On this episode of the podcast, the boys are joined by the man who started it all along with his brother, Steve Scarpino. Steve is the owner and founder of the well-known Italian sauce brand, "The Spaghettino's". Steve and the boys talk about the origins of the company, how it all started, and what it's like to be a small business owner in the late 90s and early 2000s. We also talk about how the sauce became a multi-million dollar company, and how it was acquired by a bigger company. And of course, we talk about some of Steve's favorite things. Enjoy the episode, and don't forget to leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms! Thanks for listening and Good Luck Out There! Timestamps: 1:00 - What's your favorite Italian sauce? 6:30 - What kind of sauce do you like to eat 7:00 8:15 - How much money does it take to run a business? 9:20 - Who are you make? 11:30 12:40 - How do you make the most of your money? 13:00- What do you pay for your sauce 14:40 15:20 16:30- How much does your sauce cost? 17:20- What are you looking for? 18:40- Where do you get paid? 19:15 21: How much do you want to be paid for it? 22:00 Do you need to make your sauce ? 23:50 - Is it better than someone else s sauce 25:00 Is there any other product? 26:50 27:50- What is the best sauce you like? 29:30 Is it good? 30:00 What is your favorite type of pasta? 31:00 Does it cost you? 32:00 Can you have a nice box? 35:00 Should you make it better? 36:30 Do you like your sauce? 35:40 Do you think it's better than mine? 37: Is it more than $20 an hour? 39:30 Should you have it better or $50? 40:00 How much is your sauce better than yours? 45:00 Are you going to make more? 47:00
00:02:59.000It kind of seems like you should just do it online.
00:03:01.000Maybe they'll make a comeback, you know, and like I said, if we would have stayed small, delis, you know, it was doing great, Staten Island, you know, the biggest Italian area, you know, the Guinea gang playing there, all them Italians ate jar sauce,
00:03:16.000even they won't admit it, they fucking like that sauce.
00:06:30.000Our governor was the mayor of San Francisco, which is the craziest fucking place you've ever seen in your life when it comes to homeless people.
00:06:38.000And now, after COVID, it's like ramped up 40%.
00:06:42.000The homeless situation there, it doesn't even make sense.
00:06:45.000Like you're seeing these beautiful homes and there's campsites in front of them.
00:06:49.000And these people have to come out of their houses and tiptoe around needles and broken bottles and people's shit.
00:09:58.000Nobody knows what the fuck is going on.
00:10:00.000Doing a podcast was a good thing to do in the midst of all this because we figured out a way to do it at home so we didn't have to be in a studio.
00:10:10.000Set up a little studio in the house and figured out a way to do it.
00:10:14.000He was in New York and I was in California and that's how we started.
00:10:20.000There's so many people listening to shit now.
00:10:22.000The thing is, consumers are up in terms of watchers, viewers of shows, listeners of podcasts.
00:10:30.000It's all up because people were just sitting around doing nothing for months at a time.
00:10:34.000Right, it was kind of particularly good timing for us because The Sopranos was being binge-watched by people in quarantine, like rediscovering it, young people who had never seen it.
00:10:44.000I think it was HBO's number two series.
00:10:47.000And that includes all their new stuff, like Game of Thrones and everything.
00:10:51.000I think it was Westworld and The Sopranos were their biggest shows during quarantine.
00:10:54.000The show's been off the air for 13 years.
00:10:56.000Well, listen, this is one of the best fucking shows of all time.
00:12:09.000You know, we were going to wait until things got back to normal so we could be in a studio like this and be face-to-face, but we got so much...
00:12:18.000Communication from fans, like on social media, saying, hey, we heard you're doing a podcast.
00:13:04.000Well, it's a great thing to do, to go back and review it, just to kind of give the people that are fans this sense of what it was like for you guys and what it's like to see it again.
00:13:13.000And just to put it into context in history, that's the show that started off these kind of shows.
00:13:20.000When you think about the shows that you have today, like the Ozarks and all these different...
00:13:25.000Like really kind of wild shows where you have to follow one episode to the next and you have to know what just happened to pay attention to the new episode.
00:19:59.000You can get somebody who's never acted, and if you're a good director or something, get them in front of a camera, make them feel comfortable, give them stuff to do, but you can't put them on a stage.
00:26:21.000Yeah, they're not appreciative of the fact that you've got to think about what you're doing, and if they're yapping at you, then you're thinking about them, and it interrupts this whole process.
00:27:16.000That's actually the title of the job, is direction.
00:27:20.000Well, do you feel like as an actor, it's a strange thing to do because you're creating something, but it's also this collaborative effort.
00:27:27.000You're working with the other actors, but you're also working with the director.
00:27:30.000There's the script that you're supposed to be following, and maybe there's some changes to the script, and there's so much going on to try to create your version of it that the more that people are fucking with you, the more that's going to just throw you off the rails.
00:27:47.000And what I found is the best people, the best director, best actors and writers make it so you feel very comfortable and that you are free to create and that you're not being dominated and dictated to and stuff like that.
00:28:00.000Like, for instance, the best example is Martin Scorsese, who I only worked with once in a movie.
00:28:15.000I would imagine that that's a real skill that you hone, to be able to look at it from the artist's perspective, from the actor's perspective, and just to figure out how to be the least annoying, the most supportive, and then just sort of convey what you're trying to get done in the scene.
00:28:34.000As an actor, too, you learn how to deal with different types of directors and give them what they want and satisfy yourself at the same time.
00:28:42.000When you're not a skill, when you're learning, it's harder to do that.
00:28:46.000I got fired from my very first professional job.
00:28:49.000I was 21. I had been studying for a long time.
00:28:52.000I've been auditioning, never got anything.
00:34:43.000And you worked with him at the comedy store?
00:34:45.000I worked with him at the comedy store towards the end of his life where he was really sick and they used to have to crank the volume up in the microphone and went...
00:35:13.000Because, you know, Mitzi Shore, who owned the Comedy Store, when she had a young comic that she liked, she would shove you after anybody was any good.
00:35:22.000So if Martin Lawrence was on, I was on after him.
00:35:25.000If Richard Pryor was on, I was on after him.
00:36:25.000I mean, there's Lenny Bruce, who started all off, and then there's Kinison, who was probably the funniest of all time for two years before he burnt out.
00:37:23.000Yeah, he just decided to expand the medium and then he got more and more famous from doing that and then it more became social commentary that was actually funny rather than just what we had thought of as a stand-up comedian before that.
00:37:40.000And then, of course, Carlin took it from there and then I think Pryor did it better than anybody else.
00:37:45.000He really opened the door for so many other comedians.
00:43:00.000Yeah, I never saw it, but a lot of people did see it, and they told me that he did it for a while, and then he sold the show, and someone else was doing it.
00:45:16.000I think that's on the right is 2. So the guy on the right, he had to grow his fucking hair the same way and wear the same clothes and do the same thing.
00:47:38.000You know, he started finally, after so many years, getting some recognition.
00:47:42.000I wish he was around now so we could introduce him through podcasts.
00:47:46.000I think if he was around now, if I could get him on a podcast and show people who he is, much like Joey Diaz, much like a lot of these guys.
00:47:54.000You're not going to understand who they are through a traditional format, like a regular television format.
00:48:00.000You're going to get a shadow of what they really are.
00:51:16.000He worked, it was like his big comeback, because he was living in Vegas, he used to come around the club, and he did the first show, wore a tuxedo.
00:51:26.000And between shows he got bombed and Bud Friedman said, go and get him.
00:51:32.000You know, we gave him a chance and he just couldn't even work.
00:53:23.000It can't be a short attention span, because if that was the case, then podcasts wouldn't work, because podcasts require the most attention span.
00:53:29.000Now, that's the one thing without podcasts, too.
00:53:33.000A lot of younger people are discovering The Sopranos, and that was part of the reason we wanted to do one.
00:53:39.000There's kids that are in their late teens, early 20s, you know, like that age, and they're the podcasters.
00:53:45.000Yeah, and they were too young when the show was on originally, but that's pretty cool, because a lot of shows don't get that kind of...
00:53:53.000Resurgence and new generation discovering it.
00:53:55.000Well, it's the beautiful thing about our era that you can stream shows and binge them.
00:58:49.000She wanted people to be put into difficult situations.
00:58:51.000That's why I told you when I was 27 and, you know, just sort of getting my feet under me, she had me going after Richard Pryor every fucking night and Martin Lawrence.
00:59:00.000If she liked you, she'd throw you to the wolves.
00:59:14.000But it was also how she made you a good comic.
00:59:18.000She forced you to adapt to the moment.
00:59:21.000If you just go on, if you have an easy opening act who does get some laughs, but doesn't kill too hard, and you go on this cushy spot in the middle, everything's soft and easy, you don't get challenged.
00:59:37.000She wanted you to fucking sink or swim, bitch.
00:59:41.000This is the Comedy Store, and that's how she treated it.
00:59:43.000You know, but the store, which was the Mecca, of course, and then they ended tail off a little bit, and then when you and Joey Diaz and all you guys started coming back, now it's...
01:00:19.000I mean, it was mobbed every fucking night.
01:00:20.000It was sold out hundreds of days in a row, three shows, one in the original room, big show in the main room, belly room, just packed every night.
01:00:38.000Five headliners, you know, they would have like Dom and, you know, Kinison, Mitchell Walters, you know, and they were at the Dunes Hotel in the big room.
01:01:07.000I want to say in the 90s, early 90s, they knocked the dunes down.
01:01:10.000But I think it started in 84. The improv opened in 86. And they would have five headliners, Johnny Dark, you know, all the headliners from the comedy store.
01:03:34.000Yeah, the brilliant part about it being silent is that you can hear the people breathing, you can hear them talking shit to each other, like, hey pussy, hey pussy, how you feeling?
01:03:43.000Like, they talk shit to each other when they're beating each other up.
01:03:45.000You can hear the body blows, you can hear the wheezing when they're getting hurt, you can hear them heavy breathing when they're tired.
01:03:51.000Like, there's so much more depth to it when you don't have an audience.
01:03:56.000It's undeniable that the audience plays a big factor in the energy, but there's something to just being there.
01:04:03.000Like I was there for Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje in Florida.
01:04:08.000We did that in Jacksonville, and it was the same thing, no audience.
01:04:11.000But that was even weirder because it was a 15,000-seat arena.
01:04:16.000It was just these guys duking it out in this cavernous arena, and the octagon's set up in the center of the arena, and all you hear is the corner men giving advice, and then you hear them beating the shit out of each other.
01:05:08.000Anytime Canelo Alvarez fights, those are still very exciting fights.
01:05:12.000It's just, it's not as multi-dimensional as MMA. When you watch a UFC fight and you're seeing head kicks and takedowns and guys getting strangled.
01:05:38.000Deontay Wilder was just starting to become the resurgence of the heavyweight division because he was smashing and knocking everybody out.
01:05:45.000And then they had that epic fight with him and Tyson Fury, and they knocked Tyson Fury down twice and almost knocked him out in the 12th round.
01:05:52.000But then Tyson came back in that round, and then the fight was declared a draw.
01:06:17.000Like when Vladimir Klitschko, like you would think like the whole thing was like a white guy as a heavyweight champion would be the craziest shit ever.
01:06:23.000Vladimir Klitschko was a heavyweight champion for years.
01:08:03.000His manager contacted my manager and I met him in front of the studio and brought him Onto the set and nobody knew he was coming and Gandolfini was like in bed.
01:08:14.000He was doing that when he was in the coma.
01:08:18.000He was like taking a nap between takes and I brought Ali and the whole crew just like froze and then I brought him up to the bed and I tapped Jim.
01:08:25.000Jim turned around looked up he went Holy shit.
01:08:37.000He was such a star and such an iconic figure that my parents, who were hippies, They didn't give a fuck about fighting, but when he fought Spinks in the rematch, they made us watch it.
01:08:48.000We're living in San Francisco, and we're like, you have to watch this.
01:08:55.000It was a big deal, because he wasn't just a boxer.
01:08:58.000It's hard for people to realize that now, in retrospect, but when I was a kid, During the Vietnam War, he was also a symbol of the resistance to this unjust war that we didn't want to be a part of.
01:09:11.000He's a guy who lost three years of his career because he wouldn't fight in the war.
01:09:15.000And so they stripped him of his title in his prime.
01:09:18.000Like, he beat Cleveland Big Cat Williams, probably the finest performance of his young career.
01:09:22.000And then for three years, he doesn't do shit until he comes back.
01:10:43.000Yes, Holyfield's been training, and he actually looks great.
01:10:46.000You know, with hormone replacement therapy, they just juice him up with testosterone and growth hormone and fucking get him on a good diet, and next thing you know, he's hitting the bag and looking great, and I think they're trying to set up a Tyson-Holyfield rematch.
01:13:11.000I just found it really amazing that he decided at 53 he just wanted to fight again.
01:13:17.000And he said he's gonna do some exhibitions, and that was the thought process behind it, some five-round exhibitions or something like that, but it seems like he really wants to fight for it.
01:13:25.000I think as the process has gone on, he's gotten better and better shape, and now he's shredded.
01:15:27.000I like, you know, I mean, out here, you know, you go to the farmer's market, there's all great stuff that's in season all the time, and I don't know.
01:17:29.000That's kind of more of a normal thing.
01:17:31.000So you have to have pretty well-rounded skills.
01:17:35.000Yeah, and then it's timed, but then the thing I didn't think about that's the hardest thing of it is that there's cameras in your face the whole time, which is really hard.
01:17:43.000And then if they follow you around because you've got to go move around the kitchen, yeah, you're trying to cook really fast and do something and someone's right here with a camera and that kind of thing.
01:17:51.000What the fuck do you do with unpopped corn?
01:17:54.000Well, I knew what to do with it, which was good.
01:17:56.000You put it in a paper bag and then put it in the microwave.
01:17:59.000And then you got popcorn and you could do stuff with it.
01:18:02.000But I had bought it at the farmer's market like the week before just by chance.
01:19:10.000And then there's all different machines, too.
01:19:14.000There's like a food processor, there's an ice cream machine, there's like a sous vide machine, which is you put stuff in the plastic, seal it, and then put it into like really hot water and cook it, that kind of shit, if you want to get adventurous.
01:21:51.000And then there was one in Brooklyn, and I was like 15, and we used to hang around on the corner, and they were building it.
01:21:59.000And there was like a guy, you know, we were all hanging around, getting into fucking trouble, a bunch of kids, and he pulled out a big wad of money one day.
01:22:07.000I mean, like fucking hundreds, and he said, come here.
01:23:27.000You know, it was just that kind of a place, you know, where you just knew them.
01:23:30.000And somebody was just telling me two days ago, the guy owned a store, like an Italian deli, ravioli store, and I didn't know that he was a hitman.
01:24:08.000It was all Italian-American, you know, and it's changed now.
01:24:12.000You know, it's not a little bit of that, but not as much as it used to be.
01:24:17.000Well, when John Gotti was in his heyday, it was a very strange time for Italian-Americans in New York because that whole area, like when he would have those block parties and, you know, people, there was part of the people that would love him.
01:25:51.000That was the thing that the old guard didn't like.
01:25:54.000But he was flashy when he became the boss.
01:25:57.000He was like this guy that made a big show of who he was versus a lot of these guys like Vincent de Chin would act crazy and walk around a bathrobe.
01:27:04.000I got out of that area when I was in my teens, really, and was in the city, you know, in the village, and around actors and musicians and stuff like that.
01:27:15.000Was that something that it always called to you, being an actor?
01:27:24.000I was always really good in school and...
01:27:27.000But my father was a bus driver in the Bronx, and he started doing community theater when I was in high school.
01:27:36.000He was like 40. Just one day starts acting in plays, which, looking back, knowing what it takes, it's very courageous, you know, somebody to do that.
01:27:46.000And so I always saw cool movies and...
01:27:49.000Even saw some theater in New York because my parents took me.
01:27:53.000But then in my last year of high school, I was like, well, what the hell?
01:28:30.000So you asked yourself that question and how'd you come up with acting?
01:28:34.000Yeah, I had some good teachers in high school who brought us to theater and I was reading a lot of plays in high school in the library in my school and just got into it more and more my last year or two of high school.
01:28:50.000And then after high school, I went to an acting school in New York and took a couple of classes there and then stayed for a long time, actually, with a teacher and met a lot of people that I still work with today back then, you know, a couple of who were on The Sopranos,
01:35:09.000And that was another thing that added pressure, because, you know, if you're doing the play, you're going, all right, if I fuck up Tuesday, I'll come back Wednesday.
01:36:04.000I had three kickboxing fights while I was doing stand-up, and I think my first stand-up was more nerve-wracking than fighting, for whatever reason.
01:36:21.000I mean, it'll probably be nervous for me at the end of the month because I haven't done stand-up in three months.
01:36:25.000Like, before I'm doing the Houston Improv just to fuck around and knock the dust off, I'm sure before I go on stage the first time, I'm like, holy fuck, do you even remember how to do this?
01:36:37.000I've never had a stretch of my career three months with no stand-up.
01:36:42.000I've taken three weeks off before and it felt weird.
01:36:44.000So taking three months off is going to be very strange.
01:36:47.000Do you combine, like, set material with improvisation and freeform stuff?
01:36:53.000Yeah, like, there's always something going on in the audience, or there's always something that happens that day, or something that's going on in the news that you can talk about in the moment.
01:37:01.000But you have to have some, at least I do, I have to have some structure.
01:37:05.000So, basically, I have places where I know I want to get to, and then...
01:38:04.000so do they laugh when they give you a break for like 30 seconds the beginning you got about 30 seconds they're like oh you're here steve all right but if you don't deliver the fucking goods we came out of our house we got a baby said we're so excited you're there And then 30 seconds later,
01:38:27.000Like, I've seen that happen with comics at the store, where, like, a famous guy will go on stage that doesn't really do stand-up, but does stand-up every now and then.
01:38:34.000And that is the worst fucking place to do that, because you're on a lineup with murderers.
01:38:38.000You know, it's Bill Burr and Chris D'Elia and Joey Diaz and Al Madrigal, all these killers, and then some jack-off from a sitcom will try to jump on stage and do 15 minutes and just...
01:38:50.000In the beginning, they're like, oh my god, it's that guy from that show.
01:38:53.000And then 30 seconds later, they want to cut your fucking head off.
01:40:36.000There's things that you can see, like, people that smoke cigarettes would tell me that you could tell by a way a guy's holding a cigarette that he doesn't really smoke.
01:41:03.000I think part of the problem is they're aware that they have a cigarette on them, whereas the person who smokes cigarettes, they just light that cigarette, and they always have a cigarette in their hand, so it's just a normal part of being who they are.
01:41:25.000You say, this guy's not a smoker, man.
01:41:28.000I'm sure guitar players feel like that.
01:41:31.000When you watch a guy playing a guitar player in a movie, I don't know how to play guitar, so I don't understand if he's doing it right or wrong, but I would imagine that would be infuriating.
01:41:39.000But listen, I used to watch the shows in Vegas, movies like from Vegas or TV shows, and in the first two minutes, you go, this movie sucks.
01:44:32.000Edie Falco's character evolved and became this very complex woman who is battling with this reality that she's living with this guy who's a fucking murderer and a mob boss, and she's enjoying the perks of that.
01:44:46.000It became like this very interesting character.
01:44:49.000But in the beginning, it wasn't like that.
01:44:51.000In the beginning, the first episode was kind of funny.
01:44:53.000Yeah, when I auditioned and read the script, I wasn't sure if it was a full-on spoof of the mob.
01:45:54.000What are they playing to their strengths and what kind of qualities they're bringing to it?
01:46:00.000Just like there's that one scene in the pilot where at the end – towards the end of the pilot and my character tells Tony Soprano, oh, I could go to Hollywood and sell my story or something.
01:46:09.000And in the script, it was kind of, he was like fatherly, like, you don't want to do that and sell out.
01:46:14.000You got to stay with us and build a family or whatever.
01:46:17.000And instead, Jim just grabs me, you know, by the throat or something like that.
01:46:22.000And it became very menacing and very intimidating.
01:46:26.000And he really, you know, and I think David saw that and was like, oh, wow.
01:47:31.000Matter of fact, he would say to me, like before the season, let's go down and have dinner at Il Cortil, which I ran into you there one time.
01:48:04.000I wrote a kid's book called Nicky Deuce, and it turned it into a movie, and Michael's in it.
01:48:11.000Paulie Walnuts and Johnny Sack and I was in Jim's trailer and he had just did the movie with Brad Pitt, a mob movie and he said Harvey Weinstein called and he wants me to do Letterman and I said I don't do talk shows and And he gets calling and he says he got fucking nasty with Jim.
01:48:30.000And Jim said, I will beat the fuck out of Harvey Weinstein.
01:48:49.000When you see that Academy Awards speech thank you compilation, where all the people go up, all the various people that eventually talk shit about him go up and praise Harvey Weinstein.
01:49:05.000He had that much power over people's careers and they didn't feel like their voice would be heard or that people would, you know, take them seriously.
01:49:12.000He'd have to find a way to fuck you, basically.
01:50:27.000That's what's crazy is it's worked into his fucking contract.
01:50:30.000His contract had, if you get this amount, per sexual harassment case, they had it that he would have to pay this much.
01:50:40.000If it was two, he'd have to pay that much.
01:50:42.000If it was three, imagine if you're signing up for a place like, Steve, I know you're a piece of shit, so this is what we're going to work into the contract.
01:50:48.000All your piece of shit behavior, we're going to write it down, and you're going to be penalized per contract.
01:50:57.000This is something that I don't understand.
01:51:00.000These assistants, people in his office, people that knew this stuff, that saw this stuff, that set him up that he was meeting the girl in the lobby, but then she comes down and says, oh, Harvey needs to meet you up in his room.
01:51:16.000She was part of it, or he, or whatever the assistants were.
01:51:30.000And when you think of an assistant in particular, you're thinking about someone who has virtually no power.
01:51:34.000And there's a thing called diffusion of responsibility, where there's too many people involved, you don't feel like you're responsible.
01:51:40.000You don't feel like you, you know, that's when they say it's easier to assault someone in front of a hundred people than it is to assault someone in front of one person.
01:51:47.000Because one person might step in and stop you.
01:51:49.000But 100 people will sit around and go, someone's got to stop this.
01:52:09.000You know, what's amazing to me is people still haven't come forward, people that worked with him, actors, whatever, actresses, I think they're still afraid somehow he's going to come back, like in a horror film.
01:55:36.000I understand, but the thing about Harvey Weinstein and people like that If he would have said, listen, I'm a fat, disgusting bastard, but if you bang me, I'll put you in the next movie.
01:55:51.000They would be people lined up around the corner.
01:56:43.000I think if you, you know, there was a recording of this one girl that he had groped and then, you know, she wanted a movie role and he's grabbing her and he's like, just come back to my place.
02:00:47.000And that was one of the things that one of the actresses had said is that she thought that he was maybe intersex or transgender or that he had a vagina because he was so scarred up.
02:02:15.000And you would have to, I mean, if someone really wanted to thoroughly research it and really find out what actually happened, it would take a long time.
02:04:42.000But you get the feeling that as time goes on, they're going to get better and better at this, and then one day they're going to be able to nail it.
02:04:48.000Right, they'll get like Marlon Brando to do a movie.
02:05:18.000No, I haven't done that animated version thing, but green screen is...
02:05:21.000Well, yeah, given your sensibilities, if something came up like that for you, like a Jurassic Park-type movie or something like that, would you even be interested in that?
02:08:44.000They're like, I don't know what happened.
02:08:45.000They're all playing dumb on TV because no one wants to blame it on the protests or connect it in some way to the movement because then you'll be labeled a racist or something.
02:08:56.000So the people that we're relying on for the news are playing dumb as to why hundreds of thousands of people marching together face-to-face, screaming, How that ramps up.
02:09:08.000I guess we're going to know in about two or three weeks.
02:09:52.000It went from being a thing that only existed in universities to it was existing in like tech startups and it was starting to get into media and it was working its way to journalism and now it's fucking everywhere.
02:10:17.000Very diverse crowd who are just saying, we don't want this world we're inherited with racism and institutional, you know, systemic racism and stuff.
02:10:59.000And I think that if you look at the history of humans, if you go back 200 years, the way people behaved, and you compare it to today, there's a vast improvement in almost every area.
02:11:10.000And I think this is a big blip on the radar, this is a big moment in time, and I think we'll come out of that on the other end, a better species.
02:11:18.000But along the way, there's gonna be a lot of devastation, like the fucking looting and the rioting and this stupid shit with de Blasio not asking if people have been protesters to find out what effect this thing has had.
02:11:30.000Where you do get people that are in the middle of a pandemic and you get them on top of each other breathing each other's spit.
02:12:51.000I mean, there's been some great films and movies and television shows that have come out of England and the UK and other parts of the world.
02:12:57.000But overwhelmingly, the art form emanates from here.
02:13:06.000Stand-up started in the United States, and the difference between the stand-up here, the level stand-up here versus the level everywhere else, totally incomparable.
02:13:14.000Now, have you done stand-up in other countries?
02:13:56.000He goes, it just felt like there's no, they didn't roll with you.
02:13:59.000I go, you also have to remember English is their second language.
02:14:01.000So when they're listening to you, there's, you know, they have to kind of translate it and they're laughing, but also cultural context is very different.
02:14:10.000Like they get our culture, they get the context, but it's not as front and center as it is if you're doing a show in Columbus, Ohio or something like that.
02:16:52.000And then there's some of them that are so wrapped up in this liberal and progressive ideology that they literally can't see how dumb this looks to the rest of the world.
02:17:01.000They think they're going to do a good thing, and they think that through their celebrity, they're going to use their platform and their voice, and they're going to make a difference.
02:17:08.000If you really think that as a professional actor, you're going to make a fucking difference with racism and crime and violence and police brutality, you should stop acting because you should go to a fucking doctor and get your head checked.
02:21:24.000She was apparently calling up all these celebrities asking for them to join in in song and they're gonna heal everybody through love and music.
02:21:32.000You know, people had their big mansions and a guy can't pay his...
02:21:37.000But meanwhile, what a terrible song to sing when people are dying.
02:21:44.000But also that song has nothing to do, doesn't parallel the pandemic.
02:21:49.000And you know, Joe, and especially at the time in New York, I mean, we've had three or four people that we know that died, you know, and numerous people that got sick.
02:22:00.000And they were those refrigeration trucks.
02:22:04.000I mean, they were everywhere, man, and the ambulances were going.
02:22:07.000I mean, you know, things have calmed down, but it was fucking horrible.
02:22:11.000It was 800 people a day in New York at one point in time, which is crazy to imagine.
02:22:15.000I mean, think about nine of your theaters, right?
02:22:19.000It was horrible, and then you knew people.
02:22:25.000I mean, there's a guy who owned a diner, a couple diners.
02:26:15.000That's what's crazy, because of the protests and because a lot of the states have lifted up their social distancing and then people are acting like there's nothing happening, so they're going to bars and they're drinking on top of each other.
02:26:32.000I understand that, but the thing is, it hasn't gone away.
02:26:35.000I mean, I don't know what the fucking answer is.
02:26:38.000I understand everyone's tired of it, but listen, down in Orange County, the beaches are packed.
02:26:44.000Well, the good news is vitamin D is one of the most important factors in keeping a healthy immune system.
02:26:50.000And one of the things that they found out was that 80 plus percent of the people that are in the ICU with COVID have a vitamin D deficiency.
02:26:58.000Four percent have sufficient levels of vitamin D. It's a huge factor, because vitamin D is not just a...
02:27:04.000I had a lady, Dr. Rhonda Patrick, she's been on my podcast several times.
02:27:09.000I brought her on to talk about how to strengthen your immune system during this time.
02:27:13.000And she said one of the most important factors is vitamin D. It's a huge factor.
02:27:17.000It's one of the reasons why people on the East Coast, they get that seasonal depression, they're not going out in the winter, and if they're not supplementing with vitamin D, 70% of America is vitamin D deficient.
02:28:09.000The reason why they had alcohol being an essential business is there's logic to it.
02:28:15.000And that is there's a lot of people that are alcoholics.
02:28:17.000And if you make them quit cold turkey and they can't buy any booze, you're going to take beds up that would be better suited for people that have COVID. Gotcha.
02:28:24.000So the idea is just like let these people have their alcohol.
02:28:26.000They just didn't think it was going to last as long as it did.
02:28:29.000They thought this was going to be a couple of weeks of lockdown and then we'd get back to business.
02:28:32.000But obviously here we are in fucking June.
02:30:52.000Some guy was showing him his gun, sitting in the front row, pulling up his waist, showing him his gun, going, fuck you, fuck you, look at this.
02:31:43.000In Australia, we were doing like 2,500 people a show, which is just this little show, me, him, and Vinny, and we had an Australia comic who was a nice guy, but he fucking died every night except for his hometown.