Comedian and comedian Ari Shafir joins Jemele to discuss his new comedy special, "Jew's" which is out now. They also talk about their weekends at the Comedy Cellar and what it's like to be a stand-up comic in New York City. And they talk about how much they're getting paid to do stand up comedy and why it's better than watching TV. Plus, they discuss what it means to them to be in a comedy club and why they don't want to go to comedy clubs anymore. And they discuss why they think there's no such thing as a "real" comedy club anymore and why you should never go to one unless you're in a movie theater. And, of course, they answer your burning questions! Joe Rogan is a comedian, writer, podcaster, and podcaster. He's also the host of the podcast The Joe Rogans Experience, which is a podcast where he talks about comedy and other things related to pop culture and pop culture. He's a good friend of Jemele and Jemele's and we talk about that a lot. If you're a fan of the show, you'll love this one. It's a must-listen episode. Thanks for listening! -Joe Rogan. -Jemele -The Jerks -Jon Sorrentino - "Jew s" - " Jew's" - Ari's "Jew" -"Jew's"? - "Shafir" - Ari s "Jew"? -"Shafiri" - "Jew?" - "Yo, I'm not a real Jew?" - - and much more! Thanks, JOE ROG - JOE JRJAN - THE JOE ROJAN EPISODES - AND MUCH MORE! Thank you for listening to this episode of the JOE Rogan Experience by day and JOGAN PODCAST by night! by night, JOSEPH ROGAN! JOE CRUISE by day, JORDER by night? JOSIE RODAN EPIC by night by night AND JOE'S PODER RYAN PASTOR by DAY? JOKE'S BECAUSE HE'S A GOOD FRIENDS ARE A GOOD GUY AND A GOOD LISTEN TO ME? -AND JOLE'S DADDY?
00:01:17.000Like on any given night at Vulcan, we'll have Ron White, Tony Hinchcliffe, Tim Dillon stops in sometimes, Tom Segura when he's not on the road, Christina Pazitsky stops in.
00:01:36.000I think that's part of the charm of that place, too, is just people don't know who's going to pop in.
00:01:41.000And even when I was here, I was here for like three months during the pandemic, it was cool.
00:01:46.000It almost felt like a festival city because it's that midpoint between New York and L.A. So I would see like Giannis, I would see guys I just wouldn't see unless I was doing Montreal or something.
00:03:18.000When you're doing a special, you're essentially saying, hey, this is like an advertisement to come see me live, which is, it's way better live anyway.
00:03:26.000Like, I always say that coming to see someone in a club or in a theater or what have you is probably, it's at least 30 or 40% better than watching on TV. Oh, for sure.
00:03:52.000I think he really kind of broke it for all these comics and shifting our thinking.
00:03:57.000Because for the longest time all of us were just hoarding our material because we were still in that old legacy Hollywood, traditional Hollywood mindset.
00:04:06.000We're like, alright, I have this polished stuff.
00:06:38.000So I wanted to come out hot with the OR, show the extravagance of the main, and then close it out with the night winding down in the belly.
00:07:34.000I mean, I asked them, obviously, but I just had very skeleton, maybe one guy with a camera shooting from afar, and it just picked up organic conversations.
00:07:44.000I'm not having the entire conversation on there, but you get little vignettes and slices of what it's like in the hallway, in the parking lot.
00:07:52.000You know, Brennan driving up, fist bumping, you know, like, it's what it's like to be a comic in the store.
00:08:36.000I'm like Because I'm in this weird place where I've been doing stand-up 20 years.
00:08:40.000I'm a comics comic like comics like me and stuff and like artistically I'm further along than I am visibility wise and Why do you think that is?
00:08:54.000I naively, when I was younger and a younger comic, I just thought if I'm funny and crushing the clubs and stuff and I have representation, I trust my representation is getting it done.
00:10:34.000Yeah, because that just fell in my lap because stand-up wasn't happening and then they were a fan of my stand-up and they were like, do you want to ride on the show?
00:10:42.000Because when you were out here, when you first came out here and you stayed in that apartment building, I remember there were certain gigs you couldn't do or you had to show up late because you had to be in Zoom prison.
00:10:51.000Yeah, but they were kind of the lighter, sorry.
00:10:54.000It was kind of nice being in this Zoom writer's room, and it's almost like you have this superpower, because we'd be writing all day, and I'm like, hey guys, can I leave early?
00:11:00.000I have to do this show with Joe Rogan and Dave Chappelle.
00:14:46.000There's people like that that are just wizards.
00:14:48.000Yeah, you know, they just they just have a thing and they know and obviously He's got a system completely down and they hire great writers and you know They've got the people at Comedy Central are smart enough to leave them the fuck alone Which is rare, you know to have a network it just sort of goes go ahead But it's always it's nice when you do have a conglomerate like that to just trust the artist because look what gets produced I think it's tough when you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen who don't My favorite things,
00:15:16.000artistically, are pretty singular in vision, like Chappelle's show.
00:15:20.000They didn't have a lot of meddling in that.
00:15:22.000Well, they started to meddle when it started to make a lot of money, and that was one of the reasons why Dave quit.
00:15:28.000When Dave, you know, got the offer, it wasn't the money that corrupted him, where he's like, I don't need this 50 million dollars.
00:16:29.000And then when he came back, you know, he came back and started doing shows and kind of got into the groove again and then started killing it and then started putting out specials and then getting attacked.
00:17:07.000That set, if you really watch it and pay attention to it, it has a transgender person in it who he loved, who was a good friend of his, who he had open for him at shows, at least one show, and talked about with great love and respect.
00:17:58.000Yeah, and I was telling you too, it's like the Rotten Tomatoes just shows you the disparity between what's going on in the country and what the critics are saying.
00:18:11.000But they're humans that are captured by a system.
00:18:13.000And that system is like, either it's a system that's propagated by social media, or it's a system that, you know, they're on a website that is almost, they're almost all like left-leaning websites that have a problem with it, which is really interesting.
00:18:29.000You know, it's like the right-wing website.
00:18:31.000It's like, who would have thought that If you look back on the early days, what we used to think of as conservative versus liberal.
00:18:38.000Liberal was pro-free speech, people were open-minded, non-violent, you know, and people were open to other people's ideas.
00:18:47.000And the right was like suppressive, you know, nanny state, you know, condemned certain language, condemned certain behaviors.
00:18:58.000Today the left has gone so fucking far left, It's so radical that the right are the ones that are celebrating comedians and celebrating Chappelle.
00:19:25.000But I am pro-Second Amendment, and I am a hunter, and I am a cage-fighting commentator, and I drink, and I smoke cigars, and I like to bow hunt.
00:19:35.000So there's a lot in there that's like, hey...
00:19:45.000One thing that happened during this pandemic was it opened my eyes about human nature.
00:19:51.000I used to be very pro-universal basic income.
00:19:55.000My thought was, wouldn't it be great if you just had enough money so you could eat and you could pay your rent and then you could pursue what you wanted to?
00:20:05.000But the reality of human nature came fully into focus when I realized that when some people got all that money from the government, the COVID money, and then they got unemployment, they didn't want to work!
00:20:22.000And one buddy of mine, a bartender told him, I can come back to work, but I can only work for 20 hours a week because that way I get unemployment.
00:20:32.000So he wouldn't work more than 20 hours a week so he could get free money.
00:20:35.000So he could have made more money, but he didn't want to because he didn't want to work.
00:20:39.000So he was getting that free money, and then my friend was like, what the fuck, man?
00:20:59.000The pros are it's a marketplace that favors the worker so workers can ask for more money.
00:21:07.000So you're seeing a lot of places like bars and restaurants and stuff that have to pay more money per hour.
00:21:12.000Which I guess is good as long as the restaurant can stay open because it's at a challenge.
00:21:17.000Well, not so much in Texas, but in California, it's at a very challenging time because the time where everybody was shut down in California was radically extended as opposed to other parts of the country.
00:21:28.000And in Texas, things were just wide open.
00:22:01.000After we get out of here, I'll take you to the theater.
00:22:05.000We're gonna do some wild shit out here, fame.
00:22:08.000Yeah, but it's just sort of like, even with the agendas and stuff, and that's why I kind of did my thing on YouTube, too, because I never fit into that Netflix mold, or there's just certain people who pick certain things, and they have a certain brand of comedy that they want to cultivate.
00:22:23.000And I think the stock prize and what's happening, because there's the mega-famous people who have their specials, and sure, it's great, Home Run, Netflix.
00:22:30.000But then the up-and-comers, they're not...
00:23:53.000There was a thing about young boys that were doing drag shows, but I don't think that was the Netflix thing.
00:24:00.000But the point is, it's like, you know, there's like an ideological capture that happens when you're connected to these kind of corporate systems that are embracing wokeness.
00:24:12.000And so you say, well, we're going to find comedians that reflect our ideals.
00:26:51.000His shit on Netflix or his shit on YouTube and his shit on Instagram, the Turn Your Phone Sideways stuff, was so genius that they were like, this fucking guy needs a show.
00:28:36.000Because there's no reason for him to lie.
00:28:39.000But, you know, if you go on a Tonight Show, I don't want to single out to a Tonight Show, but any kind of late night talk show, they don't fucking pick those people.
00:28:46.000It's like, you know, Jimmy Fallon's going to the clubs and making good friends with all the comics and trying to figure out who's the best guy to get on.
00:29:19.000Man, like, there is this shift, I think, before podcasting and before YouTube and Instagram where you can pull back the curtain to what comedy and stand-up and this world really is.
00:29:31.000All we had was the gloss of The Tonight Show and all that.
00:29:33.000But now people really like the nitty gritty stuff.
00:30:07.000And it was conscious because when I did my CISO thing, it's like you load in the audience, there's lights, and it's sort of a recreation of your act that you've been developing in grimy clubs.
00:30:18.000But that's stand-up when it's not being filmed.
00:31:07.000I got asked to, but I just, that's kind of like a writing thing, too, where you can go down that rabbit hole and people will only view you as a warm-up act.
00:37:43.000That's the only thing that keeps people in countries, like the only way you have border protection and all that shit is the fact that you have people stuck on Earth with gravity.
00:37:54.000My god, can you imagine once jetpacks become ubiquitous, like Border Patrol is going to be like the Mandalorian just fighting people trying to come over in the sky?
00:38:03.000We won't have the resources to stop it.
00:38:05.000I mean, ultimately, look, I think right now, especially given the laws that we have now and the fact that fentanyl comes across the border and terrorists come across the border and there's a real situation, the world is not at peace.
00:38:18.000But wouldn't it be great if people could kind of go anywhere they wanted?
00:38:24.000And everywhere was a place where you could live and thrive.
00:38:28.000Like, imagine a world where every place was like a city that had opportunity and freedom and democracy and was thriving and had good food and nice people.
00:38:42.000Like, Austin has good food, nice people, polite, not too overcrowded, plenty of resources.
00:38:47.000Wouldn't it be great if the whole world was like that?
00:38:48.000And you could kind of go anywhere you wanted.
00:38:51.000I will say, it feels more crowded than when I was here.
00:38:55.000It seems like there's more people here.
00:42:52.000Whereas if you're in Ohio or something, sometimes you'll do the road, and someone's featuring for you or something, and they're like, Yeah, this is like my second time getting up this month.
00:43:02.000I get up twice a month and it's like your heart goes out to them because you're not going to be able to develop with just those few data points.
00:44:13.000So, like I'll go in with some rough stuff, like it's just clay, and then the laughs dictate these polished bits, and like I love that about stand-up the most.
00:44:23.000Yeah, and stuff comes out like while you're in the middle of talking, you have a new idea that'll come out of nowhere that'll branch off, you know?
00:44:31.000That's why, like, I always tell comics that you have to have, you don't have to, like, let me stretch this, like, you can do it any way you want.
00:44:39.000Some guys don't write at all, and they're great.
00:44:43.000They just go up a lot, and they remember what they said.
00:44:46.000And some guys write exclusively, and they go up, and they basically have, like, a fully formed bit when they get to the stage, and they kind of tweak it and edit it.
00:44:55.000And then some guys just improvise, like literally just go on stage with a premise and just under the pressure of the audience, improvise.
00:45:02.000I think you should do all those things.
00:45:04.000I think you should write, I think you should improvise, and I think you should go up as much as possible.
00:46:38.000It's kind of nice to be farther enough in your career where the store trusts you and you can take big swings and like, I'm a made man, I'm fine.
00:46:47.000But when you're coming up and you're not a paid regular yet...
00:46:51.000It's a problem for a lot of comics where they never write because they always want to kill.
00:46:55.000So they'll do the same 15 minutes everywhere they go.
00:49:13.000And you also, when someone's as good as Bobby is, you want the world to know that this is, you know, people that have seen him know, but I want everybody to see it.
00:49:25.000I think there's a lot of anxiety and fear in almost every profession that people do.
00:49:32.000I mean, how many people work for someone and become like a very valuable asset to the company but really feel like they're not getting appreciated enough and they have to decide to make a leap and go on their own?
00:49:46.000And then maybe you have a wife and children or a mortgage or a family you're taking care of, family members that depend on you, and you can't really take that chance.
00:49:56.000You don't know how you take that chance and also take care of all your obligations.
00:50:43.000It's just, stand-up's a lot of hard work no matter what age you are.
00:50:47.000Dean Del Rey didn't start until he was deep in his 40s.
00:50:49.000He's inspiring too, just to see, cause like I remember when he started, like I was many years in when he started and like, you don't know, you don't think someone, cause Dean's an outlier.
00:51:00.000Most guys that age starting will do it for three years and like, I'm out.
00:51:24.000Like, he put, uh, him and Burr were doing, um, what they would do is they would do, uh, music during the day before a show.
00:51:31.000So they would show up at, like, a big, iconic venue, and they would set up drums and recording, and they would fucking just sing for the fun of it.
00:51:40.000Because Burr is really good on the drums.
00:52:58.000But when you see someone live that's that talented and that good, and she sings and she plays musical instruments, she's playing violin, she's playing guitar and singing, she's so fucking good.
00:53:19.000Art is just strange in that it's subjective.
00:53:21.000There's some music I listen to, some artists, where they just resonate with a certain vibration with me, where I'm like, this should be the biggest thing in the world, and it's not.
00:53:31.000And I will do whatever I can to blast it out if I like a song and all that.
00:54:06.000And the beautiful thing about having something out there like you did and putting it on YouTube is it's super accessible.
00:54:12.000People are listening to this right now.
00:54:13.000They're going to pause this on Spotify and go over to your YouTube page and they're going to watch your show and they can get it like that.
00:54:20.000That's partly why I did it because if it was...
00:58:28.000Because before, we just trusted the system.
00:58:30.000We would show up, do the thing, make the product, and we would just perform and that's it.
00:58:35.000And now we're having to be entrepreneurs as well.
00:58:37.000We're having to take ownership of our own business and careers.
00:58:40.000Well, when you see guys like Schultz that sort of pioneer that level of hustling, like he hustled so hard and put his stuff on YouTube and became like this giant theater selling act because of that.
00:58:55.000Everybody watched him do it all on his own.
00:58:58.000That's like, guys like that, they set the bar and they change people's ideas of what's possible.
00:59:04.000If you're really smart and you have a really good focus and you come up with a game plan, Yeah.
00:59:10.000There's too many tools at our disposal nowadays that if you are not doing stuff like what Schultz is doing or this or doing it on your own, then that is your fault.
00:59:20.000If you were in the 70s or 80s, you were kind of beholden to the system.
00:59:24.000You couldn't reach the masses on your own.
00:59:26.000So you had to have the right person like you at The Tonight Show.
01:00:40.000So it became like a well-worn path and everybody would want to get on a sitcom.
01:00:44.000You get on a sitcom or on some other show like The Soup or some kind of a show where you could be on television and showcase that you have a funny personality.
01:00:58.000And then that would be an ad to get you to come to the clubs.
01:01:02.000We were talking about doing TV projects, and he goes, let's be honest, every time you do a TV project, it's really just an ad to get people to come see you at the clubs.
01:01:12.000But the problem with that way is that everybody wanted to do a specific kind of comedy because you wanted to get a television show.
01:01:21.000So, like, you wouldn't try to be, like, I remember there's a guy who was the host of an open mic night when I was up and coming, and he was, like, a local headliner in Boston, local professional.
01:01:31.000And he was telling me to stop swearing and telling me that I should stop talking about sex and talking about things that make people uncomfortable.
01:01:40.000And I said, but my favorite comedians all do that.
01:01:44.000I go, like, my favorite comedians are, like, Sam Kinison and Dice Clay.
01:01:55.000Like, you're saying that there's only one style of comedy, even though the best ones are like Richard Pryor or Eddie Murphy, who didn't follow that at all?
01:03:39.000But that was 2001. Fear Factor was 2001, right after News Radio.
01:03:44.000That's when I really started selling out really well.
01:03:48.000But it was like some people knew me as a stand-up, and some people just knew me as the Fear Factor guy, and a lot of people would get upset.
01:03:54.000You were telling me backstage about the early days when you were doing Fear Factor.
01:05:08.000In the day, when you were Tim Allen, if you could be Tim Allen and get on Home Improvement, you're one of the fucking richest guys on earth.
01:05:16.000Like, those guys, like the Jerry Seinfelds, when they developed a show, they were the owner of the show, they were the star of the show, and they got ownership in the show, they made preposterous amounts of money.
01:05:25.000And that's what everybody was chasing.
01:05:27.000And a lot of guys weren't happy, like Richard Jenny was, like, notoriously not happy.
01:05:32.000Because he never became that sort of Jim Carrey movie star guy.
01:05:36.000Even though he was, for comics, he was one of the best comics alive.
01:05:44.000Like, what do you think that disconnect, why did it not happen that way?
01:05:48.000You know, I think for a lot of comics, there's a lot of self-hate, right?
01:05:52.000And so you're chasing love when you're doing stand-up.
01:05:54.000You're chasing the love of the audience.
01:05:57.000The way you get that love is to come up with the funniest shit.
01:05:59.000And some guys develop funny shit just because they're funny, and some guys develop funny shit because they just really want that love, and that's the best way to get to it.
01:06:09.000And you know, guys are like a combination of those things.
01:06:13.000Different people that do the art are doing it for different reasons.
01:06:16.000Like I know women that do it that came from a great family.
01:06:19.000And then I have some of my funniest friends who also came from fucked up families when I talked to them about it.
01:06:24.000And I think for a girl it's probably even harder.
01:06:27.000Because it's not a situation where if you're in front of a bunch of guys, like it's not a situation where you get treated equally the moment you get on stage.
01:06:34.000They don't just go, boy, can't wait to see this really funny chick.
01:06:41.000There's a prejudice that men have towards women controlling the microphone and then also talking about certain things like women who have opinions on politics.
01:06:51.000A lot of guys, they don't want to hear that.
01:08:14.000She's wearing a jean jacket like Elvis.
01:08:16.000Also kind of an inspiring person where you look at someone who just doesn't do stand-up, like is a grinder, has always been, like sells the show, is always moving, always doing things.
01:11:33.000The teams change sides with every cacha or goal scored.
01:11:39.000It is important to shoot with precision because every time a player throws or kicks a ball above the net, the opposing team is awarded with a half cacha.
01:11:48.000The game ends after 50 minutes and the team which scored the most cacha wins.
01:12:39.000I got a pellet grill and what I do is it's called a reverse sear.
01:12:42.000So I'll put it in that, and I'll get it up to like 115 degrees internal temperature, and then I pull it, and then I have a cast iron skillet.
01:12:50.000And then I take the cast iron skillet, I get it really hot, and then I sear it on the outside.
01:12:54.000I usually do like a minute and a half, maybe, each side.
01:13:01.000But the point is like, that's when I'm pressed for time.
01:13:05.000But if I'm not pressed for time, I cook over wood.
01:13:08.000So I get dried oak, and I start like a little tiny fire, and I get the oak set up, and I get it cracked, and I get it turned into coals, and then I put a couple of fresh pieces on it to keep it smoky and fresh, and then I slide that steak over the top.
01:13:23.000I got one of them Argentine grills, crankity crankity crankity crank.
01:13:28.000So I can have the steak way above the fire, and I have a little probe in it, And so I have a probe that tells me the outside temperature, and it tells me the temperature of the meat.
01:13:36.000And I can see it on my phone, this thing called Meter.
01:14:24.000That's like the feeling you get when you catch a fish, right?
01:14:27.000Even if you're going to release the fish, there's a feeling, like, I got one!
01:14:32.000Like there's something about that that I think is primally connected to the idea that back in the day when it was hard to get food if you caught that fish you were fucking very excited because you're gonna live yeah you're gonna live so like when you watch like bass angler sportsman society a bunch of guys in these tournaments and they're like look at it and they're holding up by the lips and everybody's cheering they're basically playing a game you know where they're not even they're releasing the fish yeah They're just fucking with them.
01:14:57.000And, you know, holding them up and showing everybody, I caught these motherfuckers.
01:16:04.000It's just called OG. My problem, I was trying to do cast iron skillet, the steak, and then I would season it with salt and pepper and everything, you know, the coarse grain.
01:16:14.000But then it would always come off on the pan.
01:16:17.000Yeah, some of it's going to come off on the pan.
01:16:20.000Well, then you could add salt to the end if you want more salt.
01:16:23.000But don't you want it to kind of like...
01:16:25.000I thought that it would just sort of grill on it and crust and be fine when I... No, you're going to get some of it to come off in the pan, but it can't be precious.
01:18:24.000Well, it's definitely a different thing.
01:18:26.000It doesn't ruin it because it's still delicious in my mind, but it's a different thing.
01:18:30.000It's like you can have just a piece of meat with salt on it, which is one thing, or you can have chimichurri sauce, which is another thing.
01:20:01.000One time I did that, it was, I was graduating high school and my rich friend, he's like, hey, we're having dinner at the Columbia Tower in Seattle.
01:20:32.000I'm eating with all this rich family, and I'm just the guy with the hand-me-down blazer that I'm swimming in, eating this food that I never get on my own.
01:22:42.000They're trying to create an atmosphere of civility.
01:22:45.000They feel like if they discourage some kind of attire, You know, maybe they'll discourage a casualness that would lead to, like, more incivility.
01:22:56.000I mean, that's just the thought process, but you want to have a nice place, you want it to look good, you want people to dress nice, I get it.
01:23:02.000I think part of it is the mental escapism where everyone is dressed nice.
01:23:06.000It's almost a throwback to Mad Men, like, You know what I mean?
01:23:09.000It's a nice diner, and when there's a guy with a tap-out hat and a white beater, maybe it ruins the anniversary dinner.
01:23:16.000But what if it's a girl who looks like a porn star?
01:27:43.000Mark Hunt was one of the most durable heavyweights of all time, and Melvin Manhoff is, like, easily 60 pounds lighter than him, and he knocked him out with one punch.
01:27:53.000He was a monster, but he wore these, like, it was like a skirt.
01:27:57.000So they have that kind of weight disparity?
01:28:03.000They had freaks fights, like freak fights, where they had Nogueira, who was the Pride heavyweight champion, who was an immensely talented jiu-jitsu black belt.
01:28:15.000He fought this guy, Bob Sapp, who was 375 pounds with abs.
01:29:00.000So Noguera literally gets his spine crushed in the very first seconds of the fight fighting a guy who's a legitimate 130 pounds heavier than him.
01:29:27.000You couldn't survive if you just had brute strength.
01:29:30.000He definitely trained in martial arts, and he trained with my friend Maurice Smith, who was the UFC heavyweight champion, and he won multiple championships in multiple different organizations.
01:29:42.000Maurice was a legit striker, very, very talented, very talented fighter, and he trained him.
01:29:48.000So he was training Bob Sapp when Bob Sapp was kickboxing, too.
01:31:36.000The UFC bought Pride, and when the UFC purchased Pride, they basically just closed shop.
01:31:44.000They were going to keep it running for a while, but I think it was so chaotic, and I think they decided to just absorb it into the company.
01:31:52.000The only guy they didn't take was Fedor.
01:31:54.000Well, there was a few other guys, but Mark Hunt came over from Pride.
01:31:57.000I think Mark Hunt, he wanted to fight in the UFC. They wanted to buy him out, and he said, no, I want to fight it out in the UFC. And then there was a few other guys that came over as well.
01:32:12.000But it was, you know, the end of an era, unfortunately.
01:32:15.000For people who are fans of the sport, there was something about the Pride era that was a really unique time in MMA. Like, we'd have to watch it at 4 o'clock in the morning because it was airing in Japan.
01:35:25.000And even as he throws a kick, he falls onto his back.
01:35:28.000Like, he's allowing the guy to lay on top of him, and he's obviously strategized for what he would do when he's off of his back, and he's gonna isolate an arm.
01:35:36.000So he's isolated Aki Bono's left arm, and he's pulling his foot across the face, and Aki Bono knows what he's doing, but he can't stop him.
01:35:44.000And so he pulls it back down again, and now he gets his left leg over the top of his right foot, and he locks it in place, and he's got a fucking arm bar.
01:37:33.000You know, the COVID thing opened up a lot of people's eyes about what they can just take away from you.
01:37:41.000And taking away people's ability to make a choice as to whether or not you want to go out or not.
01:37:47.000Five months into the pandemic, eight months into the pandemic, a year into the pandemic, where the rest of the country, there's all these spots that had opened up.
01:37:55.000They made choices in LA that I don't think they should have made.
01:37:58.000And I think in retrospect, most people would agree.
01:38:00.000It's hard to be a Monday morning quarterback, right?
01:38:03.000It's hard to look at it and go, I would have done it differently.
01:38:06.000But everybody's going to do that anyway.
01:38:08.000But when there was no data that showed that outdoor shows were a problem, and they still weren't allowing the Comedy Store to do outdoor shows...
01:38:34.000arbitrary nature to some of it where it was different some places than other places and it wasn't it was like there's a real problem when people have the ability to tell you what to do they like it they like doing it and it has to be factored in to anything that happens And when a bunch of people are saying,
01:40:03.000But what I've heard from people that do understand this stuff is that generally speaking, and this is only generally speaking, it doesn't have to go this way, viruses become more contagious but less virulent.
01:40:18.000Because for the virus to survive, really, it wants to get as many hosts as possible, so it kills the host.
01:40:24.000It kind of defeats the purpose and it stops its ability to spread, which is really wild.
01:40:28.000Because if you really think what's going on...
01:40:32.000Imagine if that was demons and there was weak demons and really, really powerful demons.
01:40:40.000And the really powerful demons, they would come and they would snatch young people and they would take them.
01:40:46.000And they would take them and they would take their souls and take them to hell.
01:41:58.000The cream film on the inside and the chocolate on the outside was, oh, my favorite guilty pleasure.
01:42:03.000But I remember one time we went to Maui and we stopped at Krispy Kreme and got like a, not even one time, I think we did it twice, stopped and got like a dozen donuts and we're pigging out in the car.
01:42:14.000And then by the time we got to the hotel, which is only like 20 minutes away, we couldn't think.
01:44:59.000Andrew, do you honestly think they would sell a product that shrinks your testicles and not even put a warning label on it or even sell something like that at all?
01:45:07.000Samantha, oh, I never thought of it that way.
01:45:55.000And then it's the guy with the dick, and you go, you got me.
01:45:57.000It's like, we send each other the links, we have a little chat in the Sober October Crew chat, and 50% of those links lead to that guy with a big dick leaning over the bed.
01:46:07.000I heard he passed away, the actual guy, yeah.
01:46:10.000But he's still bringing joy to the world.
01:46:12.000But it's like, you know what he's talking about, like, being a shooting star?
01:47:51.000I will say I do appreciate this music live because I'll see the dance stuff like a DJ it's like a guy in a cubicle yeah and everyone's going live but I can't appreciate it like a live singer and a band and this music is being created in the moment you gotta understand That this song represents a different time of limited information distribution in the world.
01:48:45.000You know how many fucking people started bands because of this song?
01:48:52.000There is a romance to that period of time where the entire world and consciousness was focused on one thing, where everything now is kind of segmented and fractured.
01:49:03.000I was thinking about SNL. I have a buddy who's on SNL now.
01:52:55.000It must cut through a certain type of part of your brain, because same with smells, you know?
01:52:59.000Smells cut through all the pre-frontal stuff.
01:53:03.000Right, but I mean, but the information that you're containing inside a song, like the fact that you can do that, You know, like you remember shit from when you were little kids where they would teach you about grammar.
01:53:15.000You know, conjunction, junction, what's your function?
01:53:19.000Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.
01:53:22.000Like, it's amazing that you would never be able to repeat, like, someone's lines if they were reading that in a television show.
01:53:31.000You would never be able to repeat it like that.
01:53:32.000But because it's attached to music, it's like, it's stuck in your head.
01:53:36.000All you have to do is kind of get the rhythm of it and then you can remember where the words go.
01:56:33.000There's always, I mean, that's one of the interesting things about places like the store is that you're forced to do that because there's 10 people on the lineup and everyone's doing 15 minutes.
01:56:44.000But for an audience member, it's a real treat because you get to see all kinds of different styles, all sorts of different approaches.
01:56:49.000If you're a real comedy fan, how many people have decided to come see comedy and then decided to try to do it because they've gone to one of those sets and seen so many different kinds of comedy that you go, God, I must...
01:57:54.000So, Comedy Underground and then Giggles by University of Washington.
01:57:58.000Did Giggles, that guy got mad at me once because I think I said that I heard that you can't swear at his club because people were telling me that.
01:58:12.000You know, actually my first two or three years of stand-up, I put it on myself to not swear or drink later on too, because I didn't want to become a crutch.
01:58:22.000I didn't want to have to drink before I go on stage.
01:58:24.000Like, I'll do it now sometimes if it's like a second show.
01:58:27.000Like, I'll have a drink before I go on stage.
02:00:24.000But if the crowd laughs that like that's the bottom line, you know as long as the person is being true to themselves and It's like We're all we're trying to do is be funny That's it.
02:00:36.000The only thing that bothers me is when someone's derivative like openly derivative and I don't mind influenced.
02:01:51.000Attell, I think, of the current guys, he probably influenced the most guys out of New York.
02:01:56.000Because if you watch Attell right now in particular, that's a guy that's probably the most underappreciated and underrated, even though I know the fans rate him very highly.
02:04:42.000He might be the one of the best of all time and right now he's in his prime and I think a lot of it is like he stopped drinking unlike us and Turned his life around When is the last special?
02:08:14.000I feel like we're in a post-shame society.
02:08:16.000Patreon is an interesting thing, too, right?
02:08:18.000Because at first I was a little skeptical of it, but now it's become so widespread and so many people support artists and comics and all kinds of shit through Patreon now.
02:10:09.000But you're going to have a lot of people that appreciate the will behind that, that it really is honest, and it's an even exchange.
02:10:15.000It's like, I'm going to do my best to create the show, donate, and if you can't afford to donate, I don't want it to be the reason why you can't watch the show or listen to the show, so then you can have it for free.
02:10:45.000But someone had one where you could donate as much as you want.
02:10:48.000So it could be a dollar or it could be $100, whatever the fuck you want.
02:10:52.000He had it set up that way, but it wasn't Sam.
02:10:54.000So Sam has a specific model, like a subscription model.
02:10:58.000But because he's so good and because he has this reputation from all of his debates that are online and all of his talks online, he puts on rock solid, very fascinating, very intellectually challenging content.
02:11:14.000If you can set up a model like that where even if you can't afford it, all you have to do is ask, then people are like, well, this guy's legit.
02:11:22.000This is not something that a business person would create.
02:11:24.000They wouldn't create that kind of a loophole where the Redditors would capitalize on that, or 4chan, I should say.
02:11:30.000But there's also something cool about having that intimate relationship with the fans, and you just kind of trust each other.
02:11:36.000Because I'll get 50 bucks, I'll get 60 bucks, and if I charge that much for my special, no one would give me 50 bucks for the special if I had that paywall.
02:11:45.000But because it's free, there's so much goodwill, they go, I enjoyed it so much, here's 50 bucks.
02:11:51.000And there's something cool about that.
02:12:16.000And I think if you're connected to a network, unfortunately, like if you're on a television show or if you're doing something else, they don't want a small group of thriving fans.
02:12:24.000They want the largest, widest reach possible.
02:12:28.000And the best way to do that is to water a town and to make sure you don't...
02:12:48.000Well, that's what I thought about when comedians get canceled, supposedly, and then people on Twitter will be like, cancel culture isn't real.
02:12:54.000Look at the comedian still performing.
02:12:56.000And you're forgetting the fact that they...
02:12:58.000The comedian is fortunate enough to have so...
02:13:03.000They don't have any moving parts, but the commerce between them and the people.
02:13:08.000Because Kevin Spacey needs a production team.
02:13:11.000He needs so many people to say yes to this thing, where it's not going to happen.
02:13:17.000Whereas with stand-up comedy, if enough people come to a venue, that's the business.
02:14:10.000I recognize that there were certain people, not all of them, but there were certain people that were highly critical of Louis in a way where it was almost like, They were trying to make sure that this uber-talented guy never entered back.
02:14:54.000It was guys that were terrible at stand-up, or okay at stand-up, but they suck at women and life, and they're depressed, and maybe their career was going good, and then it started to falter.
02:15:38.000And it's human nature is also because if someone like Will Smith does something really stupid, like smack Chris Rock, it's not just he did something stupid, but it's also he has lived a life of extreme...
02:15:53.000I don't want to say fortune because he's super talented.
02:15:58.000But it's a very, very unusual life and unattainable to most people.
02:16:03.000Oscar winner, movie star, recording artist.
02:24:20.000If we shut off, people will catch us and they'll bring us to a nice hospital and I don't have to see this fucking needle go in this guy's arm in a movie theater.
02:24:51.000Yeah, that's definitely why you get knocked out.
02:24:53.000You know, your body's trying to protect you.
02:24:55.000And also, it's like your mind and your central nervous system just can't handle the shock of what just happened to it.
02:25:02.000So it just shuts down to try to almost try to reboot, I think.
02:25:07.000I mean, that's probably a shitty way of describing it, but it's just the trauma of brain injury that causes a concussion and being knocked unconscious.
02:25:16.000It's just a ruthless situation for the whole body.
02:25:20.000If you see people get knocked out, like Javante Davis just scored a stunning knockout this past Saturday night against Rolando Romero, and he hit him with this fucking left hook,
02:25:55.000So he throws his right hand to the head, and then he throws it to the body, and he gets countered with a picture-perfect left hook and just starched.
02:27:19.000It's an interesting time for anybody to create things.
02:27:22.000As long as the gatekeepers understand the reason why it's so cool in the first place is because you let so many diverse ideas and opinions and styles of thought and styles of creating things get loose.
02:29:13.000I almost feel like that was just a ploy from China.
02:29:16.000Like, Alright, yeah, we're just going to have your youth do dancing and all these pranks in grocery stores, and we're going to limit our people with what they can do with it.
02:29:34.000Let's not pretend that any civilization has ever done social engineering where it worked long term.
02:29:40.000I mean, just the horrors of this single child household that China imposed for years.
02:29:48.000Just the horrors of what happened to female babies.
02:29:52.000It's terrible, terrible shit that doesn't just make a disproportionate amount of males to females, which is a huge problem in China right now, but also all those people that had female babies that had to be killed.
02:30:10.000And all those people whose family was ratted out and someone found out that the woman's pregnant and so they forced her to have abortions when she's nine months pregnant or forced her to give birth to a dead baby so they would literally inject the head of the baby with a poison to kill the baby while it's in the womb so that it's stillborn.
02:30:34.000I'm reading this about it in this Douglas Murray book called The War on the West, and that's one of the things that he talks about.
02:30:43.000The single-child household in China, it was a terrible thing.
02:30:49.000And that's a form of social engineering.
02:30:52.000There's too many people, so you can only have one kid.
02:30:54.000And people with no kids are like, yeah, well, how do you enforce that?
02:30:58.000This is the problem with any idea with socialism or Marxism.
02:31:05.000If you want to get everybody to give their money up and no one has any weapons and you decide how much everybody gets paid and whatever your task is, it's the same as the fucking guy who makes pizzas, it's the same as the guy who builds jets, it's all the same.
02:31:23.000And so then the state becomes your daddy, and then the state decides that, you know, like in the case of North Korea, that its daddy is super powerful and plays golf better than anybody that's ever lived.
02:31:34.000You ever read the account of Kim Jong-un playing golf?
02:31:37.000No, but I know him and Dennis Rodman were boys.
02:31:40.000I read something about it that it might be just a misinterpretation that got way blown out of proportions.
02:31:46.000Sounds like Jamie works for the state.
02:31:47.000No, there's a way to keep score where you're not writing down the actual number you got, you're just writing down relative to par.
02:33:23.000The fact that that is going on right now, and that in 2022, while you and I are sitting here drinking whiskey and talking shit, there's people that are slaves in Korea, in North Korea, and they can't get out.
02:33:35.000They're trapped, and they're barely alive.
02:33:38.000They barely survive in terms of their ability to just have enough food to live.
02:33:43.000And they live in concentration camps, and they work for the state.
02:33:53.000She was explaining how if one generation, say if your grandfather does something that's bad against the state, they will curse multiple generations.
02:34:02.000So you'll be imprisoned, and your children will be imprisoned, and their children will be imprisoned before their children get released.
02:34:19.000So this reporter went to the golf course where this happened and he explains in here how it went from an innocent scorekeeping mistake and got Most
02:34:56.000of golfers struggle to break 90. So it goes on and explains how he talked to some people there.
02:35:02.000They explained to him that there was a scorekeeping shorthand that is used there, and then someone who ever found that in the North Korean state news most likely didn't know that, and then ran with the...
02:35:14.000Okay, so it says unfamiliar with the score keeping shorthand, the North Korean state news agency covering the outing had read the five ones on Kim's card as holes in one.
02:35:25.000Forget the fact that Kim, a ranked beginner, probably never sniffed bogey all day if you were keeping score for a brutal autocrat.
02:35:32.000Would you dare tell him he'd made nothing but snowmen?
02:35:35.000I don't know what you fucking dorks talking on your little weird jargo.
02:36:03.000I think what I'm going to do one day is when Jamie and Tony finally play, I'm going to film it on the iPhone and just get super baked and just talk shit to them What if you're amazing with your bakes?
02:37:55.000And so, like, if you're, like, say, Ko Pin Yee is, like, one of the top guys in the world, and you want to play Shane Van Boning, who's another top guy in the world, who the fuck knows who's going to win that?
02:38:24.000And they'll play, and they'll have a terrible game that they probably can't win just because they got cajoled into it by some guy who talks a lot of shit.
02:39:02.000There's like a very big distinction between a B player and an A player.
02:39:04.000What is the difference in that level jump?
02:39:07.000Time, time practicing, practice with intention.
02:39:13.000Like if you watch a guy like Jason Shaw, he's one of the best guys in the world.
02:39:18.000There's videos of him, Jason with a J-A-Y-S-O-N, Shaw.
02:39:21.000He practices and puts videos of his practice sessions on YouTube and on Instagram and he just lines balls up and he shoots the ball and gets position in the next ball and shoots the ball and gets position in the next ball.
02:39:35.000He just has like a line of balls and he has to place it perfectly to get position on the next ball and maneuver his cue ball around the table.
02:39:43.000So instead of just playing, he does specific shots over and over and over and all the best guys do that because that's what separates the guys who are truly elite from guys who are just really good players.
02:39:55.000The really good players, they don't practice like this because this shit is fucking boring.
02:39:59.000So this guy is making the eight ball on the side.
02:40:21.000This is these practice things that he sets.
02:40:23.000By the way, this guy just broke the world record for the most amount of balls run in straight pool.
02:40:30.000And it's either in the 600s, depending on one person's, because apparently he touched one of the balls at one point in time, or it's in the 700s because the rules don't state that you can't touch a ball.
02:40:43.000Like it's only fouls on a cue ball, meaning you can't accidentally touch the cue ball or the cue ball scratch.
02:40:49.000But what you can do is accidentally brush up against the ball, like say with a fingertip or with your clothing or something like that.
02:42:23.000Yeah, I'm probably ready to do something.
02:42:24.000I have to put something on a special soon.
02:42:27.000But I just, you know, I practice a lot.
02:42:30.000We're doing a lot of sets in town, doing a lot of sets at the Vulcan, doing a lot of writing.
02:42:34.000But right now, like, one of the problems with having an hour that's pretty much ready to go is when I release it, then I'm going to have to write a whole new hour.
02:44:55.000I did that thing by day but there's so many things when you're a comedian like what do I do what's the move and all that and you can get really clouded with what I should do but I'm like make this special just forget about everything else make this and then worry about everything else so I just did the writing job by day I made this thing at night just funneled all my energy into it I'm like make a great piece of art that is you And then figure out that shit later.
02:45:23.000But for some reason, I don't know if it's the stars aligning or some spirit, it just said, make this thing.
02:46:14.000I think it was difficult to film there for a while.
02:46:16.000I think people didn't want you to film there for a while for whatever reason, you know?
02:46:20.000Yeah, I will take my hat off to Peter Shore because I had the idea and I called it because I couldn't do it without their sign-off, you know, because they're very protective of the name and the building and I call them and I go, I've always had this idea to do this type of special at the store.
02:46:34.000I was kind of preparing for them to say no because they are pretty hard-lined about It's a magical place, you know?
02:46:40.000They don't want anyone filming in the OR because it's where we work on our stuff.
02:47:32.000But when it's up and you're like, what the fuck, take it down, that's a problem.
02:47:37.000When you think about your career and think about times where you wanted to record and how much...
02:47:46.000How much travel you have to do to get to the spot where you're happy with your material.
02:47:50.000If at any point in time it gets cut off and it gets released, that was one of the things that annoyed me greatly about people's response to Louis C.K.'s leak set.
02:48:00.000Remember when Louis C.K. had that leak set?
02:48:39.000Do you know how to make comedy or not?
02:48:41.000Do you know how to make comedy or not?
02:48:42.000Well, if you do, then you're a fucking liar and you're pretending that this isn't how it works and that you don't go on stage with some ideas and just fucking swing.
02:48:51.000You fail so many more times until it gets more refined.
02:48:54.000I will have bigger ideas and maybe it's touchy and I do it and it doesn't go well.
02:49:00.000So one thing if you criticize someone for a finished product that you don't like.
02:50:09.000What my problem is is the way people handle stuff and this tendency towards looking at someone through a distorted lens because it benefits you to do that.
02:50:24.000You know, like choosing to frame things in a way that benefits you.
02:50:28.000Art is interesting in that way, where people can, they'll look at Louis now and just be like, he's not funny.
02:50:34.000Because there's all these other, there's other things associated with it.
02:50:38.000Well, if you are really upset by those things associated with it, and you maybe have had a bad experience, your own with a man, and you just decide, he's not funny to me.
02:52:09.000We progress as a society, and the bits I did three or four years ago, I wouldn't do today, maybe because I've grown as a person, and society has evolved, and I'm a different person.
02:52:22.000But people will hold the standards of today to yesteryear.
02:52:51.000They need to hunt their own food for a year and toughen the fuck up.
02:52:54.000Did you notice though, like when COVID hit, when everyone was scared and no one knew what was going on, all of this stuff, it wasn't happening.
02:55:07.000Just because it makes you feel good that you've done something.
02:55:09.000The worst thing is when you're talking to someone and they want you to believe that something they've done is really good and then when you have to watch it, you gotta go...