In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the comedian and actor joins me to talk about his new movie "The Family in Maine" and the process of making it. We talk about how he got to where he is now, why he loves what he's doing, and what it's like making a movie that's about a guy who has severe anxiety. We also talk about some of the technical challenges that went into making this movie and why he's excited about the future of the medium and how it's going to impact the industry in the future. It's a fun, light-hearted conversation that I think a lot of you will enjoy. If you're a fan of the movie, I highly recommend it! It's out on Amazon Prime and Blu-ray on Amazon starting July 4th, so be sure to check it out! Also, if you haven't checked out the movie yet, you should definitely do so before this episode is available! I think it's a really good movie and I think you'll really enjoy it. I hope you do too! -Joe Rogan Podcast by day, by night, all day. -Jon Sorrentino by night. -Jon Rogan's new movie, "The family in Maine." -Jon's new book, "It's a Good Thing" -Jon talks about how to make a movie about anxiety and how to get over it. -JOE ROGAN PODCAST by night -Jon and I talk about the process behind making a film, and how he makes a movie. -The process of shooting a movie, and why it's so damn good -and how to do it right. -and why he doesn't care about it - and how important it is - and why you should make it better than you can do it the right? -and much more! -and so much more. - and much more... Jon Rogan is a great guy, and his love of film and photography, and a lot more! . Thank you for listening, Jon, thank you so much, Jon and Jon's work is so much. Thank you, Jon - thank you for letting me know that you're listening to this podcast, Jon's time is worth it, and I appreciate it, Jon is a lot, and he's a good dude, and you're being a good friend of a good guy, so thank you, much appreciate you.
00:02:03.000If I went to see that in the movies and I didn't know any of you, I'd really enjoy it.
00:02:08.000I had a question about filmmaking itself.
00:02:11.000There's moments where you, the therapist, are talking to him, where it's a head-on shot, but the camera's kind of slightly moving a little, which I thought was very interesting.
00:02:33.000Like sometimes, what we used in this movie, we used what are called anamorphic lenses, and they make more of a dollar bill shape than like a television.
00:06:55.000She's in every great play that takes place in Boston.
00:06:57.000And actually her and the dad, Bob Walsh, who played the dad, they have played man and wife in many plays, like in a major play, not in Broadway, but in Boston, which in Boston, that's big, you know?
00:10:29.000Like AMC Theaters and Regal and a few theaters, what they do if they don't give you a full run, they just go, you can have every city for one night.
00:10:36.000Like at 7 o'clock on a Wednesday, we were in 70 screens across the country.
00:10:56.000In New York, we had a premiere at the Beacon Theater, and we packed it, and everybody watched the movie in the Beacon Theater, and it was huge.
00:12:52.000But then later when his uncle has, they have this fight where it brings, in both cases, brought the audience back together because he kind of levels the thing out.
00:13:04.000And so to me that's a successful movie, one that it gets completely different reactions from different people.
00:15:02.000I thought about that, too, because a lot of people are starting to do that now.
00:15:06.000Schultz released his new special completely on his website, and a lot of people are doing those kind of things now because you do encounter these problems with streaming services and censorship and just weird, just having their input on content.
00:16:31.000You know, going to midnight movies, the kind of way that people used to find things outside of the corporate sort of old algorithm of advertising.
00:16:39.000So now it just keeps coming to your phone so you know it's coming.
00:16:44.000So I think, though, that people are starting to want to make more of an effort to find their own shit, to find something that's not in that thing.
00:16:53.000So that's why I like to keep my website the same and the same model and the same way I've always done it because we keep getting more people.
00:17:02.000And that's the feeling we got when the movie was in the theater.
00:17:04.000It's not like the other shit that's out right now.
00:17:07.000It's not a Marvel movie, and it's not about a black girl with one leg who persevered.
00:17:13.000It's about a white guy with two legs that perseveres.
00:17:23.000We're going to get people to see the film.
00:17:26.000Having a special like the one that won the Grammy and knowing that you released it just entirely on your website too has got to be nice too.
00:17:33.000You've done it completely outside of any other system.
00:17:36.000You've done it completely independently, released it independently, and it still got recognized.
00:17:40.000Yes, it's kind of cool to have a Grammy where it should say like MCA Records.
00:19:00.000But that show made enough on the website to pay that back.
00:19:05.000And then Hulu licensed it for another millions of dollars.
00:19:09.000So I was able to write checks, which is my favorite thing.
00:19:13.000To me, getting checks is fun, but writing...
00:19:15.000I wrote a check to Steve Buscemi for hundreds of thousands of dollars and went to Alan Alda, who I grew up watching, and I wrote him my company check.
00:19:21.000I wrote him a big fucking, you know, he could buy a house with that.
00:19:30.000It is very cool to be able to do things independently and to not have the input.
00:19:34.000Because no matter what people like to think, they are, in some way at least, you're influenced by the people that make the decisions.
00:19:42.000By the people that spend the money, by the network itself, by the standards that people have in the network, and the tone of the time.
00:19:49.000It's very difficult to be independently, artistically creative like that.
00:19:53.000Well, also it feels like anyone that has a job feels the need to, you know, what do you call that, make it, and that's shown that they need to have the job, what's that word?
00:20:36.000And so there are strategies for taking them under your wing and saying, how can I help you in your work day so that you can leave me alone?
00:20:44.000It's also got to be a helpless feeling if you're an executive and you're just counting on these maniacs.
00:22:14.000But everybody else is just, we pick them for their acting.
00:22:19.000When you get big names to be in your thing, it's like the grace they have to come down to your thing is what you're counting on.
00:22:26.000But when you pick people who haven't done something so big before, it's the grace of them stepping up and doing something they didn't know they could do.
00:22:33.000You can see in their eyes in the movie, everybody in this movie, you can see that they're like, I've never had a part this big, and they're nailing it.
00:24:21.000So I didn't have enough money really to make the movie.
00:24:24.000But I knew if I make the special and then the movie, one way or the other, I'm going to come out ahead.
00:24:29.000Because the special's just going to make, you know...
00:24:30.000It took the budget of the special and the movie kind of combined them as this year's output and figured if the special makes what it used to make, what I'm used to, and it far exceeded it, it did really great.
00:27:55.000It's to wake you up when you passed out, right?
00:27:57.000Yeah, it's like after you got a big hit.
00:27:59.000Well, in the old days in football, they'd just give you smelling salts, but now they've sent you in the tent.
00:28:03.000But hockey players do it before a game.
00:28:05.000Have you ever seen videos of, like, a boxing match I saw in Africa somewhere, and a guy was knocked out, and his trainer goes over and reaches in his shorts and just starts jacking him off?
00:29:52.000There's a type of fighting called Letwe that's big in Myanmar, and they headbutt, they fight bare knuckle, they headbutt each other, elbow each other, it's fucking ruthless.
00:31:15.000When you're with friends that have been knocked out, it's very...
00:31:19.000I've never been knocked unconscious, but I've been TKO'd, which is a lot different.
00:31:24.000Like, you just legs give out, and I just went down, but I was awake the whole time.
00:31:28.000So I don't know what it's like to just wake up, but it seems very jarring.
00:31:33.000It seems like they look very confused.
00:31:35.000I've interviewed a bunch of guys that have been knocked out, and I kind of said at a certain point in time, I'm not going to do that anymore, because sometimes they wouldn't remember what happened, and they'd remember things that didn't happen.
00:31:44.000Like one guy, he got knocked out, and he was like, the guy tapped.
00:32:56.000That's my number one moral and ethical conflict with being a commentator for fights is that I know these guys are legitimately harming their brains.
00:33:06.000There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
00:33:08.000They all have CTE. All, like, the guys have been fighting for 15 years.
00:35:13.000They'll have a person on the stand, that's the guy who mugged me, and they're fucking totally wrong.
00:35:16.000But in their mind, they remember that guy, they see that guy, they see the guy who punched them, they see the guy who stole, and it's not the same guy at all.
00:35:23.000And in their mind, they just decided this is the person, and the mind sort of fills in with memories.
00:37:16.000And I saw Tiger and his comments about the live golf and I agree with 95% of what he said, but I couldn't disagree with it more.
00:37:27.000With something that he said that all these announcers seem to be running with, their belief that by getting guaranteed money that these guys are going to be de-incentivized to work out, I guess.
00:37:42.000That what's their incentive to work out?
00:39:02.000They're competitors, just like football, baseball, basketball players.
00:39:07.000Most of the ones that I've met, virtually all of them for that matter, they want to be the best that they can be.
00:39:14.000Click on that actual thing to see the comments.
00:39:18.000The impression I get when I watch this is that If OJ hadn't killed his wife and Ron, I think if he had just had his life went naturally the way it was, he'd still be doing that.
00:41:00.000He wrote an amazing book, but there was a compelling piece of circumstantial evidence that I'm always fascinated by.
00:41:07.000Two things I remember from that book, but he was doing a TV show at the time about Navy SEALs, and he was...
00:41:14.000Consulting with a Navy SEAL. And one of the things the Navy SEAL told him is that when they go on a secret mission, they wear all black and black knit caps.
00:41:22.000Because it's actually a decent disguise, which I don't understand how that works, but it is at night.
00:41:27.000Makes it harder for you to be described.
00:43:04.000That's like so obvious, I guess, but to read it, it's like when you're on trial for murder and you're found innocent, There's no paperwork.
00:45:20.000Yes, the beaded door to that room, and there's a guy at a section you want to be at, but you don't want to be shoulder-to-shoulder with him.
00:45:31.000I remember when there was VHS tapes, and they had glitches in them, and there would always be one point where it would get fuzzy on the screen, because that's where the last guy kept rewinding that moment.
00:49:22.000It's a girl talking to you, and, you know, in a scenario where they call it jerk-off encouragement, where she's just talking to the camera and trying to get you off.
00:49:31.000There is one weird category, which is racist jerk-off encouragement, and it's like a white girl talking to a black guy, jerking off, and calling him fucking more names.
00:50:35.000And all the Emmanuel stories, there was, like, series, and there was, I mean, Caligula was with Peter O'Toole and Malcolm McDowell, and it's a fucking porn movie.
00:50:48.000There's a scene where Malcolm McDowell, I remember this from Caligula, that his sister, who he was having sex with in real life, Caligula, She's the empress of Rome and he's the emperor.
00:51:00.000There's two or three guys jerking off into a golden bowl and she's putting it on her skin because it's good for her skin.
00:51:10.000Caligula goes over and he takes a little lick of it.
00:52:12.000And people got up and they left the movie theater and were like, what the fuck?
00:52:16.000Which is really weird, because if you shoot someone in the face in a movie, like go to see a Quentin Tarantino movie, you see someone getting their fucking face bashed in on a mantelpiece.
00:53:28.000No one has a problem with it, as long as you don't actually see a penis in a vagina.
00:53:32.000Yeah, you're supposed to just see the hands touching the chest and the head going down and the woman going, oh, immediately, which women don't immediately enjoy.
00:55:15.000And it's a cool thing about the movie is that it's about AA on some level, but most AA movies have tropes.
00:55:22.000They have an AA meeting where everybody feels great, and then the guy in the movie who's alcoholic always has to relapse.
00:55:30.000That's the only storyline acceptable for alcoholics is he falls off the wagon and then comes back.
00:55:37.000This movie's not about that, but it's about the AA things that are a pain in the ass in AA. Sponsors are always very sage, and sponsees are very innocent.
00:55:48.000But in this movie, we're showing when you first get your first sponsor that you don't know, what the fuck do I say to this guy?
00:55:55.000Bobby plays a very throbbing with need, desperate alcoholic, and Joe, who's barely sober and barely contained, is having to help this fucking guy, who he doesn't really know or get along with that much.
00:56:51.000Well, we were fooling around with these girls, and one of the mentally challenged guys was in the hallway, and something was going on, and he had to go out there and talk to them.
01:00:07.000I grew up in Whitman, a small town, and I was obsessed with Springsteen, like, get out of this town, born to run, and I did it, and now I still listen to Springsteen and still get moved, but now it's like, I gotta get home with grass and see the stars.
01:00:22.000It's like the same motivation, but before it was to go to the city, but now I want to be...
01:02:45.000There's also a thing about going into the woods and being around nature where it's like a nourishment that your body's not normally getting.
01:02:53.000It's like you feel like you're getting a little something like, oh yeah, I need this.
01:02:57.000There's something in this that your body is supposed to interface with.
01:03:05.000Well, if people don't see the sun for a certain amount of time, they go insane.
01:03:09.000So if you think about the original people, they saw that six sky of stars, like that really full sky of stars, was normal for every human being to see that every night.
01:04:14.000Yeah, because we're used to this perspective that you're standing on Earth, and that's up, but you're really looking across at other people, and you're looking down at the Earth that you're tacked down to.
01:04:26.000But in reality, you're hanging upside down.
01:06:16.000You're a speck, and there's this force, this incredible force.
01:06:19.000When waves get high, you're just watching them crash, and it's just telling you without your even thinking about it intellectually, fuck, okay, I get it.
01:07:50.000I'd like to see one Disney animated animal movie, because it's always about the weak creature who's like, I wish I could be like my big brothers, but I'm not, you know, I'm sensitive.
01:09:35.000I tell young comics that it's actually irresponsible to look at social media and to look at the stuff people are saying about comedy and saying about yourself.
01:10:24.000Sometimes it's about going to what upsets them and pushing past it, but they're involved.
01:10:29.000And I have to keep that clean, that it's about me and them.
01:10:33.000If I read something by somebody who didn't come to the show, who doesn't go to comedy shows, who's reacting to something that was written about a show, a person who wrote it to get...
01:11:05.000I couldn't agree more and I think that it's also it'll change the way you do comedy if you take that if you internalize that yeah if you're picturing the jokes you're telling to this audience going out into the world and what are they gonna say about it and again in a world that it's a sport to get upset yeah it's a it's a soothing fun sport and I have no problem with it they can play that game together and that's fine but if you let it actually change if you actually take it in right it's it's not you know And they don't mean it.
01:14:13.000But if you translated it to text and put it out like a statement, like it's a fucking statement from a senator, it's just not going to, other people aren't going to take it right.
01:14:59.000Well, it's fun for me because I've been doing this hour in theaters, and almost only in theaters for a while, and in Europe in theaters, and so this was the first time I did it in a club, and not only a club, but that sort of stanky, sweaty...
01:17:48.000And now I am selling enough tickets that I have people there to see me, which makes it easier and funner.
01:17:54.000And you kind of work it out for them, and then exactly you go to the cellar where they don't know you, and you're like, okay, this is killing here also.
01:18:58.000This last one, the one I just put out in December, I had pandemic gigs that were rescheduled for March and onward, and I put the special out in December, and I quit the tour in December.
01:19:13.000But I needed a new hour because the special was out, and I only had like two months to come up with a whole hour, which I've never tried doing before.
01:19:21.000But I watched that Beatles thing, the Beatles' Get Back.
01:20:03.000And in like two weeks, they're going to shoot Let It Be.
01:20:07.000And they just play, and then George quits, just leaves the Beatles, and so they play without him for a while, and then he comes back.
01:20:14.000But the thing is, in the movie, they keep X-ing out the days, and just showing that they showed up for work every fucking day, took songs that were just ideas, and turned them into some of the greatest fucking Beatles songs.
01:20:26.000Then they went on the roof and just played it, and it was...
01:20:31.000I thought if I approach it that way, like I just must have an hour and two months, and I was going to the cellar every night, and I was working more on paper, and more analyzing the sets, and taking notes after a set, saying here's what worked and here's...
01:24:47.000When I was doing Louis, I wrote every episode of the series, but I had people, Vernon Chapman, Pamela Adlon, who I depended on, who would just sit on the couch, be there while I'm writing, and I'd tell them the story, tell them stuff, and they'd help me in dialogue,
01:25:03.000help me get it to the right place, or tell me when it's like, that's not interesting, or whatever.
01:25:11.000I have this so bad, I have a hard time recognizing bits sometimes in life where I have stories that I tell for years, being like, the funniest thing happens, you gotta hear this, and then comics are like, do you do that on stage?
01:25:25.000And I'm like, somehow that didn't even fucking occur to me.
01:25:30.000I was in the back bar at the Comedy Store with Ron White, and Ron White, this was back when he was drinking, Ron White comes in and he's telling me this fucking story about when I was in the army.
01:26:52.000I think one reason for that is that those are great.
01:26:55.000That's an example of a bit where he was vulnerable and he was unsure and he was in a fucked up place.
01:27:00.000Comedians are funniest when they're vulnerable and when they don't know what's, when they're not sure about how they even feel about what they're talking about.
01:27:57.000And it makes you seem cool and there are audiences that get off on that.
01:28:01.000But if you go like, I don't fucking get this one bit, and I'm scared of it, and this was a horrible thing that happened to me, they're going to love you.
01:28:09.000It's sharing, you know, it's the thing that Phil Hoffman says in the movie.
01:30:30.000So by the time of the set, there's Greg Fitzsimmons, me, and a couple other comics that probably don't do comedy anymore, and we are fucking crying laughing.
01:30:38.000And there's this one moment in his act, Where he's doing...
01:35:00.000He's just checking off stuff on a list.
01:35:03.000Well, and also, when you have a career, your life is burning while you're sitting there trying to get somewhere, and you're pushing and pushing.
01:35:10.000And so, for him, his career might be bumpy, but he's seen a lot of fucking places.
01:35:15.000He's climbed mountains in Peru, and he's been to Bangkok or whatever the fucking, you know, all over the place.
01:35:20.000There's also the thing that I think you need to do stuff, and sometimes comics just do comedy constantly, and you will run out of things to talk about because you're not having experiences.
01:35:32.000And you also, you're not connecting with people in a very normal way.
01:35:36.000You're just sort of connecting with people with material, and then the people that are supporting you putting that material out.
01:35:42.000So it's like, you know, you're talking to your manager and your agent and your friends, and then you're on a plane, then you land in a new place, it's the same thing.
01:35:48.000Say hi to the waitstaff, meet the manager, hey, what's up?
01:35:52.000And then it's back to the same thing, but you're not having life experiences.
01:37:16.000There was no one that was reading their stuff where they were reading the people reading their stuff on social media and just dealing with these expectations and these other people's ideas and opinions.
01:37:28.000I think that's really fucking a lot of people up.
01:37:31.000Yeah, being too engaged to the audience, I think, is the worst.
01:40:12.000When I see comedians at clubs and they're on their phones while they're waiting to go on, you're just corrupting your mind and you're not letting it rest.
01:40:20.000If you just sit and watch the other comic, and it's like looking at the ocean, watching a comic, joke, laugh, joke, laugh, and you're getting the sense of that human ocean rhythm.
01:40:40.000The internet is not resting your brain and it's not even really using it.
01:40:44.000I started taking piano lessons because it felt like being at a computer and sitting at a piano and trying to pick out a piece of music which I can't really do.
01:40:53.000It's exercising my brain and it's also massaging it.
01:40:59.000I like puzzles and And that kind of thing.
01:41:02.000There's so many things you can do that aren't just passive surfing.
01:41:06.000And also letting the algorithm take you from thing to thing.
01:41:09.000And this AI machine taking you from one dumb thing to the next and making you dumber and dumber each thing that you want.
01:41:16.000That's why I like things that require 100% focus, like archery and pool.
01:41:21.000Those are two things that I really like, because when you're lined up on a shot and you've got a long shot in a pool, you're not thinking about anything else.
01:41:31.000It's a freeing sort of exercise, and I don't think enough people do things like that, a thing where you're in that moment entirely, only thinking about that thing.
01:41:42.000That's what I love about Jiu-Jitsu, too, when someone's choking you.
01:41:44.000You're not thinking about anything else.
01:41:47.000You're not thinking about other comedians doing better than you.
01:43:50.000I paid for this movie out of my pocket.
01:43:52.000And also you need safety people, and you need a speech, and you need to control the intersection for far longer, and the cops send extra people.
01:44:00.000So I did something very fucked up and irresponsible.
01:44:03.000I told the woman on her, I said, get more windshields.
01:44:51.000And he fucking just punched straight at the windshield and cracked it and kept...
01:44:57.000His hand was bloody and he peeled it away like a fucking fruit to get his hand in to attack Jeff, Joe, who's yelling, cut, cut, cut, because he's covered in glass.
01:45:07.000And he's going, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, which you can't really hear.
01:45:10.000But it was a really dynamic and beautiful scene, and he made it great, and Will was great too.
01:45:16.000But it's one of those things, and as soon as he cracked it, I inadvertently looked at the cop, and he was like, you fucking asshole.
01:47:18.000You know, like when they do sitcoms, like you were in a sitcom, and at some point they tested that one, and people have a wheel, like a joystick wheel, like a, you know, in their hands.
01:47:29.000And as they watch it, they go to the right if they're happy, and to the left if they're unhappy.
01:47:35.000And so if there's a villain in the movie that's supposed to be a bad guy, it goes way down.
01:49:34.000Is that you take people to a place that they hate, that they're upset, that scares them or offends them or makes them feel bad when they think about it.
01:49:43.000You take them to that part of their brain and you make them laugh there.
01:49:47.000That's a What a great fucking thing that is.
01:51:52.000It's part of what's great about culture, is that somebody puts something out and everybody gets upset.
01:51:57.000Like every great work that's out there, like old things, they always tell you, like Beethoven's Ninth, when they first played it, people were throwing chairs and booing.
01:52:35.000I took what you made, and it made me feel something different than you felt about it, and I expressed that.
01:52:41.000It used to be, I think, the critics, like we were talking about this, critics used to be really good at interpreting and dissecting and voicing outrage about stuff in a way, but artistically they used to be good.
01:52:54.000Now it's kind of like figuring out the buzzwords and making it.
01:52:59.000Well, there's still some critics out there, but I think the issue is that journalism itself, it's very difficult to get paid for journalism.
01:53:06.000If you want to sell a newspaper, good fucking luck.
01:53:24.000It's all about saying something that's going to outrage people or upset people and get them to click on it because that's where the ad revenue comes from.
01:55:36.000It's a book that was written in the fucking 80s, and it's so relevant because it's talking about how television is dumbing people down and dumbing people's perspectives and ideas down, but it's during the Reagan administration.
01:55:49.000And it's so relevant today, but ramped up X 100. What's so scary, though, is that social media is manipulating you.
01:56:04.000It's keeping track of you much more than cable television ever was.
01:56:10.000I was listening to a podcast where they were like, social media now could even know you're gay before you realize it.
01:56:19.000Because it knows how long you pause and how long you stop and then gives you more of that.
01:56:24.000So it's like much more insidious than TV. It is a pretty wild thing, because TV was always a slave to the audience, and they were trying to guess.
01:56:32.000And they got screwed by their guesses so often.
01:56:35.000So you put on a show, I remember when I was doing Lucky Louie, there was a show with Heather Graham, it was called Emily's Reasons Why Not.
01:58:38.000One of the cool things about comedy is the fact that we're so removed from all that, in the sense that you are the writer, you're the producer, you're the creator, and you're getting live feedback from the audience every night.
01:59:10.000We were in Lake George and then every night Louis and Tony V and DePaulo and I would sit around telling comedy stories and smoke cigars by the lake and it was awesome.
01:59:21.000And watching the movie with a big group of people was amazing and so satisfying, but it's still not the same drug as doing a set and fucking killing.
02:01:25.000Or they might throw together a set and do a special, but you can tell it's not what it was.
02:01:29.000And some guys do that, that they just come up with it first, and then they just do the theaters.
02:01:33.000And it's just not, they're not challenged, you know?
02:01:36.000But it's still, like, for me, I still go, when I'm ready to do another set, I go to the fucking cellar.
02:01:41.000And I'm sitting around comedians that are half my age or less, and I'm waiting to go up, and I'm older, and I got fucking my hands of arthritis, and I'm like, fuck, I don't want to do this.
02:01:51.000But that's still the road to a set the way I understand it, how to do it, is these fucking 10-minute sets with weak material, and then building and building, and then clubs and governors in Long Island, and the Nyack levity and all these places,
02:02:51.000They're excited that they're there at the garden to see you and that they're invested in the fact that you've become a big star and there is that.
02:02:59.000But they won't keep coming to see you at the garden.
02:03:10.000But what I discovered coming back was that when I was just doing clubs again, because that's what was available to me, I was happy as fuck.
02:03:29.000Soul Joel's Comedy Club, which I never heard of, but these guys have the fucking tenacity and fortitude to build a tent next to a railroad.
02:03:37.000I mean, there's freight trains that come screaming by during the show, and it was the pandemic, and everyone has blankets, and there's sleet.
02:03:45.000And you're freezing and we didn't give a fuck.
02:03:48.000We had to drive sometimes in traffic like two hours in the snow to get there.
02:04:50.000And besides being in his world, which is wild, you know, Chappelle Land, being able to do shows there in this cornfield, you know, and other comedians.
02:04:59.000Last time I saw Bob Saget, I got to see him one more time.
02:05:02.000And we were all together again and, you know, it was really something.
02:05:12.000You know, and he's like, let's just test everybody.
02:05:14.000It'll cost a lot of money and take a lot of time, but it'll be a lot of fun.
02:05:17.000And we did it, and they were some of the most magical moments ever because while we were there, we were like, oh, I can't believe we're doing this.
02:05:32.000And Dave would just host the shows and just be really like a comedy club host, like talking to the crowd and just fucking around and doing silly bits.
02:07:30.000He's the guy who taught me to listen to music before we go on stage.
02:07:34.000He has a playlist that he plays, and he would always bring these big JBL boomboxes with him everywhere, and I started bringing one on the road with me too, because it sets a tone for the green room.
02:07:43.000But when we were doing these shows at Stubbs, he was listening to this one Nina Simone track, and he would listen to it over and over.
02:07:57.000We're so fucking stoned and so drunk, but it was just to see him take in this art, to see him take in this Nina Simone song, and he had his eyes closed and he was smoking a cigarette, and he would go, hold on, this is one part right here,
02:08:14.000this is one part, and he'd play it again, like, oh, man.
02:08:17.000Yeah, he's a great appreciator of life.
02:09:14.000He convinced everybody that he wasn't coming because he had to do pickups for a TV show and he even got a guy to text him saying, I'm the TV guy, whatever.
02:09:24.000So he was sending screenshots of like, I can't come, whatever.
02:09:28.000So then he was going to come down and surprise everybody.
02:09:31.000He felt like I'm the only one that doesn't drink.
02:12:16.000But that's the thing is like, if you want to be upset at people being upset at you, it's always available.
02:12:22.000Yes, and also, as a comedian or a performer, if you need everybody to be okay, if you need to check with everybody, you're out of your mind.
02:12:30.000You just need to live with the gap between who you are and what people think of you.
02:12:54.000And we were talking about this last night, but one of the things that I got furious at was comics that were upset with you after your leaked recording got out.
02:13:02.000And they were trying to say, like, oh, he's lost his heart.
02:13:06.000I was like, what the fuck are you talking about?
02:13:12.000It's exactly the thing that people celebrated before, and now all of a sudden these fucking mediocre shitheads Are coming out and they're saying all these horrible things.
02:15:35.000Being president and being a statesman and really being an example of what we would hope a president would be in terms of the way he handles himself and communicates.
02:15:50.000I'm sure some of it's bullshit, but I'm enjoying it.
02:15:53.000He's certainly connected to big money and all the other influences, but as far as being an example, that looks like the President of the United States of America.
02:16:16.000There was Clinton and Bill and Hillary and all that.
02:16:19.000There was this dominating feeling like we're all being kind of – there's these tenacious Machiavellian things going on, even if they were as good about all of them.
02:16:28.000But Obama didn't leave, and Trump obviously, but Obama's just Obama.
02:18:32.000Deal with all those years of being a politician and all those years of having speechwriters and every word is sort of calculated and every the tone is set in a very specific way and You can't just be a person a person with an opinion on things and just talk about stuff because I'm sure He's got a very You know,
02:18:54.000highly educated, astute opinion on things.
02:18:57.000We just don't really hear it the way you'd like.
02:19:11.000But in the whole, everything that he says, I'm like, you get in this spirit.
02:19:16.000You get to somebody's spirit when they just let out.
02:19:19.000And Hitchens is a perfect example of that because he was drunk all the time.
02:19:22.000He was constantly drinking and he would go and eviscerate these fucking people in debates with a whiskey in his hand and just talk shit while he was eloquently dissecting everything they believe.
02:20:44.000And we kind of have these arcs, like a spaceship going up and then coming down.
02:20:48.000There's little moments where society gets really trippy and fun when The Sopranos was on the air, when it's like, let's look at bad guys and have fun with it.
02:21:42.000And it'll happen again in a But in terms of, like, audience members, it seems like they like it more now.
02:21:48.000Like, I think people have a sense that comedy is in a precarious position and that, you know, it almost went away because of the pandemic in terms of, like, live performances.
02:21:58.000So when they're out now and, you know, like, a set like you did last night with a lot of fucking tricky shit.
02:22:57.000And also just the basic belly laugh, just to move in your body that way.
02:23:02.000I think this is like a glorious time for comedy, and I think all the stuff that we all hate, and we sit around at campfires and bars and talk about, did you see so-and-so said this about so-and-so?
02:23:14.000It makes people, all the PC shit or whatever, it makes people hungry for this, and it makes it feel more punk rock, like we're going into the basement to hear some wild shit.
02:23:23.000And there's a bunch of guys selling out theaters all over the country, all over the world, that are killer.
02:23:28.000I think this is one of the best times.
02:23:29.000And we're in it, so it feels like this weird time.
02:23:32.000But I think people will look back at this time and be like, that was a really great time for some people.
02:23:35.000It's definitely great in terms of the amount of quality comedy out there Yeah, there's a lot of great comics out there and a lot of the guys coming up but it's a Shane Gillis is He's fucking fantastic so good But these guys that are coming up are playing off that and they know that this what they're doing is wild shit and the audience knows it and they're so excited and It's so fun to see.
02:24:52.000Like, I did some bit that was just so gross and so fucked up and wrong.
02:24:59.000And there was this one woman sitting in the front row who was really well-dressed and well-put-together, and she had been sitting kind of...
02:25:07.000At this one bit she just went like a shriek and she was just trembling and I stopped and I just looked at her and we made eye contact and I just stood there and I watched her laugh like fuck everybody else and I just watched her whole laugh dwindle down and I was like alright.
02:25:39.000And I used to encourage him, like, talk like yourself more, which is every comic's trajectory.
02:25:44.000They start with a form, then they start breaking it, just because they get frustrated.
02:25:49.000Again, it's why the phone is killing you, because you should be so upset all the time.
02:25:54.000You should be bored when you're not on stage, and every show should be frustrating.
02:25:59.000And I watched Joe's frustration turn into really inventive.
02:26:02.000He now has this tapestry of telling you stories, showing you really raw feelings, but then also because of where he started, he's got jokes.
02:26:11.000He's got crystalline Boston comedian fucking jokes.
02:26:54.000He's like a ninth inning guy, it feels like, you know.
02:26:56.000Growing up in Boston is one of the best environments to do stand-up in because you are forced to deal with audiences that have very little patience for bullshit.
02:27:06.000I think we all, assuming about you as well, we all came up with doing VFWs and firehouses.
02:27:12.000I see these comics that will kind of pontificate and have their hand on the thing and kind of take these long things.
02:28:38.000Well, there's also a certain quality standard because there were so many headliners that were these Boston local headliners that were as good as any comic that's ever lived.
02:28:48.000So, and I talk about them all, I've had a bunch on, I've had Sweeney on, and Gavin on, and Lenny Clark, and it's like, they were, when we were coming up, I would put those guys up against any fucking comic that ever lived.
02:29:01.000They were so good, and they were so crisp, and they had an hour that they had been doing for a decade.
02:29:07.000That fucking thing was like a razor blade.
02:29:24.000I was in high school, and I was washing the floor of the kitchen, because I had a date, and my mom said, if you wash the kitchen floor, I'll give you 10 bucks.
02:29:32.000So it was 10 bucks to take a girl out.
02:29:34.000And I was watching The Kitchen Floor and I had WBCN on, the radio station.
02:29:38.000And they had a thing called 5 O'Clock Funnies.
02:30:44.000Because I wanted to do it, and I see this Boston comedy scene, these fucking guys, Kevin Meany and Steve Sweeney and Lenny Clark, Kenny Rogerson, Jimmy Tingle, Barry Crimmins, Tony V, all these guys were just...
02:31:00.000Phenomenally good and they're crushing and they're perfect.
02:31:03.000Even like the second-tier guys like Mike Motto, this guy, and Rich Seisler.
02:32:25.000And Kevin Meany lived in Newton at the time, and he used to come in the video store and light up the store and just be fucking crazy and sing songs.
02:34:39.000I'm like trying to figure out how am I going to save him from, like if he attacks this guy physically, I'm trying to figure out how do I navigate this?
02:34:46.000Brian's my friend, and he's fucking huge, and I'm not strong enough to pull him off this guy.
02:36:39.000He said you should always record your sets because you never know.
02:36:42.000He would bring a little tape recorder.
02:36:44.000This was back when it was kind of big.
02:36:45.000It was a clunky-ass tape recorder you'd bring on stage with him.
02:36:47.000But he was like, you've got to record your set because you never know when you might say this one thing.
02:36:51.000And that one thing, you'll forget it because you're in the moment.
02:36:54.000But that one thing could be a whole other bit.
02:36:56.000And the only way is you've got to listen to it.
02:36:58.000That's funny, even in the 2000s when I was starting, he'd had the same tape recorder, big gray tape recorder, and he'd have it on his headphones, and he'd be pacing in the back listening to it.
02:37:06.000I think like 30% of our dialogue is just doing Mike Donovan bits to each other.
02:37:10.000We just do them to each other back and forth.
02:37:38.000Like, they would get upset that guys would get on, like, television and do things.
02:37:42.000Stephen Wright, who I became friends with, like, I have a, like, he was a big part of my life, because I worshipped him, and he already had become a Tonight Show guy and a big star, but he had come from Boston.
02:37:53.000And I was on one night at the Comedy Connection.
02:39:59.000And the process is odd and it's different for everybody.
02:40:02.000But, you know, the beautiful thing about Boston was it was all about that.
02:40:07.000It was not about formulating an act that you think is going to sell as a sitcom.
02:40:11.000No, and me and Mark started around the same time where he had come from L.A. where he'd had a crazy time at the store.
02:40:17.000But he was one of my, me, him, David Cross, Nick DiPaolo, we were these guys that banged around with each other and just tried to figure it out.
02:40:31.000I used to love watching Mark struggle, and I used to love watching him get better, a little better, because he had to really figure out what his voice was that people would want, you know?
02:40:40.000And still, he would sometimes just eat it, and it was fun to watch him eat it, you know?
02:40:45.000And Nick was an odd fit, because I think he was always, you know, he was a fucking football player, you know?
02:40:51.000And a real working class guy, and, you know, we're nothing like Nick, but he was so fucking good.
02:41:43.000And we brought him to the set for this movie, and there was people on the set that were like, maybe they won't like Nick very much, this particular person.
02:41:50.000Everybody loved Nick, because they're not used to guys like him, because we're all so separated.
02:41:55.000If you go to the person you really like, I am sure that's the enemy, that's the other side, and you hang out with him, you go, I fucking love this guy, because he's so, he'll say shit that nobody else says to me.
02:42:52.000But it was a typical Nick DiPaolo moment because Nick is always like, fuck Damn, everybody fucking hates me.
02:42:57.000And so I talked to the casting agent, or to the producer, rather, and I said, hey, you know, I know these guys are going to play my brother.
02:43:07.000I know you got Epstein from Welcome Back, Colorado.
02:43:09.000I go, but I got these two other guys that are good friends of mine that are really funny comics, and they could easily be my brother.
02:43:14.000Two Italian guys, let's bring them in.
02:43:15.000And he goes, well, yeah, fuck yeah, let's bring him in.
02:43:18.000So Nick comes in, does the audition, kills it, and the producer says, great, he'll be your brother, and Brian Callen killed it, and he'll be your brother, perfect.
02:43:26.000But then the casting director, it was this woman who had these actors who she was friends with, that she would get on parts.
02:43:37.000And so Nick calls me up and he goes, I didn't get the fucking part!
02:43:41.000And I go, what do you mean you didn't get the part?
02:46:17.000He was just, his early albums, which are so fucking good, He's just talking and weird and off and you hear the crowd laughing and that great laugh that's like, what is he doing?
02:47:33.000When I was first coming up, Nick did a gig, and I wasn't there, but I had heard about it, where he did a gig at a dance club, and it was one of those places where they stopped the music and then started the show.
02:49:11.000And it was also this weird time where people were sort of, like, trying to figure out, like, in Boston, you were told you had to be clean.
02:49:18.000There was this weird thing, because everybody was trying to do, like, France Alameda has a fantastic documentary called When Stand Up Stood Out, and it's all about...
02:49:27.000It's about the ding-ho days and all that stuff, yeah.
02:49:30.000This emergence of this like very isolated group of fantastic comedians that were doing coke and getting in bar fights and getting arrested I mean those guys were fucking animals and they were all these big guys like big like Lenny Clark on the streets to be fucking tough guys who were really funny and it was That and then The Tonight Show,
02:51:57.000Even crazy guys like Teddy Bergeron, all these guys were just so good and they had this godfather.
02:52:04.000They're like a big giant multi-headed godfather.
02:52:08.000And Dane and Robert came up after we did and Joe and Nick came up under those guys, learned from those guys, looked up to Lenny Clark was his idol.
02:52:20.000There's nobody more important in the world to Nick than Lenny Clark.
02:52:25.000Not everybody's meant to be a TV star in this thing.
02:52:30.000But the way they've looked after that local scene, like a folk scene, it's like if Dylan and Joni Mitchell and all those people stayed in the clubs in the village and just kept being an example.
02:54:54.000But that was a huge thing that he did for me.
02:54:56.000And to this day, like, every time, throughout my career, once I knew Jay, every time something good would happen, if I won an Emmy, hosted SNL, or did something that people heard about, I knew I'd get a call from Jay.
02:59:43.000He told me another time, because I asked him about that bike, that he had to pay for a guy's Lamborghini because he melted the front of a Lamborghini.
02:59:50.000It was too close, and he gunned it, and he just melted the whole front of a car.
03:02:49.000This one just came out, I don't know what it was, a couple months ago called This Year's Material, but now I'm touring with this new stuff.
03:02:57.000So if people go watch these two that I put out in the last couple years and then come see me, it's totally different stuff.
03:03:03.000But this one I'm just going to tour with because that's how I make money, so I've got to keep it for a while at least.
03:03:31.000That's awesome to be able to do it with another person and keep doing it for that long, too, because so many times guys start out like history hyenas or whatever, and then they just can't do it with each other anymore.
03:03:42.000Yeah, I'm so grateful for Mark because I had the idea to do this podcast, and Mark's the only person I considered.
03:03:48.000He was up for doing it, and we have never had...
03:04:49.000Ari Shaffir had this fucking thing about this park in New York that they were going to tear down and turn into like apartment buildings or something like that.
03:04:56.000And he was like, we have to stop this, we stop this.
03:04:58.000And so Shane just kept railing on him.
03:06:22.000I mean, we had this bachelor party at the beginning when everyone's getting drinks and doing shots, but then the next morning I wake up and I fucking go swim in the ocean while everyone's, you know, vomiting and laying on the ground.
03:08:45.000He does a lot of corporate gigs because he's very clean, and he did these gigs where he would be in front of a monitor that would have all the people that were watching him, he could see their faces.
03:08:57.000Kind of like King of Comedy when he's in front of that thing.
03:14:28.000And then my special, I like to tell your listeners, because a lot of people don't know, people I run into all the time don't know I've made more specials.
03:14:35.000People come up to me and they go, when are you coming back?