In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, I am joined by my good friend and fellow comedian, Will, and we talk about a variety of topics. We talk about how we met, how we became friends, and what it's like to be a comedian in the big city of New York. We also talk about the time Will accidentally thought it was him in a longboarding video, and how it turned out it wasn't him at all. I hope you enjoy this episode, it's a fun, light hearted conversation with a good friend of mine, and I hope it makes you laugh a lot! -Joe Rogan Podcast by day, Joe Rogans Experience by night, all day. Check it out! -Dancing on the board by night. -The Dance Hour by night by day - The Dance Hour, The Dance hour by night -I don't know who made this, but I think it's pretty good. -Who made it? -Who's the artist? Who's the creator of this song and what kind of music is it about? What kind of dance moves does it have? Can you dance to it?? -What kind of dancing moves does she have?? Can she dance to this song by me? Have a question? or would you like to dance to a song about this song or a story about this or something similar? I'd love to know who you'd like to see me dance to that song? Thanks for listening and/or any other music related to this or any other stuff you're listening to this? ? Tweet me or send me a question/thing that you like it! I'll answer it in the next episode! ;) Timestamps: and I'll do my best to you guys have a question about the song or story about it :) Thank you! <3 -Dance Hour by day -TikTokTokTok TokTok by night! Timeless by night -DANCE MODE by night: -Bustin Moves by Nightlife by Night Podcast by Nightingale by Nightly Podcast by Day by Night, All Day, by Night - by Night Night by Night by Day, All by Night by Day - By Night, By Night - By Day, By Day - All Day by Day (By Night, all Day,
00:01:34.000Yeah, very impressive to learn how to do that.
00:01:38.000But I remember I posted it, and then I go about my day at my house, and then I check my Instagram, and I'm getting all these followers and shit, and I don't know why.
00:04:38.000It's funny because I remember I was walking up to do my set at the comedy store and you're in the parking lot and you're like, oh yeah, you could dance, man.
00:04:45.000I didn't think you would talk about it or even register with you.
00:04:49.000But I'm like, oh yeah, you said I was flexible or something.
00:07:11.000So any illusions that I ever had about going on Dancing with the Stars- It's gone.
00:07:16.000Well, that and talking to Chuck Liddell about it.
00:07:18.000Because Chuck Liddell, who's UFC light heavyweight champion, one of the baddest motherfuckers that ever walked the face of the earth, right?
00:07:23.000Chuck Liddell's like, it's the hardest thing I've ever done.
00:07:47.000Like, I don't think I'm the best dancer in the world, but I think, like, I feel it.
00:07:50.000I can tell when I watch dancers who can, like, really feel it and lose themselves in the music versus, you know, you see pop stars and stuff, like Bieber or something, like No Shade, but it looks like a guy...
00:08:41.000People could do backflips and all this shit, and it's great, but Michael could just do something with his feet and his index finger, and it's amazing.
00:08:49.000There was a thing that is a part of martial arts.
00:08:52.000They would call it kata, and I really forget what it's called in Taekwondo, even though I'm black from Taekwondo.
00:08:59.000I really don't remember what it's called.
00:11:02.000Yeah, there's you know, there's there's aspects of that though learning how to move your body like that if you can learn how to move your body like that like the best people to start in jujitsu are gymnasts and break dancers other than wrestlers yeah Wrestlers are number one,
00:11:20.000because wrestlers, they already understand how to control people's bodies.
00:11:23.000But gymnasts and breakdancers, breakdancers in particular, are fucking amazing when they transition to jiu-jitsu.
00:11:30.000I've rolled with some breakdancers, and first of all, they're like a small guy.
00:11:34.000You can't believe how goddamn strong they are.
00:13:48.000Because he can do things that you like.
00:13:50.000I didn't think a person could do that.
00:13:52.000I didn't think a person could move that way on their hands.
00:13:55.000He spins around on his hands in a way, like, if you had to imagine, if you didn't know about breakdancing, what do you think a person could do standing on their hands?
00:14:02.000Well, I guess you could walk around a little bit.
00:14:05.000This motherfucker can do shit on their hands that most people can't do on their feet.
00:14:31.000No, I guarantee you there's like hipster or elitist break dancers who look at just power moves like this and they go, no, he's all power, no style.
00:15:20.000No one really knew about it, and so we would practice on a wrestling mat, because it's softer than hardwoods, because you'll bang your knees up in your elbows if you don't know what you're doing up top.
00:17:37.000And also I've noticed, sometimes I hear a song I like and I just want to dance to it, I'll throw it up just because people seem to like it, some of my fans, and it's fun to do.
00:17:47.000I don't claim to be the best dancer in the world, but I've noticed it's kind of like a Rorschach test for people.
00:17:52.000Some people think it's the fucking best thing in the world, and some people are like, this is Napoleon Dynamite!
00:19:27.000I don't like it, but, you know, it's a good lesson for people that your body is very fragile.
00:19:33.000Like, when you, especially if you're overweight, like, be real careful with super-athletic explosive moves, because you put tremendous strain in your joints, you know, and his knee just went...
00:20:59.000We would gather all the pillows from the sofas and just everywhere around the house and put it on a mound and then put a bed sheet over it.
00:21:07.000And then you know some houses have stairs that wrap around and there's like a little ledge here where you can...
00:21:24.000But they were such cool parents, I didn't want to throw them under the bus.
00:21:27.000Cool parents get kids with broken legs.
00:21:29.000Yeah, so I think they were okay with us doing pillow night.
00:21:32.000So we were having a great time, and then one time when I went off, I think my hand went through all of the pillows, all the cracks, and it just hit the ground.
00:24:41.000Because if you have a micro dick, and some dudes have a micro dick, like a small part, not even a whole pinky, like a small part of the pinky.
00:30:52.000I'm day two, day two, day three in Austin, but the genesis of it was I have this writing job back in LA, so I'm writing for some sitcom, and it's a Zoom writer's room.
00:31:04.000So we all hop on Zoom, we write the script and all that, and also we're shooting now, so we're watching the actors.
00:33:15.000Whereas if you're a guy who just kills in the OR... Like, I was just killing in the OR, but that doesn't...
00:33:22.000I think this all stems from your parents not wanting you to be a stand-up and being very bummed out that you were an engineer and you went from being an engineer to being a stand-up.
00:33:31.000You're always looking for this sort of like mainstream, like my son, he's writing for a CBS show.
00:35:22.000Are you taking your pants off on stage?
00:35:24.000Honestly, I think the early years of me doing stand-up probably thought I was a clown or something.
00:35:30.000That's the thing about stand-up is everyone thinks that you're delusional or a crazy person until you get a sliver of success and then they're all about it.
00:35:39.000Well, it gets very little respect even as you become successful, which is why plagiarism is not taken nearly as seriously in stand-up as it is in literature or in music.
00:35:51.000And music, I mean, think about the lawsuits in music where someone just takes a riff of something.
00:37:05.000But the craft of stand-up is not appreciated the way constructing a song is or the way writing a book is or the way a lot of other things are.
00:39:02.000Yeah, it's a very important category because there's a freedom to not having any act that you can fall back on where you're forced to create.
00:39:11.000That's kind of why I started doing Lance at the Comedy Store, this character that I... Lance Stampinopoulos?
00:43:11.000So I got past when it was the dark ages at the store, and I could take big swings and not worry about it affecting my career, because I was doing comedy for comedy, not for results-based, really, other than just artistic enrichment.
00:43:26.000So I remember Willie Hunter was doing this variety show in the main room.
00:50:26.000There's a thing that they do in traditional Muay Thai called the Y Crew.
00:50:30.000And the W-A-I-K-R-U. And Y Crew is a dance that Muay Thai fighters do before they fight.
00:50:38.000And it's hard to get people to watch it in America.
00:50:42.000So a lot of the American promotions eliminated the Y crew.
00:50:46.000And a lot of the traditional TIE fighters get very upset by this because it's an important part of it, not just for tradition, but also because...
00:51:11.000And they wear this, I think it's called a mong tong, this headband that goes around and they have these things around their biceps and And they do this dance and they stretch out while they're doing this dance.
00:51:24.000So these two fighters are doing this dance in the ring before they fight.
00:51:30.000So instead of just, ladies and gentlemen, in the red corner, Fahim and War!
00:51:36.000Instead of doing that, these guys come out and, like, give me some music.
00:51:42.000So you hear the horns, the traditional...
00:53:05.000I think it loosens me up as a performer because I've just expended all that energy and I'm dancing around and you're just like worked up and ready to go.
00:53:13.000It's not like waiting to blast off into a cannon or...
00:53:16.000Yeah, it just loosens me up as a performer when I do Lance.
00:53:19.000And then also, I think it's very endearing to the crowd.
00:56:47.000They see the world through a certain prism and they're like, I don't think you can use that term or I think it's offensive.
00:56:55.000I always hear, I go, I understand you.
00:56:56.000My intent is never to offend when I write jokes and such.
00:56:59.000But I always think it's so unfortunate how we are doing a performance on stage.
00:57:05.000And I think stand-ups, because we are in plain clothes and talking so casually, like a common man, they don't give it the same liberties that you would a stage play or a TV show or a movie.
00:57:19.000If some of the stuff I'm saying you saw on a TV show or whatever, you wouldn't write a letter because your mind can make that separation.
00:57:26.000But because I'm in plain clothes, you think I just wandered off the bus and I'm talking about these things.
00:57:33.000They don't see it as a performance when it is.
00:57:37.000Especially when you're talking about fucking, right?
00:57:39.000That's probably your most controversial stuff.
00:57:49.000If you're talking about sexual identity and you've done a crafty joke and you're on the right side of it, but people just hear certain knee-jerk buzzwords.
00:58:26.000Like, one of the things that I've found with my own act is the more controversial the material is, the more I have to be self-deprecating before I can introduce the material.
00:58:42.000It was a tricky beginning because the beginning of the bit, it was like I had to get through some dangerous waters.
00:58:50.000But I really couldn't figure out any other way to do it because the bit was there was a woman during the Obama administration who was guarding the front door of the White House and a guy broke in and smacked her to the ground and just ran through the White House.
01:01:29.000But just the mere fact of tackling a certain subject, even though you've done the work, there is a subsect of people who will still do that.
01:03:09.000But then once COVID hit, they stopped doing it in the van, and they have, like, wherever they work out of, they have this, like, outdoor space, and they were starting to put on shows.
01:04:37.000But there's humility in that too, right?
01:04:41.000Because one of the things that happens that I'm sure you've seen is that certain comics, they get successful and then they only do shows for their crowd.
01:07:22.000And I think there's not just a responsibility but a beautiful pleasure that I have with the podcast so that I can boost the signal of funny people and help.
01:08:39.000And no one is in control of the pipe anymore.
01:08:42.000Back in the day, there was these gatekeepers to the pipe.
01:08:45.000But now with YouTube, and even the pandemic, when the pandemic hit, It's terrible, and it sucks, and it has hit a lot of people a certain way.
01:08:53.000But if you are healthy, and if you take it a certain way, it can be a catalyst for good and change.
01:09:01.000Because once I couldn't do stand-up anymore, I was like, what can I do?
01:09:22.000Yeah, so if the idea is strong enough, you can get away with just like playing both characters and just, it's fleeting and there's a romance to that.
01:09:30.000But it made me do more sketches on IG and grow that way.
01:10:55.000He was always a sweet guy, always hugging everybody.
01:11:01.000When I found out he died, one of the first things I felt like was, I don't think he would have died if it wasn't for this fucking pandemic.
01:12:41.000Not a ritual, just like a thing that I would always do.
01:12:44.000Pull into the parking lot, say hi to everybody, hug all the people I saw, and go to the back smoking area, and I'd always find Jeff Scott getting high.
01:14:06.000Because a lot of times I'll go to a city and I'm like, I have these sound cues and you can see them kind of like roll their eyes or like, ugh, it's more work.
01:14:39.000But he has this amazing catalog of magical moments at that place that now I think the store is working with the family and stuff to try to retrieve.
01:14:47.000Especially in a pandemic, if you notice the Comedy Store's Instagram...
01:14:51.000What's unfortunate is that I love that place.
01:15:34.000You know, you started it out this way, and then I could see that you saw that there was a problem with it that way, and then you snuck it in the back door in another way, and then it started to pop.
01:16:28.000That's like the glimpse into what the store is.
01:16:31.000Well, it's also the best indication that the store is so integral for the growth and development of the beginning of a comic's career.
01:16:39.000Because most of the store you see, you'll see someone like Ali Wong, or you see someone like, you know, there's so many of them that are just so established.
01:16:50.000That by the time you're seeing them, you've already seen them on Comedy Central, you've already seen them, Andrew Santino, whoever it is.
01:16:56.000You've already seen so much of their stand-up on television that it makes sense that they're there.
01:17:01.000But to see someone who's literally been doing stand-up for like three times and they go on Kill Tony and we're laughing at them like, ah, that's amazing, that's really good, keep going, keep pushing.
01:17:46.000And they look like any two- or three-year comic.
01:17:49.000And it's so refreshing to see that, I think, and inspiring as a young comic to know that, like, Bill Burr or anybody who you see, you just think, like, that's impossible.
01:22:43.000I should have thrown that drink harder!
01:22:45.000But sometimes it's worth sacrificing your set to teach this person a lesson.
01:22:49.000It didn't even sacrifice my set because fortunately they had been doing it with so many people that they had built up this resentment from the rest of the crowd.
01:23:50.000Hire a comic to be the person who takes the tickets.
01:23:55.000Hire a comic to be the person who seats you.
01:23:57.000Hire a comic to be The door people, the bartenders, everyone was a comic.
01:24:01.000Which was good and bad because the good thing was you could legitimately like Tony Hinchcliffe, Ari Shafir, a lot of these guys have gone from being the doorman at the Comedy Store to being a professional.
01:24:15.000It's one of the reasons why I came back because I had to be there for Ari because he was doing his special At the Comedy Store.
01:25:05.000Yeah, eventually we got real security, but part of the reason I do love the store is that it is very nurturing to young talent, and there is a path, because I think stand-up can seem so nebulous, and especially a place that is so...
01:25:23.000I don't know, in the consciousness of the world and the U.S., that they have a system like that.
01:25:43.000There's like a prestige to being a paid regular at the store that doesn't exist anywhere else.
01:25:48.000There's a prestige to being a Comedy Store comic, you know?
01:25:51.000I remember one time I was working with Sam Tripoli and Brent Ernst, and we were at the Hollywood Florida Improv.
01:26:00.000And we were all working together, and Tripoli crushed, Brent Ernst crushed, and then when he brought me on stage, he high-fives me and goes, Comedy Store, motherfucker!
01:27:03.000It makes them feel bad they're not accepted.
01:27:05.000And that's why the place gets so much hate.
01:27:07.000And if you go there and it doesn't go well for you, especially if you're someone who has a television credit or something like that, or you work at the UCB and you think you deserve a level of respect in the industry and you don't feel like you get it there, you develop this resentment to all these people that do get,
01:27:24.000they're in, they're in with the in crowd.
01:27:26.000And you try looking for reasons why they're in.
01:27:28.000So you try to say it's a white male thing, but then you see Chappelle go up and you're like, well, that still doesn't make sense.
01:28:14.000If you were outside of that world and you thought that you were just gonna go up with some fucking half-baked references about The Bachelor, you know, and you thought like this is gonna be amazing and you went up and just ate shit and I saw it I saw people that were established comics that now have Netflix specials just eat shit and just walk out angry and frustrated but you shouldn't be frustrated at the Comedy Store you should be frustrated and If anything,
01:28:41.000you should just use it as fuel to develop your act and make it bulletproof and make it undeniable.
01:30:43.000And those doubts, instead of going on stage and laughing at what he had done and thinking, what a great show this is, like I would do now, I went on stage with fear.
01:30:54.000The audience smelled it right away and I just bombed.
01:30:57.000But that was so important for me because that shifted my entire career from that.
01:31:03.000And this is only like, I was probably like four years in or three or four years in.
01:31:08.000So from that moment on, like I worked way harder.
01:31:11.000I worked way harder, and I cut a lot of shit out of my act out, and I concentrated a lot more on writing new stuff, and I tried to figure out what's the best way to go on stage immediately, what's the best way to start off.
01:31:37.000Those moments of painful failure are a gift in any aspect of your life, whether it's stand-up comedy or any other discipline.
01:31:44.000When you have a moment of total failure and you've had some success in the past, like you know you're capable of making people laugh, but in this time you fucking failed and you failed miserably.
01:31:55.000So you have to do an honest assessment of what was it?
01:33:35.000Look, obviously I'm not trying to not do well sometimes, but I found just throughout my career, I've learned the most from a set that doesn't do well.
01:33:44.000Because on the car ride home, no one works harder than when a set doesn't do well.
01:34:31.000I remember watching it thinking, God damn, musicians practice so much more than comics.
01:34:36.000Because I would just show up at shows, and it's like, I know my material, I'll just go do it.
01:34:40.000But I remember watching these musicians, and I don't know why that Spike Lee movie stuck in my head, but I remember Denzel Washington would not fuck his girlfriend because he had to practice.
01:34:48.000I remember thinking, I do not have that kind of dedication.
01:34:51.000If I'm hanging around looking at my notes and my girlfriend wanted to fuck, I'm like, well, in my notes, I know my act.
01:36:35.000And you could do it for like one or two...
01:36:39.000I think every comic has this moment when you're on stage, at the OR, wherever you might be, and someone's kind of being a little loud, maybe a table, and I'll plow through it.
01:36:48.000And there's this moment where you go, do I steamroll over them, or do I have to address this?
01:36:54.000And then sometimes it becomes so egregious, where you gotta be like, what's going on over here?
01:37:01.000And there can be fun that's had, but if you just keep on steamrolling...
01:37:05.000The audience loses all faith in you because they're like, this guy's not even present.
01:37:11.000Also, they can see that you recognize.
01:37:14.000If you've got some crowd that's really talky and loud right there, and you're doing this, and you're like, I don't understand why anybody...
01:37:21.000And then you see that this guy notices, but they don't address it.
01:37:31.000Yeah, it's also all about actually being in the moment.
01:37:34.000You could say the exact same words and not be thinking about what you're saying and saying them the right way with the right cadence and they won't laugh.
01:37:42.000But if you're tuned in and you're really concentrated on what you're thinking, Then they'll feel you.
01:37:51.000Because if you've got a subject you've done on stage 30 times, you've done 30 nights in a row, you've been working on this bit, you've got to pretend, or at least you've got to address it, like this is the first time you're saying it.
01:38:02.000Yeah, you have to access the feeling you had when you wrote it.
01:39:08.000The one thing I love about stand-up, like I'm fortunate enough to get writing opportunities and acting opportunities when they come, but stand-up is one of the rare art forms where you can't skip steps.
01:39:38.000But sometimes even a guy who's smooth and polished, if their bits lack depth, you go, oh, he's comfortable up there, but he doesn't have the ability to take something into deep water.
01:40:25.000There's so many different things going on.
01:40:27.000Like you can see people that are really worried about their image.
01:40:31.000See people that are really worried about people liking them.
01:40:33.000They dress a certain way, act a certain way, and then they'll tell a joke and be really hoping that it gets a laugh, and the audience knows that they're hoping it gets a laugh, and they don't give it to them.
01:40:46.000And you see that fear in their eye, and then they move on to another subject, and you're like, oh my god, you're dead.
01:41:08.000Just knowing that you're enough without the crowd, not needing anything from the crowd.
01:41:12.000Obviously, you want them to laugh, but that you'll be okay.
01:41:16.000I have this quote where I've created a Word doc, just like lessons I've learned throughout life, whether it pertains to stand-up or whether it pertains to life.
01:41:27.000And like one of my big ones as of recently, maybe the last three or four years, is be comfortable being observed.
01:41:38.000Which seems like a given in stand-up, because you're on stage and such.
01:41:44.000But you'll see comics who are up there and doing jokes, but they're not comfortable being observed.
01:41:48.000But I think it applies to life, even, too.
01:41:50.000Because there was a time in my life where I'd be at Coffee Bean or something, and I'd be worried that, like, I'm taking too long with the half and half, or with the sugars, and that I'm holding up a lot.
01:43:50.000And one of the things about growing up in Boston that was really excellent...
01:43:54.000And you look at the comics that came out of Boston, whether it's Bill Burr, myself, Patrice, there's a lot of guys who came out of Boston that have this like, let's go!
01:44:07.000There's very little pause in between the bits.
01:44:10.000There's a recognition and an acknowledgement of the audience's attention span.
01:44:15.000Because you kind of have to have that.
01:45:53.000Because sometimes there are some bits that I do where I tell the joke or maybe I'm setting something up and they're Being comfortable in the silence.
01:46:01.000That's something that I learned at the OR. Because before, some comics become steamrollers.
01:46:08.000And if they don't hear laughs every two or three seconds...
01:47:13.000Like sometimes you watch a young comic or a comic that's not that good yet, and you see what's holding them back, and it's almost like you wish you could tell them, but you can't.
01:55:17.000I think there's very few human beings that I've ever had a disagreement with in whether it's an email or a text or they've seen something, they didn't like it on a podcast and they've tweeted about it or something.
01:55:32.000If you're there talking to me, I think?
01:55:51.000The way people communicate through these alternative forms of expression, they're not good.
01:57:41.000They may have difference of opinions or whatever, but like once you're face-to-face, they'll surprise you with the humanity and such.
01:57:47.000And a lot is lost over Twitter and text and such.
01:57:49.000Especially face-to-face with no audience, right?
01:57:52.000Where you don't have to like perform to other people that are watching it.
01:57:57.000You know, like when people can just be human face-to-face.
01:58:00.000I think we're in an adolescent stage of communication, and I think the next level of technology is going to elevate discourse.
01:58:09.000I think that what we're dealing with now through Twitter and through all these other things, we've expanded the way people can contact each other, but we've limited the way you can express yourself and limited the human interaction.
01:58:25.000So the beautiful thing about it is someone can express themselves like a whistleblower who's working at a chemical plant can express that this plant is dumping toxic shit into the river and it's killing fish.
01:58:39.000There's beautiful things about Twitter and about social media and about all these different things.
01:58:44.000You can expose things that are currently happening right now that are bad.
01:58:49.000The bad thing is it's a very limited way of expression, a limited way of communication.
01:59:01.000Anybody can write something down in a text and there's all this room for interpretation of what that actually means or who the person is that's saying that or what's their motivation.
01:59:13.000The unfortunate thing about it is, you know, it's a very powerful tool and all that, but it strips away intent, which I always think is a catalyst for disaster.
01:59:30.000We're constantly looking to, like, call people out, right?
01:59:34.000That's the thing that's going on right now.
01:59:35.000People are looking to call people out, constantly call people out.
01:59:38.000I think there's an atrophy to it, though.
01:59:40.000People are a little tired of it, because we've been through this rodeo enough where it's like, you can only see the sky's falling how many times before you're like, is this really a scandal?
02:07:53.000No matter what you do, you're going to have someone that's mad.
02:07:55.000And if you're doing comedy, especially if you're doing comedy that pushes buttons, you're going to at least have the opportunity for someone to decide that's a target and to go after you.
02:08:06.000It's probably a sign that you're doing good work.
02:08:10.000You know what's like a, I want to try this a bit, but like the last frontier of heterosexuality in advertising is like watches.
02:08:49.000It's one of the rare acceptable male jewelry if you're not a rapper.
02:08:54.000Yeah, but it's just kind of interesting just on the sidelines to see the way advertising is going, how they've been very inclusive with everybody, but watches has held the line.
02:12:29.000I'm recognizing that the same way, if you wanted to look back on primates, early primates, and go, like, if you brought a chimp into the future and said, hey, this is what it's going to be like.
02:12:43.000You're going to fly in planes, and you're going to eat off plates.
02:16:00.000And most of these people that are three-mask people, they don't know goddamn anything about vitamins and quercetin and saunas and all the different methods that you can use to stimulate your immune system.
02:16:14.000It's like we don't want people to be able to take their own chances and make their own risks.
02:16:21.000And the more liberal you are and the more left-wing you are, the more likely you are to appeal to authoritarianism.
02:16:28.000And this is one of the most discouraging aspects of our culture in 2021. All these people that are supposed to be left-wing people.
02:16:37.000When I was a kid, I've always been left-wing.
02:20:02.000And it was frustrating because before the shutdown, when everything was super locked down, I was doing a lot of outdoor shows in LA. And I was doing all these alt shows just in backyards and on the top of hotels and stuff.
02:20:15.000But the Comedy Store wasn't allowed to do shows because it was called the Comedy Store.
02:22:03.000Yeah, but if you want to make a moment where the two characters, male and female characters, are male and male characters, are female and female characters, I'm trying to be really inclusive.
02:22:20.000But back in the day, you would look Basic Instinct or like the movie Species, and people would rent that because that was like a way to get off without going through the beaded curtain.
02:25:46.000If you can all agree that all the tiger blood and winning and we could just kind of leave that where it belongs in the past...
02:26:02.000These are very difficult, unprecedented, and trying times that we're all finding our way through.
02:26:09.000So if a message from me can brighten the day of yourself or a loved one or even someone you don't really care about, then I'm honored to offer that.
02:28:31.000Lenny Clark was one of the original guys from the Ding Ho Comedy Club, which is the original comedy club in Boston that Barry Crimin started.
02:28:38.000And it was Lenny Clark and Kenny Rogerson and Steve Sweeney and all these fucking murderers.
02:28:44.000The best comics that ever came out of Boston.
02:30:43.000Anyone who excels loves what they do because they're studying that stuff even after they punch out.
02:30:49.000But I was just doing engineering as a means to an end.
02:30:52.000It was just sort of to get me out to LA and I could do stand-up at night.
02:30:56.000I didn't dream of being a lead at Boeing and being a manager or something.
02:31:02.000And this thing happens where you have a pretty good salary engineering, but then this thing happens called salary compression, where you work there long enough and then new hires start getting paid more than you, just with inflation and everything.
02:31:16.000Unless you become a lead and climb the ladder...
02:31:25.000But I was just using it until I could do stand-up and all this entertainment stuff.
02:31:32.000So I had left Boeing, and I was just doing stand-up full-time and all that, and then Bobby had me feature for him on the road for a bit.
02:31:40.000And I had some things, and then they kind of, they run its course, and then you're just floating in space, and then you're like, did I make a bad decision?
02:31:48.000But we would go, you know, you have dinner after the show and stuff, or we go to swingers.
02:33:20.000Well, he and I have had some weird moments in the past because I think more perception than anything is like just we're very different kind of human beings.
02:33:31.000Very different styles of human beings.
02:33:33.000But when I was an open-miker, Mark pulled me aside, and he said, and I told him, he and I had like a dispute at one point in time, and I said, I gave you so much slack for so long.
02:33:46.000I was nice to you for so long because you were so nice to me when I started out, but you're such a cunt.
02:34:28.000Marc Maron had cut his teeth with Sam Kinison at the goddamn Comedy Store.
02:34:33.000And one of the most amazing podcasts that I ever had was Marc talking about him being at the store with Kinison and doing so much coke that he heard voices for a year.
02:38:13.000I love watching as a spectator, but also as a comedian.
02:38:19.000I do think there is a pitfall, though, with younger comedians because it is a shortcut of sorts to be seen quicker than kind of working on your craft of stand-up.
02:38:31.000But it's part of the craft because it's joke writing.
02:39:10.000Like, you can kill it at roast battle, and, you know, Jeff Ross is there, and there's clips and stuff, and you can kind of get on very quickly, and that's fantastic, but don't not water the plant of stand-up.
02:39:24.000Well, use the same dedication and discipline and focus that you use to be good at that particular roast battle and apply it to your actual act.
02:39:35.000I don't want to mention any names, but I know people that are really good comics.
02:39:39.000They could be good, but they're fucking lazy!
02:39:42.000They're lazy and they like taking naps.
02:39:45.000I think that's kind of what's great about the way that I entered stand-up comedy coming from...
02:39:56.000I think in the 80s you can get away, or in the 70s you can get away, maybe more in the 80s, just like being a pothead and whatever and roll out of bed and there was this rock and roll attitude to stand-up.
02:40:52.000One of the saddest things is watching beautiful men, like a really handsome, perfectly chiseled man, try to find love.
02:41:02.000Because at a certain point in time, they realize that...
02:41:06.000They have something they don't deserve.
02:41:09.000They have a Willy Wonka golden ticket where everybody loves them based on their facial structure or based on their height or based on their frame, their anatomy, and it's sad.
02:41:18.000It's sad because you didn't earn that appreciation.
02:41:45.000Sometimes they're like, this is crazy.
02:41:49.000As long as you understand and appreciate it, there is a balance because the thing that you have that those other guys don't have is you are funny.
02:48:52.000I don't know if you found that long-haul COVID. One thing I will say about the Spotify layout, though, as a fan, I want to tune into the pod sometimes.
02:49:01.000I find it hard to watch on my TV. Yeah.
02:49:09.000It's eventually going to be on all platforms in terms of television-based platforms.
02:49:14.000Well, right now it's on Chromecast, and it's on Google Play, and they're working on Roku and Apple TV. They're working on a bunch of different platforms that will eventually be.
02:49:28.000But it's not as smooth as it probably should have been when we first transferred over in December.
02:49:34.000But they just weren't ready for the volume.
02:50:38.000You know, we're talking about, like, how people...
02:50:41.000Get a sense of who a person is without actually communicating with them, without being there with them.
02:50:47.000And you could define someone or have this distorted perception of who a person is without actually communicating with them.
02:50:57.000That's one of the things that happened with Spotify, with some of their staff, where they thought I was transphobic or thought I was a bad person.
02:51:03.000I saw one of their staff say that I was a shock jock.
02:51:09.000Like, I'm not even remotely like that.
02:51:13.000I always tell people, because sometimes, I know he's a comic and stuff, so I see you more as a comic than anything, and you didn't intend on this becoming as big as it's become.
02:51:25.000It's just organically grown, and people tune in because they want to tune in.
02:51:29.000You're not being force-fed down people's throat.
02:51:33.000They're, like, choosing to listen to you.
02:51:34.000Yeah, but I've actually, on purpose, never advertised for this show.
02:52:07.000When you have these huge multinational corporations that have thousands of employees and they can't even touch the amount of reach that a guy with a podcast has.
02:53:17.000And I've just found it's helped with my stand-up even because talking is talking.
02:53:24.000And even though this is conversational, it just wires your brain and you have certain pathways where you are comfortable formulating thought and it's conducive to podcasting and then also stand-up.
02:55:58.000And one of the things that they have the ability to do is they have the ability to criticize you and criticize everyone without looking at themselves.
02:56:05.000And that's why they focus so much time on criticizing other people.
02:56:09.000Yeah, I've almost found, though, that...
02:58:52.000And one of the things that's so critical about a place like the Comedy Store and one of the things that I need to recreate out here in L.A. is a place where we all feel safe.
02:59:03.000We're all surrounded by like-minded artists.
02:59:07.000And we need an artist colony out here.
02:59:19.000Sometimes I think I'm guided by this weird instinct that knows what I would want someone to do if I wasn't me.
02:59:30.000Like if I wasn't me and there was this dude who got this crazy deal where he got all this money and he had all this influence because he had this pocket.
03:00:56.000And the art form has taken a big hit during this pandemic.
03:00:59.000It's taken a big hit because, you know, during woke culture, there's a lot of challenges.
03:01:04.000But I think those challenges are ultimately going to lead to stronger comedy, better comedy.
03:01:10.000Guys like Tim Dillon, guys like Andrew Schultz, guys who are just bucking the system during COVID, during the pandemic, during the woke culture, and getting buck wild.
03:01:20.000And I feel an extraordinary responsibility.
03:01:33.000Outside of doing this podcast, I have this responsibility to this art form because I think I have the ability to do something that is unusual.
03:04:10.000Jamie lives on a very high floor of a beautiful place with a crazy view and he sends me pictures from his apartment and I get nervous from your pictures.
03:04:21.000I don't know if I could live where you live.
03:04:23.000The Call of the Void describes an impulse to hurl yourself into a void.
03:04:30.000While unnerving, it's a pretty common experience.
03:04:33.000It has nothing to do with suicidal ideation.
03:07:30.000I used to feel that when I did Fear Factor, when we'd be on a roof, and these people had to do a stunt, and I'd look off the edge of the roof.
03:07:41.000No, I don't really have a thing about heights, but I do have a thing about worrying about heights, and I have dreams sometimes about falling.
03:07:49.000But I try to figure out what those dreams are.
03:07:51.000I think those dreams are that I recognize that I'm in a very unusual place, and I could fuck up and fall from where I'm at.
03:07:59.000I think that's some sort of a metaphor.
03:08:03.000I know that I'm in some weird spot that you could easily say I don't deserve.
03:08:09.000But I don't think anybody deserves a spot.
03:08:11.000Yeah, I've always found you're on the ground floor of so many industries that no one would have known have popped off the way they have.
03:08:18.000Like you were so early to podcasting, and then UFC, and then stand-up, you've been doing forever as well.
03:08:24.000So it's this three-pronged approach that it's like the perfect storm.
03:10:53.000If you wanted to do that, if you wanted to design rockets that are reusable, that could eventually go to Mars, the thought process when you're a child and you like watching fucking Battlestar Galactica...
03:11:44.000But if you think about any difficult thing, it seems insurmountable when you look at if you have to go to 12 years of school and four years of internship and Whatever it fucking takes to have a career in anything and you're going to have $200,000 in student debt,
03:12:07.000the boundary that you have to cross in order to be successful in something, it seems impossible.
03:12:14.000So when someone actually makes it, And they've actually gone through 15 years of whatever and then here they are.
03:12:56.000Like, you start out, you're like, hey, have you ever noticed when you go to 7-Eleven, the guy working behind the counter is not always Indian?
03:13:06.000You have these fucking stupid ideas that you think are gonna be funny, and then one day you're on Netflix.
03:13:12.000One day you're on stage, you're telling jokes, and people are roaring laughing.
03:13:16.000One day you get off stage and Theo Vaughn high fives you, Joey Diaz gives you a hug, and Dave Chappelle is your friend, you can text him, you're like, this is madness.
03:13:33.000Because, especially if you really care enough about something, you just have your eyes on your own paper, ideally, and you're just working on the craft and all that.
03:13:41.000And before you know it, you're in this, even where I'm at, like I'll get DMs or people trying to ask me advice, or maybe even in L.A., You don't see yourself that way because you've been living with yourself for so long, but you can't do something for X amount of years and not be at a certain level.
03:14:26.000I always talk about this in terms of impoverished communities.
03:14:29.000We need to figure out a way to support impoverished communities the same way we think about the way to support gigantic corporations that have been impacted by the pandemic.
03:14:40.000Why have they thought about doing that but not thought about doing that to Detroit?
03:14:44.000Not thought about doing that to Baltimore?
03:14:47.000Not thought about doing that to these crazy spots that have been deeply...
03:14:52.000Engulfed in crime and violence forever.
03:16:11.000We were actually in Austin, because we were on tour, and Austin was one of the cities that we hit.
03:16:15.000We were staying at the Line Hotel, and we were just walking around.
03:16:18.000And he was like, oh, yeah, you have like an interesting brain, and if you ever want to write on SNL or something, or I think you could probably be a good writer on there.
03:16:29.000If you need to submit a packet or anything, I'll help you out.
03:16:32.000I was like, oh, I just kind of like filed it in the back of my brain.
03:16:38.000Then I had tried to sell this sketch show just because we had done Goatface on Comedy Central, which is like a one-hour sketch special with me, Hasan Minhaj, Aristotle Atheris, and Asif Ali, because we were doing YouTube sketch for a long time, and we were trying to—we just thought like, oh,
03:16:53.000we're the next up, just with— Just Middle Eastern people, South Asian people, like how important living color was, I feel like brown people in America are the next...
03:20:55.000They're like a reputable production company, and we would go to all these—we'd have these meetings at, like, Hulu and HBO and all these places, and they were just kind of like, whatever.
03:21:04.000And we thought it was a slam dunk just with the product.
03:21:07.000And then I realized, I'm like, oh, they just kind of like see me as a runt.
03:21:12.000Or they don't see me the way I see myself and like these other people see myself.
03:21:16.000I need to get these other credits for them to kind of take you seriously.
03:21:22.000So that's when I was like, let me try to be a writer for SNL. Let me try to catch that Neil card.
03:21:52.000Or they can say, I think people are going to get this guy, and then they push you through.
03:21:57.000And then, like, a lot of people get pushed through that really don't necessarily work.
03:22:02.000I think what I, for as long as I've been doing stand-up, I think one thing that's been working against me is that, I am a comedian who happens to be Afghan.
03:22:46.000And I think sometimes these diversity opportunities that happen in Hollywood, they want you to be diverse in the way they want you to be diverse.
03:22:54.000Like, if I wanted to do a workplace comedy, they'd be like, oh, we could just get that from a white guy.
03:23:43.000But I think that's the beauty of the comedy store where Where you find people you like and you gravitate towards them and you want to usher in the new generation and he doesn't do that with a lot of people and I just felt very gracious that he took the time to do that so we put together this packet and then I send the packet in And then I don't hear anything about the packet and then they're like,
03:24:04.000then they hit up my manager and then they're like, can you send in, we're looking at him as a performer.
03:27:21.000I think I was working at Caroline's and I was just walking down the street with this box of New York boobs and he's like, you got the best New York boobs!
03:31:00.000Him and Owen Smith are my personal two favorite examples of...
03:31:07.000Unfortunately, what can happen when you get a guy who becomes a world-class stand-up but has spent so much time writing and writing on sitcoms that people don't know?
03:31:16.000And I've done my best to let people know about Ian and I've done my best to let people know about Owen.
03:31:20.000But those two guys are as good as any fucking comic on the planet Earth.
03:31:24.000I said to Owen once when he was on the show, I said, you are one of the top 20 stand-up comedians alive on earth.
03:32:16.000So I'm thinking of funny stuff, but it's for the show.
03:32:20.000Whereas if I wasn't, then you can have more time to daydream and you could think about bits for you.
03:32:30.000I've gotten better at it because the first week I was like, oh no.
03:32:33.000It was so new to me just having this much time dedicated to something other than just fucking around to daydreaming for my stand-up and sketches.
03:33:10.000But if you want to do that fucking road, particularly before Zoom and before pandemics, you couldn't just detach yourself from the mothership.
03:33:22.000That's one of the perks of the pandemic, which sounds terrible, but again, I'm a proponent of turning...
03:33:31.000Lemons in the Lemonade is I'm able to write remotely.
03:33:37.000So while I can do that, because eventually I might have to be back on the soundstage and give alts and stuff, and it's a collaborative process, but while it's not, I get to be here.
03:35:48.000Yeah, they wear cowboy boots with no socks on.
03:35:50.000You know, I have a theory as to why a lot of bachelorette parties, they'll go to Tennessee or they'll go to Texas and they'll dress up like a cowgirl.