Comedian and martial arts black belt Jeff Ross joins Jemele to discuss being a black belt in Taekwondo, working for the UFC, and his new Netflix show "The Boxers" with Nick Jonas and the rest of the Jonas Brothers. Jeff and Jemele also discuss what it's like being a Black Belt and how it's helped him become a stand up comedian and how he got into the business. Jeff also talks about his new show, "The Jonas Brothers" and why he thinks it's one of the most underrated shows on TV right now. The Boxers is a new show on Netflix that focuses on the life and career of professional MMA fighter Nick Jonas. The show is based on the real life story of a man who started as a martial artist and became a professional fighter and now works as a stand-up comedian. It's a must-listen for anyone who doesn't know who Nick Jonas is or wants to know more about the world of MMA. The Jonas Brothers is a show you should definitely check out! Thanks to Jeff for being on the show and for being a part of the crew! If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about the show! We'll be looking out for you in the next episode! Thank you so much for supporting the show, we really appreciate it! - Jeff, Jemele, Jeff, and the team at The Jones' Podcast! Cheers, Jeff and the crew at The Boxer Podcasts. -Jonas, Jeff Ross, and The Jones at the UFC - The Jones Crew xoxo - The Best of the Week, - and the Jones' Crew at The UFC Podcasts - The Blood Brothers Podcast - Jon Jones at The Fight Game - and the Fight Game Podcast - and The Fight Room Podcast & the Fight Room at UFC 246 at UFC 232 at UFC 194 at The Roxy's . and much more! - and so much more!! - Cheers! - Thank you for listening to this episode of The Fight Club Podcast! - Jeff Ross and the Crew at the Fight Club! . . . and Thank you all for being here! and Thank You for being out here, Jon Jones , Thank You so much, Thank You, Jon and the UFC for being so much
00:06:39.000Was it just an adventure, or were you trying to cure something?
00:06:41.000Well, I'm curious, because I wanted to know what...
00:06:44.000Because I know a lot of fighters have used it and had very good results.
00:06:48.000Like, it's alleviated a lot of anxiety with them, given them a lot of confidence, and they've attributed it to a lot of their positive performances.
00:07:02.000All things said, if you add all the different things that a fighter has to be aware of, you have to be in shape, you have to know your techniques, you have to be motivated.
00:07:12.000There's a lot of stuff going on in a fighter's head that has to be lined up properly.
00:07:19.000Having someone who can hypnotize you and give you tenets to live by and pathways that you could follow that are positive, I think that's fucking super important for anybody, for fighters, for anybody.
00:08:15.000No, it's like a little bit like something that might happen in a sensory deprivation tank, because it seems like you go into this weird alternate state.
00:08:23.000And that's sort of how he describes it, that you're actually entering into an alternate state of consciousness, like a different mind state.
00:10:52.000Don't you think that when you're on stage and you're killing, when you're locked in, don't you think that's kind of like sort of a mass hypnosis in a lot of ways?
00:11:02.000I never thought about it that way, but I could see that.
00:11:05.000You know how like when you're in the middle of your material and you're locked in, you're tuned into the audience, the audience is tuned into you, and they're kind of thinking like you're thinking.
00:11:13.000I feel that way when I watch somebody.
00:11:15.000If I watch somebody really good, like I watched Burr the other night, he was hilarious.
00:11:19.000And I feel like when you watch someone as really good, you're tuning in to what they do.
00:12:08.000I've always said this, that when I'm at my best, I'm as much of a passenger as I am a driver.
00:12:15.000I kind of have to make the turns and steer the car and figure out which way the bits are going to go, but when I'm locked in, I feel like I'm just riding it.
00:12:48.000I remember hearing once how important...
00:12:50.000There was an article a long time ago, maybe it was in a book, about late-night hosts, and you have to listen.
00:12:56.000As soon as I stopped trying to think of jokes and just started to listen and trust that whatever I said would be entertaining in some way, eventually if I just stay in it and just listen to the other person...
00:13:10.000If a funny character is presented in front of me, if someone's boring, you might have to try to...
00:13:17.000Write a joke on the spot in your head, but if they're an interesting person, you could just talk to them and eventually it's gonna land on something funny.
00:13:25.000Yeah, that is a problem with some comics is that they're so in their own head that they don't listen to the person they're talking to.
00:13:30.000I had a lady on stage in Chicago and so speed roasting the crowd and gosh, she was like a really round person With a crazy yellow mohawk way over the top, and she was tiny little thing,
00:13:47.000but built like a little mailbox with a big mouth and just a funny, funny body, and she came on, just threw herself up on stage, wanted to be roasted, and I was like, he said, a lot of people,
00:14:03.000I think I said a lot of people couldn't Pull off that outfit and you're two of them.
00:15:02.000I do remember early instances of hecklers.
00:15:05.000Before I knew anything about roasting, I was just a comedian, you know, usually emceeing, you know, on the road or in Jersey, you know, where we had a lot of characters.
00:15:56.000Of course, Larry turned out to be the biggest asshole on the planet who doesn't love it at all.
00:16:01.000And he literally was gigantic and walked up on stage and took the microphone out of my hand, put it in the mic stand and said, you're done.
00:16:17.000I'm sure they weren't laughing enough.
00:16:20.000I just remember it being so hard, and it just builds up your...
00:16:24.000You have to have thick skin, and you've got to be able to, like, stare.
00:16:26.000You've got to have confidence that, you know, you're in the right.
00:16:32.000Well, you definitely would get a little bit more confidence having gone through martial arts, because you've done some difficult stuff, been involved with a little bit of conflict.
00:16:40.000I mean, I did karate tournaments as a kid, and...
00:16:45.000It's like you never feel more alive than when you're competing.
00:16:49.000And I love when comedy has a little tension to it.
00:16:52.000It doesn't have to be all about what I think.
00:16:54.000Sometimes I remember getting as heckling became more and more In the audiences, more and more you heard people heckling and there were famous instances of hecklers and audiences and stuff like that.
00:22:44.000I went to a Texas jail to roast the inmates to hear what I learned about incarceration in America.
00:22:49.000And then in the corner is a girl with her ass up in there.
00:22:51.000But it's also it wasn't just that it wasn't just this this article too, but also the little pieces that you had In the videos where you had like the stats like one and out of every 100 Americans is in jail And then there's more black men in jail right now than there were slaves in the 1800s fucking a man It's an emergency.
00:23:15.000It's an embarrassment to America when you think about that.
00:23:18.000If that many people are in jail and, you know...
00:23:54.000And as I started writing the act, I did a stand-up act for months just to acclimate myself and have an act that would kill in front of people that are locked up right now.
00:24:46.000And I'm sure a lot of the people that you were talking to, a lot of people that you were looking at, they were in there for some sort of non-violent drug crime.
00:27:51.000Contraband came in the form of books and magazines, such as a copy of Vanity Fair magazine featuring Caitlyn Jenner, LOL, and a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine featuring an interview with Manning.
00:28:02.000Oh wow, she's not allowed to have an interview with herself.
00:28:04.000But according to ChelseaManning.org, she received the reading material legally through the prison's open mail system.
00:28:15.000Just lock that person up and take away all their rights, all that's any privacy, any ownership they have over their own body or even what they want to read.
00:29:42.000Like, that's why this guy's locked up in an embassy.
00:29:44.000Do you imagine if every time a guy tried to cuddle with a chick and sneak it in without a rubber, that guy would get locked up in an embassy and be holed up there?
00:30:09.000Because I guess she was asleep, and they had already had sex, and they were, you know, cuddled together in this little spooning-type position, you know, dick to vajayjay right from behind.
00:30:40.000That Ashley Madison finally got leaked yesterday, so whoever did that, I'm sure is going to be the next one of these guys if they find out who it is.
00:30:48.000But that could just be a hacker, though.
00:30:50.000That could just be like the fappening people.
00:33:26.000There's a few people who have to agree.
00:33:29.000Wayne Dickey is the jail administrator at Brazos County Jail and he stepped up and had confidence in his institution and his facility and he wanted to He wanted everyone to see his staff and how great they were and to see how his inmate behavioral programs worked,
00:34:06.000I took that as a huge compliment that so many people did that.
00:34:10.000Not everybody, but most of the jail, more than half, came to my shows.
00:34:15.000And they were appreciative, and I felt that too.
00:34:20.000That's why the show came off, because not only were they good sports, but they knew what they were signing up for ahead of time, because they had a month's notice that I was coming there to roast them.
00:34:32.000And there were posters around the jail that said, you know, if you can laugh at yourself, you're one step closer to freedom.
00:38:02.000Something that I'm interested in or curious about or a fan of...
00:38:06.000You know, it's got to be something meaty, you know?
00:38:09.000I mean, I can riff if I don't, but if I'm invested in it somehow, like, with the jail, I thought, like, how did I, like, smoke so much pot and have so much fun in my life and never get in real trouble?
00:38:27.000And as I get personally curious and invested in something, I can start to see, find the hypocrisies that go into it and how the humanity can be lifted out of it.
00:38:39.000And I started to see that this is a sad place, and it's kind of like doing a USO tour.
00:38:44.000And I told that to the jailers when I met with them.
00:38:46.000I had to go down there and ask permission a couple times.
00:38:50.000And they had to trust me, you know, that I wasn't there to humiliate anybody or expose anything that was not just...
00:39:07.000And as I got into it, I realized how lucky I am that I never got in real trouble, that I never got busted for anything, and that if I had, I'm not sure I would have survived.
00:39:19.000Well, especially if you were selling pot.
00:39:28.000Like DEA agents go undercover, and they'll talk a kid into, like, listen, I'm going to put a deal together, you know, if you're a part of this.
00:39:35.000There was a story that they did in Rolling Stone about a DEA undercover agent who talked this kid into a big cocaine deal that wasn't real.
00:40:16.000But it's whatever the environment is that you're growing up in, dictate how bad your situation is, whatever you were exposed to, and that might be a factor in the level of your mistake.
00:40:28.000So the dumb mistakes that I made were the pretty...
00:40:49.000Just a much more chaotic situation with the same person, living in Inglewood, you know, whatever, Watts, Detroit, in some fucking hopeless place where you can't get out, and then next thing you know, you're in fucking jail.
00:41:02.000You're in jail, and you're gonna be in jail for five, six years, and during that time, you go from being 21 to 26, and now you're getting out, and you're a fucking, you're a man, and you're a convict, you can't get a fucking job, and you're just trying to figure out how to scratch and survive.
00:42:18.000The guard unions make sure that they keep certain drugs illegal and make sure that certain laws stay on the books and certain penalties are still in place.
00:42:29.000You know, I had this guy on the other day we were talking about, and he was saying that one of the only things that, like, keeps it from getting even worse is that the private prisons and the guard unions don't get along.
00:42:38.000Like, the guards want certain things that the prisons don't, because the prisons don't want to pay the guards, so there's a fucking, there's a little internal struggle.
00:42:45.000But if they worked together, it would be even worse.
00:42:55.000That's where I learned what Hooch was.
00:42:56.000Well, you went to jail for something you didn't even do.
00:42:59.000You are, out of all the dudes that I've ever met, out of all the guys that I've ever met who have run across crazy women that get really fucking angry at you when you break up.
00:43:10.000Every fucking girl you've ever dated since I've been friends with you, they get furious at you when it's over.
00:43:52.000I was thinking, like, I want to meet a girl that, like, every time she goes to Vegas to hang out with her friends, like, that she sends me a photo that I'm not looking at the wallpaper and then comparing it to, like, Dan Blitzerin's Instagram photos, you know?
00:44:05.000Like, I'm like, wait a second, it looks like the same cup on his nightstand as...
00:45:44.000You know, we're talking about this guy who goes by the Fat Jewish on Instagram, and I would follow him, and I'd see funny stuff on there, so I kind of knew about him.
00:45:54.000I didn't know a lot about how he collected his material.
00:46:18.000He was actively trying to make sure that he didn't show who created it and he just put it on his page so he didn't give credit to the people that made it.
00:46:54.000The internet, my entire career, I've never made money off all the millions of clips that are out there, millions of views, and people are always shooting comedians.
00:47:06.000You see a lot of comedians want to shut down phones at their shows because they don't want their half-written jokes on the internet, or they don't want the...
00:47:14.000They're fans to see their material without having to pay for it, either live at a show or buying their specials online.
00:47:28.000What do you mean by TV is restricted all the time?
00:47:30.000Well, you know, networks are trying to be edgier, but there's still bleeps, and there's still censorship, and there's all sorts of regulations.
00:47:41.000But with the internet, everyone always explained it as a wild, wild west.
00:47:45.000You know, you could just do whatever you want.
00:47:46.000Like, all the time you'll see people will make videos and compreels, and they'll edit famous movies, and you just use whatever footage, and no one ever cares.
00:47:55.000Then now people are starting to care a little bit.
00:47:57.000They're looking for ways the last five, ten years to monetize the Internet.
00:48:01.000And to me, it's coming very close to being how we watch everything.
00:48:18.000Programming and it's different brands and you go to those brands So I go at some point the regulations for the internet and television should be the same and they should be they should get together and it should just be Do you mean as a set of standards for now on but what do you mean by standards?
00:48:34.000Do you mean as far as the music rights and how it all goes down and the stuff we have to you know the I'm in the Writers Guild.
00:49:01.000I mean, it's all the same now at this point, and I feel like the internet needs to step it up, and they should be crediting stuff and paying for rights, and to some extent I think it's happening, and I think that's good.
00:49:34.000All he's doing is collecting all the shit that's online and instead of the actual writers of each one of those individual bits getting some credit, All the credit's going to him.
00:49:44.000So now what he's doing, what this guy who calls himself the Fat Jewish is doing, is he just puts the guy's name at the end, or the girl's name at the end.
00:49:52.000So he steals their picture, puts it up on his site, and instead of saying, this picture was made by Jeff Ross, the real Jeff Ross, it now just has...
00:50:02.000Just a tag, you know, at, and then whoever's name it is, with no mention of where, you know, like, that this person created this originally.
00:50:10.000It just, it just throws their name up there.
00:50:13.000Like, all you have to do is, this hilarious meme was created by, boom!
00:50:17.000And then that person gets credit, that person probably happy, they'll get a shitload of fucking people will come to visit them, and sign up, and follows.
00:50:25.000And I did notice he sort of does it at the end of whatever the new comment is, so it almost looks like the person he wants to give credit to is actually giving credit for the comment, not the picture.
00:52:47.000And there's another website that's doing it also.
00:52:49.000But if you just Google him, there's a lot of message boards that have been talking about him for years and breaking down everything he's stolen.
00:53:53.000The internet is, I don't know, it's for amateurs or something still.
00:53:56.000We've got to figure out how to make it.
00:53:57.000But how do you, I mean, Brian, rather, did a great job of actually finding the original image and finding the time the original image was posted in the day.
00:54:22.000Yeah, it kind of sucks because if we want regulations, if we want to change how it is now, what's going to happen is it's like when you have a YouTube video and it detects that there's copyright material in it.
00:54:35.000So now anytime we want to post like a photo on our Facebook or tweet something, we're going to have like a block and we kind of don't want that.
00:54:42.000You can't fuck with the internet, man.
00:55:04.000Of a fake photo, stock photo of someone else's abs shredded and said, you know, this is my stomach after 4,500 calories a day and no working out.
00:55:50.000If there was really a way that you can get a body like that guy's without ever working out, you would have to be some sort of a genetic manipulation.
00:56:26.000I put less jokes on the internet than I used to.
00:56:29.000I put less jokes on Twitter than I used to because I want my best material for when you come see me live and that's a much more unique and exciting experience.
00:56:38.000People get mad sometimes if you talk about something on the podcast, even if you bring up the subject and then have a bit about it on stage.
00:56:44.000Oh, you were talking about that on the podcast.
00:59:12.000I've toned it down more on Twitter than I used to, like making fun of people or attacking people on Twitter.
00:59:20.000I used to be, I think back in the early days of your message board and stuff, we used to have kind of fun having online battles with people.
00:59:53.000You know, I tweeted something the other day.
00:59:57.000And this guy, he's up for, he might go to jail in Canada, because he's been tweeting at this girl, and apparently there was some agreement that he wouldn't tweet at her anymore, but he used to be on her side.
01:00:09.000I think he actually even did some artwork with her, but she's like this radical feminist, and she took him to court.
01:00:19.000And it was even sometimes, she would write something about him, and the fact that he responded to her about him, she was saying he was harassing her.
01:00:45.000I didn't have any editorial control over it.
01:00:48.000And so many fucking people were angry at me, saying that I'm a misogynist, and why would I post this?
01:00:55.000It's a woman in the video, an older woman in the video, who's talking about this case.
01:01:00.000So it's a woman's video about a woman who's suing a man, and the man might go to jail because the man was tweeting at a woman who didn't want him to tweet at her.
01:02:16.000There's this MTV celebrity, and I don't want to say who she is, but she's always on TMZ, and it's always her being like, don't you know who I am?
01:02:25.000And getting arrested, and she's just like this privileged white girl celebrity from MTV. And I tweeted her something, because recently she hit a cop or something like that, and they're drunk and they're just recording her outside of a club.
01:02:41.000Handcuffed and I tweeted or something and it got a lot of retweets and Last night I was at this thing and she was there staring me down.
01:02:50.000I can't do this She's gonna attack me right now.
01:02:52.000And I was that's one of those things that I wish I never tweeted that because now she knows like She's an enemy.
01:02:59.000Yeah, she's an enemy for no reason like it was just me like dude I should have said that you know to myself instead of tweeting it and Yeah, you could do that.
01:03:07.000You could definitely create little enemies, you know, by tweeting something you think is going to be funny or going to get a big rise.
01:05:59.000Where you come in on a four or five instead of at a zero.
01:06:03.000You're coming in hot already, you know?
01:06:06.000And I was thinking about that while I'm in yoga class.
01:06:09.000I was like, there's times where my reaction to the thing is not entirely warranted by the situation itself, but is more dealing with all the different shit that I've got going on in my life.
01:06:21.000This is what I think, and this might be crazy, but I think this is part of the problems with police brutality and some of the mistakes that cops have made is they come in hot.
01:06:33.000Their job is tough and other stuff's going on, and then you come from one thing to another, and they warrant different things.
01:06:42.000Rules and disciplines and danger levels, but they're coming in not knowing or, you know, fired up.
01:06:52.000Their blood pressure, I've talked to cops, especially in New York and Chicago, where they're on blood pressure medication and their families are stressed out and their job is more intense than it ever has been.
01:09:14.000That had two floors and one floor was above the water looking down But the first floor was like the water would go right under the fucking bedroom Like you would see the waves come in and you would hear them crash underneath you and it was dark and I'm looking out this window and I was high as fuck I was looking out this window.
01:10:04.000Look how beautiful it is just to be like...
01:10:07.000Next to this alien world, this beautiful alien world, and I'd see sea lions or seals or whatever the fuck they are, and birds, and occasionally you'd see a fish splash around.
01:13:05.000You walk into Artie Lang's house in the Jersey Shore, and if he didn't tell me he lived there, I would think, like, Mary Lou Henner lived there or something.
01:13:12.000It's immaculately decorated, perfect nautical-themed white pillows everywhere.
01:17:28.000He's pretty studly, except for his little cock.
01:17:32.000I wonder if people really did have little dicks back then, or if they just made them have little dicks so that everybody looking at the sculptures didn't feel bad.
01:17:40.000Because, like, look at that guy's dick.
01:17:42.000That's an enormous man with a fat guy's dick.
01:17:45.000That is like a mushroom cap, and the guy looks huge.
01:18:06.000For some reason, we're looking at this guy's back that is insanely muscular, and it's a sculpture, but his ass cheeks are a little too big, and he's holding something in his hands.
01:18:16.000Are you going to play your Nick Jonas Gilforet gif?
01:18:19.000Come on, look at the muscles on that guy's back.
01:18:21.000He looks like Vanderlei Silva when he was fighting in Pride.
01:22:13.000And it's a very fancy Upper East Side Christmas party for charity fundraiser thing, and I walk in and there's like a...
01:22:20.000You know, people, tuxedos, taking your coat when you come in and very handing out hors d'oeuvres and big, beautiful home, fireplace, Christmas music.
01:22:33.000And I look over at the people, the coat check people.
01:22:35.000It's like two, three people just sitting there and Chris Rock.
01:22:39.000He would rather talk to the coat check people than these fancy people.
01:23:47.000It was like the best day of my life just because I saw a comedian that I knew yeah I've been in that situation before it's cool those situations are cool when you you know you have that camaraderie you run into someone that you know yeah the old days baby I used to do news radio right next to...
01:24:06.000Greg Giraldo had a sitcom for a while.
01:24:08.000And Giraldo's sitcom would be right next to him.
01:24:23.000We'd talk about it, and he'd talk about how frustrating it was, because, you know, trying to do his show his way, all the producers and every, you know, the network and all the jazz that you have to deal with when you're trying to put together a sitcom.
01:24:35.000It was like, you know, I just run into...
01:25:29.000Just comics running into each other at an airport.
01:25:32.000A podcast that just gets randomly connected with another comic that just happens to be at the same airport.
01:25:37.000Well, if you did that, you know, like, for real, if you wanted to do a show, say, like, Dallas is a big port, there's always big ports, and you set up a podcast studio in that port and said, you know, we'll be here...
01:26:23.000Like, we'd sit next to each other and get a massage, talk some shit, have the microphone looking up at us as those Asian ladies are rubbing your back.
01:29:30.000I got dehydrated and couldn't after a bunch of shows and traveling and not drinking enough water and over-caffeinating to make up for not sleeping and being nervous.
01:30:11.000You were saying that doing the prison was a lot like doing a USO gig.
01:30:15.000In that you're bringing laughs where there normally aren't any, and it's politics and all that, and whether people deserve a show and all that, you can just put that aside for a second.
01:30:25.000As a comedian, just going in and that challenge of making people laugh that are miserable, I love that.
01:30:48.000I remember being early in my career seeing Buddy Hackett perform.
01:30:52.000I didn't know him, but I knew his son Sandy, and Sandy let me come by myself at the end of a run in Atlantic City, and Buddy was there the next day, so I stayed an extra day to see the Buddy Hackett show.
01:31:04.000It was kind of a late afternoon, early Sunday show, and I remember Buddy right out of the gate Saw some lady taking notes.
01:31:14.000She was a reporter and he didn't know about it ahead of time or whatever.
01:31:18.000He called her a cunt right in literally the first 45 seconds of walking on stage and just the whole audience.
01:31:27.000She tried to say, I'm from the so-and-so Herald and he just wouldn't hear it and he just called her a cunt and he just put a really weird vibe in the room right out of the gate and You know, eventually the show, you know, went on and it was amazing.
01:31:45.000But literally a decade later, Buddy became a very close pal and I could ask him anything.
01:31:51.000And I said, you'd never remember this, man, but like 10 years ago in Atlantic City at the Trumpat Castle or whatever, some lady, you know, he's like, well, I go, why would you do that?
01:32:01.000Like right away, just for no reason, just...
01:32:04.000Could you imagine what might have been happening in your head, buddy?
01:32:07.000And he's like, oh, I do that all the time.
01:32:09.000I like to dig myself a hole just to make it interesting.
01:33:11.000You have an idea, and you're trying to figure out which way to take it.
01:33:14.000But sometimes you jazz it up too much with performance, but not enough with substance.
01:33:18.000And you just kind of try to figure out what's the line between those two things.
01:33:23.000It holds you up sometimes when you know you got something and you're developing it and you have a couple of tent poles that maybe you won't need once the whole thing's built.
01:34:09.000You know, and when you create a new bit, sometimes you do have those dance moves.
01:34:14.000Sometimes you do have those, and sometimes I'll just chop them down and leave, and I'll start it out good, and I'll just hope there's a pathway that opens up in my brain when I'm in the moment and contemplating the bit.
01:34:27.000Where I know there's a lull there and I know I gotta dig myself out of the lull.
01:34:56.000When I was beginning, this is good for beginning comics, you have a bit that's okay, and you kind of like it, but it doesn't quite work.
01:35:05.000And I went back to old notebooks, or it just came back to me one night, and you become a better performer, and you can sell a different type of bit.
01:35:13.000It's more in your new voice, or you can just sell it better, or you know the English better, like you say.
01:35:20.000And you go back to an idea that you weren't ready for.
01:35:57.000Just get somebody like Jamie or Brian to do it.
01:36:00.000Sorry I don't have a fucking remodeled garage that I can put up three pictures of Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, and I'm still trying to figure out...
01:38:00.00024-year-old Joey whatever has captured the hearts of more than 4 million teens and young adults through his playful, sweet, and inspirational YouTube presence, not to mention his sparkling eyes and perfect hair.
01:38:14.000This is like a book about him and he has this on the back of his cover.
01:38:18.000Yet Joey wasn't always comfortable in his skin, and in this candid memoir, he thoughtfully looks back on his journey from pain to pride, self-doubt to self-acceptance.
01:41:02.000There's photos of him as a young kid, totally white, but talked about his struggles of being an African-American, how he was always bullied, and throws a lot of pictures up, I guess, that are...
01:41:43.000That seems like a natural progression of the way people think.
01:41:48.000Weird people like this are going to crop up.
01:41:50.000Well, this guy that I really like, Milo Yiannopoulos, I'm not exactly sure how to say his last name correctly, but it's Nero, N-E-R-O, on Twitter.
01:42:07.000He does these interview shows, and he's always saying logical things and having logical arguments against feminists.
01:42:15.000If you like Google some of these, Milo Yiannopoulos, and they can't fucking say anything about him because he's gay and he has blonde hair and he's super articulate.
01:42:28.000So because he doesn't look like, you know, like one of the guys from Jersey Shore, he's not like, you know, a lot of these guys that are representing men's rights, they kind of look douchey.
01:42:37.000You know, they kind of look like bros.
01:42:40.000And he's open about it, and he's fabulous, and he's got a great vocabulary.
01:42:45.000But when he's describing, or when he's giving these arguments and debating, rather, these women, he's crushing them.
01:42:52.000Because he was talking about diversity in science, and he's like, well, the cold hard truth is, it's not that women are discouraged from doing science.
01:43:00.000It's that a lot of them aren't attracted to it.
01:43:01.000Men and women have different states of mind.
01:43:04.000And boys and girls, when they're young, if you give them, like, equal access to toys, boys naturally will gravitate towards, like, trucks and cars, and girls will naturally gravitate towards dolls.
01:43:40.000I mean, it's just so ridiculous, this biological determinism.
01:43:44.000Frankly, you know, interests and talent and, you know, passions for particular topics, subjects, sports, arts, whatever, like, they're not relegated to either gender, but unfortunately, because of some stereotypical thinking...
01:44:02.000Often, one gender is encouraged to pursue a sport or an art more so than the other.
01:44:20.000And actually, what she found out is that they're dropping out at the age of 12. Probably because, you know, they're not encouraged or, you know, there's an environment around telling them that it's not for them, it's not cool, etc, etc.
01:44:32.000So, you know, this hardwired brain stuff, like, it's retro sexism.
01:44:39.000So Milo Yiannopoulos, does he matter if men and women are wired differently, have different skills?
01:44:46.000No, it doesn't matter in the sense that they are equal but different, but it simply isn't true to say that there is no difference whatsoever between the aptitudes of men and women.
01:44:55.000And it is without question true that there are some biological differences between men and women, and we know that from our anatomy.
01:45:02.000But we also know it from experiments that we do on young children, before they've had the opportunity to be socialized, the sorts of toys that they go for.
01:45:10.000And that holds true, actually, for other bits of the animal kingdom as well.
01:45:12.000Some of the reason why girls drop out of STEM subjects at college and chess clubs is because they keep losing.
01:45:19.000And one of the reasons they keep losing is that it does seem to be the case that chess as a game plays to some of the male intellectual virtues.
01:45:26.000And when Simon Baron-Cohen talks about these, the way he describes it is men are good at systematizing And women are good at empathizing.
01:45:33.000And there is some reason to suppose that that may have some basis in biology.
01:45:37.000It's very trendy these days to say that everything is socially determined, but that's not what the science says.
01:45:42.000And it's not either what common sense says, because if it were true, these days there would be a lot more representation of women in the sciences, in astrophysics, in philosophy, in mathematics, and in chess.
01:46:03.000It's not saying that men are better or women are better, but the idea that there's no difference between us and biological determinism is bullshit.
01:48:32.000You know, very formal, you know, the whole thing.
01:48:34.000Bunch of creepy one-percenters on Adderall.
01:48:38.000But very, very elegant and, in the end, very appreciative crowd.
01:48:44.000And I roasted them at the Friars Club once, and I roasted them on Comedy Central once.
01:48:51.000I remember him not laughing at all for like three comedians, and I went up to him during the commercial break, and I'm like, Donald, you have to at least smile so we have something to cut to other than other people laughing at you.
01:49:02.000And he's like, oh, okay, I get it now.
01:49:04.000So he's sort of smiling and enjoying himself a little bit.
01:50:05.000If he goes independent, he could be Ross Perot-ing this motherfucker.
01:50:09.000Ross Perot sunk the ship of Herbert Walker Bush because everybody was torn between who to vote for.
01:50:17.000There was the libertarian people that would have maybe possibly voted more fiscally conservative, so they would have gone with the Republicans.
01:50:22.000Instead, they went with Ross Perot because he was laying it down how the taxes were and what the fuck was actually going on.
01:50:28.000Whereas, that opened the door for Clinton.
01:50:32.000What do you think about Bernie Sanders?
01:50:45.000Don't you know how much more it costs to go to war than it costs to educate people?
01:50:48.000Don't you think it would be better if we had less people that were uneducated in this country or if we had less people that were leaving college in fucking massive debt?
01:50:57.000If you're a kid, okay, if you're 18 to 21 years old, which is most people that are in college, You don't need to be saddled down with hundreds of thousands of dollars in education debt.
01:51:39.000Like it takes you forever to make that money because you don't just make the hundreds of thousands of dollars, you gotta make a living too.
01:51:45.000And incentivize you to deal with the system the way it is and not adapt to some new health plan in this country or whatever.
01:57:15.000Anyway, we did a show at Club Soda, and then outside, Dave just starts, just like, gather round, gather round, and he starts doing stand-up.
01:57:26.000Dave and I both lived on the sides of that park, and we used to watch Charlie all the time, and then I think when Charlie passed away, Dave kind of took over that mantle in the fountain on the weekends, and sometimes during the week, and he really found his voice, I think, in that park.
01:58:05.000When you were out, you were present in the moment and you were loving every second of it.
01:58:10.000Dave and I would hang around Washington Square Park and try to talk to NYU girls who were studying and whatever we could do and find some weed and we would brainstorm and write jokes and we'd eat lunch in the park and listen to music.
01:58:23.000There was always the acrobats were in the park and Master Lee, a karate comic, would come and Charlie Barnett, this guy that was just hilarious, would, you know, like you said, he would jump up on the fountain and Showtime!
01:59:43.000It's interesting that he had that style, you know, that that style influenced a lot of people.
01:59:48.000That style of like doing street comedy, you know, just gathering a crowd out of nowhere.
01:59:54.000I never had the guts to go on outside like that, but Chappelle watched him and watched him and watched him and Charlie sort of bringing him up every now and then.
02:00:02.000He'd let him do a few minutes and Eventually, Dave, that just became one of his chapters.
02:00:10.000Charlie was loud and his jokes were really short.
02:00:15.000Dave was more soft-spoken and his jokes were longer.
02:00:19.000So to see that in the park was fascinating because the park had to come to Dave a little bit and you really saw, at least I really saw, Having hung out there every night that every day, you know, sometimes Dave would do a few couple shows on a Sunday in the park and he'd make real fans and he got a real sense of who he was right there doing that.
02:00:41.000I mean, it was magic to see a young genius in the middle of the public, just being him and having the public come to him, gravitate to him.
02:00:55.000It was a once-in-a-lifetime thing to see.
02:04:25.000And there was this huge crowd of people and he was just walking by and he just looked over at me for some reason, just walked up to me and goes, hey kid!
02:04:32.000And he signed my little paper thing and then just walked away.
02:04:37.000Didn't take anyone else's photos or sign anyone else's shit.
02:05:31.000Were there that many old comics that are still kicking around in L.A.? Well, you know, there's always an old comic, you know.
02:05:39.000It might not be from the Dean Martin Friars, you know, Celebrity Roast era, but there's always a new old comic.
02:05:48.000Have you ever seen some of the memorabilia they have laying around the store from back when it used to be Ciro's and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis used to perform there?
02:06:15.000But there was a tunnel that went from the Comedy Store up the hill to a house that, like, people could escape through or they could fucking move shit to.
02:06:23.000You know, the Comedy Store is just filled with catacombs and it's just fucking so clustered and confusing if you don't know your way around that place.
02:06:29.000If you're some cop and you're looking for Meyer Lansky and he fucking just skirts out the back and...
02:10:11.000But you're kind of living a dream, you know, the way you do it.
02:10:14.000I see you taking pictures, like, there was a picture of you the other day with Ray Romano in the cellar, and then boom, all of a sudden you're at the store.
02:10:21.000You know, like, you just hop back and forth, and Ari's doing that, too.
02:12:43.000I asked my Uncle Murray, he was coming out to visit a couple years ago, I said, if he could meet anybody, he's never been to LA, been all over the world, he's a Purple Heart, Silver Star recipient, World War II Army medic, helped liberate a concentration camp, dined all over the world,
02:12:59.000best restaurants in the world, was a caterer, had a great life, outlived two wives, loved them both, he's never been to LA. I said, what do you want to do?
02:13:08.000If he could meet, do anything, what would he do?
02:13:10.000He's like, I'd like to meet Mel Brooks.
02:13:12.000I was like, well, what's your second choice?
02:13:25.000And I knew where his office was, and I knew Mel a little bit, because I'd sat in Sid Caesar's house for different holidays and birthdays, and he'd always pop in with Carl Reiner.
02:13:36.000Even when Sid was frail and old, Mel and Carl would make a big entrance.
02:13:42.000Mel would lean right into Sid's wheelchair.
02:14:16.000And, you know, my uncle's having the best time.
02:14:18.000But, man, he did say, you know, months ago, that would be the one thing where the creme de la creme would be, you know, just a handshake and a photo with Mel Brooks.
02:14:27.000I'm a little embarrassed, so I go into the bathroom and I call Mel's office because I don't want my uncle to hear me, even though he's 90, you know?
02:14:34.000And I'm like, just make sure you got the letter, you know, following up.
02:14:39.000I'm just like being as humble and, yeah, yeah, Mel's been out of town.
02:14:45.000I'll see if I can get an answer to it.