Comedian and actor Pete Holmes joins Jemele to discuss his life growing up in the late 80s and early 90s in Los Angeles. He talks about how he got his start in comedy, how he became a stand-up comic, and how he ended up moving back to his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. He also tells us about the time he was kidnapped by a crazed lunatic, and why he decided to move back to Los Angeles in the first place he ever lived in. Plus, he shares the story of how Pete became one of the most successful comedians of all time, and what it was like growing up on the mean streets of LA in the early days of the late 60s. And, of course, Pete talks about his new song, "No Need" by Young Jamie, which is a song he wrote and performed with his then-fianc girlfriend, Ariana Grande, in the original version of the song "Young Jamie" from the 1987 album "Young" and how it came to be a hit with the band Young Jamie and the rest of his band mates, The Eurythmics. Also, Pete and Pete talk about how they met and fell in love with each other in high school and how they became best friends, which led to Pete's comedy career and how Pete eventually left comedy and became a full-time comedian and moved back home in Baltimore. to pursue his dream of becoming a standup comic. in the midwest and why Pete is a better than most people in the whole town of Baltimore in this episode of of course! . is a must-listen to this episode, you won t want to miss this one. You won t wanna listen to this one? if you haven t listened to it? and don t miss it it s a good one, it s gonna be good, you re gonna love it. You ll be surprised how good it s good, don t you know what it s or you ll like it and you ll think you re going to like it, too good, right you ll be better than you think you ve heard it or don t know what else like it s going to be like that ? we ll be back next time we do it again next week, right here on the other side of the pond next week right here
00:01:24.000It was hanging up with this weird horn thing, like on the railing in a corner, and I asked my friend there, I was like, how long has this been there?
00:02:49.000So if I had five grand in the bank, that's six months before I had to quit, move back to Maryland, go to paralegal school, whatever it was.
00:03:07.000Well, I knew when we first met, there's certain comics Where you meet them when they're really young and you go, dude, all you have to do is just keep going.
00:04:55.000I went through my first rut, where everything was hitting a little worse.
00:04:59.000If it was an A-plus room, my jokes that should get an A-plus were getting a B-plus, and in a B-room, they were getting a C. And I'm like, man, what's happening here?
00:05:07.000And I asked a bunch of people for advice, and you were like, yeah, you've grown past your material, so you've just got to get new material.
00:05:13.000Freddie was like, do it a thousand times, so you know it so well.
00:06:56.000And so I think that when I remember that, like back in those days, I mean, when someone can come along and just give you just a little nudge, just a little people, and then you have to realize that.
00:11:12.000But what was important during that time, was really, really, really important during that time, is even though you weren't achieving great financial success, you were doing well on stage.
00:14:02.000I hadn't been there for a while and I was thinking about, man, I should go down there and buy some from them just to give them some love because they're really nice guys.
00:15:28.000No, I started at 99, so this is 2000, 2001, 2002. Yeah, somewhere around there makes sense, because that's around when I started hanging out with Eddie Bravo.
00:17:16.000I remember that because you had gotten into this crazy place where you're like, when you get high, there's this point in the beginning where you're like...
00:20:23.000I do it on basketball, and sometimes in basketball, it's like someone will throw you a pass, and while it's in the air, you go, okay, what are my options here when this ball gets to me?
00:20:56.000People love smoking pot and doing jiu-jitsu too because I think it makes you focus on what you're doing rather than being uncomfortable with what you're doing.
00:21:07.000It lets you really just be in the moment in some strange way.
00:21:11.000That's counterintuitive for people who don't smoke pot.
00:21:16.000It's also like what we would do when we were doing that, when we'd get really high and go on stage.
00:21:21.000What we were doing was, I was like, I know that when we get really high and we sit around and talk, we have some of the coolest conversations.
00:23:17.000Well, I definitely didn't smoke pot when I first met Joey, because when Joey used to hang around the...
00:23:22.000There was no time he did not smoke pot.
00:23:23.000No, he definitely smoked pot, but he ramped it up quite a bit.
00:23:28.000I mean, he really ramped it up quite a bit when it became more and more available in the 90s, like the late 90s and the early 2000s, like right when I started smoking.
00:26:26.000Those guys were laughing at shit, and they were always the guys...
00:26:29.000I mean, there was always trouble, like, you know, I've been around Joey, snapping at dudes, and where I was worried he might hit somebody with a bottle.
00:26:46.000Yeah, he grabbed a coffee, but they got in some fight.
00:26:48.000It was like, oh, to be around that kind of shit, man, you've got to know where the guy, like Joey was, like, he kept it together better than Johnny did.
00:26:55.000Joey was, Joey's smarter in some ways, like socially.
00:26:59.000Aware of you know how he's coming off Joey just you know, he's just a wild motherfucker that lived a wild life But he's I knew that he was like this great guy You know it's like this guy's like something.
00:27:10.000He's so special Yeah, like he's like one of my favorite human beings of all time because he's just so genuinely him You know Joey's doesn't have any airs about him.
00:27:20.000He's not he's not trying to pretend to be anybody No, you're right.
00:27:22.000He totally is not trying to be anything else.
00:27:24.000He figured out how to do it on stage and Yeah.
00:27:26.000He was always the best at that, at being the exact same offstage and onstage.
00:29:18.000So anyway, I knew even way, way, way, way back then, you know, when you first started out, when I knew just talking to you, I'm like, this is a smart dude.
00:29:35.000And so to be your friend through this whole thing and to see you from, you know, your baby steps and stand up and trying to figure it out and all the years you try to get past the store, you know, that opening to your podcast when you talked about your Comedy Central special,
00:30:32.000Going on after Martin Lawrence in the main room on a fucking Saturday night when he was, when he was doing those, when he was doing those concert movies.
00:32:06.000Well, like I said, we all think this now.
00:32:10.000We all sort of share this idea now that we're all just comics.
00:32:14.000And that's the beautiful thing about the store is that there's this fraternity where there's guys that are part of it that are really just starting out, man.
00:32:21.000And there's other guys that have been around it for like Russell Peters.
00:32:42.000These are people that started fucking mopping up vomit.
00:32:45.000So when you see the new guys mopping up vomit, and I see them now fucking around with Don Barris later night and really growing for the first time.
00:32:51.000Dude, we passed this kid on the way back.
00:34:19.000You know those days like that craziness of that time all those crazy fucked up people on their drugs The echoes were still like running through that building.
00:34:27.000Yeah, you're right people are still like returning and then they would be get more people returning That's just an excuse to use the word beget Right time to throw it out there So you went through this long development period and you did it mostly at the store and then on the road,
00:34:57.000you know, when we would do gigs together.
00:35:00.000You saw the whole thing, I mean, from the beginning.
00:35:02.000That road stuff was super instrumental, being able to spread my wings and be like, oh, okay, here's what it is, here's what I've been learning for.
00:35:15.000I never really had that opportunity to have someone take me with me.
00:35:19.000And you can see what better comedy is on a night-to-night basis and see beyond just what your jokes are than how you're doing them and, you know, when you go after Heckler, when you don't.
00:35:27.000And that was the best thing about learning at the store, too.
00:42:57.000And it's this thing you would have loved if you just gave it a chance or just turned it on or just had your mom be out of town so you could stay up late.
00:43:04.000Like you're finding about a new band or something.
00:43:06.000And then you go back and listen to their old stuff.
00:43:24.000Because one of the reasons why stand-up is in a really good place right now is a lot of people that go to comedy clubs and shows are being real successful.
00:43:31.000It's because there's so many funny guys.
00:45:37.000You brought physical comedy into the mainstream, but people started doing it more.
00:45:42.000Bob Nelson was the last big physical comic, and then all these guys were watching comedy when they were 14, 15 years old, and now it's been 10, 12 years, and they're doing comedy, and you're one of the guys they watch coming up.
00:45:55.000So it's like, yeah, of course, they got into it because of you.
00:50:05.000Imagine if your husband committed suicide and there's people making documentaries that accuse you of killing him when you know you didn't kill him.
00:50:12.000Can you imagine going through life like that?
01:00:14.000The only reason why I would do it is if someone was trying to attack me.
01:00:17.000I wouldn't be the person that attacked them.
01:00:20.000The only way I would ever attack someone is if I thought that my life was in danger or my health was in danger or someone else's health or life was in danger.
01:00:47.000If you're eliminating people, if you're harming, you're going after people.
01:00:52.000I like how some people say I would never be able to live with myself, and that I disagree with for everybody, because everyone who does it lives with themselves.
01:02:29.000If you walked in and some random person had drugged a woman and was busy fucking her body and she didn't even, you know, probably didn't, not only barely knew the guy.
01:03:11.000And he thinks that's funny or he thinks that's acceptable or he can live with that and he can do it again and again and again like he's done it many, many times before.
01:03:19.000There's a dehumanizing effect to that that's terrifying.
01:03:54.000But one guy was so resigned, I could tell he was so resigned to him being this way, that he was like, once he came out, it's like, do you know where we're here?
01:07:06.000He was, I forget, he might have been an Olympic gold medalist, but I believe he was an Olympic boxer, and he was also a light heavyweight champion.
01:08:37.000He's holding his side, and you're like, why is this fight still going in the fight?
01:08:40.000Well, you always see dudes throwing left hooks to the body, because from the left side, like if you're attacking, that side of the body that you're going to hit, which is his right side, is where the liver is.
01:08:50.000So Roy Jones knocked him out with a body shot on the opposite side that you usually see.
01:08:53.000You usually get either in the solar plexus or the liver, but he hits so goddamn hard and he was so fast.
01:08:58.000But the point is, like, that's where Ronda is.
01:09:06.000It's like when I saw Anderson in his prime, and people call him the greatest of all time, but his prime, he was fucking up guys that were like, I could see winning a title if not for him.
01:09:56.000Setting it up for later fucking Star Wars episode one.
01:09:59.000Yeah, but it's interesting man because she's not gonna keep going forever There's gonna someone's gonna come along like they always come along like someone catch up with her eventually If she keeps fighting into her 30s for sure right now, she's in her prime Yeah, but if she keeps fighting, you know if cyborg can figure out a way to get down to 135 that could be fucking interesting But she showed a photo of herself the other day on a scale and she said 175 Cyborg?
01:10:22.000Yeah, like a couple days after her fight 175, that's what I should weigh.
01:10:29.000I mean, I don't know if that's like to try to get people to be sympathetic about the fact that if you want to get that fight with Ron to go, make her fight at 45. But get the fuck out of here with that.
01:15:47.000And he was describing what was going through his mind.
01:15:50.000Like all his nerves and apprehension and all these different things and how they would evaporate as he would slowly but surely get closer and closer to the ring.
01:18:50.000You need confidence when you're on stage, but lack of confidence every other moment.
01:18:55.000Complete like you suck get better you suck get better You definitely can't have a distorted perception if you start being a conference you won't get better Well, it's the one thing that we all despise is a comic who's not Doing well, right?
01:19:11.000Like really you're saying that out loud.
01:19:13.000That was great We just saw you bomb you gotta admit you bombed otherwise we can't talk cuz when I bomb I'm gonna tell you I just ate fucking fat dick up there Like fuck like remember you called me you tell me you had a bad set in London we talked about it like that shit happens man such a bad set devastating that's fucking devastating so if someone pretends that it's not like we can't talk now now we can't talk because now you're not being real do you always win?
01:19:39.000I'm trying to open up and be cool and you're like not Every time you win, you win everything, you're the best ever.
01:19:58.000What he's thinking of as he comes to the...
01:20:01.000And that reminds me of what you were thinking of when you were walking through that hotel fire in San Francisco, which you can see right now.
01:20:06.000This Thursday night, live, on Comedy Central!
01:20:10.000If you want to see these old stories, they're on demand, but they're also on YouTube.
01:20:15.000If you go to the This Is Not Happening playlist, you can see all of them.
01:20:18.000This year and the last season, the one before that, Rogan has got another story, too, from last year.
01:21:06.000To see you go from, you know, those early days where you're trying to become a paid regular to struggling to see you now where you're balling out of control.
01:22:42.000I mean, most people, I think in California, if you have a fruit tree, you probably have to have some sort of irrigation system going on to water it, too.
01:22:52.000You're probably watering it from tap water.
01:22:54.000Yeah, but if that picks up all the pollution, not pollution, all the fucking insecticides, Well, that's not...
01:23:03.000The water that comes out of your faucet definitely doesn't have insecticides.
01:23:08.000You think there's insecticides on his plants?
01:27:38.000If there was any time where I thought maybe I won't be able to handle this, it's while I had a premiere of my...
01:27:44.000Paid regular special in January, the show, the entire run of the show, which has only two weeks left, and passive-aggressive, my other special, that would be the time when I wouldn't be able to handle it.
01:28:13.000Yeah, and the text is T9, so is that the word, T9, for that?
01:28:16.000Yeah, so it takes a while, so you've got to really have in your mind what you want to tweet.
01:28:20.000And when I started tweeting, I went to the old, it was my contacts, it was Twitter, I was like, oh, I think it's 40404, I think that's what it is.
01:28:28.000And I sent a tweet, like he used to, he used to send it by text.
01:28:32.000And then they emailed me saying, I think you've been hacked.
01:31:54.000You could definitely get caught up in too much interaction.
01:31:57.000You told me something when I was doing this, and you said something that I've quoted to people when you were like, well, I couldn't live without Instagram.
01:32:02.000And my thought was, you did seven months ago.
01:32:29.000But if you have a photograph that has kind of a silly story to it, and it's kind of funny, or if you have something that means something to you, you could actually...
01:34:16.000That's something that's really interesting, too, because I watched you develop that from doing it the annex room, the little small room with the improv.
01:34:54.000When Joey's telling a great story and we are howling, laughing, even if it's just the three of us at Five Guys Burger, we're having a great time.
01:35:01.000It might as well be a packed room filled with a thousand people.
01:35:28.000Because I was like, yeah, we're going to have him back the second season.
01:35:30.000And they were like, do you want to have people back that have already done the digital one for TV? And I was like, yeah, Diaz and Big J, of course.
01:35:39.000Like, people have more than one story.
01:35:41.000Isn't it funny, though, that, like, when you're dealing with, like, a giant company now, you're dealing with a bunch of people, you're used to just doing what you want and doing what you think is funny.
01:35:52.000When you do a podcast, when you do anything.
01:35:55.000But, like, When you actually have to cooperate with other people, and you have to have these conversations about the direction of the show, that's all a new thing for you.
01:39:30.000So that means anyone who listens to a podcast and listens to Howard Stern, just so you know, Howard Stern called you a loser for listening to podcasts as well.
01:39:36.000You gotta know how to take it to an act break.
01:42:23.000He might have some ideas that I don't agree with, like the podcasters are losers, but he's still, like that guy is like, if you go back and look at all the radio influences, like that guy's the number one radio guy of all time.
01:44:43.000And no one's worried that somehow or another, if they download the Skeptic Tank, that they're not going to download Duncan Trussell's Family Hour.
01:45:20.000Those iTunes rankings that came out when people started doing podcasts, everyone was interested at first, and then it became like, who cares?
01:45:52.000Maybe it's just for comedians, where it's like, when you're 60 and you're relevant to 60-year-olds, 60-year-olds don't go out to comedy clubs.
01:50:03.000There was like a movie they were playing or something like that.
01:50:05.000And I was in the back of the room and Carl LeBeau had the audience captivated.
01:50:09.000He was telling the story about how when he was broke and when he was down on his luck and his comedy career was going nowhere, you know, maybe his personal life, he had issues, like everything was all fucked up.
01:50:22.000But he showed up at the comedy store because he had the keys because he worked there.
01:50:25.000And he said, I'm just going to go sleep on the stage, man, because this is where I'm going to fucking make my dreams happen.
01:50:29.000I'm going to sleep right here on this stage.
01:50:31.000And so he said he went to sleep, and he's lying on the stage.
01:50:35.000And I'm so sorry if he gets offended at me telling a story.
01:53:11.000Yeah, but he was like, no, I think I'm going to use it for a special, but then no one gave him a special, and he's like, okay, I'll put it on something.
01:53:19.000But he's one of those guys, like, there's certain guys that are really funny, and they're material, like the subject matter.
01:53:26.000Becomes like just a scaffolding for funny for funny shit, and that's like with him like that guy She just keep putting things out as much as possible.
01:53:34.000Just build up this yeah crowd work album It's got podcasts and stuff, but it's like yeah, he needs more clips.
01:53:40.000Yeah, there's a good Crop of those guys out there now.
01:53:44.000There's like a real good crop of like really funny guys Him and Metzger, which I don't know if it's just because I made friends with them from the Nasty shows in Montreal.
01:53:51.000I did it one year, then two years later I did it again.
01:53:53.000And those guys were like the at my level guys who I hung out the most, you know?
01:54:30.000And so he's on a podcast and he cried about it.
01:54:32.000So then on his podcast that he's been doing for Legion of Skanks, they had a bunch of comics record videos for him, making fun of him crying.
01:57:09.000Duncan and I one time, when he was probably dating some vegan, this was like 10, 12 years ago, he knew PETA. I think his brother might have worked for PETA. We went down to some store, some high-priced store in Beverly Hills.
01:57:47.000So you're committed to never compromising and becoming a different person, like maybe perhaps someone who could host a talent show on television.
01:59:09.000Yeah, I bet you could have gotten a wider audience if you just started doing super safer shit then.
01:59:15.000Because you were on an NBC show, I bet you could have tracked all those people to come see you in a theater when you weren't doing theaters.
02:01:48.000And then you're just the greatest of all time, whoever reveres you, and then you get caught taking steroids at two different occasions during a training camp.
02:02:07.000Okay, but let me ask you a question, and you don't have to answer this at all.
02:02:10.000But why, who I love, Jon Jones, but why does he not get suspended for coke and Nick Diaz gets suspended every time for weed in a legal state?
02:02:34.000I think that's like a law thing that they should not test for.
02:02:36.000Well, maybe, but if you give somebody cocaine and they're in a fight and they're getting their ass kicked, or it's a really brutal fight and they're worn out, and you gave them cocaine like they believe happened with Aaron Pryor when he fought Alexis Arguello.
02:03:30.000And the question was, was there an illegal substance in that bottle, or was it just total coincidence that Aaron Pryor came out and destroyed him as a bottle that he mixed?
02:03:42.000I mean, it could have been coconut water.
02:05:23.000We should probably find that clip for the folks while they're listening here.
02:05:27.000Find the clip of Aaron Pryor, The Secret Bottle with Panama Lewis, because there's like a video of it.
02:05:35.000If you're a boxing historian, you might already know about this, because it's...
02:05:38.000Probably one of the most important like Controversies in the history another one is when Ali when Muhammad Ali was young He fought Henry Cooper who is this British gentleman who was an excellent fighter as well and Henry Cooper hit Ali with a fucking left hook that was on the button Sat him on his ass and really had him fucked up.
02:06:02.000I mean he was really hurt And in their corner, Angelo Dundee cut Ali's gloves.
02:07:32.000This is trying to, I don't know if somebody did this to try to protect his legacy or if they wanted to, you know, they were Muhammad Ali fans.
02:07:40.000They want to highlight the good stuff.
02:07:41.000But in between rounds, after Henry Cooper dropped him, his corner, they cut the gloves.
02:10:33.000They wanted that guy who's never been touched.
02:10:35.000Yeah, you don't want a guy that has a knockout loss.
02:10:39.000To me, it's so much more interesting when the champions, when they go back and forth, like it seemed like the Raging Bull days and stuff, where it's like, yeah, you have three, four, five losses, so does somebody else, but you guys are the best two in the world.
02:10:50.000You know, you've avenged all your losses.
02:11:13.000Delaying the start of the fifth round, Cooper has always insisted the delay lasted anywhere between three to five minutes and denied him the chance to try to knock out Klay.
02:11:21.000If he didn't even know what time it was, that's when they showed the replay in that clip.
02:11:25.000If he didn't know where he was, he would have been gone that next round.
02:11:29.000As soon as it started, he would have been out.
02:13:02.000Well, if a guy's not a destroyer like Tyson was in that video, you watch Tyson in that video smashing all those guys, he was just a different dude.
02:13:10.000Featherweights are good, though, because they fucking sprawl, but the heavyweights just hug.
02:13:16.000Well, Mayweather and Pacquiao will be exciting just because of the sheer magnitude of the historical event.
02:13:22.000I mean, that's a giant historical event, those two guys getting down finally.
02:13:26.000It'll be something that you watch just for that.
02:13:28.000But when it all is said and done, are you going to watch it a second time?
02:13:32.000I've watched a lot of MMA fights a second time and a third time.
02:13:35.000There's only a few boxing fights that I'll do that with.
02:13:38.000But this weekend they made a big play on NBC. They had NBC live fights.
02:15:22.000You, in a three-piece suit, because you have money now, and decide to go to Thailand and live up your dreams, which is to go to see an MMA fight or a Muay Thai fight with some Thai ladyboys.
02:16:29.000And for you, as a comic, it's like it represents what you really just sort of launched yourself.
02:16:37.000With hard work and focus, you just became a much better comic, and you started killing, and you started headlining on the road, and you started developing an audience, and through podcasts and all this shit, it's all just sort of come together, man.
02:16:50.000I have one or two bits in there that I'm like, fuck yeah, I'm really proud of those.