On this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian and bestselling author Tom Brolley joins the show to talk about how he got his start in comedy, writing a best-selling book, and what it's like being a stand-up comedian in New York City. He also talks about what it s like to be a podcaster and how he balances it all with being a writer and comedian. It's a great episode that you don't want to miss. You can catch the full episode on his new podcast, which is on all of the social medias, if you search for it, you'll find it. If you're looking for a good podcaster, you won't get much better than Joe's and you're not going to get better than that. You'll also get a lot more insight into the world of podcasting and comedy, and a whole lot more! Thanks to our sponsor, Caff Monster Energy Drink, which is making great tasting drinks with twice the caffeine and fueling the world's best energy drinks. Don't Tell Mom: Caff is a great place to get a good deal on your favorite Monster Energy drink and get a discount on your next purchase. Caff has the best tasting frappuccino in the entire country, and it's one of the best in the best places in the whole country. Don't miss it! Check it out at Caff's online store! Joe Rogans Podcast by day, by night, Joe's podcast by night! Thanks for listening to Joe's Podcast by night. -Joe Rogans podcast by day and Joe's coffee and drinking coffee by night out at Joe's Pod by night by night? - Caff by Joe's Coffee Roasters by night Cheers, Tom Broders by night and a good time! - Tom Brodsky Joe's new book, Tom Brody's new novel, by Tom Brodie's new album, The Good Morning Podcast, and much more. Joe s podcast by Night, Joe s Podcast by Night by Joe s new book by Caff s Podcast by the Good Morning Show, by Tom's Podcasts, by the Crew, by The Good Life Podcast, by C. Rogan is out now? Tom's new podcast is out on all the good coffee and much, much more, and more!
00:01:25.000So I actually, I started writing this book...
00:01:29.000I got the deal for it when the pandemic was like, just had to, when it was clear everything was shut down, so everything started in March, and then it was like April, May.
00:01:38.000I feel like in that window is when I got the deal to do this.
00:01:41.000And I was like, yeah, I'm not going to do any touring.
00:01:43.000Like, they were like, remember, touring's like done.
00:03:48.000But, you know, you see comics who also, on stage, I mean, obviously you want to get laughs on stage, but there's comics who can't even take a beat, a moment.
00:07:28.000So I'm up there, and I'm moving on, and I'm like, what is that?
00:07:32.000But I don't say it, because I just got through dealing with chaos.
00:07:38.000But I feel it, and I look up there, and I'm just like, whatever.
00:07:42.000And it kind of dies down after a moment, and I just keep doing the show.
00:07:46.000So when I get off stage, I see Dave Okun, who you met, my tour manager who was at the party, and he's like, you're not going to believe what happened.
00:08:15.000He goes, yeah, but, you know, what we learn is that he was aiming for somebody but sprayed a bunch of other people.
00:08:28.000And the reason we know this is that one of the people that got some collateral damage is a friend of another guy I work with on the tour at Kier.
00:08:37.000So he's like, yeah, my friend was sitting in that section and he goes, I see this guy pull his dick out, right?
00:08:44.000And what we learn is, remember the guy that said the thing and I'm like, I hope you die in a house fire?
00:09:55.000And they told me after the show, they're like, sometimes they'll tell me, you know, we had three ejections or 12. They'll tell me that after the show.
00:10:03.000They're like, yeah, we had to eject the guy from the upper balcony.
00:10:06.000He just, like, squatted forward and pissed on the floor.
00:12:49.000During the pandemic, there was a fundraiser for the store or comedy workers or something, and we were all on this Zoom with people signing in, donating money to them.
00:13:00.000And we were like, hey, will you pull your balls out?
00:13:02.000And he was like, I don't know, I need consent.
00:18:01.000The last thing I want to do is read something and I have a parallel idea that I've already started working on and I read it in this thing and then I go, oh god.
00:18:10.000I read this guy's thing and I have a thing that's on the same subject.
00:18:46.000I've gone up to them and been like, hey, just so you know, that bit you just did, I want you to know because you saw me here tonight that I have a bit about that.
00:18:54.000So you know I didn't get it from you here tonight.
00:19:21.000One guy is the opening act, and the other guy is the guy who takes him on the road.
00:19:26.000And he was on stage, and he was doing this bit, and my friend who takes him on the road had his mouth open like, ah, he's fucking stepping on my material.
00:19:39.000Like, totally stepping on the subject matter.
00:21:46.000But people don't, people that aren't, like, sometimes people have like mental breakdowns and they don't want to do their best anymore.
00:21:52.000Or maybe they just, you know, sometimes just the grind of repeated shows can fuck with your perspective.
00:21:59.000There's times where I'm like a little tired and I have to remind myself Jesus fucking Christ Rogan Do you know how goddamn lucky you are just to be here to be doing this if you couldn't do this like imagine I also try to remember how I felt just recently being able to do shows after the pandemic While we were doing shows,
00:27:51.000And you would drive, you take this off of, I think off San Vicente, and there's the military cemetery there, and the camp was all along there as the road turned, and it was just like...
00:28:11.000I don't know where people relocated to, if they did any of the things we were talking about, but that one, at least when I went through that day, I was expecting it.
00:29:19.000Anyway, so we take the off-ramp, and then we're on the underpass, and there's porta-potties.
00:29:25.000Not one, either, like four, like a deck of porta-potties.
00:29:28.000And then someone has a car parked there on the sidewalk, like partly on the sidewalk, so they're like half-blocking a lane, and then they have like a canopy draped over their car, and they have stacks of shit, and then next to it was a dresser.
00:29:52.000I didn't know also that when you see stuff like that on the streets, at least in Los Angeles or maybe in California, that's protected property.
00:31:22.000Remember when Jared, the pedophile, was eating bread from Subway and claiming that that's how he- Do you remember that he was my buddy and that I have his phone number?
00:31:46.000He's like, they're like, no, he's put on a few, because they would really, they go, we can only do this campaign with you if you're always, you know, yeah.
00:32:11.000Ireland's highest court made the ruling in the case about how bread is taxed.
00:32:15.000An Irish franchise, the US company, had claimed that it should not pay VAT on the rolls it uses in its heated sandwiches, but the court ruled that because of the level of sugar in the rolls, they cannot be taxed as bread, which classified as a staple product with zero VAT. I don't know what VAT is.
00:33:16.000Fresh bread in our stores for more than three decades, and our guests return each day for sandwiches made on bread that smells as good as it tastes.
00:35:25.000So I believe the loophole has to do with, you know, if you route your money through certain countries and they have laws that allow it, they allow you to go, like, our money is actually deposited here.
00:36:05.000There's American politicians who have lobbied to try to get that done away with, like ban the ability to do that so that people would have to pay more taxes here so far.
00:36:17.000The problem with paying more taxes is they're just going to find more ways to spend your money.
00:36:22.000I don't necessarily think it's going to make anything better.
00:36:26.000I think the bureaucracy in this country is so clogged up and fucked up and ineffective.
00:36:32.000I don't think they'd be better if we all just gave 75% taxes.
00:44:54.000Chris is one of those guys who, because I worked out with him in Sacramento, he can just go in there on a moment's notice and still pull five, six hundred pounds.
00:46:25.000I mean, it's not probably that unique, but the feeling of breaking a real sweat just from lifting is so much more rewarding than from cardio, right?
00:46:37.000Because cardio, you go, like, I'm definitely going to sweat as long as I... But you can do a lifting regimen where...
00:46:44.000If you do it at a certain pace, you might not sweat, but you still have a pump going.
00:46:49.000But if you get after it with weights and you really start sweating, I think it's one of the best feelings.
00:50:47.000I mean, what happens is, too, I mean, it's pretty obvious, but when that tendon tears, your patella just goes floating, and you have no hinge ability.
00:50:54.000So it's just a leg that doesn't move, because you don't have a knee.
00:51:01.000And then you can't move it when the surgery comes, you know, when you're recovering from it, you can't move it at all.
00:51:07.000Like, you know, when you do ACL repair, you're able to walk on it, like, after a few weeks, and you're able to then, you know, 10 weeks later.
00:51:16.000But you're in a straight brace for the patellar for, like, six, eight weeks.
00:51:20.000I went to a party without crutches five days after my ACL surgery.
00:51:48.000It was jujitsu and I was in what's called half guard in a lockdown and I was trying to pass this guy his half guard and he extended his legs and instead of my leg being locked out like this, my leg was locked out sideways.
00:52:03.000So it just snapped and it sounded like a carrot.
00:52:53.000So luckily, I went in, and I had already seen this doctor, because he had cleaned up my meniscus in my left knee, and I went to him, and he's like, dude, you need surgery.
00:53:37.000But I was so into jujitsu when I was in my 30s that when I blew that ACL out, I was doing bodyweight squats in the shower, like deep bodyweight squats in the shower, like just days after surgery.
00:53:53.000I was like, I am going to break this tissue up.
00:53:55.000I'm like, I know my left leg is really strong, and I can hold the position, and my legs are strong.
00:54:00.000I've been working out a lot, so I know I can do stuff like this, so I'm just going to slowly make sure that...
00:54:05.000Because I have a friend, my friend Jen, she got her knee done up in Canada.
00:54:10.000She got her knee done up in Canada, and I don't know if it was a bad doctor or a bad situation, but she developed scar tissue that was so bad that she couldn't fully extend her knee.
00:56:05.000They take a piece of the patella with a piece of your shin bone and a piece of your kneecap, and then they open you up like a fish, and then they drill in that and drill in that, and this patella tendon replaces your ACL. But on this one,
00:57:30.000I mean, stem cells, all those biologics, it's such a game changer because it can heal things in a way that you just did not have access to before stem cells.
01:00:25.000He's going to have one hard workout, and he's going to be really tired, and he's like, I deserve a drink!
01:00:31.000This is a video of him that he put up on his Instagram, and I think it's from him on this podcast, talking about how much he loves drinking.
01:01:24.000I will always make sure that I can keep my body healthy enough so that I can always drink.
01:01:29.000I love seeing a sunrise with a cocktail, seeing a sunset with a cocktail, having friends walk into your house with a bottle of wine, getting on a plane.
01:03:00.000For somebody that's also not actively playing, and he could do things, like he could do kick serves, and he could put spin on it, and he was serving impressive...
01:03:10.000Impressive for any buddy who plays Tenet, but especially for someone who's not even playing all the time.
01:06:02.000He'd just be hating life, waiting to get drunk.
01:06:05.000Oh, I could see him totally working at a tackle shop, you know?
01:06:09.000Somewhere, like, you need bait, you need some worms here for you, and he would just be tipping one back on the job, and he'd be like, it's fine, he works at a bait shop, you know?
01:08:35.000We're looking, for the people just listening, we're looking at the photo of Muhammad Ali when he knocked out Sonny Liston, but it's Ali standing over Liston, and Ali has Shane's head, and Liston has Ari's body.
01:09:20.000If you've never seen Little Hobo, ladies and gentlemen, it's one of the best fucking bits I've ever seen in my life.
01:09:26.000It's a beautiful bit, and I don't want to give away anything about it, but it's about a dummy that his grandfather had, and his grandfather died, and that's the end.
01:10:45.000And for me, like selfishly, it'll be opening as I'm getting off tour, which is ideal.
01:10:50.000And you have a club to go to to work at.
01:10:53.000And for me, it'll be getting open right around the time I release my special.
01:10:57.000Mmm, so it'll be perfect for me because yeah, so it'll be right around the time where my specials released And so I'll have to do new material and it'd be a great place to work out But you know two of my favorite places to work out right now are I love working out at the creek Creek in the cave where I saw Christina run her her set which by the way was Fucking hilarious.
01:12:27.000Even the people who lecture you about it, those people will still If you walked away with one of them and they're like, hey, have you seen so-and-so?
01:12:34.000They're like, yeah, I don't know what's going on.
01:12:36.000When she gets over 260, I think she goes too far.
01:15:16.000Like when you go to a beach and there's always a guy on the beach that's just jacked, shredded, and you're like, wow, you prepared for the beach, buddy.
01:16:09.000And the criticism is when you showcase that and celebrate that, that you're endorsing unattainable body types and you're making people feel bad about their body.
01:16:49.000When someone achieves a Nobel Prize, is that an unattainable level of intellect that other people can't achieve and you shouldn't flaunt that with awards?
01:20:23.000He's just interested in, like, art, and he's, like, really calm, and we, like, talk slow and he's really peaceful.
01:20:29.000I'm kind of envious, in a way, of, you know, like, having the mentality of...
01:20:34.000I'm not motivated by any material things or, like, you know, obtaining more or succeeding in that, where they're fulfilled, where you feel fulfilled just by the art itself, you know?
01:21:37.000Well, you know, one of the things that I really realized while we were doing the Sober October thing is how much you can actually do if you have to do it.
01:21:45.000Like when you have to do X amount of yoga classes in a month, you make sure you do them, and then you realize, I could have always done this.
01:26:31.000There's almost a part of you that goes, it's just hilarious when someone doesn't give a fuck that much.
01:26:36.000If he wasn't an existential threat to democracy, and the power that he wields over his minions wasn't just so disturbing, it would be hilarious.
01:26:46.000If he wasn't in line for president, if he was just a baller, Remember when he was in all the rap videos or rap songs?
01:28:38.0002019. You know where it still feels, because I think things sway there so aggressively when something happens, where it feels like, wait, what time is it right now?
01:30:45.000They have no liability, which is really wild.
01:30:49.000Like, all the other stuff, like Vioxx, which wound up killing 60,000 people, and they had all this fucking data that showed that it was bad for you.
01:31:09.000And he got the internal memos where they were saying there's all these issues, blood clotting, cardiovascular issues, but he goes, which is unfortunate, but we will do well with this.
01:32:47.000But the thing is, it's like, there's a long history of them doing that in this country.
01:32:50.000So to give them, these companies that have had the worst records as far as knowing that things were bad, releasing them anyway, and then getting fined for them, like...
01:33:28.000The Pfizer one was for a criminal fine, whereas the other ones are like settlements or...
01:33:33.000Okay, so GlaxoSmithKline, $3 billion settlement, the largest Civil False Claims Act settlement on record, and Pfizer's $2.3 billion, $3.5 billion in 2022 settlement, included a record-breaking $1.3 billion criminal fine.
01:33:49.000But the fines for Vioxx were larger than that, so how does that work?
01:33:55.000What was the amount of fine for Vioxx?
01:33:59.000List of the largest pharmaceutical settlements.
01:38:40.000He thinks of his body like a battery, and he thinks that you exercise, you lose energy.
01:38:46.000One thing that is incredible about that guy is that, you know, I'm saying even when you watch him as president, he was full of fucking energy.
01:40:24.000That's exactly how I talk to my kids about shit.
01:40:26.000We played the video yesterday of Kanye sitting in the White House talking to him, just ranting about stuff, about other galaxies and alternative universes.
01:41:45.000That's right, he came and sat down and everybody cheered him.
01:41:47.000I remember Las Vegas Metro Police back in the tunnel, where I normally, if I went with you to one of these, You know, they're just like, yeah, go where you want, you know?
01:47:25.000Well, you'll see too, I mean, like Putin, for years, if it's a, you know, a pose, something for the press, you don't go like that because they'll be like, why are you being all goofy?
01:48:01.000Think all the jokes you've told about presidents and politicians.
01:48:06.000Also, if you said something that just bothered the state, and they're like, we want to talk to you for a second.
01:48:11.000Isn't it ironic that Edward Snowden exposes the United States, exposes this deep, underlying surveillance system that is essentially monitoring everybody and violating all of our constitutional rights.
01:48:26.000And he gets kicked out of the country and he goes to Russia.
01:48:45.000The way they treated him, the way they treat him, the way they treat Julian Assange, you could absolutely make the argument that this is an authoritarian state.
01:48:54.000And he leaves here to a far worse one.
01:50:37.000These guys, they get to the sub, they jump off, they find their sub there, they jump off, and they fucking land on it, and they start banging on the submarine.
01:51:38.000Well, that one was pretty fucking small.
01:51:39.000Right, but I've been on a tour of one where even when you go, hey, we're going from this area to that area, the door frame used to go sideways.
01:52:47.000We fucked up by not seeing this coming because the same thing happened during Prohibition with alcohol, and that led to the rise of the Italian mafia taking over organized crime in America.
01:52:59.000I mean, that was Al Capone and all those people.
01:54:47.000You could literally go like, I'm now in Mexico.
01:54:50.000Eddie Bravo was talking, he and I were hanging out the other day, and he was telling me about, we have a good friend, Ed Clay, that I've known for a long time.
01:55:00.000Ed Clay runs a stem cell clinic in Tijuana.
01:55:05.000And he's like, the area of Tijuana, you would think you're in LA. He goes, that's really nice.
01:55:09.000He's like, there's nice parts of Tijuana and there's terrible parts of Tijuana.
01:55:11.000And you go down there and they can juice you up with ungodly amounts of stem cells.
01:55:17.000They can do all kinds of wild shit down there that they're not allowed to do in America.
01:55:21.000They can take stem cells and multiply them, and then they're giving you IV stem cells.
01:55:26.000But so many people that I've known that have gone down there have had incredible results, including Eric Anders, who was here the other day, that I was telling you about.
01:55:33.000He went down there for stuff with his neck, and he's like, his neck was fucked.
01:56:20.000Even if you've, like, I swam my whole life, you know?
01:56:24.000I mean, not like an active swimmer, but I mean, always, you know, I was a little kid on the swim team and, you know, always in pools swimming.
01:56:30.000There's nothing that quite prepares you for what ocean swimming is like, unless you've been accustomed to it.
01:56:51.000Once, I didn't realize I was in Maui, and I rented a car, and we drove to a beach, I forget where, and when I got there, it was, you know, there was no one on this beach.
01:57:28.000And I was able to, I wasn't too far out where I was able to get my footing, swim, and then like power through it and get out.
01:57:36.000And I was like, holy shit, that was terrifying.
01:57:39.000And when I get back to the hotel is when I talked to one of the staff and I was like, yeah, you know, I got in the water there and they're like, you got in the water there?
01:59:05.000And he had a split second decision that he had to make because Greg's not the biggest guy in the world and people do drown when you're trying to rescue them.
02:00:27.000Did he know CPR? No, somebody else jumped in for that, but he pulled her out, and then she would contact for years, like send cards and all this stuff.
02:01:32.000Whatever the body is, find out what the ruling is, but you have to have transitioned before you were 12. So you have no hormones that are- Oh, I got you.
02:01:54.000She was 462 as a male and number one as a woman.
02:01:58.000First it was a rugby union, now it's a swimming.
02:02:00.000June 19th, the Federation International FINA, swimming's global governing body, ruled that transgender women, i.e.
02:02:07.000biological males who consider themselves women, would not be allowed to compete in women's elite races if they've gone through male puberty.
02:02:30.000You know what's funny is that people, their reaction to criticizing that, it's almost like they think because you're critical of that that you're not empathetic in any way or compassionate in any way.
02:02:45.000And I think it's almost like they need to hear you state that, of course, you're...
02:04:05.000It is watching someone who has almost a religious belief, like a wild, crazy religious belief get confronted by scientific facts and objective reality.
02:05:15.000I mean, whatever you want to call it, whether you want to call it woke ideology, progressive ideology, there's an insanity to it.
02:05:21.000Because it doesn't have anything to do with objective reality.
02:05:24.000And there's a lot of feminist women, like my friend Megan Murphy, who fucking push back against it hard.
02:05:30.000Because she's saying, these are not women, and you're treating them like women, and they're dominating women's spaces, and they're doing it like men.
02:05:38.000She's like, you want to call yourself a this or a that, or you want to identify as a that or this?
02:06:16.000If you took a woman and you told that woman that she had to compete against a woman who's been doing steroids her whole life, but just stopped doing steroids, you'd be like, well, that's not fair.
02:06:29.000You're going through a life of puberty and a life of testosterone that's far elevated in comparison to a biological woman.
02:06:36.000And then you look at the thresholds of what's allowed.
02:06:39.000This is where Derek from More Plates, More Dates comes into play.
02:06:43.000Have you ever seen that YouTube channel, More Plates, More Dates?
02:06:46.000It's really good, but he's great at covering hormones and things along those lines and performance-enhancing drugs.
02:06:52.000But he's essentially broken down what the threshold is for allowable testosterone for a trans woman, and it's far beyond what a normal biological woman has.
02:07:02.000So even competing as a trans woman, like saying you're a woman, I identify as a woman, you have way more testosterone, or you potentially could have way more testosterone.
02:07:19.000And then, you know, there's the other thing is like, there's a story in Texas where Texas, if you are a biological female, you must compete against biological females.
02:07:30.000Well, there was a trans boy who was taking male hormones and wrestling against girls.
02:08:28.000Natural disasters, I think, are probably the most likely scenario in terms of asteroid impacts and super volcanoes and shit along those lines.
02:08:46.000I think the climate is just going to force people to move to different areas, and if the sea level does rise, it's going to fuck up the people that bought houses in Malibu.
02:10:17.000Because it turns out the strange double crater, the size, the site of the crash itself, might help to identify which rocket it was that crashed.
02:10:28.000Look at the size of it, too, the crater.
02:10:30.000If you scroll down, though, it gives you those measurements right there.
02:10:33.000It says there's two craters, an 18-meter diameter, about 19.5 yards, superimposed on a western crater, 16-meter diameter, about 17.5 yards.
02:10:43.000I mean, imagine a rocket like that hitting the Earth.
02:10:54.000I mean, I'm thinking of just, like, 20 yards on a field.
02:10:56.000Yeah, but if something has the amount of energy to slam into a planet, to leave one planet and slam into another one, kind of amazing that it only has a 20-yard crater.
02:12:09.000Yeah, it's like he was right with the Huawei thing when they banned Huawei.
02:12:14.000A lot of people are like, hey, why are they banning Huawei?
02:12:16.000And then when I talked to Mike Baker, the guy from the CIA, he's like, listen, that is a fucking corrupt company that 100% is doing the most invasive searches on people's phones and scooping up data at unprecedented levels.
02:12:45.000A member of the Federal Communications Commission is renewing calls for Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app store, citing national security concerns surrounding TikTok's Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance.
02:13:01.000June 24, CEO of Apple and Google, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, Described ByteDance as beholden to the Chinese government and required by law to comply with Chinese government surveillance demands.
02:13:15.000Do you also, though, do you feel like that it's almost not worth resisting some of these things?
02:13:24.000Like how big surveillance is from tech that you realize you can do what you think you can to avoid giving out your information, but you know that your information...
02:13:44.000The national security concern aspect of it is, first of all, if your kid is on TikTok, then maybe it has some sort of an ability to track phones that are in the area.
02:13:55.000Maybe it's scooping data off of phones that are close by.
02:13:58.000Maybe it's scooping Maybe it's recognizing financial transactions that you're also making on the same phone.
02:14:06.000Maybe it's recognizing very important geolocations of important people.
02:14:13.000Who the fuck knows what it can do and what they can't do?
02:14:16.000But see if you can Google back engineers TikTok and finds privacy issues.
02:14:28.000You know, China slides under the radar to so many, like, civilian people, and then you talk to anybody in intelligence, and they're like, that is our greatest adversary by far.
02:15:19.000She was like, oh, I was assaulted by a high-ranking person in the People's Republic, whatever, the party of the Chinese government, and then disappeared.
02:15:33.000Yeah, it's harder to just straight up disappear people now because they've killed a few billionaires or put them in, you know, who knows what they're doing.
02:15:40.000They probably just have them in a jail system and they just fuck them every day.
02:16:34.000Claims this guy made two years ago on a Reddit post, and they were disputed, sort of, but not in a really good way that I could find just now.
02:17:21.000And TikTok highlights scientific achievements, athletic endeavors, all sorts of different things that did show powerful, accomplishment-driven activities.
02:17:32.000In America, it's like crazy gender stuff and dance moves.
02:17:38.000It's somebody pulling their tooth out in the kitchen with pliers, and they're like, Exactly.
02:17:43.000It's like they're trying to turn people into dullards and as many as they can into idiots.
02:18:16.000I mean, obviously a lot of podcasts are just nonsense conversations, but some of the podcasts that I've had talking to scientists have, you know, fucking 30, 40 million views.
02:19:03.000There's really, I mean, outside of podcasts, where are you going to see that person speak uninterrupted about something that you're curious about?
02:19:59.000But there's also, one of the things that podcasting did was it provided an avenue of entertainment for people that are also doing other things.
02:20:06.000Like if you're doing boring labor all day- I get those messages all the time.
02:20:16.000So many times, UPS, FedEx, USPS drivers, I stopped all the time.
02:20:23.000People working, they're like, I'm in a warehouse, just driving this fucking forklift around or whatever, and they're like, I just got to listen to something.
02:20:31.000And hearing a conversation, at times you want that more than, sometimes you want music, but sometimes you want to hear a conversation.
02:20:38.000I'm a giant consumer of podcasts as well as a listener.
02:20:43.000But I don't, I mean, my consumption is very varied, too.
02:20:47.000Like, I'll listen to, like, yours, I'll listen to comedy podcasts, and then I'll listen to, like, bowhunting podcasts, then I'll listen to MMA podcasts.
02:20:56.000What's the one I just listened to that was interesting?
02:20:59.000I haven't listened to Radiolab in a long time, but that used to be one of my go-to ones.
02:21:05.000That was one of the first times that I ever realized that some people involved in this gender stuff are completely insane.
02:21:13.000Because there's this one person that, they were calling themselves gender fluid, and they would go back and forth from being a male to a female throughout the day.
02:21:21.000Like, they would just decide, oh, I'm Tom now.
02:22:59.000Because there's legitimacy to it to bring in the other people.
02:23:04.000So you're going to have people that are legitimately like this and people who are just playing in that same group and they're actually not what they're saying they are.
02:23:15.000Like, how do we bounce back to a state of normalcy where we accept people that are transgender people, but we also leave the door open to people that have, like, legitimate mental illness that use, whether it's being transgender or gender fluid or anything else, as an excuse to, like,
02:23:31.000get extra attention and to make it all about them and, you know, to, like, a form of narcissism, a form of psychotic behavior.
02:23:40.000Because a lot of them, like, they decide they're women and they just start attacking other women and getting very aggressive.
02:23:49.000I think the only thing we can do is call that out.
02:23:53.000That's the only thing that can make this feel grounded and real, is that you have to acknowledge when something is standing out as this bullshit, you know?
02:24:26.000Well, yeah, because it does feel like some of these issues that are highly debated in progressive circles today, you go, yeah, you know where they don't really bring this up is Eastern Africa.
02:24:41.000When there's a war zone or a famine or rockets are blowing up schools and hospitals, that shit quiets down real quick.
02:25:14.000But even, you know, like we know people in, I mean, some of them in comedy, but definitely in entertainment who are just, fuck, you see how terrified they are.
02:25:23.000They're just terrified to say any, they're scared to have like a, just to speak a rational thought.
02:25:29.000Because they're just like, you know, the fans are going to go against me.
02:25:59.000I have teacher friends, you know, that are like, and they're like, oh, my God, you should see what the shit we have to deal with at school.
02:29:44.000That's what they'll say, too, about if you endorse the traditional beauty standard for a model, you're putting kids in danger right now because they're going to try to attain that.
02:35:59.000I think I've read that the See You Next Wednesday, which is supposed to be the title of this fake movie, has been used in a few other movies.
02:36:04.000Like, maybe Tarantino's used it in the background stuff.
02:41:15.000You know, he wrote an interesting book, The Strain, that they turned into like a series on FX. I read the book, and I remember reading the book, and like halfway into the book, it's almost like he just wanted to finish it.
02:41:28.000The second half of the book is just like a bunch of action shit, and then he killed him, and then this guy died, and then he grabbed him by the neck and cut his neck off.
02:41:48.000There was a plane, and this plane lands, and no one's getting off the plane, and no one's responding, and they don't know what the fuck is happening.
02:42:03.000They don't know what the fuck happened.
02:42:04.000And it turned out that there was a vampire on the plane.
02:42:08.000And this vampire infected these people and then some of them, spoiler alert, you know, they become vampires and run around killing people.
02:42:18.000But the way they become vampires is very different than any other vampire they've ever seen before.
02:42:22.000Like, their tongue comes out of their mouth and, like, grabs a hold of people and...
02:42:26.000Yeah, it was a great first half of a book.
02:42:31.000There's so many films like that, particularly in the thriller genre.
02:42:35.000Because the whole thing about a thriller is the reveal, right?
02:42:41.000There's mystery, there's suspense, and that's when you'll get disappointed by...
02:42:46.000That's why there's basically one or two good ones, I wouldn't even say every year, maybe every couple years, where you're like, that's fucking phenomenal.
02:43:02.000Like, it's that they were hiding in the other room?
02:43:05.000Like, you know, because you have to reveal it in a way that makes you go like, oh my god, and that's the hardest part of that.
02:43:10.000It's the hardest part of writing it, and it's definitely the hardest part of, like, showing it cinematically, is making it engaging and interesting.
02:43:18.000Yeah, it's just hard for them to nail a monster movie.
02:43:48.000But the great thing about it is you have suspicions, but you're not entirely sure.
02:43:54.000And then the reveal, piece by piece comes together.
02:43:59.000So you have to get that feeling that you go like, oh...
02:44:04.000And it has to be plausible and believable.
02:44:08.000That's the other way that you get fucked on a thriller as a book or a film, is if the resolution and the reveal is so far-fetched, you go, well, you just found an answer, but you just kind of made up things,
02:44:34.000Because his books, in particular the ones when he was doing Coke, the old days, the old good ones, those books, he takes you on this journey of the mind that's so bizarre.
02:44:45.000I feel like he was the one that recently, I don't know if it was him, so I might be labeling it wrong, that said that they write where they know the end.
02:44:52.000Because some writers write differently than that, where he knows the end and then...
02:45:24.000I did stories, and I wrote a chapter on my dad and my mom.
02:45:30.000I wrote a chapter about how I thought I was going to be a doctor when I was a kid.
02:45:33.000It's called Paging Doctor Stupid, because I didn't realize how fucking dumb I was.
02:45:38.000I mean, you know, you just start writing.
02:45:41.000I mean, they're fun chapters to write.
02:45:43.000I wrote about a chapter about finding a body, you know, when I was just out of college at home and I went with my sister on a drive to go see friends and she noticed something in a field, you know, and she made me turn around.
02:48:56.000I definitely was like, I know I want to write some of these stories...
02:49:00.000I knew I wanted to write one about my dad.
02:49:04.000And then I had these consistent things throughout the book where between those longer stories and essays, I drop in chapters about famous people I've flown with who are mostly black.
02:49:18.000Did you know the Tyson story where you told them you love them?
02:49:21.000Bruce Bruce, Chris Tucker, Serena Williams, Jill Scott, who I was with you when I ran into Jill Scott again.
02:51:23.000My friend's in Boston doing real estate.
02:51:25.000He's like, come up here and get this money.
02:51:27.000And I was like, okay, because it's the easiest fucking way to make money is you go work for a real estate place in Boston specifically.
02:51:34.000Because Boston has 61 colleges and universities, meaning there's always a need for housing on top of being a major city.
02:51:42.000And the easiest thing to do is you just show an apartment.
02:51:44.000And when somebody rents that apartment, they have to pay first, last, and equivalent of one month to the real estate office that showed it.
02:51:55.000So if you're fucking right out of college, and you're even just hustling, you don't even have to be skilled, just hustling, showing up every day, you're making thousands of dollars a week.
02:52:04.000But I even knew then that I didn't want to do it.
02:52:07.000Like I was making great money for a kid just out of college, and I was like, I just knew I didn't want to do that.
02:52:31.000So when I called them, they go, we want to offer you a job.
02:52:36.000As a researcher on the big show, on AMW, they called it.
02:52:39.000And so I went down there, did September 10th, and then September 11th, obviously.
02:52:44.000I mean, the show's in D.C., so I'm in College Park, living in a house in Maryland, driving into D.C. on September 11th, you know, and it was just fucking chaos.
02:52:55.000I mean, the Pentagon's there, it's like, and we just, I was there 20 hours that day.
02:53:01.000And then I just realized after three months of doing that, I was like, I don't want to do this either.
02:53:05.000So I packed up a truck and just drove out to L.A. Wow.
02:53:10.000And when you packed up the truck driving off to L.A., what were you thinking?
02:53:13.000I really thought, I was like, okay, I kind of want to be a comedic actor, but maybe I thought maybe I would be more in the directing, like behind the camera kind of person, too.
02:53:26.000Did you have any theatrical experience?
02:53:28.000I had only done, I had done like a couple, I did an improv troupe thing in like high school, not even in college.
02:53:36.000I made funny videos because I was a comm major, so everyone would make like serious videos and I would always hand in like comedic ones.
02:53:43.000And I had done a play one time also when I was like, I don't know, like 13 or something like that.
03:00:13.000I mean, I don't want to talk anyone out of it, but are you either such a compelling interviewer or commentator that it's going to get an audience?
03:00:22.000I used to tell everybody they should have their own podcast, and now I don't.
03:01:35.000You were 1,000% instrumental in me starting one.
03:01:40.000I started it in 2010, at the end of 2010. And it was because every time I saw you, every time we worked together on the flight, you got to do a podcast, man.
03:03:41.000You feel like there's something about it that if you just get a chuckle, just get a couple of laughs, and then you feel like maybe I could build on that.
03:03:53.000I remember it was way better than my first set.
03:03:56.000My first set, I was clunky and nervous and weird, but my second set, I was accustomed to the sound and the lights and the whole deal, and I had a little bit of an experience of doing the first one to ride on, and then I got laughs.
03:04:11.000I remember doing my second set, I was like, I'm going to be a comedian.
03:04:28.000And having the first shit set where it just feels like someone punched you in the stomach.
03:04:35.000So it actually took me just a few sets to get there, and it is...
03:04:40.000The thing is that it really kicks you down, but the immediate thing you recognize, you're like, I have to do this again so I can wash that off.
03:04:48.000Also, I was like, something must have been wrong with them.
03:04:52.000I was like, I don't know why this didn't work tonight.
03:04:55.000I remember also the big transition was transitioning from open mics to doing a paid show.
03:06:59.000It's like, you gotta be dedicated to this thing.
03:07:02.000But so many people that get into stand-up, they're depressed, and they just, like, there's moments in their life where they just lay around doing nothing.
03:07:10.000You know, and then they'll, like, sort of figure out a way to, like, break free and get to a comedy club, and they want it all to happen for them.
03:07:16.000Like, hey, man, this is like a marathon.
03:07:19.000Yeah, we do get a lot of mental illness.
03:08:39.000But when I would go on the road, I would always ask, because they always have a local guy who had to take you around and bring you to the radio.
03:08:47.000It was either the club manager that would bring you to the radio in the morning.
03:08:50.000I'd go, hey, who's the most miserable person you had to bring around?
03:09:58.000You know, because I travel with a tour crew, like the bus, tour manager, driver, tour director, security guy, like it's a crew that we go with.
03:10:08.000It's a good move to do when you're doing a schedule that's as hard as yours.