Colin Quinn joins Jemele to talk about growing up in New York City, how to survive in a post-9/11 world, and what it's like to live in a city that's on lockdown. Plus, a look back at the early days of Joe Rogan's radio show on the radio, and a look ahead to the one and only Neil Patrick Harris's new show on Comedy Central's Late Night with Seth Meyers, The Late Night Show with Seth! Also, we talk about how to deal with the aftermath of 9/11, and how to get out of your apartment in the middle of the day when you don't have access to the internet, and why it's a good thing you're not allowed to leave your apartment at night. And, of course, there's a little bit of New York history thrown in at the end of the episode, and who's better than the rest of us? The late night host of the late-night comedy show, Joe Rogans! And, yes, he's still living in the Big Apple! Thanks to our sponsor, VaynerMedia! We're working on transcribing this episode and putting it on a website so we can make it easier for you to subscribe, rate and review! Please rate, review, and subscribe to the show! It'll help us out there find more like you! Logo by Courtney DeKorte. Music by Ian Dorsch. Music by Jeff Kaale. Thank you so much for all the love and support, and we really appreciate it. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. -Joe Rogan and Colin Quinn. xoxo - -Jemele and the late night podcast, and all the hard work that goes out there! -Josie and the good vibes out there at the morning afternoons in the night before the day after the night after the day, all day in the afternoon after the weekend, and the early evening after the evening after night after night by the day by the weekend by the week after the rest and the weekend after the week before the weekend! - Thank you, Joes and the rest in the day before the long day, thank you for all of the days that you do it. Joes & the late nights in the morning by the afternoon by the evening by the night, all the days of the weekend and the long days in the weekend.
00:01:31.000You can't say, like, people that say it's like the 70s, like, no, the 70s, it was like, it was the 50s and the 60s and the 70s, like, it didn't change much.
00:01:39.000It was seedy and weird, but it was always like that.
00:01:42.000This is a drastic change from six months ago.
00:01:45.000You can't say it's like the 70s, because it's not.
00:02:19.000I mean, I did a whole show about it, basically, but I mean, it was basically like, in part, one of the jokes from my own New York story was that, and it wasn't a joke, it was, if you walk down your block, because there's no cell phone, so if you walk down the block from the train after nine at night, people would lean out the window and be like,
00:02:35.000genuinely surprised, like, good for you.
00:02:39.000If you stayed out after nine, like Times Square, people would go to Broadway shows and By 11 o'clock, it was deserted, except for criminals, because people would leave the Broadway show.
00:02:50.000They wouldn't go out for a drink or dinner.
00:02:51.000They would get in their car and get out immediately.
00:02:54.000And Giuliani's the one who cleaned all that shit up.
00:05:02.000The thing about Bloomberg that disappointed me was when he was mayor, when he first got elected mayor, Daryl Hammond had to bail on some show he was supposed to do.
00:05:11.000So at the last minute, they asked me to do a favor and do a guest shot at the show, which I go up.
00:05:18.000Really didn't go that well, but I did what he asked me to do.
00:07:24.000Just because I'm so New York-like, I just, I don't even think in terms of leaving New York, even though, you know, it's irrevocably changed to me before any of this happened.
00:10:44.000But that being said, it's easy for everybody to just go, okay, like I say, proxy war.
00:10:49.000So all the bottled up racial resentment in the country, and it's like the people that have to actually go and say, hey, listen, here's what has to happen.
00:10:58.000They're going to be the fall guy for that.
00:11:32.000Asshole grabbing some black woman and pulling her out of the car and body slamming her and you're like, these motherfuckers, they keep doing this.
00:11:39.000But you could have millions of interactions with cops and you're only going to see one and you decide that all cops are pieces of shit when there's these hundreds of thousands of cops that are great guys.
00:11:50.000They're just Doing a really difficult job and trying to keep it together.
00:11:54.000But one or two a week is going to go bad.
00:17:31.000The first account of Vikings going berserk because they ate magic mushrooms was hypothesized in 1784 by a Christian priest named Oddman.
00:17:39.000He came to a conclusion that connected the berserkers to the fly algaric mushroom because he read that Siberian shamans did the same thing when they were healing.
00:17:59.000See, they connected to the Amanita muscaria, red and white mushroom.
00:18:04.000See, that's not the same mushroom in the Viking television show.
00:18:09.000It looks like they're taking psilocybin.
00:18:12.000Some scholars propose that certain examples of the berserker rage had been induced voluntarily by the consumption of drugs, such as the hallucinogenic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, or massive amounts of alcohol.
00:18:25.000But here's my problem, is that when I was growing up, we ate a lot of mescaline, which was basically mushrooms in organic, you know, it was like chemical.
00:26:17.000That was like a really smart thing that Chris Rock used to do a lot, is he would show up at the store unannounced late.
00:26:25.000So he would go there where the audience was down to like 15, 20 people, and then he would go up with his shit that he was working on, and he would find out what's good and what was bad.
00:26:35.000Because when there's 15 people, and they're spread out, there's like three here, two in front of you, and five over there.
00:26:41.000You really know what the fuck is good and what's not.
00:26:43.000If you're there in front of 300 people, they're like, oh my god, it's Chris Rock!
00:27:29.000So you see if this is a set that's really worth filming, and then sometimes you have to have a little crowd where they're not impressed by you.
00:28:16.000My new theory, which you're going to like this for the Austin Comedy Club, is that down south now, because nobody can work out up north once it gets to be winter.
00:28:26.000So it's going to be like baseball, how all the Dominicans became.
00:28:29.000All the south is where all the great comedians.
00:29:06.000Yeah, and the parking lot, you always just...
00:29:08.000The problem with doing a parking lot is even though you could be doing great, you know there's some idiot outside the parking lot that could start screaming.
00:32:46.000But that's, again, what I love about it is that it makes us really, like, you realize a lot of people are going to fall by the wayside, too.
00:35:02.000If you're going to get to Austin Comedy Club, you'd have to sign a waiver.
00:35:05.000Well, Austin Comedy Club, I hate to say this, it sounds like I'm already abusing the system, but I think the MC should have to do the testing.
00:38:25.000Yeah, and not only that, they didn't pay attention.
00:38:27.000She would say they would talk in the back, and they did.
00:38:30.000I remember I went to see a showcase once, and they, for whatever reason, William Morris had a showcase at a nightclub, and there was the downstairs where they had people seated, and the upstairs was like this little balcony where there was a bar, and it was filled with agents, and they were talking full blast.
00:40:01.000You know that bit he used to do where he goes, I'm going to take this napkin.
00:40:04.000I want you to write down the names of all your loved ones, your dead grandmother that always treated you.
00:40:10.000You know, you go through the whole, you say to somebody in the audience, you go, write down your dead grandmother that was always there for you.
00:40:16.000Write down your uncle that paid your way through, you know, and I want you to write them all down.
00:40:21.000And then I want you to hand it back to me because I'm going to wipe my ass with it.
00:41:02.000It was interesting to see, because it was like he didn't have new material, and he was trying to do some of the bits from the old stuff, and people would call out the punchlines, and so then he had to kind of write new shit while he was touring, and the HBO special had just come out,
00:41:19.000because it was kind of a new thing back then.
00:45:25.000And he goes, he was waiting for him to say it back to him, you know, because you're two comedians anew, so you say it back to each other, right?
00:48:55.000Well, I was a famous, I'm sure you heard that story, when I went up there and they pulled the old...
00:48:59.000thing where Sweeney and Chance went on before me and just left me destroyed on a Friday the 2nd show and then I end up literally because I remember I'm from New York so I don't understand it's 1985 or 86 so I don't understand the culture so I see a bunch of guys in polo shirts and With blonde hair,
00:51:39.000It's funny you say that because of the local references.
00:51:41.000The last thing I remembered before I went on stage, I mean, they're ripping, is Chance, Sweeney, Sweetie's got a mop in his head like dreadlocks.
00:51:50.000Chance is playing guitar and they're singing a song called Come Back to Jamaica Plain.
00:52:20.000But it's funny you said the after, I was there for the aftermath, because I pictured the room when an aftermath, when, you know, sometimes you go into one of those clubs in New York too, but in Boston, Knicks, and there was just broken shot glasses thrown around the room, just chairs turned over, and you're like,
00:52:46.000And if you didn't know, like if you were a guy from New York that was doing The Tonight Show and you're starting to do movies and you thought you were the shit.
00:56:12.000No, I never saw anybody who literally would just be like, he had such a zen-like attitude about Kyle because he did it since he was like 15 or whatever he was.
00:56:46.000I mean, he was just a searcher, you know?
00:56:48.000And also, when I caught him, when I saw him, I saw him live a few times, he'd already quit doing drugs.
00:56:54.000He was already clean, and he just saw this really strange, introspective, thought-provoking act.
00:57:01.000And people didn't know what to make of it.
00:57:03.000He really changed comedy in a lot of ways, because a lot of people imitated him, because they would see him, and they would go, you know, comedy can kind of be profound.
01:01:58.000It was good in the sense that, you know, it's funny to watch somebody be, you know what I mean?
01:02:02.000It keeps it, but it's bad in the sense that a lot of people just became great at crowd work.
01:02:08.000I mean, how many guys that are just great at crowd work?
01:02:10.000Crowd work's fun and it's funny, but you got to discipline yourself.
01:02:14.000If you're not writing, when you're going to do a show and the stage is up there and you're talking to imaginary people, which a lot of people do, and you're like, hey, that guy.
01:02:23.000And then after the show, when you start and you're like, hey, that guy wasn't fat.
01:02:47.000The part I object to is when somebody does something every night, spontaneous, and then they pretend they stumble into it and then start laughing at themselves.
01:05:43.000That's the importance also of showcase clubs, where there's a bunch of comics going up and they're not just there to see you.
01:05:49.000Because if people are just there to see you, they'll laugh at things.
01:05:52.000If they're just a giant fan of whoever it is, Jim Gaffigan, they go to see Jim Gaffigan, and Jim Gaffigan's a very funny guy, but they will laugh They will laugh at him.
01:06:03.000But Jim Gaffigan will go to these other clubs to work out, too, because you have to do that as well.
01:06:08.000You've got to go to a place where they don't necessarily come to see you.
01:10:57.000And you were the perfect host for it, too, because you were loose enough and light enough with everything that you can kind of keep the glue together.
01:15:05.000When I started in the 90s in LA, it was a means to an end.
01:15:09.000When I came out there, I came out there to do a television show and there was a lot of people that were doing stand-up hoping they would get a TV show.
01:15:15.000I came out there with a TV show hoping to get passed as a paid regular at the store.
01:15:20.000And then once I was there, I was like, this is weird because I don't really want to...
01:16:19.000If it's an urban gang, they have to all look like Greg Kinnear.
01:16:26.000But it's just, nowadays you don't need that Hollywood environment anymore.
01:16:32.000It's actually an impediment because it comes with executives and it comes with agents and it comes with all these people that are going to get their greasy hands on the formula and fuck it up.
01:16:41.000They're going to tell you what to do and what not to do.
01:20:11.000But look, I've always said, and I still maintain this day, I think it's a difficult road for a woman.
01:20:16.000I think there's a lot of men that don't want to hear women talk about politics.
01:20:20.000There's a lot of men who don't want to hear women tell them things that maybe they don't know or say comedy in a way like they're explaining things to the men.
01:21:28.000She was cute, but she would shock you with her takes on things, but it was well-crafted.
01:21:34.000Yes, she was almost like a different, totally different, but like Sam Kennison, and the fact that you'd be like, oh, this person's saying this, and then you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa!
01:22:12.000And when you get really bad brain injuries, one of the things that happens is you become ridiculously impulsive and wild and oftentimes violent.
01:23:49.000Or you got to get so good that you know that even though it's so terrifying to bomb, you could slip through those waters and ride the wave of success.
01:24:01.000What I always tell people starting when they ask...
01:24:05.000Even when they don't ask, I tell them.
01:24:08.000The audience can hate you, but they can never feel sorry for you.
01:24:11.000The one thing you're not allowed to have in comedy, in my opinion, The one thing you're not allowed to indulge in is you can't ever be uncomfortable.
01:26:02.000Even if you don't say the greatest thing, it doesn't have to be the most clever thing in the world, but it has to be basically, fuck you, you fucking idiot.
01:27:15.000Because you've got to learn how to handle this chaos.
01:27:17.000And if you would go somewhere else, one of the things, you would go on the road, and if you would go on the road and people would heckle you, like, do you think I'm not used to this?
01:29:14.000When a guy is on stage killing, if you're on stage and you're killing and I'm sitting there watching, even though I know I'm a comic, I let you think for me.
01:29:29.000And the whole audience does it together.
01:29:31.000It's such a weird art form where we're tapping into these states of mind that aren't really available to other people.
01:29:38.000This state of mind where There's a person on stage and they're crafting an experience and everyone else in the audience is sort of going along with it if it's going well and it's accentuated by the people next to you who are also laughing at it.
01:30:58.000How about a chain of like, where the ceiling, like in case COVID or something comes back, where the retractable ceiling, so you can have a skylight come.
01:37:36.000If you're a president of the United States and you got some lady who won't shut the fuck up about blowing you in the Rose Garden or whatever.
01:37:44.000Nowadays, though, it's a lot harder, you know what I mean?
01:37:47.000Because everything gets exposed on social media.
01:37:50.000But I mean, yeah, back in those days, you'd get away with it.
01:41:01.000And the guy that was involved in this CIA LSD operation, this is all like heavily documented, was the same guy who went to visit Jack Ruby when he was in jail after he killed Oswald.
01:41:14.000And Jack Ruby, from this guy visiting him in jail, immediately went crazy, was hiding underneath the table, was saying that they're burning Jews in the streets, and he had a meltdown.
01:41:27.000And they think this guy dosed Jack Ruby while he was in jail and might have dosed him previous to that to get him to shoot Jack Ruby or to get him to shoot Oswald in the first place.
01:41:52.000Jolly West, who is this operative for the CIA, they ran a thing called Operation Midnight Climax, where they would run brothels with two-way mirrors, and they would hire these hookers to give these Johns LSD, and they would watch to see how they would react.
01:42:09.000They would give them a drink, and inside the drink there would be acid.
01:42:12.000And these poor guys thought they were going to have some sex with a lovely lady.
01:44:10.000The CIA came to them and they let the guy go.
01:44:12.000And they wanted him to go out and keep doing all this crazy shit.
01:44:16.000And one of the reasons why they wanted to do it is because they wanted to discredit the anti-war movement.
01:44:21.000The CIA and the government at the time was involved in a lot of really shady shit.
01:44:26.000And one of the reasons why they were doing that was because they were trying to stop what they thought was this subversive movement to try to get us out of Vietnam.
01:44:42.000I mean, they just happened to have the happy...
01:44:44.000I mean, this book I was talking about is more like the Dallas Mafia, but I'm sure the CIA said, hey, if it's going to help us...
01:44:50.000I mean, they were together in the Bay of Pigs, so why don't we be together on this?
01:44:53.000Well, it's really crazy that the video of the Kennedy assassination, the Zapruder film, was actually put on television by a comedian, Dick Gregory.
01:45:01.000Dick Gregory brought that to Geraldo Rivera's TV show, and I think it was 10 years after the murder.
01:45:10.000It might have been 12. It might have been like 75. Geraldo Rivera's TV show was like 74, I remember.
01:45:15.000Yeah, it was back when people had bell bottoms on and shit.
01:46:34.000I mean, I don't guarantee, but a lot of people don't think...
01:46:37.000That's the weirdest argument when people think that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
01:46:42.000That is one of the weirdest arguments that...
01:46:44.000The weird mental gymnastics that people have to play with themselves to get to the position where they think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
01:48:32.000That's another book that I read of his that is an all conspiracy theory book.
01:48:38.000Yeah, no, he's all about conspiracy theories.
01:48:40.000I had a conversation with, I only met him once, but we had a long conversation about UFOs and Bigfoot and aliens, and he's a, that motherfucker believes everything.
01:49:44.000But I like this idea of doing this, all the people that got killed after JFK. Yeah.
01:49:50.000You know, I mean, I'm not discrediting Belzer's book, but it doesn't look like the kind of thing I was envisioning.
01:49:54.000I wanted it written by some investigative reporter, not by a stand-up.
01:49:57.000They all got murdered, parked their cars on train tracks, jumped off of buildings.
01:50:03.000On my days off at Austin Comedy, I'm going to drive to Dallas two days a week and start researching for the movie.
01:50:10.000One thing you do if you do drive around there, another thing that drove me crazy, everybody's like, the scope on the rifle didn't even work.
01:50:50.000And you're shooting a bullet, you know, a couple hundred yards or a hundred yards.
01:50:55.000Any little wiggle, like if it's an eighth of an inch to the left or the right, you're going to be way off by the time it gets to the target.
01:51:02.000So when all these people were saying, oh, the scope on the rifle didn't even work well.
01:51:10.000He could have dropped it after he shot JFK. I think Lee Harvey Oswald was probably in on it.
01:51:15.000I think he was probably, you know, he's probably one of them, but I think they definitely, like when he said he was a patsy, they're like, yeah, most likely.
01:54:11.000But it was such a great scene too because Kubrick is really highlighting what has to go on when you're taking a regular kid and turning him into a killer.
01:54:36.000Well, I don't understand what complex mathematics is, but one time I was in the elevator with Norm MacDonald, and we were in the elevator with these guys, because Norm MacDonald in an elevator is very, you know, he'll just, he will literally say the worst thing you can say about somebody and then leave,
01:54:51.000and you're left there with all the people.
01:55:01.000And they're saying this like, I didn't even understand what language it was.
01:55:04.000It was a really deep mathematic thing.
01:55:06.000And then Norm MacDonald, who had never brought up math or anything like that to me in his life, goes, and starts speaking to them in what sounded like tongues.
01:56:06.000He should have done a lot, because he had that show on Netflix, but they kind of, they muzzled him.
01:56:11.000When he went on the Howard Stern Show, and he was saying something, and he didn't want to say retarded, so he said, you'd have to have Down Syndrome to believe that.
01:56:21.000He thought that would be a better thing to say.
01:56:44.000I randomly wound up sitting next to him on planes twice.
01:56:48.000On two different occasions, just like, I go, Norm!
01:56:52.000Like, out of nowhere, and he's sitting next to me.
01:56:54.000And one time, we're sitting there, we're talking, and we're having a good old time, and then he's talking about, oh, I quit smoking.
01:57:00.000He's telling me how he quit smoking, and fucking, yeah, finally quit smoking.
01:57:04.000And he's telling me all these things, and then when he lands, he literally, like, you can't stop him, so runs into the airport store and buys cigarettes.
01:58:37.000The conspiracy theory thing is an interesting little obsession that a lot of people have.
01:58:45.000The wanting to uncover these secrets, the wanting to know, get to the bottom of things, find out how it all works, who killed Epstein, who killed Kennedy.
01:58:57.000Well, the Kennedy one is so, it really, what's so amazing too is you see the country change because almost like subconsciously the whole country knew that this was something else that was kind of the beginning of the destruction and downfall.
02:00:42.000They ran the restaurant, but when you run the restaurant, you don't just run the bartenders and the waiters.
02:00:48.000You run the linen supply, like the mob was linen supply, and the liquor distributors, like all the mob kids, when they were just related to somebody, they'd be driving the liquor trucks, and the food,
02:01:04.000Remember they had the famous thing with Frank Perdue and Chicken and stuff?
02:01:09.000So they really ran like, you know, they'd run an industry, but there's like 20 jobs that are close to that industry where they're involved, you know?
02:03:11.000Hitman, Sammy the Bull Gravano, is now a social media star promoting his own podcast and showing off his cozy new family life in Arizona, 35 years after turning on the Gambino family and John Gotti.
02:03:22.000Wow, he's 75. And he's just starting his podcast.
02:03:35.000Well, what they always said about him was he would go to the gym, the other guys would go out, he wouldn't stay out late at night, you know?
02:05:40.000There was a big gasoline thing in the 80s.
02:05:42.000I don't know how they did it, but it was one of those things with the Russian mob.
02:05:45.000I think he was involved with them in some way.
02:05:47.000Yeah, they sold billions of gallons of gas.
02:05:50.000The family would collect the state and local gas taxes, but keep the money instead.
02:05:54.000At the same time, they were often selling the gas at lower prices...
02:06:00.000Then at legitimate gas stations, the mid-1980s Fortune magazine listed Franchese as number 18 on its list of top 50 wealthiest and most powerful gangsters in the world.
02:06:37.000Even Bill Gates wasn't worth $20 billion in 1984. In 1985, Franchese was indicted on 14 counts of racketeering, counterfeiting and extortion in the gasoline bootleg racket.
02:06:49.000In 1986, Franchese pleaded guilty on two counts.
02:06:52.000He was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison with $14 million in restitution payments.
02:10:44.000and then it got cleaned up and right away we're like hey it looks like disneyland it did get to be like a big applebee's like we were saying it really did get real it became like a like just real chain yes chain restaurants i feel like that was one of the downfalls was chains but they're the only ones that could do you know what i mean like Small business owners weren't going to be in,
02:11:15.000Because Caroline's was right on Broadway, and I remember Caroline's at one point in time was like, you guys, none of you people are from here.
02:11:20.000Like, Caroline's became like this tourist trap.
02:14:55.000You know, George the dummy, he had rigged this thing up where George's head would flap back and it would like expose his brain and he was working on this thing.
02:15:04.000We would have like a Kennedy head and he said, he goes, yeah, I want to get it so it squirts blood so I can get blood to squirt out of his head.
02:15:13.000I mean, it was really, I mean, I guess they're all like that, but he has such a sick relationship with that goddamn George.
02:15:24.000Yeah, a couple of people told stories about the time they'd be out and, you know, somebody would say something and Otto would just go crazy and attack them for verbally abusing the dummy.
02:15:33.000Well, a Puerto Rican guy stabbed the dummy on stage one day.
02:16:10.000And Little Hobo, in the act, the dummy was his grandfather's dummy.
02:16:15.000And his grandfather had died, and his grandfather's dying wish was that Duncan would bring Little Hobo on stage one last time before he buried him with his grandpa.
02:16:25.000So he'd have the dummy on stage, and then the dummy would start talking to him.
02:16:28.000He's like, wait a minute, how the fuck are you talking?
02:16:30.000It was like this crazy thing where the dummy would take him over, and he would play Pink Floyd.
02:16:37.000LAUGHTER I took him with me to the UK, and they did not know what to fucking expect.
02:16:46.000Wish You Were Here, so he would play that song, Pink Floyd song, Wish You Were Here, and him and the dummy would be singing at the same time, two different voices, because he had it synced up.
02:16:56.000He had a whole setup with recordings and everything.
02:18:01.000Yeah, I took a photo with that guy and nuts online are convinced that that's the evidence that I am a Satanist.
02:18:09.000Because the guy was doing the devil horns and shit, and he was getting married, and Duncan performed at his wedding, and I had to go, because it was the craziest fucking shit ever.
02:18:19.000Duncan was there, and they hired him to do his little hobo routine at this guy's satanic wedding.
02:18:25.000So he couldn't use Wish You Were Here.
02:18:27.000They're like, you know, we're more into this kind of heavy metal.
02:20:27.000When you have a closer like that, then you just can't really get inspired to keep working because you're like, this closer's going to change.
02:20:34.000It was weird to follow because I brought him with me on the road.
02:21:56.000Because most evil, like even what I expected to see Pablo Escobar was like this guy that's like, rah, and he's just playing this other thing.
02:22:04.000This dull kind of banality of evil guy who's just like looking and then just, oh boy, was he an actor.
02:23:09.000We had like a five-foot version of that at our podcast studio in L.A. That's funny because that shot, and he probably loves that shot and probably hates that other shot, where he's as fat as a house.
02:29:01.000I think if we take the time and really think about it and organize really good guests, like organize guys like Joey Diaz, guys like Greg Fitzsimmons, funny fucking people, have them come in.
02:29:12.000They're going to do stand-up at the place.