Comedian Joe Budden joins Jemele to discuss his new Netflix show, The Office, and why he's not going to move to Texas. Plus, he talks about why he doesn't want to grow up in Texas, why he thinks he's a Texan, and what it's like being a black, white, and Native American in America. He also talks about how he got into comedy, and how he came to identify as a black and a Native American at the same time. And, of course, he gives us a little bit of advice on how to act like a Black man in America, because he grew up in California and grew up identifying as a Mexican-American. Enjoy the episode, and don't forget to subscribe on your favorite streaming platform so you never miss an episode of Jemele's new show, "The Office." Featuring Jemele and Jemele, and a special guest from the "Office" podcast, Nicki Minaj. Music: Jeff Perla Art: Hayden Coplen Editor: Alex Blumberg Logo by Ian Dorsch Theme by Ian McKirdy Music by Jeff Perlman (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 & 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 39 39, 41, 45, 44, 47, 45 45, 48, 45 , 45, 47 , 47, 50, 48 , 48, 51, 49, 51, , 51, 54, 50, 54 , 51 , , 54, 56, 5, 6, 54, 5 , 5 , 5, 5 & 6, 6 , 6 , 6 5 , 5 , 6 , 5 6 , 6, 1, 7, & 7, 7 7 , 8 8, 9 9, 8 , 7 & 8 & 9, 6 & 8 , 9 , 7 , 8, 8 , 8 , 9 , 9, 8 ) And so On, etc., etc.,
00:00:22.000And real life is people who know you and you're a great guy.
00:00:25.000Yeah, you just life goes on as normal.
00:00:28.000In a lot of ways, all this is a relief, because that video had always been out there.
00:00:35.000It's like, this is a political hit job, and so they're taking all this stuff that I've ever said that's wrong and smooshing it all together.
00:00:41.000But it's good, because it makes me address some shit that I really wish wasn't out there.
00:01:04.000Like if you regret something, I don't think there's anything wrong with apologizing, but I do think you have to be very careful to not apologize for nonsense.
00:01:26.000Which, I probably have one of those, but it's...
00:01:28.000Can I tell you the tricky thing about not being black or white in this country, and we're not victims, but it is tricky because there is a way to quote-unquote act black, not that it's good or bad, but there's a black identity and a white identity in America, and the rest of us just kind of have to pick a side.
00:01:44.000So there's no way for me growing up to act Indian.
00:01:46.000People used to ask me, why do you always act so black?
00:01:48.000And I'd be like, buddy, if you can tell me how to act Indian, I'll do it.
00:01:57.000You know, it's like sneakers and rap music and a lot of young kids talk in that sort of jargon.
00:02:04.000Yeah, and usually we identify with that because it's like, well, we're told I grew up in a white school and they were like, hey, you're not like us.
00:02:10.000So I was like, okay, well, I must be like these other guys.
00:02:12.000And that's why I fell into hip hop and sneakers and all these other things.
00:02:15.000Well, it's just, it's weird that there's like ways you're allowed to talk.
00:02:20.000Yeah, it is weird that there's like if you talk in a certain way like you can't meet like here's a good one This is a neutral one.
00:02:28.000You can't have a fake southern accent Like if I moved from California to Texas and all sudden I started putting on a southern accent I'd be like what the fuck are you doing man?
00:08:03.000I mean, maybe another dude might, but it ain't you.
00:08:10.000Patrice, he just had a way of cutting through the bullshit.
00:08:14.000Do you remember when there was a time where he was on, I think it was Fox News, and there was a lady that was saying, you can never joke about certain things.
00:08:25.000And he's making the camera guys laugh off screen?
00:08:31.000And she did not know what to do, because she was stuck with a master comedian, cracking jokes, It's brilliant.
00:08:48.000I remember Bill Burr had a list of his five favorite comedians alive, I think.
00:08:52.000And Patrice, or maybe Patrice was of all time, but he said Patrice, his favorite thing was watching people try to intellectually debate him.
00:08:59.000Because they'd always think, oh, this big fat black guy's an idiot.
00:09:01.000And then he would fucking destroy them with no effort whatsoever.
00:09:04.000And it was the funniest thing to watch.
00:10:11.000So like when you're talking, if you say something, if you misstep or, you know, if you say something that doesn't turn out to be that funny, they know what you're trying to do.
00:10:19.000They know you're not a vicious person.
00:12:40.000Because, dude, Apu, if it was voiced by a brown person, Apu is so many of our parents.
00:12:44.000And I don't mean that, I mean that in the most respectful way.
00:12:47.000Like, I used to always hear, back in the heyday, people would say, the Simpsons represents every level of society.
00:12:53.000That's why the politician is a sleazebag, and the billionaire is a corrupt fuck.
00:12:57.000And Apu, I really thought, whether they meant to or not, represented the American dream.
00:13:00.000He came to this country in search of a better life, he worked hard, he was mostly honorable, and he built a fucking life.
00:13:07.000And that is our parents, and we should all be so proud of our parents, and it sucks that a white guy was doing the voice, but at the time I don't think they had an option.
00:13:13.000He's doing 12 voices, they just threw him one extra.
00:13:16.000They didn't have a budget, and then he made it something.
00:13:18.000So I would say some of the jokes were a little hacky, you can evolve those, but you don't get rid of the guy completely.
00:13:50.000He wasn't Chinese, but they would play a Chinese detective.
00:13:54.000It was like famous old black and white shit.
00:13:58.000He was a Chinese detective that would always like, you know, solve crimes and murders and shit, but it was a white guy with like the worst makeup.
00:15:18.000They probably more likely didn't care in the 60s when they didn't even let black people drink from the same water fountain or go to the same schools.
00:15:23.000Look at that picture right next to the color one.
00:16:12.000A man who literally killed 10% of the population on Earth while he was alive.
00:16:16.000My dad tells me he used to slaughter one village so bad when they conquered it that his goal was the next village would just surrender because they heard about what happened.
00:21:27.000And you have to, as a society, I think a nice medium is, look, if I say something I regret, you put it perfectly, I'll apologize, but then you let me keep moving forward and you let me keep trying.
00:22:38.000The people who are canceling and looking for misery and taking joy in other people's failure, they tend to lose.
00:22:45.000Well, I mean, obviously we're talking about this.
00:22:46.000This is a political hit job with me, but...
00:22:49.000There's other people that do do a thing like independent people that will attack people all the time and they want to like cancel a person because they think that that person is foul or they want to like they want to be able to do it because it is kind of a game like if you can cancel someone and get them in trouble there's a lot of people that like go dig up old things that you said yeah those people are living in studio apartments by themselves in fucking studio city they're definitely it's not productive If you're spending all your time trying to attack a person versus trying to better yourself,
00:25:10.000I want more great jokes out there, more great bits out there, more funny sets, more, you know, audiences filled in a club having a great time.
00:25:23.000To go from, like, I was hanging out with this lady at Vulcan last night who's an open-miker and she works jobs and she's trying to, like, make it as a comic and And I'm just thinking while I was talking to her last night what it's like to be that person where you don't know if it's going to work out.
00:25:41.000Like she's got some jokes that hit and she's got some jokes that are kind of like so-so.
00:26:28.000But yeah, I remember seeing you, and I was like, dude, this guy just had fucking longevity.
00:26:33.000Yeah, well, I think I just got real lucky in the beginning that I got on MTV, and I had a really good set on MTV. I did the MTV Half Hour Comedy Hour.
00:26:42.000And that was back in the day where they were giving people development deals because they wanted everybody to be the next Seinfeld or the next Roseanne.
00:28:25.000All I remember about that show is your character hated Andy Dick's character.
00:28:28.000That's literally the only thing I remember about that show.
00:28:30.000But I thought he always wanted to be friends with you or there was an episode where he wanted to be friends with you and you were just like, no.
00:28:34.000Well, I think it was always we had this weird dynamic together.
00:30:14.000So I would gravitate towards things that had low percentage outcomes of success.
00:30:20.000So when I first started doing stand-up, my mom had just gotten used to me fighting.
00:30:25.000It had been years and years of me doing that, and then all of a sudden I was going to do something else that had a low potential for success.
00:30:31.000She's like, what the fuck is wrong with you?
00:31:33.000And they came here for safe, steady money.
00:31:36.000And this idea that you could be a millionaire comic, especially our parents, they had never seen any of them in American film or TV. Right.
00:31:43.000So it's like, what are you, fucking crazy?
00:33:19.000Sagar was in his hometown and I got to I texted Russell because I'd open for him and I was like hey this kid is a huge fan he wants to meet you and Sagar was over the fucking I've never seen him smile so hard in his life is his picture with Russell.
00:33:36.000It is what news should be it's and it's also two very strong opinions on different sides of the political spectrum that are respectful and objective They argue things rationally, and they have great conversations, and they lay out uncomfortable truths about world politics,
00:33:54.000about economics, about motivations behind political moves, and why people are doing certain things.
00:34:02.000It's really an amazing, amazing show, and so important.
00:34:07.000Because it's fucking squirrely out there, man.
00:34:09.000If you want to pay attention to one side or the other, the right or the left on mainstream news, you're getting fucked sideways and behind.
00:34:41.000Not like a real man who, like you, like hunts and shit like that, but a man like a guy with values and ethics and this is how you treat people and I very much intend on showing my son or daughter this is how a man acts.
00:34:52.000But that and money and then, you know, the truth.
00:34:56.000To develop character though is a difficult one.
00:34:59.000It's very difficult for a rich kid to develop character.
00:35:07.000And then I worry, how do I give my kids...
00:35:09.000There's a line, this is crazy, but there's a line from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air I think about all the time, where the Aunt Vivian says to Uncle Phil, she says, sometimes I think we work so hard to give our kids what we didn't have, we forget to give them what we did.
00:36:12.000It's good to see people that didn't come from a rough childhood but just have a vision and focus and discipline and are becoming very successful.
00:36:21.000What Andrew did that's amazing is carve his own path.
00:36:25.000They wouldn't put him on these shows and Netflix and what have you, so he went and put a YouTube video out.
00:36:37.000I'm just saying, like, I watched my brother go through this, and we were both getting overlooked, but he had that fucking sixth gear that was like, I will not be stopped.
00:36:59.000And then I learned so much on like, oh, this is how you can elevate a special.
00:37:03.000And I saw how fucking focused he was on every single detail.
00:37:07.000And that's the kind of stuff about Andrew that most people don't know that I want people to know about him.
00:37:10.000He's such a fucking good guy, loyal guy.
00:37:12.000But, like, then I just spent the next two days doing everything he taught me for 48 straight hours after those 16, and he elevated every aspect of the special.
00:37:31.000He's a guy that has a tribe of friends and he's very close to that.
00:37:35.000There's a bond between him and you guys and all the people that he does stand-up with and interacts with and works with on the Netflix special and all the different things that he does, the social media stuff.
00:40:36.000And he said, I literally studied every moment when they got laughs, why they got laughs, and tried to figure out how funny works.
00:40:43.000So I went through, and I studied the first ten minutes of two Chappelle specials, two rock specials, ten minutes of Patrice, I think Aziz, Louis, comics, I don't even love as much, but I wrote down every word, every facial expression, every hand gesture, and every time they got a laugh,
00:41:00.000I tried to figure out why they got a laugh.
00:41:02.000And I think that's part of why we can do crowd work so comfortably, is one, we came up in a place where you had to do it, but two, you start to kind of put together like, oh, okay, here's how you can make this thing work.
00:41:11.000Here's how the formula of comedy works.
00:41:13.000And then you can just put it together in the moment.
00:41:15.000But it was fucking, I did that for months, and that was when I turned the corner.
00:41:19.000That's interesting, you know, so you just started really doing work.
00:41:23.000Dude, I studied it like, this is, I'm going to make this scientific.
00:41:27.000And I'm not a science kid, even though I was pre-med, that's why I'm not a doctor, but I'm going to find the science of this, because I will die for this.
00:41:38.000And I think it's more important for a guy like you or a guy like me who I think has a decent personality, probably funny offstage, funny with our friends, at least they think we're funny.
00:41:48.000So you get onstage, that part comes easily.
00:41:51.000The part you need to work on more than getting onstage, I think, is really fucking studying this shit.
00:41:56.000And why is it funny and how does funny work and how do I make that apply to what I want to say?
00:42:00.000There's some guys who don't like watching other comics because they don't want it to influence them.
00:43:28.000And that's a thing that, like, no one can teach you how to do comedy, but it's kind of amazing that it's such a popular art form in terms of, like, people want to go pay to see it.
00:43:59.000I think Maz Jobrani, and I find Maz very funny, so it's not a shot, but I think Maz Jobrani took a comedy class from that lady who wrote the Comedy Bible, because I remember she quoted him in that book.
00:44:09.000So there are classes, and there are successful funny comedians from those classes.
00:44:13.000But that's just because they got on stage.
00:44:39.000So yeah, even I guess if you take an art class, you still have to do offstage, out of class work.
00:44:43.000But it's in private and you get that luxury of failure in private.
00:44:46.000Right, but that is the thing that they do do on some comedy classes is like you'll have some stuff, you workshop in front of everybody and then everyone will do a show.
00:45:43.000If you watch Patrice, like, I remember watching Elephant in the Room, and he has that joke about, you can tell how beautiful a white woman is by how long they would look for her if she was missing.
00:47:49.000Yeah, but it's like those guys that are free on stage, they let guys like us, like whether it's Patrice or Joey or anybody that's just like free on stage, they let you see the value and that sort of authenticity and that just being you.
00:48:07.000Yeah, they push it forward more than anybody.
00:48:09.000Because at the end of the day, that's what we all want to be, is just authentic.
00:48:12.000And when you see those guys doing it, it frees up you to be that much more authentic.
00:48:16.000Yeah, it's like everybody's got their own contribution like we were talking about Gaffigan earlier like his contribution is like he He doesn't get animated But he knows where the funny is in every bit and it's all squeaky So clean.
00:49:05.000So there's guys like him, and then there's, like, Attell, who's, like, one of the very best, like, non-sequitur joke writers, performers ever.
00:49:39.000I think so many comics get, they think this idea of comedy is, I have to hold the, put my elbow on the mic stand like Bill Burr, who, I'm fucking goat, I'm not at all, but like, they think that's what it is.
00:49:49.000And then when I see a guy like you being free with his body and moving and climbing on a fucking bar stool and mounting, they're like, oh, that can be comedy too.
00:49:58.000And we can explore these different avenues of physicality and different parts of real estate and all that.
00:50:03.000And I think that's a beautiful contribution you have.
00:51:49.000That's like a good amount of time to wait, so you're solid and like a real pro.
00:51:53.000Yeah, well, it wasn't by choice, you know what I mean?
00:51:56.000I wasn't getting any looks from anywhere, and then I didn't even really start headlining weekends until corona, like during corona, basically.
00:52:02.000I did a few weekends before, and then I felt the growth.
00:52:05.000When I started doing 45 minutes at a time, I was like, oh, now I am seeing the comic that I always knew I could be.
00:52:46.000I just thought, well, 45, yeah, it's longer than 15, but I was doing like 20 because we were at the Village Lantern and I would host, or it would be my show, so I'd do like 20, 30. But 45, back to back to back, it's just a different fucking thing altogether.
00:53:31.000But there's also a benefit to a long spot where you settle into your ideas and then the audience takes you, you take this audience on a ride with you.
00:53:40.000Now, you had an agent sending you out for weekends or whatever?
00:53:44.000See, I didn't have an agent, so I was just like, I guess I could go do this $300 bar spot for 45 minutes.
00:53:50.000How did you not get a manager or an agent?
00:53:52.000I don't know, and I don't want to sit here and be super critical of the industry, because that's kind of what we're all doing, and I don't begrudge them, but for whatever reason, they just never looked at me as a viable option.
00:55:34.000The loyalty is where I'm like, if you're super loyal, I fuck with you.
00:55:37.000And when he posted that thing about you, and he told me anytime anybody gets in some controversy, he basically has told me story after story.
00:55:43.000He's like, yeah, I reach out to the guy, see how he's doing.
00:55:45.000We don't get along, but I know it sucks to go through that.
00:55:47.000And I'm like, Doug, that's dope of you to do that.
00:57:42.000Like active suppression of freedom of speech over there.
00:57:44.000So someone claimed they heard it at a club?
00:57:46.000Someone claimed they heard it at a club and then they, at a different show, like followed him to that spot and then arrested him when he got out and they wouldn't let him out.
01:00:37.000...Faruki had made, but one he'd uploaded on YouTube in April of 2020. It referenced Rama, a wildly worship Hindu deity, and his wife Sita.
01:02:37.000Yeah, Fazal Muhammad, popularly referred to as Kasha Zwan, was stationed in southern Kandahar province, was taken away by the Taliban after returning home about two weeks ago, according to an officer serving with him.
01:03:19.000And apparently there's, like, he'll send me, this journalist Ali Latifi will send me videos of, like, white women saying, like, the Taliban really helped me out.
01:03:27.000And he's like, do you have any idea how much damage you're doing to our country by putting these videos out?
01:03:31.000Girls are saying the Taliban helped them out.
01:03:32.000He's like, white liberal women are like, hey, I was trapped in Afghanistan, the Taliban helped me get out.
01:03:37.000And I haven't, I've been so fucking, I feel bad, I've been so busy editing this special that I haven't had time to watch the full video yet, but it just seems crazy that this is, it just, dude, there's real misinformation out there.
01:03:49.000There's real misinformation out there.
01:03:53.000There's this weird foolishness where this rush to accept other cultures and to, like, pretend that human rights violations don't exist if a person's of a certain minority or if a person, if they live in a certain part of the world,
01:07:59.000Because I feel like Austin, and this is my main insecurity, is whenever I would leave Texas, people would always say, I hate Texas, but I love Austin.
01:08:06.000And then I started to really be like, you know what?
01:17:45.000Which I was trying to figure out, does that mean he agrees with the bit or disagrees with the part about, like, you know, overpriced products for unwitting white people?
01:17:52.000And then I asked my friend, who's smarter than me, and he was like, he's a guy that's waiting to see how it gets received, and then he'll lean one way or the other.
01:22:47.000You have the higher risk for cancer, high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks, everything goes up with obesity.
01:22:53.000It's a terrible disease and it's one of the most avoidable in terms of like, there's physical things you can do like exercise, That can mitigate it.
01:23:05.000There's dietary choices you can do that can mitigate it.
01:23:33.000There was a DJ. And he lost a fuckload of weight.
01:23:36.000And what he would do was, every time he put a song on, he would leave his booth, like a song was like a three minute song, and he would walk around the office, like go around the studio, and then go in towards the end of the song,
01:23:52.000and then change the song, next song, and then do it again.
01:23:54.000And this guy did that for a year, and he lost like 60 pounds.
01:23:58.000Dude, before Jared started fucking children, he just walked and ate some Subway.
01:24:35.000What do you think is up with a guy that does something like that?
01:24:38.000Do you think that like when they were a teenager, like something is frozen in their emotional development and so they- They only identify with other teenagers.
01:24:48.000Maybe they're, like, so socially backwards that, like, anyone their age doesn't want to have anything to do with them, and they feel like young, young people are the only ones that they could convince to like them.
01:24:58.000I'm playing real pop psychiatrist here, so this is probably wrong.
01:25:00.000But you know what it could be with a guy like that?
01:25:03.000It was a time period where he probably really wanted a lot of girls, which was his teenage years, and they probably really were, like, they treated him like shit, rejected him.
01:25:10.000Then when he lost weight, he was like, oh, I could get those girls.
01:25:15.000It's the same way, like, I've heard my cousin's psychiatrist, he said, some people get stuck in a developmental stage, like, if they don't get, like, acceptance from their father or whatever, they get stuck in, like, a certain teenage stage and they just kind of stay there.
01:25:27.000It could be something like that, where, like, those are the girls that rejected me at my most vulnerable time, so maybe that's the girls they're still drawn to, because those are the ones that rejected him and it hurt him the most.
01:27:32.000Gene Simmons had a song called Christine 16. I mean, it's wild that we don't, we're like retroactively canceling all kinds of shit and these guys are like, yeah, but you know.
01:27:49.000Well, if you're a guy and you're, you know, living in the time where they wrote these songs and you're a 30-year-old guy and someone's like almost legal.
01:28:00.000It's like they'll be legal in a year, but not now.
01:30:27.000If you're all doing coke together and she fucks everyone you know, you can't think like, hey, let's go for coffee and then have a normal relationship.
01:32:00.000This idiot wanted to be better at comedy, loser.
01:32:02.000He thinks that being in New York makes you better at comedy?
01:32:05.000No, here's actual reasoning, and it made sense to me.
01:32:07.000He was like, I need to be around the overreactors.
01:32:11.000To be to draw material from whereas in Miami everybody's so disconnected and so kind of happy in their own bubble You're not you don't have anything to react against in New York Everybody's reacting to all this dumb shit and then you can always you can react to them reacting and that's where you can draw material yeah At that,
01:32:29.000in this time in my life, I'm doing so much stuff about being married and relationships, my first relationship, so like, to me it was whatever.
01:32:35.000And I'll, you know, but for him it's like, nah, I need to be in New York.
01:32:48.000Did you see this controversy he got in where he was like, we need to get back to businesses being open because my low-skill employees, the guys who work at Dunkin' Donuts, the guys who work at McDonald's, they don't have the skills to work in office jobs.
01:34:46.000There's a disconnect between the way they see the world and what the world really is, and they can't do it.
01:34:52.000Have you never seen a comic that you thought was going to be terrible, and then you come back and see them later, and you're like, oh shit, you got this.
01:34:58.000I feel like I see that more than the guy who just stays shitty.
01:35:01.000I can think of one guy in my mind who's sucked for 15 years.
01:35:05.000And I obviously won't say his name, but I'm like, wow.
01:39:03.000See, when you smoke marijuana, you get THC, but when you eat it, it's processed by your liver, and it produces something called 11-hydroxymetabolite.
01:39:12.000It's four times more psychoactive than THC. I had a whole bit about it because I ate pot and I talked to dolphins on a boat once.
01:39:40.000But because I was so high, I was like, I'd make eye contact with them when they were jumping through the water and they'd look at you and I was like tripping out that this intelligent, playful, thoughtful creature is like looking at me.
01:40:03.000And it's one of the reasons why female dolphins are sluts.
01:40:07.000Female dolphins fuck as many male dolphins as they can so that when the male dolphin sees them with their offspring, the male dolphin's like, I remember I fucked her.
01:40:37.000I remember when I was pre-med, they made you take an evolution class, and the fundamental principle always stuck with me is there's two things you got to know.
01:40:44.000Genetic investment, meaning our sperm is very cheap, so that's why we try to fuck everything.
01:40:49.000And women's eggs are very rare and valuable, so that's why they hold on to them.
01:41:53.000Because you're putting your body in a state where it thinks it's already pregnant, so you jack it up, you fuck up your hormone profile, and then by doing that, it also confuses a woman like her choices in life, it changes the way you behave and think about relationships with other people.
01:42:09.000Yeah, what I don't understand though, some women have to take birth control to regulate their hormones.
01:42:13.000Some women's hormones are out of whack, so they need to take birth control to regulate it.
01:42:16.000Like if you have PCOS or anything like that.
01:42:18.000What is PCOS? Polycystic ovarian syndrome.
01:45:08.000And they'll still watch a fictitious show where, like, Steve Carell is a fucking autistic person running around managing an office in the office.
01:45:15.000And that's funny, but it's funny because he's always an asshole.
01:45:52.000The feeling when an audience fucking, there's a, especially mostly with like relationship stuff, when I say certain things, I'll feel the men laugh and the women laugh in a way that's like, dude, I hit them on a fucking deep level.
01:46:03.000Like I hit a thing that happens to them every single day and you feel that with them and you don't get that with this.
01:46:30.000There's a lot of people who have podcasts that suck and they've never said anything offensive and that's why no one listens to your podcast.
01:46:37.000That's the most confusing thing ever, is how many podcasts there are.
01:46:41.000Yeah, I mean, everybody thinks they have something to say.
01:47:28.000It says there's two million, but then now I'm seeing like there are just under a million active podcasts, so there could have been up to two, almost three, it says 2.7 million.
01:52:31.000Like, it's so easy for me to stay out of trouble with my homies right by my side who I count on and I trust and like, dude, we're just gonna, I'm not gonna party, but we're just gonna go get food and talk shit and laugh and I'm gonna have the most fun.
01:53:11.000You get to meet a funny comic, and you become friends with them.
01:53:13.000But five out of ten times, it was a dog show.
01:53:17.000And you're hanging out with this guy who's hacky, and they step on your material, and it's like, ugh.
01:53:22.000And I don't even, this is, like, I want to save every ounce of everything for the stage, so I don't even want to take the time to get to knowing you.
01:53:29.000This is fucked up, but I don't even want to take, use the energy to get to know you before I go on stage.
01:53:34.000So I, like, insist on bringing my guys.
01:56:28.000Yeah, and I remember he did Brilliant Idiots first, and I told him this.
01:56:31.000I've always been so happy for him, everything he got, but when he told me he's doing a podcast with Charlamagne, I said to him, I said, this is the first time I've ever been jealous of you, because in my mind, I didn't have anything.
01:56:41.000So I couldn't say, don't do that, but in my mind, I was like, dude, I think if we did a podcast, it would be really fucking good.
01:56:46.000But that podcast is going to be so good, you have to do it.
01:56:49.000And it never crossed my mind you could do two podcasts at the time.
01:59:42.000You know how many fucking comics I've had to pay for their surgeries?
01:59:45.000Oh, dude, I don't have health insurance.
01:59:47.000If it wasn't for my wife being at school, she's getting a master's in business and journalism, that's the only reason I have health insurance.
01:59:55.000Well, I would imagine you should get it if you didn't have that.
01:59:58.000Buddy, I swear to God, my real mentality is I'm Indian.
02:00:20.000Well, I went to the hospital one time and it was luckily like the six months I had insurance through SAG, but luckily I was in Dallas and then we just drove to Louisiana and my uncle did all the other tests and it was, you know, whatever.
02:00:32.000Oh, just so people don't think I have cancer.
02:05:53.000Yeah, he looked like a Jordan 11. Like, if you look at the Jordan 11, Jamie, the patent leather that you probably have, that's that right there.
02:07:51.000There's a few fighters like Don Fry, Don the Predator Fry, he always rocked a mustache.
02:07:56.000He was like a man from a different era.
02:07:58.000Yeah, I think if you're a fighter doing it, it's like...
02:08:00.000I had a friend who used to wear the most flamboyant shorts playing basketball, and I'd ask him why, and he would go, imagine getting beat by somebody wearing these.
02:08:28.000No, he didn't just tap me with rainbow spats on.
02:08:32.000And that's actually why boxing, the idea is very romantic to me, of a boxer on the street, is like, that guy looks scrawny as shit, but he could fucking destroy you.
02:08:40.000And UFC jiu-jitsu guy's probably the same, but I always remember thinking that of a, like, I saw this, like, feather, like, bantamweight boxer just walking, and I wasn't starting to fight with him or anything, but somebody was like, yo, that guy's, like, a really good boxer.
02:08:53.000And I was like, that's so funny, because everybody probably thinks this guy's a nobody, and he will fucking destroy you.
02:08:57.000Well, a lot of the really elite jujitsu guys look so unassuming outside of jujitsu.
02:09:04.000Like, you look at them, and you're like, this guy's like an accountant.
02:13:08.000Bones are getting denser because you're lifting weights, so you have all this weight that you're carrying around, so everything gets thicker and denser.
02:15:08.000So all these people that have opinions on what he should do or shouldn't do or should say or shouldn't say, he's like, I know what the fuck I'm doing.
02:20:49.000If comics in the 70s who weren't amazing, like not the Dangerfields and not the whoever's, you'd be like, yo, some of this shit is brutal, dude.
02:20:57.000And so woke comedy probably started as like, well, we don't need to do all that.
02:21:01.000And now it's morphed into this thing that you're like, what the fuck is happening?
02:24:24.000As the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to kill thousands of Americans each week, bioethicist Parker Crutchfield has suggested a controversial approach to battling the pandemic.
02:24:38.000Specifically, he suggests that widespread administration of psychoactive drugs could provide, in quotes, moral enhancement that would make people more likely to adhere to social norms, such as wearing masks and adhering to social distancing guidelines.
02:24:58.000The idea that you have to give someone a fucking pill, a psychoactive pill that will make them more compliant and make them follow the guidelines of masks and distancing.
02:25:11.000What if you could just give it to your wife and kids, though?
02:27:03.000When they're talking about, like, distancing in a room, too, I was reading this thing where they're saying, like, you could, like, viruses can be, like, 60 feet of spread.
02:28:42.000Yeah, but I was living a healthy lifestyle and I was fine after a week or so.
02:28:47.000And I was taking the vitamin D and I think that helped a lot.
02:28:49.000Well, I think that also when you're dealing with a person like you who's young and thin, it's a different animal than if you're an older, obese person.
02:28:58.000It's like this one-size-fits-all approach to everybody.
02:29:04.000And again, I'm a guy who believes the vaccine works, and you probably could take it just to be safe.
02:29:09.000I'm not going to force anybody, but like, yeah, I'm relatively pro-vaccine.
02:29:12.000They've got another one that they're coming out with that's not based on mRNA technology that they've developed that apparently is going to be effective on all strains.
02:29:21.000It'll be more of a traditional style vaccine.
02:29:24.000Yeah, I saw this military one, I think.
02:29:26.000Yeah, and when that comes out, that's going to get a lot of people on board.
02:30:00.000That's crazy, a mandate that your kid has to get it.
02:30:02.000You can give it to your kids, I guess, if you want, but I wouldn't want to.
02:30:05.000If you said to people just five years ago that there's going to be a virus that has a very small percentage of the people that catch it die, But it's going to be an upheaval of the entire country.
02:30:20.000The social classes, the way people are after each other, on each other's necks, it's going to change the way we communicate with each other.
02:30:28.000It's going to close at gigantic percentages of restaurants and businesses.
02:30:38.000600,000 people died with COVID. If you look at the numbers that the CDC gives out, and at one point in time, they were saying that 95% of the people had four comorbidities.
02:30:50.000So 95% of the people that died had four things that were killing them.
02:33:10.000And I'm sure he's, I've asked him, he's like, I don't know yet, because he's just been locked in with COVID and all that and like, you know, trying to do his business and he's, whatever.
02:33:19.000But he's like, I'm sure once I start living my life normally, I'm gonna feel way better.
02:33:49.000He has a target weight, and I don't remember exactly what it is, but I have faith he'll get there and then hopefully start working out too and really just fucking look way better than me.
02:35:34.000It helps you maintain cardiovascular output.
02:35:36.000And they did a study from Finland that showed a decrease in all-cause mortality if you did the sauna four days a week for 20 minutes at a time.
02:35:45.000And it's like at 170-something degrees.
02:38:45.000Because if you're thinking about having children, when you're introducing exogenous testosterone into your system, it reduces the amount of testosterone that your body naturally creates.
02:39:16.000I've had him on my podcast multiple times.
02:39:18.000But he is a professor at Stanford, and he's done a lot of work studying the various compounds that actually do naturally increase your testosterone.
02:39:29.000Icing your balls, for some strange reason, increases your testosterone.
02:39:50.000They do say that icing your balls like...
02:39:52.000Yeah, do cold showers increase testosterone?
02:39:54.000The idea is that cold showers lower the scrotal temperature, allowing the testicles to produce a maximum amount of sperm and testosterone, but I'm trying to find out.
02:40:01.000Yeah, I've heard of guys icing their balls to increase their sperm count so they can knock their wife up.
02:40:19.000I've been ready to have kids since I was like 20. I don't know if ready, ready, but I've been excited to be a dad since I was like 20. Is the missus down with the program?
02:40:28.000I think she's talking in the next year.
02:40:30.000She's 28, so she had a little bit of time, but I think in the next year she's ready.
02:40:34.000Thing is, like, when women get into their 30s and into their late 30s, it becomes increasingly more difficult to get pregnant.
02:40:40.000I know quite a few friends that have tried to get pregnant, like, late.
02:40:59.000There's a bunch of studies that say it helps with some sort of production with DNA and other things, but tying it all together to say it actually is going to raise testosterone or...
02:41:10.000The cold plunge thing is controversial, but one thing that's not controversial is whether or not...
02:41:19.000One thing that's not controversial is that the heat shock proteins and cold shock proteins that you get from saunas or from ice bath, they show like you can follow with blood work, the inflammatory markers in the blood.
02:41:35.000So they know that these heat shock proteins and cold shock proteins That what it's doing is reducing inflammation and it's creating this environment where it helps your body battle inflammation better, which is just one of the biggest causes of disease is inflammation.
02:41:53.000That's one of the biggest aging things, right?
02:44:09.000So you just kept yourself like disciplined.
02:44:12.000Yeah, I just said, I can't imbibe in any of this, so I'm not, because I think I'm going to get too into all of it, so I'm not going to do it.
02:44:19.000Did you figure this out early in life?
02:44:21.000Yeah, I also grew up with, like, I saw alcoholism a lot growing up, and I learned about myself.
02:44:29.000I'm so fucking obsessed with comedy, and that's not just dessert.
02:44:32.000If I have a bite, I'm having the whole thing.
02:44:34.000So I learned that, and I learned to get where I want to go, I probably can't do any of this stuff, because I think it's going to take me too far off the track.
02:44:41.000Some people can do moderation very well.
02:44:44.000My wife is great at a bite of dessert, a half a glass of wine, and nothing else.
02:45:29.000Because everybody else is going to tell you, you have to do this, you have to do that, you have to, oh, you should, you have to fuck everybody, you have to try all the drugs.
02:45:36.000And I want to be like, look, you can, but you don't have to, to get anywhere.
02:45:50.000And you don't want to be a loser, and you look at other people that have been successful, other people that are happy, like, what do I have to do to be like them?
02:49:34.000Instead now, if I'm talking about something like whatever it is, pollution, I'll just start talking about, I'll write about pollution.
02:49:43.000I'll start writing about straws in the ocean and I'll start writing about birds dying from- Do you write from a point of view or do you just write?
02:49:52.000I write my thoughts on it, and I expand, and then I'd go over it, and I'd try to find something that I might be able to pick out.
02:49:59.000And sometimes, like, because when you're just in the flow of writing, you'll get, like, oh, there's something here, and then you take that, and then I'll bring it to a whole new note.
02:50:11.000And so in this new page then I'll copy and paste that and then I'll expand upon this one little nugget that I might have extracted from that and then I'll take that and I'll try to bring it on stage.
02:50:47.000Like, a lot of times it's just rambling nonsense, because I'm just trying to get ideas out, printed, and then try to find something, and it's like you're trying to get into a trance.
02:50:56.000But if you think about all the time that you said that you researched comedy and you watched comedy and you took notes on how people did things, think of how much more comedy you would have if you took that same kind of approach to creating material.
02:51:24.000I don't think you have to just write on stage, and I don't think you have to just write in a computer or a notebook, but I don't think there's anything lost in writing writing.
02:53:33.000But there were these jokes that I would pepper in, and I wouldn't do those 20 minutes every time, but I'd put in these one or two that are like, oh, these are fucking strong.
02:54:04.000A big part of it is just sitting down thinking about things.
02:54:06.000Because you might not get it in a day, you might not get it in a week, but if you keep doing it consistently, you're going to come up with ideas that could eventually be like the seeds that lead to the growth of an eventual bit.
02:54:18.000And even, like, I was thinking, I remember during the pandemic at first, I was doing these, like, vlog things, and they weren't good.
02:54:25.000But they ended up just being writing sessions.
02:54:27.000And I would have to, every three times a week, four times a week, take a story and then do something about it.
02:54:32.000And sometimes these end up being premises.
02:54:34.000One of them is the special about how the Native American's mascot isn't racist enough, and it should be more racist.
02:56:41.000So, I don't think it's going to be as bad as everybody says, because they keep having to change their ideas.
02:56:46.000Like, you used to go to visit this part of the, was it the Antarctic or the South Pole, that was saying that by 2020, you know, so much of this will be gone, and they had to change that.
02:57:01.000They had to change the sign, because 2020 came and went, and it's like, hey, everything's still here.
02:57:06.000I don't think it's that easy to predict.
02:57:08.000I do think that human beings, without a doubt, are having a detrimental effect on our environment.
02:57:12.000The question is how much of an effect, what can be done to mitigate it, and what are the costs of turning it around?
02:57:19.000I'm in the middle of this book right now.
02:57:21.000I have a guest coming up, and it's heavy duty, man.
02:57:25.000I have to be paying attention, because a lot of it is about statistics, and there's all these different...
02:57:48.000And then you go, oh, okay, this is complex.
02:57:51.000Wouldn't that be climate change, though, and not global warming?
02:57:54.000Yeah, but the thing about this concept of climate change, it's like, I don't think it's specifically known exactly how we're affecting We're definitely affecting it in a bad way.
02:58:06.000But I think there becomes an industry on people capitalizing on people's fear of climate change, and then there's also regulations and rules that can be passed, and then there's also subsidies that can be granted.
02:58:21.000There's a bunch of shenanigans that go along with any social cause.
02:59:21.000That is, it started as a sports podcast because the idea was sports is one thing that's not politicized very often, so you can kind of sneak in the stuff you want to say.
02:59:31.000And flagrant two is the basketball foul that is like you're intentionally trying to hurt that person, you get thrown out of the game.
03:02:52.000A lot of stuff he was saying, again, it was just a lot of information, and I was thinking, as a guy who's just a skeptic in general, and like stuff you'll say here, I'll just naturally question it.
03:03:01.000On both sides, I just ask everybody questions.
03:03:03.000I was like, I feel like you're just saying a lot of shit, hoping I don't ask you follow-up questions, because you know I haven't read.
03:03:09.000Oh, but if you ask him follow-up questions, he's got answers.
03:03:12.000No, Alex is a savant when it comes to that shit.
03:03:15.000When we had him on the last time on the podcast, people got annoyed that I was fact-checking him, apparently.
03:03:20.000But I wanted everyone to know that he actually does research.
03:03:25.000Like, when I'm asking, I'm like, wait, is that true?
03:03:27.000And then he'll pull up the article, Associated Press, right here.
03:03:52.000Alex has had some legitimate psychotic breaks in the past, too, where he's been...
03:03:56.000Drinking really heavily and he gets real depressed like getting into all these conspiracies like he goes so deep into this dark circle It's a dark hole to go down.
03:04:06.000That's why I'm like Ignorance is bliss and I'm cool being ignorant.
03:04:09.000You guys can have the truth I want a happy family.
03:04:14.000I want to be a father with happy kids But if you want to be a father and want to be happy, you're going to have to eventually embrace the fact there's real problems.
03:04:23.000And your voice, especially as you're doing your show with Andrew and your own show and your stand-up, your voice is going to continue to get more and more prominent.
03:04:32.000And as that happens and more people respect your opinions and your perspective on things, it's going to be more important for you to express yourself.
03:04:39.000And it's going to be more important for you to pay attention to what's happening so that you can have an opinion.
03:04:45.000All right, let me try to poke a hole in what you said.
03:06:04.000I listen to a radio show from Dallas, Real Texas, every day still, and there's one guy on there who's a big, not conspiracy theorist Kennedy guy.
03:06:12.000He's like a, no, Lee Harvey Oswald did it.
03:06:35.000And it's so fact-based that as you get deeper into it, as he unveils layer after layer after layer, it's very hard to imagine that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.
03:07:04.000And they had apparently tried to kill Kennedy at other opportunities, and they had other patsies that were lined up that they set up as well.
03:07:11.000They get a lot of these people that are just like what they would call useful idiots.
03:07:14.000They're dorks and they can get them to do things and they can throw the blame on them.
03:07:20.000And when they arrested him and he's like, I didn't do it, I'm a patsy.
03:07:25.000He does not seem like a guy who just shot the president.
03:07:28.000He seems like a guy who's like, I can't believe they're fucking doing this to me.
03:07:31.000He's going to get his lawyer and then Jack Ruby kills him.
03:08:41.000Let's cut out all the fucking research, you know?
03:08:44.000So, when you put out your specials, so you just put out the special, how much time do you have outside of that special that you're ready to tour with?
03:09:00.000But I have the hour and I'm working on bits and it's different and there's certain, those were more like, this was purely like a societal, like, special.
03:09:10.000All the points are kind of societal points.
03:09:12.000Right now I have a lot of relationship points.
03:09:23.000But I have the framework of an hour, and usually some of the time it's crowd work or whatever, but I also want to find a way to showcase some of the crowd work in the same way Andrew did, because he and I both came up doing shows for three people at the Village Lantern, so your crowd work had to get sharp.
03:09:39.000Because I can't just do jokes for these guys.
03:09:41.000They're going to be like, is this guy a fucking loser doing jokes to three people?
03:09:45.000So you had to do the crowd work and then find your bit and weave it in.
03:10:55.000Even, like, I have a friend, Michael Blaustein, very silly comedian, but when it came to the crowd work sheet, he could still go, because you had to.
03:11:02.000And just every drunk asshole off the street in the West Village is coming in.
03:14:19.000So I walked across the street and it was just in between shows where everybody was letting out from the first show and I got to hang out with Brewer for a while.
03:16:08.000And they want to pretend you're something that you're not, which is disingenuous.
03:16:12.000But it doesn't work when you have a podcast if the people know you from the podcast because they've seen you, they've heard you for so long.
03:16:26.000Somebody said, I don't remember who it was, but he said, that's the closest you can get to being inside someone's brain, is they're listening to you talk in ear, a lot of times earbuds, for hours a day, four days a week.
03:16:42.000Especially people that go on like long runs while they're listening to you, because it's, I think a long run is kind of a meditative thing anyway.
03:16:48.000And then while you go on these long runs, then you're listening to you, you know, or they're listening to you in their head talking.
03:18:14.000But he was talking to me about children that grow up in violent households, is that when there's domestic abuse, when the mother's pregnant, and then when the family is around violence- There's actually a reaction that happens to the child in the womb.
03:18:32.000So the children come out and they're more likely to be violent.
03:19:51.000We showed up with a suit and sunglasses on.
03:19:53.000He came in straight from ESPN, left his sunglasses on, complained about our studio being in Brooklyn, took a shit in the bathroom as soon as he got there, and then was just complaining about the public bathroom, and then he just sat down and went, dude.