:42:48.000So it's just more of like, oh, let me get this idea out of my head.
01:42:51.000So, when you write, do you sit down and force yourself in front of a notepad or a computer?
01:42:57.000Back in the day, like when I was first doing stand-up, I had two methods.
01:43:01.000I would have the jokes that would just come to me, and then I would like sit down and try to manufacture jokes.
01:43:12.000And I would come up with some stuff, but I always found the things that always worked the best were the stuff that just like came out of the ether.
01:44:32.000When I want to work on stuff, I'll tell Adam at the store, when I call in my avails, I go up late on Tuesday or Wednesday, whichever one I get.
01:44:40.000I specifically ask to go late so that there's hardly...
01:45:23.000I'm a cusper right now, so I can just do late night.
01:45:27.000But I just think you just sandwich those new bits in between old bits.
01:45:30.000You can, but if you just want the total mental freedom of just throw spaghetti against the wall, and in a professional way, because if I'm doing a hot show and I'm trying to do a sandwich, it can still put the brakes a little bit.
01:52:34.000Well, there's no business like show business.
01:52:41.000And in hindsight, I think that's why when I want them to come out, I want it to be such a polar opposite experience.
01:52:48.000And obviously I've come a long way from then, but I'm almost grateful that it did happen because when comics trade bomb stories, I fucking win every time.
01:52:58.000And for me to be so young, like 17, and come back from that...
01:53:02.000That means there's really something, like a fire in me, or I was meant to do this, or I really love stand-up.
01:53:07.000Because that's not a pleasurable experience, to potentially think that could happen again, you know?
01:56:07.000I mean, I just got done doing two arenas this weekend, right?
01:56:10.000So we're talking about something that is right up there with music or even with sports.
01:56:16.000I mean, it's large-scale, enormous people, yet there's no real, like, pathway that's written down There's no real principles of it that are universally assumed by all people who participate in the art form.
01:56:33.000Whereas if you learn music, you learn chords and chord progression.
01:57:05.000And you kind of learn that as a comic as well early on because I think there's a little bit of imposter syndrome.
01:57:10.000Like if somebody else gets something, you feel like it's an attack on you.
01:57:13.000But you do it long enough, you realize like...
01:57:15.000Oh, everyone's journey is so different.
01:57:17.000Not in a hippy-dippy way, but your relationships are different than mine, so everyone hits at different times, and it's not right or wrong, it's just life and nature, you know?
01:57:28.000Yeah, you're different than everybody else.
01:57:30.000You just got to concentrate on doing your best and figure out what you can learn from other people's success and failures, but don't think of it as your own success or failure.
01:58:57.000It's like there's fighters that come from good childhoods too.
01:59:00.000You know I would have this, it's a dumb thought, but I would have it as a kid trying to do stand-up and not have to face this wall of, I don't know, you know, my parents not wanting me to do it.
01:59:11.000I'm like, oh man, I kind of wish I had like a worse childhood or like not middle class because then it wouldn't be questioned.
01:59:19.000It would just be like, yeah, of course, what else are you going to do?
01:59:21.000Well, I was really healthy when I was young because I was a martial artist.
01:59:25.000I was competing all the time and I always worked out.
01:59:27.000And I always thought, man, if I was a drug addict, I'd probably be funnier.
01:59:37.000I feel like, I mean, you've been doing it for a long time, so maybe you have a better perspective on this.
01:59:41.000I think like back in the day with the doing drugs and all that, part of that, did that help?
01:59:46.000Like was it image, like how, in terms of just seeing the comedy for what it is, was it part, it being new, rock star stuff, drugs, so you didn't have to be as tight as say like nowadays because there's so many more comedians?
02:00:37.000I think even the wokest people, when they're watching Joey, and there's just this energy, and people are laughing so hard, your altruism can't break through that.
02:00:46.000You can't deny what's happening right now.
02:00:48.000So it kind of makes you, I guess, reassess what you're supposed to do.
02:00:52.000Like, I shouldn't be laughing at this.
02:00:55.000It's a weird time for comedy, but in that weird time, you're going to get some of the best stuff because it's supercharged.
02:01:04.000When it does get through, if you can cover all the bases and make your argument soundly and logically and also have it be funny...
02:01:15.000I'll see Burr do that all the time, too.
02:01:17.000And, like, Joey's just such a force of nature.
02:02:18.000Yeah, so I just love how he just throws a piece of baloney on the kitchen.
02:02:22.000But when he nails it, man, it's like so much more satisfying even in the past.
02:02:28.000Because it's like, you're making your way through the rockiest stretch of the river.
02:02:34.000And I think those are the most rewarding bits as comedians the longer you've been doing it.
02:02:38.000I could be silly and get a joke and sure that's fun, but it's not that rewarding as if you have an argument like Burr or something where it's just countered culture and you can methodically, it's like going through the laser field.
02:02:54.000That's way more rewarding than just walking down the hallway.
02:02:57.000Right, like Mission Impossible when all those lasers are protecting the diamond, you know, like fucking limbo through these things.
02:05:44.000Dude, there was a lot of people back then that were arrogant, that were working, and they were headliners, and they were arrogant, and they were fucking terrible.
02:05:52.000And I really enjoyed watching them fall off the face of the earth.
02:05:54.000And I'll tell you some names afterwards, but the other names I was going to tell you.
02:08:54.000How poor they looked when they were surrounded by these original murderers.
02:08:58.000So you'd have guys like Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clark would go on stage and then one of these babies would go up after them and just eat plates of shit.
02:11:36.000And I think it's a way to discover new comics as well.
02:11:40.000I was opening for Neil for a bit for his tour for most of the dates and it was so fun for me because I'll headline and stuff but I'm not a draw yet, so I need to have a walk-up for whatever club I'm doing.
02:19:16.000Now, we might be being paranoid here, and it might be just something in the search algorithm that for whatever reason his thing isn't showing up.
02:19:25.000And he used to say Andrew Hesse Schultz.
02:20:01.000I was like, if you're typing in no space, that's where the issue is.
02:20:04.000If I type in all the way, it's showing up right away.
02:20:08.000And he said, well, I'm seeing that from people both ways, so...
02:20:12.000I go, well, if that's what you're seeing, then I'll go out on a limb and sort of say someone is manipulating that search result because you can manipulate search results.
02:20:21.000They do shadow ban people on certain social media platforms.
02:20:26.000This has been revealed through hidden camera conversations with people who are...
02:20:31.000Whatever, moderators or engineers or people that work behind the scenes on Twitter or Facebook and they do manipulate algorithms, manipulate searches and shadow ban people.
02:20:43.000And there's a lot of people, particularly conservative people, which he's not conservative.
02:20:47.000But what he is is, you know, he's a raunchy comedian, and he might have done something that someone felt was not woke, or what have you, and they want to slow down the broadcasting of his signal.
02:21:39.000You're the product and sometimes, especially in the old models, you just kind of Waited to be anointed.
02:21:44.000Well, he's got millions and millions of views on his special on YouTube.
02:21:50.000And if you stop and think about if that was on Comedy Central, which Comedy Central did want to give him a special, he probably would get like Maybe a million people would watch it when it came out and that would be the end of it.
02:22:02.000I have a special and I don't think people are watching it.
02:22:16.000I'm just going to release the whole thing on YouTube.
02:22:18.000And look, he went straight from not selling out clubs to selling out theaters like that.
02:22:25.000And now he sells out everywhere internationally.
02:22:27.000And it's fun from afar to watch the industry change.
02:22:32.000Because I think early on, so much of your self-worth is put in these people, and you don't realize until later that, oh, they're just heat-seeking missiles.
02:22:43.000The majority of them don't have taste.
02:24:46.000It was interesting because it could show you that if there was someone who was...
02:24:52.000Doing what Mencia was doing that you can get away with it and even with someone who was successful like me like I got another agent like that I mean but by let my agent literally said I was gonna have to apologize to him like you're out of your fucking mind I go listen I'm not only am I not doing this is we're never gonna work this out I'll never work with you again because you're asking me to apologize to someone who is literally a Vampire someone is stealing from the work of other artists.
02:25:18.000It's all he does and And you guys know it.
02:25:21.000And you guys are profiting off of this.
02:25:39.000And as he kept getting, people became more and more aware.
02:25:44.000Other people started finding other bits.
02:25:46.000The real thing that sunk him was Cosby.
02:25:50.000It's really funny now when you think about it now, but he had this like such obvious theft of a Cosby bit.
02:25:55.000I mean, he stole all the inflections and he switched it around a little bit, but people who work with him are trying to tell him to stop doing that bit because it was a giant famous Cosby bit.
02:26:07.000And he just insisted that he was going to do it.
02:26:09.000And when that bit got on YouTube, that and Mexican folks finding out he wasn't really Mexican, that was a fucking knife in the heart.
02:28:31.000No, I think one quality I can take away from all the engineering schooling, like I'm not doing formulas and equations and all that, but I think it's just a manner of which I approach things and time management.
02:28:43.000I'm wired a certain way where I can be studious on my own.
02:28:47.000I don't, I'm not like smoking weed on the couch and like I'm a muse or I'm a vessel, Godspeed.
02:29:20.000Do you specifically do things like go on walks or anything where you can think?
02:29:24.000Not specifically, but what I found is one of my favorite things to do is to go to a diner, sit in a booth, have breakfast, have coffee, and then you keep on refilling it.
02:29:34.000And I'm on my phone, and I'm on Twitter and Instagram, and my mind's just kind of...
02:32:36.000Yeah, like you just are watering the grass and a mushroom pops up.
02:32:40.000Even with me, I think there was a big breakthrough in just accepting that I'm an artist because, you know, my parents didn't want me to do it for so long and it was this dirty thing and it was always...
02:33:16.000Ideally, I always had this pie-in-the-sky scenario that would happen for me to leave Boeing.
02:33:21.000I would think, all right, if I got to the point where I'm doing engineering and stand-up, I want to get to a point where it's glaringly obvious that engineering is holding me back from this other path, and I have to make the jump.
02:35:51.000And then I booked this show on MTV called Disaster Date, which is like boiling points for dating.
02:35:58.000They had a cast, and I was one of the cast members, and you would just go on dates.
02:36:01.000Friends would set up their friends with dates, and they would be like, this is the things that she hates, and you would just be the worst date ever.
02:36:07.000And you see how long they last on the date.
02:36:09.000So they need me for eight months, or no, three months.
02:37:31.000Ari used to collect unemployment for...
02:37:33.000Dude, he was like my guiding light in that regard.
02:37:37.000Because early on, especially when I left Boeing, and the MTV thing comes and goes, I do two seasons of it, but that's not like a fucking...
02:38:03.000It's just part of an actor's, I guess, requirement or necessity of an actor is being available.
02:38:11.000So if you book a commercial, like a Toyota commercial, let's say you make 30 grand or 20 grand, whatever, in that chunk, you've made enough money in that quarter.
02:38:21.000To apply, because you're paying into it with your thing, you have to hit a certain amount.
02:38:42.000I thought that they would take it worse than they did, but I think we had been at odds for so long that what I've noticed is you can't stay at an 11 your whole life.
02:40:36.000And you have to be careful not to lose yourself.
02:40:40.000Once you come to LA, how many people do you know who come out here with a particular plan to be an artist or a writer and they're at fucking birthday parties every day?
02:40:48.000When you come to LA, you can go to someone's birthday party at a bar every day.
02:41:18.000Do you ever envision a time where one of us or maybe a collection of us writes down all these things and makes some sort of a guidebook to stand-up comedy?
02:41:28.000I really think someone could benefit from it.
02:41:31.000I mean, it really is the only art form that, as we were saying before, is a viable art form on large scale that doesn't have any...
02:41:52.000I think podcasting has taken some of the mystique out of it.
02:41:56.000It's also created a bunch of fans of the process, too.
02:41:59.000I've talked to people that have come up to me at the Comedy Store and said, hey, I saw you first do that bit a year ago, and then I watched it change, and then when it came on your Netflix special, I was like, holy shit.
02:42:11.000It's kind of cool to see it grow and become viable.
02:42:14.000Yeah, I think it's cool that there's an audience for that or that they value that because I think it's easy to assume the end consumer just wants to see the finished product.
02:42:24.000But comedy fans are so savvy now, they want to see that process and they feel like they're let in.