Comedian Brian Regan joins me to talk about what it's like being a comedian on the road and why he doesn't want to settle down in one place. We also talk about how much money it takes to live and work in Las Vegas and how much it costs to be a comedian and how to balance it with a family life. We also get into some of the craziest things we've ever done in Vegas and talk about some of our favorite restaurants and things we like to do in Vegas! I hope you enjoy this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. It's a fun, lighthearted conversation with a good friend and I think you'll enjoy it. Enjoy! -Joe Rogan and the Crew -Jon Sorrentino and Matt Knost -The Joe Rogans Experience Podcast by Night, All Day -J.R. Rogan Podcast by Day, All Night -Bryan Regan and I talk about comedy and life in general -Vegas, Vegas, and other things that go on in Vegas -and much more. - and we talk about a lot of other stuff! Enjoy and spread the word to your friends and family about this episode! If you like it, tweet me and I'll send it to them about it! Timestamps: 5:00 - What's your favorite restaurant in Vegas? 6:30 - What do you like about it? 7:00 8: What are you looking for? 9:15 - What is your favorite thing to eat? 10:00- What's the best thing in Vegas, what do you think of a good restaurant in a good place to go to? 11:00 | What is the best place to eat in Vegas ? 13:30 16:40 - What s your favorite taco? 17:30 | What s the worst thing you're most excited about? 18:00 / 16:00/16:30 / 17:40 21:30/17:40 / 18:20 19:00 or 15:30 or 16: Is it a good meal in Vegas?? 22:40/20? 27:00 +16: Is your favorite place to watch a movie? 26:00 & 27:10/16? 29:00 // 27:20 / 27:15 / 28:10
00:01:40.000And the way he described it, it sounded like a lot of fucking work.
00:01:44.000Like, a lot more work than you would think.
00:01:46.000Like, you would think, well, hey, for him, it's great.
00:01:48.000He just has to stay there, and he just kind of, like, does his show there, and it's no big deal.
00:01:52.000Now, they, you know, they call it four-walling it, I guess, you know?
00:01:55.000So, like, you have to fill that place, and you have to fill it all the time.
00:01:58.000So you're always doing promotions, you're always doing this and that, and I don't know how much of that he has to pay for, but I believe a lot of it comes out of his pocket.
00:02:08.000He's constantly trying to fill the place up and constantly trying to put billboards up and keep the place popping.
00:02:14.000He has to do things in order to get people to remember him because he's not out there.
00:02:18.000When you're on tour, you're out there.
00:02:43.000I've thought about like a partial, never a residency, I don't really want to live there, but a partial sort of a situation where you do like a once a month show there.
00:02:52.000I think a once a month show there would be kind of fun.
00:04:36.000Like, Kraft Steak or Strip Steak, you know, the places in MGM and Mandalay Bay, or Nine at the Palms, like, you know, some of the best steaks in the world.
00:04:45.000Yeah, I haven't done a lot of those deals.
00:04:48.000I mean, I'm pretty much like a home guy.
00:04:49.000I mean, I'll go hit those places every now and then if I've got friends in town, but I'm not a guy that really knows Las Vegas inside and out.
00:04:57.000You know, it's embarrassing when friends come into town and go, where are we going, Brian?
00:05:30.000Was in town and texted me, and I had seen him out on the road six months ago or something like that, and said, hey, you want to go to the fight tonight?
00:05:40.000And I've never been to a boxing match or a UFC fight.
00:05:44.000So I was like, sure, you know, it seemed like something fun to do.
00:05:47.000And I started Googling what boxing matches were in law.
00:05:50.000I thought it was a boxing match that he invited me to.
00:06:31.000There's much more art to it than I expected.
00:06:35.000I was thinking it was just going to be a brutal, like a brutal match, you know, just two guys just going at it until blood starts squirting.
00:06:43.000But it's actually, there's art and there's a science to it.
00:06:49.000You know, it's more interesting than I think, somebody who's not a fan wouldn't realize that there's more to it than what they might think.
00:06:56.000Yeah, well there's definitely a lot of technique to it.
00:09:18.000And they're all coming in, and they're landing, and every one of those little white dots is filled with people, and all of their pockets are filled with money, and they're coming to leave it in Las Vegas.
00:09:47.000I mean, it's one of the only places we could think of where you're guaranteed you're going to have a bunch of people that are going to be risking their money, like, and then spending it and then going all...
00:09:58.000I mean, like, it's a weird place when you think about it that it's based on gambling.
00:10:42.000I think it's one of those, like, you know, there's like a house advantage, you know, like the house is like a 54% advantage, you know, like a 54 to, you know, you're 46. You know what I mean?
00:11:08.000If people bet $100,000, they only have to give $97,000 of that back.
00:11:12.000There was a weird case recently in New Jersey where a bunch of people, it was ruled they had to give their money back because they won...
00:11:23.000A lot of money playing this game, and the dealer had forgot to shuffle, because the cards had come pre-shuffled.
00:11:31.000And so somewhere along the line, these players realized that the dealer had forgot to shuffle, and so they just jumped their bets up higher and higher and higher every time, and then they wound up winning over a million dollars.
00:11:41.000And then it was revealed that the dealers had made a mistake in some way, shape, or form, and that the players, by realizing that the dealers had made this mistake, were Somehow or another, it was invalid that they won, which is fucking hilarious.
00:11:57.000Yeah, I don't get how some of that stuff is fair.
00:12:59.000You know, when you walk into, you know, whatever, the Venetian, you know, name a casino, and you see how opulent it is and how beautiful all the decor.
00:13:17.000I like watching, occasionally, they'll have one of these, you know, We're good to go.
00:13:50.000He puts his hand on the top of the cup like this and drops the black chips into the coffee cup and says, you can't put that drink here and hands it back to the guy.
00:14:01.000And the guy goes, oh, okay, and then takes his coffee cup back, bets $5, loses, wins, whatever, and then walks away.
00:14:22.000Okay, you got 52 cards, you're watching the cards that get dealt, they get all shuffled up, and you just do like a mathematical calculation of probability in your head.
00:14:33.000That seems to me to be like a thing that you should do all the time in life.
00:16:57.000So, like a moron, I yelled to the dealer, you know, to explain to him that he should be taking my money.
00:17:05.000And I said, excuse me, excuse me, hold on a second.
00:17:09.000And then I feel this pressure on my foot.
00:17:12.000Drew Hastings is stepping on the top of my foot, like, really hard.
00:17:17.000And he's trying to tell me to shut up.
00:17:20.000He knows what I'm doing, so he's stepping on my foot like, would you shut up?
00:17:25.000What was wrong with what you were doing?
00:17:28.000Drew felt they made a mistake, I should take the money back, even though I had lost it, or just leave it out there and bet on that same thing the next time.
00:20:02.000And, you know, I used to watch him on TV on all those evening at the improv type shows or whatever it was, or HBO. And then I got to see him a couple times live.
00:20:26.000He always wanted to be like Jim Carrey.
00:20:28.000He always wanted to be some Jerry Seinfeld type guy that had his own show.
00:20:33.000Instead, he was a big-time headliner on the road, selling out theaters and clubs, doing a lot of the stuff that you're doing, essentially.
00:20:41.000But for whatever reason, he wasn't appreciated, or he didn't feel that he was appreciated.
00:20:47.000But it was depression that led to what he did, and it's hard to know whether it was a career-related depression or just something so much deeper that people who don't have depression can't even relate to.
00:21:00.000Yeah, that's a good point, because when, you know, you see someone that's getting depressed about their career, are they really depressed?
00:21:08.000I mean, his career is successful as hell.
00:21:10.000You know, it's like, why would he be depressed about all that success?
00:21:15.000I mean, you could not have a more successful career than Robin Williams, and he kills himself because of depression, so clearly it's not necessarily career-related.
00:21:24.000It's a much deeper thing that people have difficulty understanding.
00:22:52.000It's, I don't know what it's called, but it's like a big comedy festival in one of the parks in San Francisco, outdoor comedy or something.
00:22:59.000But he was very, like, sweet and low-key and unassuming.
00:23:05.000Like, so different from what you know of him on stage, you know?
00:23:09.000Like, he was almost, like, reverential to other comedians, it seemed.
00:23:13.000Yeah, that's how I felt when I met him too.
00:23:16.000And he's a guy that had this horrible reputation as being a joke thief.
00:23:21.000I think in his case, talking to people that were victims of him doing that, in his case, that guy just had this deep desire to be loved and deep desire to please and deep desire to kill.
00:23:37.000Some comedians, they just get kind of addicted to the killing.
00:23:41.000And they're just trying to figure out what are the buttons I have to press to get this audience to light up.
00:23:46.000As opposed to, say, a guy like Pryor, who, what he was trying to do was express himself in this way that you would think was funny.
00:23:57.000Are you saying Robin Williams or Pryor now?
00:24:26.000I don't think, like, when you hear him talk, I don't think he had the same sort of attachment to what he was talking about as a guy like Pryor did.
00:24:33.000And so in that sense, it was easier for him to just incorporate other people's ideas, just trying to push those buttons, trying to push those buttons.
00:24:44.000It was just, like, trying to get you to...
00:24:45.000And I used to feel bad for Robin Williams whenever he was doing little interviews, whether it was on the local level, you know, or promoing a movie.
00:24:58.000Like he had to be funny in every moment.
00:25:02.000And I used to feel for him thinking he's created this monster that when he's doing little local...
00:25:09.000Not that that's a bad thing to do local interviews, but whenever he was being interviewed, I felt like he felt he had to have his foot on the gas with...
00:26:22.000Yeah, it's a fucking, man, I've been on, I was on one just a couple of years ago, it wasn't that long ago, where this fucking guy, man, this producer guy came back, and I would imagine what it would be like to be a young comic and to deal with this guy.
00:26:37.000So the guy comes back with a clipboard, I said, alright, the guys want to know what bits you want to set up, what topics you want to discuss.
00:27:05.000You know, you're living in 1991. You have no idea what radio is these days.
00:27:11.000I did a radio interview a long time ago, and, you know, I was trying to play the game, and it's like I set the guy up on a bit, and it was just this old bit I used to do, saying I went through the Burger King drive-thru, I felt like an idiot, I ordered a cheeseburger, they said drive around,
00:27:27.000so I drove around for about a half an hour.
00:28:11.000But there's also a lot of shitheads that wish they were comedians.
00:28:14.000And there's a lot of shitheads that, like, they kind of, like, they...
00:28:19.000They either wanted to be comedians, they didn't have the balls to do it, or they're judging comedians, like, whatever it is, but you'll see them, like, trying to fuck with you while you're on the air.
00:28:29.000There's also some people that think that there's only one way to get attention is through conflict.
00:28:39.000But that's just what happens when you're out there on the road, you know, you're doing these local shows trying to pump up your performances.
00:28:46.000And everybody has different skill sets.
00:28:54.000And if I get into an atmosphere where I feel it's adversarial or they're trying to, I don't know, push buttons or see if I can come back at little lighthearted insults or whatever, I kind of shut down.
00:29:51.000When you have instant access to podcasts on your car, right from the car stereo, right from the factory, which you're starting to see now with Stitcher, and you're starting to see these integrated apps, and I know I'm...
00:30:05.000Pretty aware that there's quite a few other companies that are interested in getting into it.
00:30:08.000They're starting to prepare to integrate themselves with radios.
00:30:14.000And a lot of cars come with Wi-Fi in the car, like cellular Wi-Fi.
00:30:19.000I've rented a Cadillac, one of those Escalades.
00:30:30.000But one of the things that was crazy was the guy was explaining to me that it has built-in cellular connection for Wi-Fi.
00:30:37.000So you could set up a Wi-Fi hotspot in your car.
00:30:40.000You could work from your backseat with your car acting as a Wi-Fi spot.
00:30:44.000So if your kids are in the backseat, if it has a rear entertainment system, or if they have an iPad and they want to download apps or a movie or whatever, you can download it from your fucking car as you're driving.
00:34:50.000And I wanted to see what would happen if I drove in circles.
00:34:53.000So I got off the highway and went into like a Holiday Inn parking lot and just started driving in circles because I wanted to see if the triangle went in circles or if the whole map shifted, you know?
00:37:03.000I want to try Apple Play, which is where it pretty much just takes your Apple screen on the GPS. So you have all the Spotify or whatever you have on your phone.
00:38:04.000No, your, like your, your, you know, like the, the temperature of the car and air conditioning and all that jazz.
00:38:10.000Like a lot of it is integrated into the screen.
00:38:12.000Use of the phone, Bluetooth, this, that, the other thing.
00:38:16.000Like, They have these adapters now for, like, cars, so, like, a lot of, like, mine has, like, my health reports are all built into my stereo, so we're, like, uh...
00:39:28.000Like, this week I've been getting much more sleep, and my heart rate is lower, and this is that, and my fitness level, my body fat, all that jazz.
00:39:35.000You can add all that stuff in, and, you know, you look at, like, your life.
00:39:39.000It's like you can look at your body, like the health of your body.
00:39:42.000Like, you would look at the, you know, analysis of a car.
00:39:45.000Like, when they plug a car into a computer now, if you go to get a tune-up...
00:39:50.000A lot of these newer cars, everything is done by computer, so they're doing everything.
00:39:54.000They're checking your smog, they're checking the way the engine works.
00:39:58.000All that shit is just being analyzed by a computer.
00:40:01.000You talked about the Cadillac Escalade.
00:40:04.000I had one of those as my previous car, and...
00:40:09.000Somehow, on my email, I would be sent a monthly status report of my car.
00:40:15.000Like if a tire was low on pressure or something like that.
00:40:28.000You know, it seems like technology, things get easier to use, like more user-friendly, and then they go to another level where they get more challenging again.
00:40:39.000You know, like when computers first came out, you couldn't work a computer unless you took a computer class and figured out how to work those deals.
00:40:46.000And then they became user-friendly, where they're very visual and you just click, click, click, click, click.
00:42:58.000Like drop cam, those little cameras, I put one in my bed so I can record myself sleeping to see how many times I wake up because it's got motion control so it will show when you move or when you make a noise.
00:43:08.000And it's crazy how many times I will wake up and say something and then go back to bed.
00:43:44.000It is crazy because, like, I talk a lot in my sleep, I guess, and when you do talk, it's like somebody else is talking but using your mouth and voice, and you have no recollection.
00:45:04.000Like, he takes his AC and he cranks it to the bottom.
00:45:08.000He will take it, like, if you go to a hotel and it gives you, like, 30 degrees or whatever, he will literally try to get his hotel down to 30 degrees.
00:45:17.000I've always thought, because he's, you know, he's very overweight, and I always say, like, it was probably, like, if you're walking around everywhere wearing, like, 10 jackets, like, you would want everything to be colder in your room.
00:45:58.000There's actually some various work that's been done on creating some sort of a pill that makes it like where your body completely resets and you don't need it anymore.
00:46:07.000There's a bunch of different options that the people have worked on, but I don't think they totally understand what's going on during sleep.
00:46:14.000I think people that don't sleep, like they've done some tests on people where they've forced them to not sleep for like three or four days in a row.
00:46:56.000I just wonder what the, I'm sure there are dream experts who work on this, but I'm fascinated with What's going on when someone's dreaming?
00:47:08.000What is the purpose of the dream and what is it helping you with when you're awake?
00:47:14.000If you have a dream that has anxiety in it or if you have a dream where you're being chased or any of these typical dreams that people have, I just wonder what is the purpose of that?
00:47:25.000Your brain and your body is doing that for a reason.
00:47:28.000Well, I have work-related dreams sometimes.
00:47:48.000Externally, I know like or I shouldn't say externally like I know consciously that like if I'm gonna do a show like say on Friday and I haven't worked for a week or so I'll do a few tune-up shows I'll do a show on Wednesday or show on Thursday I'll go over my material listen to recordings, but my brain doesn't trust that I'm actually gonna do that So if I haven't worked for a week my brain like dude,
00:48:09.000you don't even remember your new shit on stage Bunch of people hate to see you.
00:48:14.000You don't even remember this new shit.
00:48:15.000You're working on and In my brain, I'm like, I didn't remember my new shit.
00:48:22.000But your brain doesn't want to hear that.
00:48:23.000Your brain's like, listen, fucker, you better stay on the ball constantly.
00:48:27.000Any little weird thing that you might have in the back of your head that could possibly go wrong, that'll be brought to the forefront while you're sleeping for some reason.
00:48:34.000I have a lot of dreams about shows, but they're always pre-show.
00:49:05.000And they're all pre-show, you know, walking around while the other guy's on stage and peeking out the side and trying to see if people are focused.
00:49:15.000And yet, in real life, I don't really have that anxiety.
00:49:25.000They have those dream dictionaries or Bibles where, like, if you're flying, that means you're trying to reach something in your life that's, you know, hard to get to and stuff.
00:49:33.000Have you ever looked at one of those and tried to...
00:50:14.000I had to lean forward into it, and then just lift my feet, and then I would just start kind of going up like a balloon, very gently, and everybody would go, what the hell is going on here?
00:52:22.000It's a hotel that's really, really tall, and the elevator is really fast, and it's just like this old haunted hotel, and I always go to the same hotel, and it's not a real hotel that I think of.
00:52:36.000But ever since I was a kid, exact same hotel.
00:52:39.000And I'll have that dream like once a year where I go to this weird hotel.
00:52:43.000That hotel is in my dream, but I'm gently floating past on a breeze.
00:52:49.000And I just look over and I kind of wave at you down there.
00:52:53.000And you're flying up and down like Tower of Terror.
00:53:33.000And he tells you the whole story about these people that got zapped by electricity, and a lightning bolt came and hit the elevator and killed them and turned them into ghosts, and now they're fucking haunted, and the elevator's haunted, and you go flying up, flying down.
00:53:47.000Yeah, literally, your ass comes off the seat.
00:53:49.000You have to strap in, but your ass literally comes up off the seat because you go down so quickly.
00:54:16.000No one has any idea what the fuck is going on when you close your eyes.
00:54:20.000You wake up in the morning and you've got a whole new day.
00:54:22.000That consciousness, whatever it is, you know, unconscious consciousness, that state of mind, whatever it is, while you're sleeping, is very, very...
00:54:31.000Like poorly understood we know that there's all sorts of chemicals floating around inside the brain while that's happening There's REM sleep and all these different neurotransmitters that are buzzing around your your system But we don't really know what's going on We don't you know when you have a deep we assume that it's connected to various Anxieties and wants and needs and those are like the source of your dreams But at the end of the day,
00:54:52.000it's a lot of fucking speculating a lot of speculating as to what's happening while you're dreaming mm-hmm software updates It could be.
00:55:04.000This is where it gets real weird, right?
00:55:06.000We have this idea that everything that is in this world, where you touch things, and you pick things up, and you weigh things, you measure things, that that's the only way things can be real.
00:55:15.000The only way things can be real is if you can measure them, weigh them, and put them in a box and carry them around.
00:55:20.000But that's our own prejudice because that's how we live most of our conscious life.
00:55:24.000We live most of our conscious life with very hard physical things.
00:55:28.000But if you could just abandon that for a moment and just imagine a world where you don't have physical things that you pick up, would it be possible to exist only in a state of thought?
00:55:38.000Would it be possible that The mind is another environment, or what you're thinking about in your imagination is another environment.
00:56:08.000And then when I wake up, you know, we're in a different plane of existence where I go, okay, that was a dream, but why wasn't that real while it was happening?
00:56:17.000If I came to the conclusion that that was real while I was experiencing it, I mean, that was as real at that time as later when I'm awake.
00:56:27.000Yeah, why are you not trusting your dream self and only trusting this self?
00:56:31.000Well, because this self is there all the time.
00:56:33.000Anyway, I'm going to be at the Chuckle Hut this Saturday...
00:57:06.000Well, one of these days, I'm going to figure out how to do lucid dreaming.
00:57:10.000I'm going to sit down with someone who actually is a real, legit lucid dreamer and have a conversation with them about it because there are techniques that you can practice and there are states of mind that you can get yourself into, allegedly.
00:57:21.000I've never experienced it other than accidentally.
00:57:23.000But when you have dreams, you can control those dreams.
00:57:27.000And that you could navigate and create things that happen in your dreams be aware of the fact that you're doing it like that It's a skill and that you could develop it.
00:57:38.000Yeah, I've never I've had dreams that are lucid dreams, but totally accidentally and One of the ways that I learned was one of those movies was wacky movies Like what the bleep do we know one of those through the rabbit hole or something like that?
00:57:50.000But the guy was talking about lucid dreams and he was saying That you have them all the time, you just don't realize you're having them.
00:57:56.000One way to determine it is in your real life, in your conscious state, when you walk through a doorway, Knock on the side of the door and say, am I dreaming?
00:58:06.000Like every time you walk through a doorway, go, am I dreaming?
00:58:09.000And because you do it consciously all the time, if you do it all the time, am I dreaming?
00:59:22.000She said she would go somewhere in her head, but like leave her physical body and she'd be above her body and go somewhere else and be aware of it, and then she could come back into her body.
00:59:35.000Was this while she was awake or sleeping?
00:59:37.000No, I think it was while she was awake.
00:59:42.000It's probably similar as to a lucid dream.
00:59:45.000Either you're creating this artificial reality or maybe Look, you're seeing things, right?
00:59:51.000Just because you can't, again, put those things on a scale and weigh them and measure them doesn't mean you're not having that actual experience.
00:59:57.000So when you're closing your eyes, you're meditating, and you project yourself above your body, who knows what the fuck is really going on?
01:00:05.000Obviously, we think that you're just imagining shit and the shit that you're imagining is not real, but it might very well be that we're just so enamored by this state of things being solid that we don't think that unless you could touch something and feel it and put it on a scale and measure with a tape ruler,
01:01:06.000We're looking at a facade that we're comfortable with, but what is an inch beyond that?
01:01:11.000It's a scary, scary thing, but I think we need facades That we can be comfortable with to be able to experience life in a way that isn't scary.
01:01:21.000Yeah, like I think about you, Brian Regan.
01:01:23.000I know you, I know your personality, but deep in your head, there's this bunch of weird synapses that are firing.
01:01:30.000Your life experiences is all like manifesting itself in your actions and your behavior.
01:01:36.000It's a very weird thing to be a person.
01:03:16.000And it was like, oh my God, like it's way better to be old than to be that.
01:03:22.000Well, I contest that in the sense that people want to do things to make themselves feel better, and sometimes they feel if they look better, they're going to feel better.
01:03:33.000Nobody questions somebody when they comb their hair or brush their hair or wear contacts instead of glasses or shave their beard.
01:03:41.000You know, those are things that, you know, could be considered selfish and vain.
01:04:23.000If you talk to someone and you talk to, like, Really old person and there's lines all over their face and you're talking to them you realize wow this guy has lived 90 years 90 years on this planet like you could see it in his face But if you talk to that same guy and he's just frozen mask with silicone his lips Everything like it's fucking strange because you're not you're not getting in there.
01:04:45.000You're not seeing it It's like it's like you're talking to him through a really thickly tinted window Like I could see there's a person in there and they're talking to me, but I don't I'm not exactly sure what kind of expressions they're making.
01:05:24.000Did you hear the thing recently, this was like a day before the Oscars, that he was at a gym at 3 in the morning in Hollywood, and this guy was working out, and then Travolta just comes up and introduces, like, hey, how's it going?
01:06:07.000The guy said that it was really awkward because at three in the morning this guy just comes up to him and holds out his hand and starts introducing himself.
01:06:12.000And the guy was like, you know, I felt what he was doing.
01:06:38.000It is every Celebrity encounter is a story, not necessarily something that gets into the media, but I remember living in New York and taking a train out to Chuckles in Mineola,
01:07:11.000Yeah, you know, you get into that awkward conversation.
01:07:13.000And so this cab driver says, I had Roseanne Barr in the car.
01:07:20.000And I remember driving by, and she was looking out the window, and she was intrigued by a mailbox that she saw in front of one of the houses.
01:07:31.000And, you know, so there's like a nothing story.
01:07:33.000But I'm thinking, Roseanne Bard doesn't remember this story.
01:07:38.000But this guy, that's his Roseanne, well, Roseanne Arnold now, but, I mean, that's his story.
01:07:44.000So, like, if anybody gets into an elevator with a celebrity, they will tell that story.
01:07:53.000The celebrity is not going to remember that particular elevator ride, but if you happen to be in an elevator one time in your life with Paul Newman, anytime Paul Newman's mentioned, that's your story.
01:08:09.000Every encounter is a story to somebody.
01:08:12.000I had a story that I talked about on the podcast because a guy in an elevator, me and my friend Eddie were in an elevator, and some guy was in the elevator, and apparently when the guy left the elevator, he said, take it easy or something like that, and we didn't respond.
01:08:28.000Or if I did respond, he didn't hear me, I don't know what happened.
01:08:31.000But he wrote this long, crazy post on this message board about what a douchebag I am.
01:10:00.000Of bile, like spewed by this guy, but in some people's minds, like these encounters, like you talking to Roseanne Barr about a fucking mailbox, like it's like, eh, Roseanne Barr shits on people's mailboxes.
01:10:15.000What kind of mailbox you got in Bel Air, you fucking cunt.
01:10:19.000Like, for whatever, that's a strange mailbox.
01:10:22.000Maybe she's just trying to make small talk, you fuckhead.
01:12:24.000You could run into people, man, and just you zig when you should have zagged, and you run into someone who's completely out of their fucking mind, and then they become a part of your life.
01:12:34.000You could definitely run into the wrong people, especially if it's a girl, especially if you're single.
01:12:38.000You just, for whatever reason, start talking to someone, and it turns out they're fucking crazy, and then you, you know, that's the problem with men.
01:12:46.000Men are willing to look past a lot of shit if a chick's hot.
01:12:50.000Like, I know a lot of guys that have gotten involved with girls that are just completely out of their fucking mind, but they're pretty.
01:12:56.000And they're just like, oh, you know, she's a little weird, but no, no, no.
01:13:00.000If she was a guy, you would be running from her.
01:14:10.000You're actually in a real normal town that just happens to be next to the Death Star.
01:14:16.000You're in the vicinity of the Death Star.
01:14:19.000You could probably drive and you can get to the Strip in a reasonable amount of time.
01:14:24.000But the people that you live with, are they affected at all by the fact that they live in Vegas or do they seem like regular folks in a regular town?
01:14:32.000Well, I used to live in a house in a cul-de-sac, and so there was more interaction with the neighbors, and now I live in one of those, you know, condo kind of deals.
01:14:39.000So now I have less interaction with the other people in the condo.
01:14:42.000But in the cul-de-sac, you know, one thing I liked about it and didn't like about the neighbor thing One, I'm not the kind of guy that just wants to have a conversation when somebody else feels like having a conversation.
01:14:58.000I always felt weird about pulling up into the driveway and then Joe Blow wants to just walk up and just start talking about the water pump or something that has to do with the cul-de-sac.
01:15:17.000You know, I've got a lot of friends in show business, and I love them.
01:15:21.000And, of course, they're going to be interested in their careers, and that's what people are going to tend to talk about.
01:15:26.000When I lived in L.A., there was just a disproportionate amount of conversations about auditions that people went to and what they're up for and how they feel about an agent or this or that.
01:15:38.000And that's okay, but it's nice to be away from that.
01:15:40.000And one thing I loved about this just very suburban kind of cul-de-sac in Las Vegas was, you know, I'd come back from the road, right?
01:15:49.000So I'm doing comedy and I'm doing show business, and I come back from the road, And there's neighbor kids riding their bikes in the cul-de-sac.
01:15:58.000And the dad's saying, yeah, I put her bike together yesterday.
01:16:03.000And I liked having the showbiz life balanced with a real grounded kind of world where not everything is about, you know, furthering careers and stuff.
01:16:16.000Yeah, that's a big thing that a lot of people experience about any sort of environment like Hollywood, where it's just so based on one industry.
01:16:25.000You just get so wrapped up in that world that it's exhausting.
01:16:30.000When I was living in Las Vegas, I've been in Las Vegas over 10 years now, and I was out here doing something, and I met a guy on the street.
01:16:37.000I didn't know who he was, but he was a comedian and said, hey man, he knew who I was.
01:18:53.000There are times when I think, you know, I have the proper amount of just low-key thing, but I know there's a little piece of me, that little ego part of me that needs to participate.
01:19:03.000You know, it like comes out of me sometimes.
01:19:07.000Like if somebody has the wrong idea of Maybe what I've been able to do as a comedian.
01:22:38.000And this guy, like, walks, like, just beelined back to me, who was in the middle of the audience, and I felt, okay, I just made people laugh for an hour, you know?
01:23:24.000Some in that weird environment of the those shows doing stand-up on one of those fucking shows is so brutal It's so hard to first of all I don't know like if you feel comfortable doing like a real short set But I always feel real weird when I do five minutes like five minutes to me It's like I don't that's I have long bits like five minutes to me is just exploring a premise.
01:23:45.000It's a whole different animal, you know I I like the challenge of it, but it's so different from doing an hour set, especially an hour set in front of people who you know they're there to see what you do.
01:24:00.000But if I do Letterman or something like that, I'm walking out to a group of people who have no clue who I am.
01:24:07.000Maybe a handful of people in the audience do, but for the most part it's like, you know, here's a comedian and you're walking out and on Letterman you get four and a half minutes and It's a very, very challenging thing to...
01:25:11.000It's like opening up, because when you go on stage cold and there's no one who warms up the crowd before you, you have to get everybody into the mindset.
01:25:43.000When a guy's killing, when you're up there and you're letting it loose, and everything's flowing, I'm thinking like you.
01:25:50.000I'm allowing you to sort of control where my thoughts go, and you're surprising me with your statements, and those surprises are often really funny, and that's how you kind of get comedy going.
01:26:02.000But when you're just starting out, like, ready, go, and you're doing four minutes, You don't get a chance to hypnotize anybody.
01:26:11.000You just kind of got to hope that they're kind and they're receptive and then they think that your first few words are reasonable enough to allow you a certain amount of access to their funny thought.
01:26:25.000I remember so many years ago, and I wish I could remember who it was.
01:26:28.000This was before I had ever done a TV set.
01:26:30.000Say that you have to get it into your head that the first joke is going to be a foul ball.
01:27:25.000I've seen guys go out there that never have opened up before, you know, or haven't done in a long time, and they'll go out and try to rush it.
01:27:33.000They'll try to rush the first joke, like, before, like, settle down, folks.
01:27:41.000And when you immediately go into a bit and it doesn't work, then you're, like, on defensive mode or tailspin mode, and you're trying to recover and...
01:27:50.000It's a constant quest to try to figure out how to learn how to do comedy, both in front of fans or in front of TV audiences and stuff like that.
01:27:58.000And that's one thing I love about it is that you're always learning.
01:30:10.000I worked with a guy one time, and he had a bit, and it was a pretty good bit.
01:30:15.000And I remember thinking, ah, it's a good idea, and he needs to, you know, work on that, you know, tighten it up and then get to that point a little bit quicker or whatever.
01:31:40.000He tells the audience that he wants to work on some jokes.
01:31:42.000He takes glasses, little reading glasses out.
01:31:45.000He takes out about 20 little 3x5 cards, and he reads them, half performing them, half reading them, you know, going, I just want to get a feel for these things, you know.
01:31:54.000And he does them, and some laugh, some work, some don't work.
01:34:39.000Then it's like, okay, now I know what the thought is, the idea.
01:34:43.000Now what words am I going to apply to it to get from beginning to middle to end?
01:34:48.000And then that part could take a year or longer, you know, going on every night and changing the words, changing it, tightening it, switching it, you know, things like that.
01:34:57.000And you don't go necessarily to comedy clubs to work out.
01:35:00.000You kind of work out your bits in between, like, bits that are already established.
01:35:33.000And when you do it, do you purposely say, like, okay, I've got a bunch of bits I'm going to do in the beginning that I know are rock solid.
01:35:43.000I get everybody rocking, and then I'll slide this new stuff in there and see how it works.
01:35:49.000I don't want to have that overly figured out either.
01:35:56.000I don't want to lose that weirdness of hitting something right off the bat that I don't know if it's going to work or not.
01:36:05.000It's a temptation to go to a surefire laugh.
01:36:09.000But every once in a while I'll say to myself...
01:36:12.000I need to go out and do something relatively new that I've never opened with and see how it flies because I want to keep Exercising every muscle, you know, I mean there's a lot of guys out there who just Always open with the same thing and always close with the same thing and it's like I want to keep switching that up,
01:36:32.000you know, you're also in is this place where you're doing these big crowds and You don't do other stuff like you're not doing a lot of television shows as far as like sitcoms or you're not doing a lot of movies You're doing a lot of these things so it's like You're constantly performing.
01:36:47.000You're constantly, like, adding to this sort of database of jokes and material, you know?
01:36:58.000I think it's really cool, because you were, like, trying to do the sitcom thing for a while, like everybody else, and then you're just like, well, fuck this.
01:38:06.000Well, that's one of the cool things about what you've been able to achieve, where you do these really big places, but you're in this reasonable celebrity mode, where it's very reasonable.
01:38:17.000You walk around the casinos, and occasionally people will recognize you and everything like that, but it's nothing weird.
01:38:22.000You know, you don't have to hide, you're not getting overwhelmed, you don't get chased and hawked, but you're packing these giant fucking places.
01:38:29.000Like you have these fans, there's like this hardcore group of dedicated fans that will come to see you because you've earned them by traveling over and over again back and forth to these same spots and packing these same places.
01:38:44.000It's a very bizarre situation because I don't know what the percentages are, but I truly feel like if you polled 100 Americans just at random, I swear I think 98 of them and showed them a picture of me or something like that,
01:40:45.000It's all based on people going to see you, really loving your material, really laughing, having a great time, and then say, oh, Brian Regan's back in town.
01:40:53.000And then boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and it slowly started building up.
01:40:56.000And then, you know, I'd heard, I mean, I don't know how many years ago you started, like, packing these large theaters.
01:41:01.000But I'm like, I kept hearing, like, dude, Brian Regan is just fucking killing it on the road.
01:41:05.000The difference being that if you had a sitcom, like, maybe you would get people to come see you, but you would not have nearly as much time to perform and to work on your material, and your sets probably wouldn't be the same.
01:41:16.000You wouldn't have the same level of competency on stage that you do now because, you know, you've been hammering that samurai sword for fucking, you know, decades now.
01:41:27.000There's guys, and I don't want to name any names, but it's sad when you see a guy who took seven, eight years off to do a successful sitcom, and then they start doing stand-up again, and you realize they got soft.
01:41:38.000Not just soft, but it's atrophy, just waste.
01:41:47.000Whatever that muscle is that allows you to do comedy and hypnotize those 4,000 people in the theaters that you're performing in, they don't have that muscle anymore.
01:41:56.000It's all just sort of like slipped away from them, and there's like a ghost of what it used to be that they're trying to reestablish these embers they're trying to blow on and, you know, add good analogy.
01:42:07.000Yeah, I mean, that's really what it is.
01:42:09.000I mean, we were talked into believing that the only way to be successful as a comic was to do it the way Roseanne had done it or the way Seinfeld had done it, is take that stand-up and use it to parlay it into a sitcom.
01:42:58.000Yeah, we just talked into a long time ago, like I said, especially in the 90s, we were talked into thinking that this is not it.
01:43:05.000This is just it that gets you to something else.
01:43:07.000Because that's something else like a lot of times a lot of fucking money like more money than you're ever making doing stand-up at the time Like they put you on a sitcom like when I was on news radio like all of a sudden I was on the sitcom and that was a great experience for me, but this it's being on a great sitcom is Even though it's a lot of money,
01:43:26.000this is not nearly as much fun as doing stand-up.
01:44:02.000I did a show somewhere, and this family came backstage, including their grandmother, like this 80-year-old woman, and she said, So how long have you been in vaudeville?!
01:45:41.000Jackie Martling, like, literally knows every fucking joke that's ever...
01:45:44.000He has a segment that he does called Stump the Joke Man.
01:45:47.000Or he's doing radio where people would call him up with a joke and he would know how the joke goes because he literally knows every joke.
01:45:55.000Yeah, I've worked with him a number of times over the years and, you know, it's interesting the way he...
01:46:00.000I mean, I like that there are different people doing different things and he's like a joke joke guy and takes a lot of pride in that and that's fun to watch.
01:46:07.000It's like, okay, that's what he's doing.
01:46:51.000When I used to work in Charlotte, he used to live there.
01:46:54.000And he would come out, and he was always very...
01:46:58.000Cool and friendly and you know he was a college act at that time and you know I think he kind of knew the rap you know how many people like what some people think about prop stuff but I don't know I I like to feel like hey man there's all different ways of doing comedy sure you know and funny funny yeah he does he does props Great.
01:49:51.000You could kind of like subtly make it seem like it's not coming from you, like maybe coming from the side of you, you blow it off to the side.
01:49:58.000Yeah, I hope there's not somebody out there who does that for a living and they feel like I'm slamming his crap.
01:50:48.000I'm not saying there's people that no one can hypnotize.
01:50:53.000Because I've never tried to be hypnotized.
01:50:56.000I never sat down with a really good hypnotist and tried to be hypnotized.
01:50:59.000I have friends that have and they swear by it and I know fighters that have done it and they say it helps their career and it helps their mindset.
01:51:07.000But there are certain people, for whatever reason, that are really, really susceptible to hypnosis.
01:51:13.000And there was a guy named Frank Santos, and he used to do this show back at Stitches in Boston, and he would do it every week.
01:52:52.000I'll open the door to the possibility of hypnosis in the sense that, you know how like when you're watching a football game and all of a sudden the other team has the ball and you're like, I don't remember them punting, yet I've been staring at this TV screen for five minutes.
01:53:32.000He'd done it a long time and he knew when people were under and when they weren't under.
01:53:37.000I don't think you are, but I think there's some people that are just really open to suggestion.
01:53:41.000And I think there's also something that happens when you put them on stage.
01:53:44.000Because I think people get really weirded out by the fact they're on stage, the lights are on them, and it makes maybe perhaps some people even more vulnerable.
01:54:47.000I get off stage, and then I see table tents on all the tables, you know, comedy hypnosis night, and people were coming up to me going, how come you didn't make us act like chickens, you know?
01:55:00.000And I'm like, that's when I found out, you thought I was a comedy hypnotist.
01:55:04.000I did an hour of total confusion for this audience.
01:58:14.000Do you sometimes think it's the audience, completely the audience, like just, you know, it's Friday night, 10 o'clock show, these people are all just in a kind of a bleh.
01:58:22.000The audience can play a part in whether or not you have a good set or a great set, but the audience cannot play a part if you are really, unless it's just the worst.
01:58:32.000Fucking horrendous group of fucking convicts, out on parole, all on meth.
01:58:46.000Sometimes you just go out there and it's magic.
01:58:49.000Sometimes you go out there, and you just feel so loose, and the audience is so ready right off the bat that everything is just flowing and amazing.
01:58:56.000Like, that was this weekend in Portland.
02:00:30.000show on a Friday, and the crowd was kind of tired, and Brody Stevens went on, and he was on like last, and he took his shirt off and started running through the crowd.
02:01:12.000Pull it up, the late night video of him drumming.
02:01:15.000He does these closer spots at the comedy store where...
02:01:20.000You know, the show starts, the main room show starts at 9 o'clock, and it goes on until 2 o'clock in the morning, and there's a point of no return.
02:01:27.000There's a no man's land time, somewhere after like 11.30, where the audience is like, okay, let's just get the fuck out of here.
02:03:32.000It's just like another facet of stand-up comedy.
02:03:35.000I wouldn't say it's my favorite facet, but the thing about Brody is that facet, even though I don't necessarily like watching warm-ups that much, Brody has turned that into like a proving, not a proving ground, but like a training ground for him.
02:03:51.000Like he's so comfortable just free-balling about anything and everything, and he knows how to like hit it and turn it into comedy.
02:03:59.000He's a very unusual talent, Brody Stevens, and he's really good at that, that late-night spot.
02:04:05.000Since I've been back at the Comedy Store, I've seen him do four or five of those late-night spots, and particularly I just waited around, waited so I could watch Brody.
02:04:14.000Michael Keaton was there last night, by the way.
02:05:24.000Like, I don't like the slamming people's dresses and all that stuff, you know?
02:05:28.000It's like, they've been working their ass off for their career to finally get a role where they're getting a little...
02:05:35.000They're getting some attention and they get to go to this big, fun Academy Award and they put everything they can into and putting this dress on.
02:06:28.000There's a lot of really unbalanced, unhappy people.
02:06:32.000And because of the internet and people making comments, unfortunately, you know, it's like honking a car horn.
02:06:37.000You can do it in the safety of your car because you know it's unlikely that that guy is going to come over and actually have a physical confrontation.
02:06:43.000I think comments to me are horn honkers.
02:07:05.000They don't get anything out of it, but they're not balanced people.
02:07:08.000They're not thinking about what they get out of it.
02:07:09.000They're not looking at their life objectively, like, what is the effort to reward ratio to what I'm accomplishing here, or am I accomplishing anything?
02:07:41.000You know, if you were a great writer or a great critic, you were respected by all these people that sought out your opinions on things.
02:07:50.000And so when they read your opinion on something, it was like, oh, this guy is a very thoughtful, well-measured person, and his opinion on blank will be interesting to read.
02:08:01.000But now everybody gets to put their opinion out there.
02:08:03.000Everybody can have an opinion about everything.
02:08:06.000I like it because I think it's ultimately balancing and I think that the cult of personality that comes along with celebrity I think is ridiculous.
02:08:55.000Do you really want to confront everybody?
02:08:57.000If you're a person that's in the public eye, do you really want to confront all those different people that can talk to you?
02:09:02.000You'll waste your entire life dealing with hecklers and trolls.
02:09:05.000I'm not saying that you need to confront people who are being negative, but I'm saying that the person who wants to be negative out there, it should be that person's name.
02:09:29.000They can contact Brian Regan where they never could before.
02:09:31.000People can reach, you know, someone and make fun of their celebrity speech, their acceptance speech.
02:09:37.000People can do things, they can get closer to you than they've ever been able to do so before.
02:09:41.000And I think, ultimately, the good thing about that is things like podcasts and things that couldn't have existed before, they take down this, like, There's a boundary between people expressing themselves and that expression being reached by other people.
02:09:58.000You know, if someone has really funny tweets, if they're a really funny Twitter person, those really funny tweets can get spread around and all of a sudden they have 100,000 followers.
02:10:08.000They're just regular folks at regular jobs, but they're really funny.
02:10:11.000And so just by quality, just by people, their ideas resonating with people, they have a vehicle that never existed before.
02:10:19.000So it doesn't always have to be negative.
02:10:22.000I think it's just so many people are disenchanted, and they just don't like life, and they're just depressed, and they don't like their existence.
02:10:28.000And so they're looking to, like, shit on people and spread negativity as much as possible.
02:10:33.000But what it shows is just that this vehicle exists.
02:10:50.000The ability to leave a YouTube comment, the ability to have a fake Twitter handle that's just an egg that they can shit all over Brian Regan after a show.
02:10:59.000Yeah, you don't think hypnotizing is real, you asshole?
02:11:02.000How do you think I lost fucking 50 pounds in this market?
02:11:05.000I mean, that's just, it's a symptom of this new age that we live in.
02:11:11.000That this stage where technology, as it's advancing, it's advanced to this completely new realm that never existed before.
02:11:19.000Where the ability to communicate with people is unprecedented.
02:11:23.000The ability to reach people is unprecedented.
02:11:50.000There's going to be a time in the future where I believe we're going to be able to communicate not just with words on a screen, but with someone.
02:11:58.000People are going to be able to express feelings to you.
02:12:00.000They're going to be able to express emotions to you without even knowing you, without being around you.
02:12:05.000Things are going to get real weird over the next few years.