Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes - Get Off My Lawn Podcast #11 | As a cop, I've seen things that would make you crap a book on how to puke

00:00:01.000 As a cop, I've seen things that would make you crap a book on how to puke.

00:00:09.000 That's my favorite line in a sitcom ever.

00:00:12.000 I believe it was written by Dan Harmon.

00:00:15.000 It's from the Sarah Silverman Show.

00:00:17.000 Or was it called the Sarah Silverman Project?

00:00:20.000 I talked to Sarah about that quote and she didn't know who it was.

00:00:25.000 They had a team of writers.

00:00:26.000 Dan Harmon was the most prolific back then.

00:00:29.000 He was fired because he's impossible to work with and I was fired from the TV industry because I'm impossible to work with.

00:00:38.000 That's what I want to base today's podcast on.

00:00:41.000 I've had a whole career in television and there's very few successful people in TV but there's a lot of unsuccessful people who make a good living.

00:00:55.000 I mean if I had a, I haven't checked my IMDB, I guess because it's mostly pilots, but if I just lived in LA and my TV career was the only thing I'd ever done, writing pilots, and yeah, not acting, although I've had sort of an acting career too, but just writing pilots, pitching pilots, I'd be like a lower middle class guy, family man.

00:01:20.000 Uh, and that's the weird thing about TV.

00:01:23.000 It's sort of like the music business before MP3s, where there's just money floating around.

00:01:30.000 They're signing all these crappy bands, hoping they'll get a Celine Dion.

00:01:35.000 And so I was one of those crappy bands. 0.93

00:01:38.000 And I think it's, millennials have this disdain for entrepreneurs that's very unhealthy for the country. 0.72

00:01:44.000 That they talk about how they want to end capitalism, smash capitalism, it's time for communism. 0.99

00:01:51.000 And you go, guys, you have to, being an entrepreneur sucks. 0.84

00:01:56.000 It's 12 failures for every success. 0.97

00:01:59.000 And in many cases, it's 12 failed careers for every success.

00:02:06.000 And you have to just take it on the chin.

00:02:07.000 Now, it's sort of like being a cop.

00:02:10.000 It's a job that sucks, being an entrepreneur, and you don't, you know, you don't want to be carried on people's shoulders, but you just, you appreciate a little tip of the hat.

00:02:19.000 Hey Gavin, you had an entire career in TV that nosedived and never went anywhere. 0.79

00:02:24.000 It's a failure.

00:02:26.000 Thank you.

00:02:28.000 Thank you for going out there, flying to LA a hundred times,

00:02:33.000 Over the course of 20 years and trying your hand at TV and failing miserably.

00:02:40.000 Thank you for that.

00:02:41.000 Because that means the other guys who did it are better at it and we got better TV.

00:02:46.000 You know, culling the herd and all that.

00:02:50.000 But my career started in, it's funny talking about a failed career, it's like talking about a divorce.

00:02:58.000 Like I was taking notes, and I was looking up some old files, which aren't even on my desktop, I found them as mail attachments of old scripts and stuff, and I went, oh my god, I totally forgot about that whole thing!

00:03:09.000 There was like 50 different scenes I was in.

00:03:13.000 Now you might, this is also about you getting into it.

00:03:18.000 Uh, I hope that my story encourages you, but I'll go, I'll jump to the very end as far as you go.

00:03:26.000 Don't do this.

00:03:27.000 Don't pursue this.

00:03:29.000 If you want to make a TV show, I think you should do it the workaholics way where you just make it, you make it crappy on your own and then you, um,

00:03:41.000 That has its own following and then when you're pitching it to Comedy Central or whatever.

00:03:45.000 There's already three seasons in the tank I believe that was the deal with workaholics and the beauty of that too is

00:03:51.000 They can't change it.

00:03:53.000 They can't say, what if this guy was... Because they have no idea what they're doing, by the way, these people, the top brass of TV, all these execs that you talk to. 0.84

00:04:01.000 They're all incompetent.

00:04:03.000 I'd say, with the exception of maybe three, like Kent Alterman, the guy running Comedy Central, at least he was when I last checked, he's a hilarious dude. 0.64

00:04:14.000 I think he did Strangers with Candy, which is probably the greatest show ever.

00:04:19.000 You should check it out.

00:04:20.000 Amy Sedaris plays a high school student who's in her 40s.

00:04:25.000 And Stephen Colbert is in it, back when he was amusing.

00:04:30.000 Anyway, Kent Alterman knows what he's doing.

00:04:32.000 Before Kent, you had Lauren Correo.

00:04:32.000 He's about it.

00:04:38.000 And she was known in the comedy scene as the killer of comedy. 1.00

00:04:41.000 She was the head of programming at Comedy Central for most of the time I was trying to pitch to them before Kent.

00:04:47.000 And I believe she just got the job because she was head of sales for South Park. 0.80

00:04:52.000 South Park run Comedy Central.

00:04:54.000 They are more important than any CEO there.

00:04:57.000 Oh, that reminds me of Kenny's story.

00:05:02.000 Yeah.

00:05:06.000 So because she was head of sales, when South Park exploded and became more valuable than Comedy Central itself, they got to just put anyone remotely associated with it got the top spots.

00:05:16.000 So they said, hey, sales lady, you're the head of programming. 1.00

00:05:19.000 So now all of a sudden, some chick who does sales is deciding what's funny or not. 1.00

00:05:24.000 And again, she's not funny. 0.58

00:05:26.000 Isn't that bizarre?

00:05:29.000 I mean, I guess coaches can't necessarily play football, but

00:05:33.000 If you're running programming at a comedy network, you should be funny, I believe. 0.99

00:05:40.000 So anyway, these people are incompetent.

00:05:42.000 So while you're pitching your show, you're dealing with unfunny people, and it's a total roll of the dice if they're gonna, you know, sign you or not. 0.90

00:05:52.000 Okay, a pilot.

00:05:54.000 But the beauty of having previously made shows is,

00:05:59.000 It's a solid thing and you can see it works.

00:06:01.000 And plus, you've ironed out the kinks. 0.95

00:06:03.000 You've noticed from the comments or whatever that people don't like this particular character.

00:06:10.000 And you've fleshed out plot lines.

00:06:13.000 You've developed arcs organically.

00:06:16.000 And that's what I really hate about these pitches too, is they need to know the arc.

00:06:20.000 You feel like going, whatever, we'll figure it out.

00:06:23.000 What was Jerry Seinfeld's arc?

00:06:25.000 How did he grow?

00:06:29.000 By the way, I also feel the same way about books.

00:06:31.000 The way you get a book deal these days is you spend six months on the proposal and it should have like five chapters written and you have to do this long story about why you're writing the book.

00:06:42.000 I mean, it's thick.

00:06:44.000 It's maybe a third of a book in and of itself.

00:06:48.000 And at that point I go, just write the book.

00:06:51.000 And then if the publishers aren't going to give you a big advance, like say more than $40,000, then just do it yourself on Amazon and you get 50% of the sales.

00:06:51.000 Just write a book.

00:07:02.000 So, publishing is over and I think TV is over.

00:07:06.000 I think it's up to you to do.

00:07:08.000 Now, my one big piece of advice for you shooting it yourself, I know you're doing it on a shoestring, is audio.

00:07:16.000 You need mics.

00:07:18.000 You need lavs.

00:07:20.000 I don't care how cheap your camera is.

00:07:21.000 I don't care how bad your filming is. 1.00

00:07:23.000 If the audio sucks and you're just using the ambient noise of the room, like there's just a, whatever the directional mic is on the camera, you're an idiot and a loser and you don't deserve to have a show. 1.00

00:07:36.000 But I went the old route. 1.00

00:07:39.000 I was coming from the old school, uh, when I did my TV career and, uh,

00:07:50.000 So it started with Vice, actually. 0.96

00:07:50.000 It sucked. 0.96

00:07:54.000 We were just losers in Montreal. 0.99

00:07:56.000 And I saw there was an article recently about orgies and stuff with Vice back in the day, and how we would have sex with our employees. 0.97

00:08:05.000 Before we moved to New York, we didn't have any employees.

00:08:08.000 It was me, Shane, and Saroosh living in our loft and working in the same place.

00:08:13.000 So my bed was six feet from my desk.

00:08:19.000 We only got employees after we got money, and we only got money after we got bought, and when we got bought we went to New York immediately.

00:08:25.000 It was a test.

00:08:26.000 He wanted to see if we had balls enough to leave. 0.98

00:08:28.000 Yes! 0.97

00:08:29.000 I'm not married.

00:08:32.000 But, Richard Sawinski was this eccentric billionaire who bought us, and moved us to New York, and he said, he had a really high-pitched voice, and he said, Guys!

00:08:42.000 He was a nerd, who got involved in CGI early, and then the company that he invested in, I believe they're called Animalogic, they ended up doing Jurassic Park, and won all these awards, and they became worth hundreds of millions.

00:08:42.000 He's a weird dude.

00:08:53.000 He was their guy.

00:08:57.000 So he was worth a bundle of money.

00:09:00.000 So he was a nerd with glasses with a high-pitched voice, but he would wear Gucci suits and stuff.

00:09:05.000 One time we wanted coffee, so we bought a $10,000 espresso machine. 0.94

00:09:09.000 I mean, he was nuts.

00:09:11.000 I liked him, though.

00:09:11.000 He was fun.

00:09:12.000 I mean, nuts in a good way.

00:09:13.000 So he goes, bring out to me a multi-channel brand!

00:09:18.000 So I want you guys not just to be a magazine, I want everything!

00:09:22.000 TV, furniture, stores, a clothing line, movie theater, TV!

00:09:30.000 It's a good concept.

00:09:31.000 It's a smart move that we hadn't thought of.

00:09:35.000 Because you're already interviewing these people, so you might as well have a camera there.

00:09:40.000 Now you've got a show.

00:09:42.000 And we had a very unique take on things. 1.00

00:09:45.000 My motto was smart in a stupid way, stupid in a smart way. 1.00

00:09:48.000 So if you're going to go to Israel and talk about the conflict with the Palestinians, you make that whole thing about where to find a good cheeseburger in Jerusalem. 1.00

00:09:57.000 That's it.

00:09:59.000 Because the background will be, you know, people with Kalashnikovs or whatever guns they have, M16s, all these, you know, when you walk around Israel, everyone has their gun because the worst thing that could happen is your gun to get stolen and used in a terrorist act.

00:10:12.000 So when you're in the military, your gun is like a teddy bear.

00:10:15.000 You sleep with it, you bring it to a dance party.

00:10:18.000 You bring it on a date.

00:10:18.000 You'll see two teens on a date with these machine guns around their necks.

00:10:23.000 We're wearing like a suit and a gown.

00:10:25.000 Anyway, that will be in the background.

00:10:27.000 So we already got that message.

00:10:28.000 Now just make it about cheeseburgers. 1.00

00:10:31.000 Conversely, if you're doing something like the Vice Guide to Shit, 0.99

00:10:36.000 You don't just have like, this one's called a stinker, woo! 0.99

00:10:40.000 You have, you talk to doctors and scientists and about colonons and, and you know, get super serious and make it a definitive guide that a doctor would go, wow, that's really conclusive. 1.00

00:10:52.000 Smart in a stupid way, stupid in a smart way. 0.99

00:10:55.000 So that's a good kind of a brand. 1.00

00:10:59.000 We did clothing. 0.70

00:11:00.000 That sucked. 0.91

00:11:01.000 Way too competitive. 0.97

00:11:03.000 We did retail.

00:11:03.000 That was brutal.

00:11:05.000 Way too competitive.

00:11:06.000 We didn't do restaurants, although I did that later and failed miserably.

00:11:09.000 But anyway, I gotta do, they said, why don't you do TV?

00:11:13.000 Okay. 0.98

00:11:15.000 So I did a pilot that sucked balls. 0.99

00:11:17.000 It was really bad. 0.98

00:11:19.000 And I brought it to MTV.

00:11:20.000 I can't remember exactly how I got the meeting at MTV.

00:11:23.000 Because I know you're listening if you're into this and you go, how do I get through the door?

00:11:26.000 What's the first meeting?

00:11:27.000 My meeting at MTV was with a very low guy.

00:11:31.000 This is 99 or 2000.

00:11:32.000 And I was sort of like, he could have been an intern, basically.

00:11:36.000 And so it was someone they pawn off the loser meetings to, and I definitely was a loser.

00:11:40.000 When I think of the thing I had made, it had stuff from the magazine like a gross jar and it had Derek Beckles eating a goldfish and it was just weak.

00:11:49.000 100% on me, by the way.

00:11:52.000 So we go there, just me, I go there.

00:11:54.000 And I show him the thing and I say, it's on a VHS tape by the way, this is how long ago that was.

00:12:01.000 And he goes, let me show you something.

00:12:03.000 And he puts in a tape and he shows me a guy getting shot in the chest with a bulletproof vest on.

00:12:13.000 And I think it's an illegal gun, because after they do it, they go, let's go, let's go, go!

00:12:16.000 And they take the vest off.

00:12:17.000 And he had these guys doing other things.

00:12:19.000 And it was the dudes from Big Brother, a skateboard magazine.

00:12:22.000 And it was this guy named Johnny Knoxville and his friends from the skateboard magazine were doing just what they usually do, but recording it, like jumping off a ladder onto a bed of nails or whatever, a bed of tacks, and breaking bottles on their heads.

00:12:36.000 And he goes, this is the kind of thing we're interested in.

00:12:38.000 And I just looked at him and went, out of my league!

00:12:42.000 Like, this is unbelievably good, and I cannot compete.

00:12:47.000 So, buh-bye!

00:12:50.000 And, uh, Jackass, of course, went on to be one of the biggest things ever, and they were really smart about it.

00:12:55.000 Spike Jones, I don't think he ever sold MTV anything.

00:13:00.000 He gave them the rights to show it.

00:13:02.000 He licensed it, but he kept it all.

00:13:05.000 So, they, and they controlled the budget, they controlled everything.

00:13:09.000 So I believe the first Jackass movie cost five million dollars to make, and it grossed something like two hundred million.

00:13:16.000 Of course, that's bad for the rest of us, because they go, can you make me a Blair Witch project that costs about a hundred grand and makes fifty times that?

00:13:28.000 Uh, no.

00:13:30.000 Okay?

00:13:31.000 And also, all those guys almost died.

00:13:34.000 Oh, it only grossed 80 million?

00:13:37.000 I've been telling that story so long that I keep adding zeros.

00:13:43.000 Yeah, those are a one in a million.

00:13:46.000 Stroke of luck.

00:13:47.000 No, I can't do that.

00:13:48.000 Anyway, so then I meet David Cross and we go around and we start pitching shows.

00:13:54.000 And by the way, this is how you pitch a show.

00:13:57.000 There's all this stuff about how you go in and you describe the world and the characters and you do kind of an episode.

00:14:04.000 Yes, that's true.

00:14:05.000 You do have to have that core structure, but it's really just stand-up. 0.94

00:14:09.000 You've got to understand, when these guys get pitched, they're usually pitched by writers, and writers are boring losers. 0.53

00:14:16.000 They may make a crazy thing on TV that's fun to watch, but the people themselves are manic-depressive spadas. 0.95

00:14:23.000 They're short and skinny. 0.83

00:14:24.000 They look like Elmo with alopecia.

00:14:27.000 They wear little cardigans, and they have thick glasses, and they just sort of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:14:35.000 They're boring.

00:14:37.000 You know, one of the few exceptions to that is Derek Waters, the guy who does Drunk History.

00:14:41.000 He was pitching a show about a college town that was like his town in Baltimore, and when he would do his pitch, he brought the town with him.

00:14:50.000 He had made a mini village with a gas station and everything, like a four feet by four foot little village he constructed, like in that Lego movie at the end.

00:15:01.000 He had a little society with little people there and trees and everything, like a little train set type of setup.

00:15:08.000 I think that went on to be that college show that Dan Harmon ended up doing.

00:15:11.000 Derek and Dan had a real, there's a lot of drama that goes on in TV that no one wants to know about because they don't want to be known as hard to work with.

00:15:19.000 Or they don't want to be known as a drama queen.

00:15:21.000 But I think Derek Waters and Dan Harmon had some real back and forth.

00:15:27.000 I think that, uh, I think Dan was accused of stealing Community from Derek Waters.

00:15:33.000 I remember Derek was, was, when he was, I'm probably screwing up this story, but Derek finally got a meeting with HBO, and they were interested, and maybe it was Drunk History, and Dan Harmon saw him at a funeral, and even though they were friends, Dan said something like, oh look, it's Mr. HBO!

00:15:50.000 At a funeral.

00:15:52.000 10 is a mental case. 0.91

00:15:54.000 That when you get that level of talented, like that Dino Flopadopoulos, who wrote most of Mr. Show and works with Jay Johnson a lot, that guy's a weirdo.

00:16:04.000 A genius, hilarious weirdo, who I believe lived with his dominatrix for a while, and her husband.

00:16:11.000 So she'd go downstairs and beat him up once in a while with chains, I don't know. 0.99

00:16:16.000 I hope none of this are secrets.

00:16:20.000 But yeah, for the most part, it's just a boring person sitting there.

00:16:23.000 Even when it's a celebrity, like Will Ferrell will come in, say, hi, I'm Will Ferrell.

00:16:28.000 They're all thrilled to meet the celeb.

00:16:29.000 But he just says one or two jokes, and then it's back to, um, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.

00:16:35.000 The writer mumbling.

00:16:36.000 So I would just go in there and dazzle them.

00:16:38.000 Treat it like stand-up.

00:16:40.000 Totally unoriginal jokes.

00:16:43.000 For example, in one of the shows that I was pitching, I talk about how they ended up going on a gay cruise, because it was less expensive, and they're kind of homophobic, and they end up bonding with the homos, because they're so fun, and there's all these weird drinks, like it's a potpourri, pina colada, appletini. 1.00

00:17:07.000 And he goes, God, this is delicious.

00:17:09.000 What is this thing? 1.00

00:17:09.000 And he learns how to make it, and they're playing volleyball, and they're saying, you faggot, to the other team, because he's with the Bears, you know, like the tough gays with the leather. 1.00

00:17:19.000 He bonds with them and they make fun of the effeminate gays, so one of the characters blends right in and the other character is totally uncomfortable. 0.99

00:17:26.000 Not an original concept.

00:17:27.000 I believe it's a movie with Kevin Williams and Horatio Sanchez from SNL.

00:17:34.000 It's been done to death, but it does well in a room. 0.97

00:17:37.000 So it's like poo-poo jokes, gay jokes, fart jokes. 1.00

00:17:41.000 So I would do those, dazzle them, they'd laugh their heads off, 0.97

00:17:45.000 And then they know that you're pitching around to all the different networks.

00:17:49.000 You can cram.

00:17:50.000 You can cram.

00:17:51.000 If you watch traffic, you could do four pitches, four or five pitches in a day.

00:17:58.000 So in three days, you basically got every single network easy.

00:18:02.000 Comedy Central, FX, HBO, uh... Well, I never did the mainstream... I think I did NBC and CBS and those, like, once, but that was a whole other world.

00:18:12.000 We had to do the sort of fringe ones.

00:18:14.000 Even at Cartoon Network, you could only do Adult Swim with Nick Wedenfeld.

00:18:18.000 You weren't pitching a mainstream comedy show.

00:18:21.000 So you do all the weirdos, and I would count FX and HBO as weirdos.

00:18:25.000 You know, ones where you could swear.

00:18:27.000 Showtime.

00:18:28.000 Cover them all in a few days.

00:18:31.000 And that includes travel time to LA.

00:18:34.000 And LA is so boring that you want to cram it in.

00:18:37.000 I mean, there's nothing worse than having nothing to do in Los Angeles.

00:18:42.000 There isn't even any bars.

00:18:44.000 There's that one bar near Jimmy Kimmel's studio, Baxter or something, that's got booths in it, Ballantine's, something like that.

00:18:52.000 But even then, they open at like 4.

00:18:54.000 And, by the way, four is seven p.m.

00:18:56.000 for us.

00:18:57.000 And after a high-adrenaline pitch sesh where you're running from meeting to meeting and dazzling them, like shucking and jiving and, Hello, my baby!

00:19:03.000 Hello, my honey!

00:19:04.000 Will you buy my show?

00:19:06.000 You want to just chill out after that.

00:19:09.000 But no, no bars.

00:19:10.000 Sorry.

00:19:11.000 So, um... Uh... Yeah, we would go and we would... I'd make them laugh.

00:19:18.000 And then, oh yeah, they know you're going to all these different places.

00:19:21.000 So you get the call

00:19:23.000 Within about 15 minutes, you get the call.

00:19:26.000 If it's a no, then you don't get a call.

00:19:28.000 But they go, we're taking it.

00:19:30.000 And then you go, okay, well, I have to finish my meeting, sir.

00:19:34.000 They go, all right, all right.

00:19:35.000 So ideally, you get another yes, and then they can fight about it.

00:19:39.000 But a pilot back then was going for 40 grand.

00:19:43.000 And you wouldn't write it until you got the money.

00:19:47.000 And it would go through four or five drafts.

00:19:49.000 Now writing a pilot, I swear to God I could write a pilot right now in 20 minutes.

00:19:55.000 It's watching TV with your fingers.

00:19:57.000 You have the whole beginning, middle, and end sort of ingrained in your brain from watching TV your whole life.

00:20:03.000 You know that there has to be conflict, and it has to be resolved, and there has to be a storyline, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:20:08.000 That's done.

00:20:14.000 Sorry to drink coffee.

00:20:15.000 It just occurred to me that I'm going to be doing a bunch of shows later on.

00:20:17.000 I'm going to lose my voice.

00:20:20.000 So, yeah, it's insane that it's $40,000.

00:20:24.000 And the other problem with it is they say, yes, you have two months to do it.

00:20:29.000 I don't want two months.

00:20:30.000 I want 20 minutes.

00:20:32.000 And then they send it back.

00:20:33.000 Oh, before you even write it, by the way, there's this insane amount of paperwork.

00:20:38.000 The contracts are an inch thick.

00:20:41.000 It's like a book deal.

00:20:43.000 And that goes back and forth and back and forth, redlining.

00:20:46.000 What will happen in Season 3?

00:20:47.000 Will I still own this percentage?

00:20:50.000 I don't care.

00:20:51.000 Let's work it out.

00:20:52.000 Whatever's normal, I would always say to the lawyers, take what's normal, see if you can get a tiny bit more, and that'll pay for your salary, your 5%.

00:20:59.000 But don't drag it out.

00:21:03.000 So, uh, so let me go back.

00:21:05.000 So I meet David Cross and I say, let's do a Vice TV thing.

00:21:10.000 I actually said, I need a celebrity to help me sort of pitch this.

00:21:12.000 And he goes, yeah, I'll see what I can do.

00:21:14.000 And then he calls me back later and says, how about me?

00:21:17.000 So we get a pilot with Showtime.

00:21:19.000 Now that's good.

00:21:20.000 Cause that's, you get 40 grand or so to write it, and then you get a budget if it gets okayed for a pilot.

00:21:28.000 See, there's a lot of phases here, and you're not gonna make it through them all.

00:21:30.000 So I stayed in the writing a pilot, shooting a pilot.

00:21:34.000 Writing a pilot, shooting a pilot.

00:21:36.000 I honestly did that... 20 times.

00:21:41.000 And writing a pilot's 40 grand.

00:21:42.000 Shooting a pilot is... well...

00:21:47.000 $250,000 would be amazing.

00:21:49.000 That was the budget for Mr. Show back in HBO days.

00:21:51.000 But my experience was $150,000, $100,000 was more normal for a pilot.

00:21:56.000 But that's plenty for me.

00:21:58.000 I could make a movie with that much money.

00:22:01.000 Unfortunately, there's all these unions and stuff you have to follow, so that instantly gets drained.

00:22:06.000 But if you just give me the money and let me shoot it run and gun, as they say, everyone bring their own lunch, I could shoot a movie for nothing.

00:22:13.000 $100,000.

00:22:14.000 Anyway. 0.97

00:22:17.000 So we get an OK and we shoot it.

00:22:19.000 I go to the UK and I do a thing on garage music, which was a big thing back then.

00:22:23.000 We're talking about 2004. 0.99

00:22:25.000 And David goes to Atlanta and he interviews this amazing old black stripper named Blondie who crushes beer cans with her tits. 0.99

00:22:34.000 It was pretty good. 0.99

00:22:36.000 And the pitch was for that was Jackass meets 60 Minutes.

00:22:41.000 A lot of humor.

00:22:42.000 But David decided he didn't want his face to be in it.

00:22:47.000 I guess the long-term plan was then it could just be anything, and I didn't know what I was doing, so I said yes.

00:22:52.000 I think that was a mistake in retrospect.

00:22:54.000 I think David's face should have been all over his segment, and I should have been all over my segment.

00:22:59.000 And there was some other stuff in there.

00:23:04.000 Dave, can you go let those guys in?

00:23:09.000 And so, got the pilot okay to write, got the pilot okay to shoot, and then they didn't want it.

00:23:15.000 That's my TV career in a nutshell.

00:23:18.000 So then, I meet Johnny Knoxville.

00:23:23.000 Fun guy.

00:23:24.000 He introduced me to Adderall, which was a rocky few years.

00:23:29.000 I remember once I went to his house, and he had two Adderalls and a gun in the microwave.

00:23:39.000 And he said, don't touch the gun.

00:23:41.000 Here's Adderall.

00:23:44.000 There's beer in the fridge.

00:23:46.000 And then I just sat on his couch and watched rodeos.

00:23:50.000 Rodeo bloopers.

00:23:52.000 For maybe three hours.

00:23:53.000 See, that's the thing about L.A.

00:23:54.000 too.

00:23:55.000 With famous people, they're busy.

00:23:57.000 So you spend a lot of time just hanging around their house.

00:23:59.000 I was friends with Justin Theroux for a while.

00:24:01.000 He dumped me for Trump.

00:24:02.000 Everyone dumped me for Trump.

00:24:04.000 But I'd be at Jennifer Aniston's house.

00:24:06.000 I'll do one on celebrity encounters because those are fun.

00:24:09.000 But I wake up, you know, dad time for me is 7 a.m.

00:24:13.000 Which is 4 a.m.

00:24:14.000 in LA.

00:24:15.000 Normal adult people without kids, they sleep till 10 or 11.

00:24:18.000 That's six hours to kill at someone's house.

00:24:22.000 So I'm just walking around the Anniston residence like a ghost.

00:24:26.000 Looking at coffee table books.

00:24:28.000 Like the help doesn't show up immediately either.

00:24:30.000 The butler's not there yet.

00:24:34.000 The cooks aren't gonna show up until it's time to cook breakfast.

00:24:36.000 Not at 5 in the morning.

00:24:39.000 So I just watch a movie alone?

00:24:41.000 That's what L.A.

00:24:41.000 is to me, just floating around.

00:24:43.000 It's like the afterlife.

00:24:45.000 It's like the Hotel California.

00:24:47.000 You can check out anytime you like.

00:24:49.000 So Knoxville really accelerates the Jack Has 60 Minutes thing.

00:24:53.000 Hanging out with those guys is super fun.

00:24:55.000 They are exactly what you'd think they are.

00:24:57.000 Women, by the way, hurl themselves at Knoxville. 1.00

00:25:00.000 Hurl themselves.

00:25:02.000 They, well, he's married now, but, and I guess he was married then, but I think they were on the rocks.

00:25:06.000 There'd be a lineup of women. 1.00

00:25:09.000 And he would schedule them.

00:25:10.000 How about Thursday?

00:25:10.000 How about Friday at noon?

00:25:13.000 And there was no, like, courting.

00:25:14.000 It was just like an assembly line.

00:25:17.000 Now, I'm faithful to my wife, but...

00:25:20.000 It's easy for me because no one's knocking at this door. 1.00

00:25:23.000 No one is interested in having sex with Donald Sutherland with AIDS. 0.99

00:25:28.000 They don't want to get AIDS. 0.99

00:25:30.000 No one wants to make out with a guy who looks like you put an apple in the back of a car in July and then licked it and then rubbed it on a barbershop floor. 0.99

00:25:40.000 No one wants to have sex with Beaker if he was a homeless man. 0.85

00:25:45.000 But men are only as loyal as their opportunities, right? 1.00

00:25:48.000 So this goes back to Trump and the pussy thing. 0.99

00:25:52.000 People don't get that when you're in a position of power, whether you're ugly or not, women hurl themselves at you. 1.00

00:25:58.000 Now, I'm sure Harvey Weinstein, it happened once or twice, and then he multiplied that by 1,000.

00:26:03.000 But for the most part, it's a Knoxville scenario if you're not hideous and you're famous and rich and powerful.

00:26:13.000 So we would go and pitch shows, and that's easy pitching with them.

00:26:15.000 You can get any meaning you want.

00:26:17.000 They're incredibly popular, and they're professional, and they go through the whole thing, and all I have to do is just be a little bit funny, and we're good.

00:26:24.000 That was going well.

00:26:25.000 Now we're up to like 2008, 2006 and 2007 around then. 0.99

00:26:29.000 You know, they kick each other in the balls so often that when you're around Jeff Tremaine and Steve-O and Knoxville, the normal position for you to be in is your hands cupping your balls. 0.99

00:26:43.000 So no one can kick you in the balls. 0.99

00:26:44.000 Now I'm not saying that's like at a jackass shoot. 0.99

00:26:47.000 I mean that's at a meeting, that's waiting in a hallway, that's going to get fries. 0.99

00:26:53.000 They have their hands on their nuts 100% of the time they're around each other because they don't want to get kicked in the balls. 0.99

00:26:59.000 I don't like that stuff. 0.98

00:27:01.000 I don't, I want, this is back before I had kids, or I'd only had one kid. 0.99

00:27:06.000 Don't kick my balls. 0.99

00:27:07.000 Those balls make human beings. 1.00

00:27:09.000 You're, you're hurting children, future children you're kicking in the head. 1.00

00:27:13.000 And I heard Nacho told me once that he had his ball, his sperm examined on a Petri dish and they were destroyed. 0.99

00:27:19.000 They were all crippled and cross-eyed. 1.00

00:27:23.000 I don't like that kind of game.

00:27:24.000 Another thing they would do is tase.

00:27:25.000 I don't like that.

00:27:27.000 Don't ever tase me. 0.58

00:27:29.000 There's nothing worse than being electrocuted. 0.70

00:27:31.000 You could punch me in the face for a fortnight, but the idea of some creature, electrical creatures inside your bones all of a sudden? 0.94

00:27:41.000 Ugh! 0.97

00:27:41.000 Can you believe there's a video game where you hold on to joysticks and you see how much shocking you can handle? 0.97

00:27:48.000 No fucking way! 0.99

00:27:51.000 Ugh! 1.00

00:27:52.000 No way!

00:27:54.000 I remember I went to a stag with that guy.

00:27:56.000 Now I'm doing Celebrity Encounters.

00:27:58.000 That guy, Ryan, what's his name?

00:28:00.000 The guy who died with the beard.

00:28:02.000 I think I was at his bachelor party and they had an MMA guy there randomly grabbing people and choking them out.

00:28:11.000 That's not like being electrocuted.

00:28:13.000 That's just very weird.

00:28:14.000 Some big guy grabs you.

00:28:16.000 You say, well, it's not going to work on me.

00:28:18.000 And then, yeah, Ryan Dunn.

00:28:20.000 And then darkness falls.

00:28:22.000 And the next thing you know, you look, you wake up and you're staring at people's feet in a bar.

00:28:28.000 That's hanging out with them.

00:28:30.000 So we pitched that, and that was around the time of my split with Vice, and so that just sort of diffused in the divorce.

00:28:38.000 Got lost in the divorce.

00:28:39.000 Obviously, what am I going to do?

00:28:40.000 Do Vice TV on my own?

00:28:44.000 And then it's normal when you split with a company, you have a bunch of things that are very common, and one of them is a non-compete.

00:28:52.000 So I couldn't really work anywhere after I left, but I had tons and tons of money.

00:28:56.000 And so I said, I'll just make sketches.

00:28:59.000 Now, I met these guys, Last Pictures, that was Chad Harbold and Brian Gaynor and their friends from college, film school.

00:29:07.000 And we just started shooting sketches just for fun.

00:29:10.000 Like Sophie Can Walk, I think was the first one. 1.00

00:29:13.000 The conceit there was that I didn't realize that babies are born unable to walk and they can't walk for the first year.

00:29:19.000 So I bought a tiny wheelchair.

00:29:22.000 It was actually a wheelchair for dollies.

00:29:25.000 There's a thing called My Twin, and say you're a one-eyed black kid with ten fingers and red hair, and you feel weird.

00:29:36.000 You get a doll, and it looks exactly like that.

00:29:38.000 So now you feel normal, and it's a doll like you.

00:29:41.000 Now, what if you're a little girl, you're nine, and you're in a wheelchair?

00:29:44.000 Well, you can have a My Twin that looks just like you, and she's in a wheelchair. 0.69

00:29:47.000 So it's a tiny wheelchair.

00:29:50.000 And I bought that, and I put my daughter in it, and I wheeled her around town.

00:29:54.000 And that, to go back to what I was saying about YouTube, that's a great little business card.

00:29:59.000 That's better than pitching and all these hypotheticals.

00:30:03.000 Viral video.

00:30:05.000 And also, when you're talking to people, later when I got into advertising, they'd go, we want to do a viral video because it's a really cheap way to get a lot of eyeballs.

00:30:12.000 And I'd go, yeah, it's called being funny.

00:30:14.000 And they'd go, OK, well, this is what you should do.

00:30:17.000 So we want to advertise SparkPlugs.

00:30:19.000 And we want this.

00:30:20.000 And I'm thinking, have you ever made a viral video?

00:30:23.000 Just tell me what to sell.

00:30:24.000 Tell me what the budget is.

00:30:25.000 And then I'll handle it, thank you.

00:30:27.000 I'm not looking for tips from you.

00:30:29.000 I am better at this than you.

00:30:31.000 But they're writing the checks.

00:30:34.000 I mean, you think TV rapes your creativity.

00:30:39.000 Advertising?

00:30:39.000 I have never seen people with less talent make more money.

00:30:44.000 And they will rape your joke to shreds.

00:30:49.000 I did an ad for, I think it was Realtor.com. 0.94

00:30:53.000 I'm not exaggerating.

00:30:55.000 It went through 1,000 versions.

00:30:58.000 Gavin, what are you talking about?

00:31:00.000 You mean 10?

00:31:02.000 No.

00:31:03.000 We did the ad, and then the client would come in.

00:31:06.000 I don't think the client was even Realtor.com.

00:31:08.000 We were like a sub-agency, so the main agency would just say, yes, get the money and then farm it up to us.

00:31:12.000 We would do all the work, and then they would sit and watch it.

00:31:15.000 So they sat in our editing room.

00:31:17.000 And they said, what about this?

00:31:19.000 What if the first guy is the last guy?

00:31:21.000 And then we show it like that.

00:31:23.000 Okay.

00:31:23.000 So we'd move that.

00:31:24.000 I count that as one version.

00:31:26.000 So it was five days of eight hours of people sitting going, what about this?

00:31:29.000 What about this?

00:31:30.000 What about this all day?

00:31:32.000 And then the client seeing it and the client wanting changes and the client saying, actually you shows the, this is the wrong website.

00:31:39.000 Major deals like that.

00:31:42.000 And then you finally watch the final product and you go, that isn't even in the same universe as what I had in my head.

00:31:48.000 That's not even close.

00:31:49.000 And TV can be like that too.

00:31:50.000 I remember I sent a pilot back and forth so many times to the client that I looked at it and I was reading it and I realized not one sentence in this entire pilot is a sentence I wrote from scratch.

00:32:04.000 And so when they finally rejected, I go, good.

00:32:07.000 I didn't want to do this either.

00:32:09.000 It wasn't my show anymore.

00:32:10.000 It was your show.

00:32:13.000 So, we make these viral videos, and they do well, and then I meet up with this guy, these guys, uh, Defcon?

00:32:22.000 Something like that?

00:32:23.000 I can't believe I'm forgetting their name.

00:32:25.000 And that was Sebastian Eldridge, the guy I ended up starting the ad agency with.

00:32:29.000 We said, okay, let's become TV guys.

00:32:31.000 We did a documentary about Netflix, where we stayed up for five days.

00:32:34.000 I lost my mind.

00:32:36.000 And Netflix saw it and said, we don't want anything to do with this.

00:32:39.000 You can have it.

00:32:41.000 And we go, okay, you know I'm holding a mic that says Netflix the entire time, right?

00:32:47.000 But, uh, so that got, that's somewhere in the toilet somewhere, another one of my many failures.

00:32:52.000 That's called a million in the morning.

00:32:54.000 Cause that was from a quote where I was, I think I was high and I was just saying, it's what, it's about a million in the morning right now.

00:33:03.000 And, uh, that was the movie watching World Championships.

00:33:05.000 They watched movies for five days straight.

00:33:08.000 Non-stop.

00:33:09.000 Two people finished it.

00:33:10.000 Some weird guy from Bangladesh. 0.99

00:33:12.000 No, Sri Lankan. 0.96

00:33:14.000 And then some crazy German. 1.00

00:33:15.000 But they cheated. 0.76

00:33:17.000 They were on Adderall.

00:33:18.000 Well, I don't know about the Sri Lankan, but the German was on Adderall and her contention was, well, it's, um, that's my prescription.

00:33:25.000 So it's a drug I need.

00:33:27.000 So it's like a diabetic.

00:33:28.000 I have the right to do this.

00:33:30.000 And the judges went, okay, I'm not going to argue with that.

00:33:33.000 Anyway, that's when I sort of had a, the vice days was sort of half-assed and it was a thing on the back burner.

00:33:42.000 And then after a million in the morning,

00:33:44.000 I had nothing else to do but TV, and so I said, let's go full bore with this.

00:33:50.000 And part of the reason for that enthusiasm, too, was this guy, Jimmy Miller, Dennis Miller's brother, Jimmy Miller.

00:33:57.000 He's a big manager in comedy.

00:33:59.000 He does Will Ferrell, Jim Carrey, huge guy.

00:34:04.000 And he saw Sophie Can Walk, and he liked it.

00:34:06.000 He said, come down.

00:34:07.000 He's a big alpha dude, this guy.

00:34:09.000 He says, come down to LA. 1.00

00:34:10.000 I want to meet you, faggot. 1.00

00:34:13.000 That kind of guy, you know what I mean? 1.00

00:34:14.000 Like Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino, but funny.

00:34:21.000 He flies me to L.A., and you get business class and stuff when rich people want to meet you.

00:34:26.000 That's fun.

00:34:27.000 Because the best part of L.A.

00:34:32.000 is if you can get a really late-night flight, then you just party until you're hammered, and then you sleep on the plane the whole time.

00:34:40.000 And if it's a business class, well, now it's almost as nice as my bed.

00:34:44.000 One time, Sebastian and I were in a rush.

00:34:46.000 I've probably told you this story before, but we were in a rush to catch the plane and we thought, we gotta get hammered.

00:34:52.000 Because when you're hammered, coach becomes first class.

00:34:55.000 And we gotta get hammered, we gotta get makers in us.

00:34:57.000 So we run to the bar and we go, two makers on the rocks!

00:34:59.000 And the guy goes, relax.

00:35:02.000 He's shaking a drink.

00:35:04.000 And I think, what the hell? 0.92

00:35:08.000 What are you making? 0.92

00:35:10.000 And he goes, none of your business, sir.

00:35:12.000 Just be patient.

00:35:13.000 Oh, for crying out loud.

00:35:14.000 And then I see him pour it out.

00:35:16.000 It's like blue barf.

00:35:19.000 And it's two guys that are sitting there, and they smile at me.

00:35:23.000 And they have a large water.

00:35:26.000 And they also just got, and by the way, it cost me maybe two drinks, because it took about ten minutes for the bartender to make this.

00:35:33.000 I'm at the airport now.

00:35:34.000 This is JFK.

00:35:35.000 And they smile at me, and I look over, aghast.

00:35:39.000 And, uh, there were two blackberry margaritas.

00:35:43.000 A margarita's not girly enough for me.

00:35:43.000 That's right.

00:35:45.000 I need it to be mushed into mushed blackberries with crushed ice.

00:35:49.000 I need a blueberry smoothie, by the way! 0.99

00:35:53.000 And then I look, what this made me even madder, I look next to these, and I'm not even going to call them fags, because gays don't do that. 1.00

00:36:00.000 The gays would be with me, trying to slam a Makers. 1.00

00:36:03.000 So, homosexual has, was an insult in the 70s and 80s maybe, but now beta males are way more gay than gays. 1.00

00:36:12.000 Now a gay calling them a fag would be a compliment. 1.00

00:36:15.000 I'd be masculinizing them. 1.00

00:36:19.000 I couldn't even call him a chick, because guess who was sitting next to these guys?

00:36:19.000 And woman!

00:36:23.000 A woman with a big glass of Stella Artois, which is Budweiser in the Netherlands.

00:36:31.000 It's a blue-collar beer over there.

00:36:32.000 And it tastes great.

00:36:34.000 It's not even a fruity beer, you know what I mean?

00:36:37.000 She wasn't having a pumpkin ale or something, or a Corona.

00:36:40.000 A Stella, I would count as a man's beer. 0.97

00:36:43.000 Anyway, so we pile down these drinks.

00:36:45.000 We have to get doubles.

00:36:46.000 No ice.

00:36:46.000 I'm not messing around here.

00:36:48.000 I need this gasoline down my gullet so I can sleep on the plane.

00:36:52.000 And, uh, I look at the guys and I want to fight them. 0.61

00:36:57.000 And one fun thing to do to insult people without getting beat up is you become a foreigner. 0.99

00:37:02.000 Like say, you know those black guys who dance in the subway and they go on the polls? 0.99

00:37:07.000 You want to say to them, hey guys, that's what strippers do. 1.00

00:37:11.000 You're a really talented stripper. 1.00

00:37:13.000 You're going to get in a fight with 12 young black men and the odds are pretty low you're going to win. 1.00

00:37:18.000 Unless it's a movie. 0.95

00:37:20.000 You're not going to beat teenage boys.

00:37:24.000 So, but you could go up to him and go, excuse me, I'm a bit confused here.

00:37:29.000 I'm just in Fee Scotland.

00:37:30.000 And is this, is this stripper pole?

00:37:33.000 Is this what, my understanding is that strippers do similar dances. 1.00

00:37:36.000 Is this like an homage to stripper culture?

00:37:39.000 I'm not, I don't understand.

00:37:40.000 And then they can go like, no man, this is called beatboxing super rap breakdancing.

00:37:46.000 It's a, it's a sport that's part of street culture.

00:37:49.000 And you go, oh, I'm sorry.

00:37:50.000 Okay.

00:37:50.000 That's fascinating.

00:37:51.000 And now you've planted the seed.

00:37:53.000 And then that night, the guy's gonna be looking in the mirror and he's gonna go, wait a minute.

00:37:57.000 We are just strippers. 1.00

00:37:58.000 We're doing what strippers do. 1.00

00:38:00.000 And not similar to strippers.

00:38:02.000 It's actually exactly what strippers do. 1.00

00:38:05.000 We're swirling the pole and slowly going down it from the top to the bottom. 0.99

00:38:09.000 The only thing we're doing is not showing our vaginas. 1.00

00:38:14.000 So I go up to the margarita guys and I go, uh, excuse me! 0.97

00:38:18.000 I'm a bit confused here.

00:38:20.000 Am I um...

00:38:23.000 You guys are having blackberry margaritas.

00:38:26.000 And the foreigner thing works too well. 1.00

00:38:29.000 They like talking to this Scottish guy.

00:38:30.000 I had a tartan blazer on at the time too, so it really, my character was well formed.

00:38:35.000 And they go, yeah.

00:38:38.000 And I go, and she's got a beer.

00:38:40.000 And then they see the one with Estelle and they go, oh yeah, yes she does.

00:38:44.000 And they go, and you drink, and you have a water with your blackberry margaritas.

00:38:48.000 And they go, hey, I know, right?

00:38:49.000 And then one of them sort of leans over the other one and goes, not normal!

00:38:53.000 And then the other guy goes, it's kind of a tradition of ours. 0.99

00:38:56.000 Now I want to stab them. 0.99

00:38:58.000 Now I want to just, if I had, I'm glad it's not legal to carry a knife at the airport, because I just wanted to just slit both their necks, just watch the jugglers just spill all over their suits. 0.99

00:39:11.000 So I was mad that my little character was coming across as too benign. 0.99

00:39:17.000 So I just, as I walked away I go, DID YOU GET A FUCKING SPRAY TAN TOO?! 0.99

00:39:24.000 Just to establish here that I'm Trojan Horsing an insult and you're liking the Trojan Horse too much.

00:39:30.000 So I had to jump out and stab a little.

00:39:33.000 And then we got to the gate and we went and we go to meet Jimmy Miller.

00:39:36.000 And I'm wearing my tartan suit and he walks in, bald guy, he looks like Dennis Miller.

00:39:43.000 I actually didn't know he was Dennis Miller's brother for the longest time and I used to say, you look like a bald Dennis Miller.

00:39:48.000 Which he would say, what a weird thing to say.

00:39:49.000 Like he'd look at me weird and I thought, I think it's pretty astute.

00:39:52.000 And then I found out later, yeah of course he looks like Dennis Miller, it's his brother!

00:39:57.000 So he walks into the board meeting and there's this guy Sam that we used to work with.

00:40:01.000 I forget his last name.

00:40:03.000 And he sort of has a strut to him.

00:40:07.000 And he goes, look at this guy.

00:40:09.000 And I'm just sitting in my chair smiling. 1.00

00:40:10.000 He goes, I bet this guy's got big fucking balls. 1.00

00:40:14.000 And he walks over. 1.00

00:40:15.000 I can't even remember if he grabbed my balls or not. 0.99

00:40:17.000 But he went over and he looked, and my balls did look pretty good in that suit. 1.00

00:40:20.000 I mean, I have a very large genitalia. 0.99

00:40:24.000 And in a tight suit, you can see the contours of all the details. 0.98

00:40:29.000 And by the way, a little off topic here.

00:40:32.000 And I'm talking about this with Roaming Millennial on Monday.

00:40:35.000 This is the world of big money business. 0.99

00:40:42.000 They talk about your balls. 1.00

00:40:44.000 They mighty grab your balls. 1.00

00:40:46.000 And these women come in, and imagine you walked in a room and said, look at those tits. 1.00

00:40:50.000 Now that's a pair of fucking tits. 1.00

00:40:54.000 She would have a conniption. 1.00

00:40:58.000 But it's not, like you're not supposed to be a victim. 1.00

00:41:00.000 You go, yep, these are my tits. 1.00

00:41:02.000 What do you think? 1.00

00:41:04.000 Now, I'm sure there are women who are like that. 1.00

00:41:06.000 They tend to be lesbians. 0.97

00:41:08.000 Barbara Corcoran comes to mind. 0.60

00:41:09.000 She's not a lesbian. 0.99

00:41:10.000 But I bet she could go like, yeah, they're the best tits you'll ever see, and you'll never even get a glimpse of them. 1.00

00:41:16.000 You'll have to live with that, Jimmy. 0.97

00:41:19.000 That would be the normal return, and he would appreciate that and go, ha ha ha, we'll see.

00:41:23.000 One day.

00:41:24.000 Maybe your husband will have an accident.

00:41:26.000 Maybe he'll have a problem with the brake cables.

00:41:30.000 Uh, that's all normal alpha joking.

00:41:33.000 So, Jimmy and I get along great.

00:41:35.000 And, uh, he introduces me to Will Ferrell.

00:41:37.000 Went to a Yankees game with Will.

00:41:39.000 Right behind the plate.

00:41:40.000 I think I got drunk and ruined it.

00:41:42.000 We weren't friends.

00:41:43.000 I didn't get a ride in the limo back.

00:41:45.000 I think that's an indication that you, uh, you weren't cool to hang out with. 0.99

00:41:50.000 I remember, being a celebrity sucks. 0.83

00:41:54.000 Now, I'm a little bit famous and it's really annoying, but if you're as famous as Will Ferrell, 0.96

00:41:58.000 I mean, everyone's staring at you. 0.94

00:42:00.000 You're like a burn victim.

00:42:01.000 The head of City, we were at Yankee Stadium, the head of Yankee Stadium comes over and asks, hey, can you just wave to the camera and do a little promo and say hi, I'm at Yankee Stadium?

00:42:11.000 And Will doesn't want to do that.

00:42:12.000 Plus, that's a commercial.

00:42:14.000 You got to pay him like a million bucks to do that, lady. 1.00

00:42:17.000 And he goes, I'd rather not.

00:42:18.000 And then she goes, oh.

00:42:20.000 And they were showing that movie, Lost.

00:42:23.000 Lost Earth, whatever, Lost World, that movie where they go back in time.

00:42:29.000 It's, remember Chaka, the little monster kid? 1.00

00:42:32.000 It's Land of the Lost.

00:42:34.000 They were showing the movie Land of the Lost.

00:42:36.000 And she doesn't take no for an answer.

00:42:38.000 And she goes, well, we're actually showing promos for Land of the Lost.

00:42:41.000 And we're doing that for free, and that's a lot of people here.

00:42:44.000 So I think it'd be fair to just do a little promo.

00:42:47.000 And he goes, well, I'd rather not do that, thank you.

00:42:49.000 And he's not even talking to the, she's not talking to the manager.

00:42:51.000 She's just going right up to Will Ferrell.

00:42:54.000 And then people are buying him beers.

00:42:57.000 I had one good joke, I go, you make all these people laugh, you bring so much joy to the world, and they reward you with one beer? 0.86

00:43:06.000 That's disgusting. 1.00

00:43:07.000 And, you know, he went with it and said, unbelievable, pathetic. 1.00

00:43:12.000 A beer's what, eight bucks? 0.99

00:43:14.000 You're paying me eight dollars for all this joy and merriment I bring you?

00:43:19.000 I throw, I do a little name dropping in this, in these stories to, to keep you interested.

00:43:24.000 So, the number of shows... Oh my god.

00:43:30.000 I can't even tell you.

00:43:31.000 I mean, I was looking at these files, and there's... We did one show... The first show was The Aging Hipster, it was called, and it was about a guy who made a bunch of money in media, and his wife has beautifully evolved into the upper middle class, whatever, and she's a happy New Yorker on the Upper East Side, but the man with the money still wants to be cool with the kids, and he's hanging out with people half his age, and it's frustrating, and...

00:43:57.000 Basically my life.

00:43:59.000 We didn't shoot that, we wrote that for Comedy Central.

00:44:02.000 Dazzled in the room.

00:44:03.000 Killer Comedy was there at the time.

00:44:05.000 Oh yeah, the Killer Comedy, what did I call her again? 1.00

00:44:09.000 Lauren Correo?

00:44:11.000 She got fired, I believe.

00:44:13.000 And the thing they do in TV networks is they want a clean house when they fire someone.

00:44:20.000 So they fire everyone remotely associated with that person and all those projects get washed down the drain too.

00:44:25.000 That's the thing about pilots.

00:44:27.000 Half the time you get a no at the very end, it's got nothing to do with the pilot.

00:44:33.000 It's a terrible industry.

00:44:34.000 It's totally disorganized.

00:44:35.000 I did a pilot for what became Al Jazeera.

00:44:39.000 It used to be called Current TV.

00:44:42.000 I did a pilot called The Immersionist.

00:44:43.000 I think it's on Vimeo.

00:44:45.000 And it was about me submerging myself into subculture.

00:44:47.000 So I wouldn't just go there and say, what's going on here?

00:44:50.000 I would live with them, hang out with them, become one of them.

00:44:54.000 And I did it with the sailing gang.

00:44:56.000 I did it with the bikers.

00:45:00.000 And there was a new guy who had some hippie name after he took over right before it was Al Jazeera.

00:45:08.000 It's incredible that it became Al Jazeera, isn't it?

00:45:11.000 It's run by the most wealthy family in Qatar, with a guy whose name is, like, seven names.

00:45:17.000 Mohammed bin Hamad bin Lajjad bin Marab Mahad.

00:45:21.000 I'm not exaggerating.

00:45:22.000 It's at least seven names.

00:45:24.000 He took over Al Gore's network.

00:45:26.000 But I talked to the guy.

00:45:27.000 His name was, like, Ocean.

00:45:29.000 And I go, what happened to my show, The Immersionist?

00:45:32.000 And he goes, I saw it.

00:45:34.000 I thought it was brilliant.

00:45:35.000 I loved it.

00:45:36.000 And I asked, what happened to that show?

00:45:38.000 And they go, we lost it.

00:45:40.000 That's why my pilot was killed.

00:45:42.000 Someone lost it.

00:45:44.000 So they didn't want to say we lost it, so they just said, um, we're not doing it.

00:45:48.000 Meanwhile, I have another copy.

00:45:50.000 It's digital.

00:45:51.000 I could have sent you a new copy.

00:45:55.000 But yeah, so that was a typical example of the show we would pitch.

00:46:00.000 And sometimes we would come up with ideas while we were pitching for a better show.

00:46:05.000 Like Sam and I at Jimmy Miller's company were obsessed with this idea, Quado.

00:46:10.000 And it would be Michael Cera, kind of a wimpy guy.

00:46:13.000 Remember in True Lies?

00:46:15.000 No, not True Lies.

00:46:15.000 Or was it?

00:46:16.000 Maybe it was True Lies.

00:46:17.000 The word Quado comes out of Marshall Baldwin's stomach.

00:46:23.000 Quattro, Q-U-A-T-O. 1.00

00:46:25.000 What if that was a guy who just regularly lived there in this sort of hipster kid's body, and he had a smoking problem, and he had ex-girlfriends, and he had debts he had to solve, and gambling debts, and then Michael Cera guy was always like, oh no, we're gonna get in a fight again. 0.89

00:46:42.000 But sometimes he would help Michael and, you know, give him the balls to stand up for himself.

00:46:47.000 It's sort of like every man's personality, right? 0.64

00:46:50.000 Sometimes we're weak and soft, and then other times, after a whiskey, of course, we're ballsy and don't- No, no, I'm not doing that!

00:46:58.000 By the way, back to women in the workforce, if a man wanted to have sex with me and it was going to protect my job, I would say, I'm looking for a new job! 1.00

00:47:08.000 The idea of lying under someone and letting them penetrate me, or having them penetrate my head, my face, for- to grease the wheels of my career?

00:47:19.000 I don't want to be in that career, thank you.

00:47:21.000 Hey, I got a good deal.

00:47:23.000 You're a welder.

00:47:23.000 You're gonna be working on this skyscraper.

00:47:26.000 Only thing is, you're kind of expected to blow the foreman.

00:47:30.000 Uh, no.

00:47:31.000 I'm not doing that. 0.82

00:47:34.000 Now, I'm not saying that women should be prostitutes if they want to be in business, but I don't know. 0.98

00:47:41.000 It's not working, is it, ladies? 1.00

00:47:44.000 So, shot that show down the tubes.

00:47:49.000 I wrote a great show for Adult Swim with Jay Johnson, who's the funniest man in the world.

00:47:56.000 Look up Jay Johnson.

00:47:57.000 It's illegal that he's not more famous.

00:48:01.000 He should be running everything in comedy.

00:48:04.000 But comedy's not a meritocracy.

00:48:06.000 The funniest guys are not at the top.

00:48:08.000 So Jay and I wrote a pilot called The Two Bennys, we did for Nick Wedenfeld at Adult Swim, who wears scarves a lot and is seen as cool to a lot of nerds.

00:48:17.000 I think he ended up going to do an Adult Swim type of thing for Fox that I don't think ever materialized.

00:48:25.000 But he made a lot of money.

00:48:27.000 A lot of these big players, like Charlie Corwin was a guy I worked with.

00:48:33.000 You know, these guys would just sort of come up with some ideas.

00:48:35.000 They worked.

00:48:36.000 I'm not saying they didn't work hard, but some of these, the guys who actually just work with the creative people and say, go pitch that and say yes, and then hire this guy, but don't actually make anything.

00:48:45.000 They're loaded.

00:48:47.000 I'm not disparaging Corwin, by the way.

00:48:49.000 That's the position that he filled.

00:48:51.000 But, uh, and he works his ass off, but.

00:48:54.000 Um, yeah, the writers, they don't make money.

00:48:58.000 And the funny thing, too, about the TV thing, and this is why I wanted to talk about it today, I'd come back to New York and I wouldn't tell anyone because it's not impressive.

00:49:06.000 What do you do?

00:49:07.000 Oh, I write pilots for the garbage. 1.00

00:49:09.000 Oh, so you work for the garbage. 1.00

00:49:10.000 Yes, I'm a garbage man. 0.99

00:49:13.000 I would just have these 15 spinning plates at all times pitching different shows simultaneously. 0.93

00:49:18.000 And, uh,

00:49:20.000 moves so slow that one of them would take.

00:49:20.000 L.A.

00:49:23.000 Sometimes they'd overlap.

00:49:25.000 Like one time, I pitched a show to IFC to some girl.

00:49:29.000 Oh my God, she was so insanely hot. 0.95

00:49:31.000 I couldn't look at her.

00:49:33.000 You know when Irish people look Asian? 1.00

00:49:35.000 Like Evangeline Lilly from Lost.

00:49:39.000 They have kind of chinky eyes. 1.00

00:49:42.000 I'm using now a racial epithet in a comedic context.

00:49:47.000 That's my cup of tea.

00:49:48.000 I really like that.

00:49:51.000 So she was there, and the guy from The Whitest Kids You Know was... I was always attached to some celebrity.

00:49:58.000 They're good to have at meetings, but they would get bored and leave.

00:50:01.000 So there was David Cross, there was Knoxville, and this time it was this guy.

00:50:05.000 I forget his name.

00:50:06.000 Max, I think.

00:50:09.000 So we go in there and we pitch a travel show.

00:50:11.000 And they're into it.

00:50:13.000 Usually, you sort of find out what they're looking for.

00:50:14.000 That's another thing about TV, by the way.

00:50:16.000 If you have the greatest show in the world, but they're looking for a cowboy show, the answer is no.

00:50:21.000 If you have a crappy cowboy pitch, and they're looking for a cowboy show, you're probably going to get a yes.

00:50:26.000 So there's so much variables, and they have nothing to do.

00:50:30.000 There's so many variables, and they have nothing to do with making a good TV show.

00:50:37.000 So in this case, I can't remember how I heard this, but I always wanted to do a sketch show.

00:50:41.000 Because I'm good at making comedy sketches.

00:50:43.000 But there's no market for that.

00:50:44.000 They don't do well.

00:50:45.000 And there's mad TV, and that's about it.

00:50:48.000 So no one was interested in the sketch show.

00:50:51.000 They always want low-budget things with cheap actors.

00:50:54.000 Travel shows are great because the actors are the people in the place you're traveling to and you don't need to pay anyone.

00:51:00.000 And if you're funny, just be funny in Kuala Lumpur.

00:51:04.000 I hate traveling, by the way.

00:51:06.000 I've lived all over the world.

00:51:07.000 The reason I say the West is the best is because I've been elsewhere.

00:51:10.000 I hate everywhere but the West.

00:51:12.000 And even within the West, I'm not a fan of Germany.

00:51:17.000 I don't like the way Portuguese sounds.

00:51:19.000 Anyway.

00:51:21.000 I hate the way Northern Europeans, like Scandinavians, will wear those little puma shoes that barely have any treads and they look like ballerina shoes with a little puma on the side. 1.00

00:51:31.000 And then they have their hair teased like they're in Kajagoogoo with their blonde bangs going over their eyes.

00:51:36.000 These are men.

00:51:37.000 And then they'll have that soccer zip-up hoodie zipped right up like a turtleneck. 0.99

00:51:42.000 And then their stress denim that's slightly torn with articulated knees.

00:51:47.000 And then maybe, like, striped orange socks.

00:51:49.000 Oh, God. 0.95

00:51:52.000 Hey white supremacists, you want to live in a world that's only white? 0.99

00:51:55.000 Get ready for a lot of teased bangs. 0.99

00:51:57.000 I don't know. 0.54

00:52:00.000 Multiculturalism, for all its faults, it stops us from turning into weird homo backup dancers from the 80s. 1.00

00:52:14.000 So, uh, we, we, we shot the show.

00:52:19.000 I forgot what I was talking about.

00:52:21.000 We, uh, uh, oh yeah, the travel show with IFC.

00:52:26.000 So that was going to be, you know, dirt cheap.

00:52:28.000 And then I thought I was talking to IFC and they were talking about getting, no one has a budget.

00:52:33.000 This is up to like 2010 now, 2011.

00:52:35.000 And,

00:52:38.000 I'm hearing about these budgets.

00:52:39.000 By the way, the head of programming at IFC, Dan Polanyk or something like that, I looked up his resume and it was, I wrote this pilot, I shot this pilot, I wrote this pilot.

00:52:47.000 None of it had aired.

00:52:48.000 Like in TV, my terrible career that was for the garbage was considered pretty darn successful.

00:52:54.000 Oh, you've written 12 pilots for networks? 0.91

00:52:57.000 You're a star.

00:52:58.000 Have any of them aired?

00:52:59.000 No.

00:52:59.000 It's weird telling your dad on the phone, too.

00:53:01.000 So what are you doing?

00:53:02.000 What's going on now?

00:53:03.000 Well, Dad, I got a pilot.

00:53:05.000 Comedy Central.

00:53:06.000 Oh, great.

00:53:07.000 And what do you do?

00:53:08.000 Well, I'm just writing it.

00:53:09.000 It hasn't been okayed.

00:53:10.000 Oh.

00:53:11.000 So, what will happen if it's not okayed?

00:53:13.000 It will get thrown away.

00:53:14.000 Can you sell it elsewhere?

00:53:16.000 Well, no.

00:53:16.000 Someone will have to buy it from me.

00:53:18.000 Buy it from them, because they paid for it, so it's their property.

00:53:21.000 So where does it go?

00:53:22.000 It just sits in a digital vault somewhere in sort of space.

00:53:27.000 So you write for the ether?

00:53:31.000 Yeah.

00:53:32.000 Congratulations.

00:53:34.000 My son works for a nebulous cloud that can't be touched.

00:53:40.000 So, travel at the time, I was working with Michael Hirshhorn, who I had on my old show, great guy.

00:53:47.000 He goes, let's do a show called America on $0 a day.

00:53:51.000 And then I go, okay, but I'm working with IFC now.

00:53:55.000 And then we both go, it's taking them, it's gonna take a year.

00:53:59.000 Why don't we do both and assume that one of them's not going to hit?

00:54:04.000 Kind of a sketchy deal.

00:54:06.000 Kind of immoral. 0.87

00:54:08.000 Kind of dirty pool.

00:54:10.000 But my agent at CAA ratted me out, Greg Kavik.

00:54:14.000 I think he told IFC that I was doing this, working behind their backs as they were developing a deal.

00:54:19.000 By the way, developing a deal takes months and months and a year.

00:54:22.000 Takes a year!

00:54:24.000 One time back in my early days with David Cross, I go, what is this about?

00:54:29.000 And they go, well, they're mad that David doesn't want to appear in it.

00:54:31.000 And I go, I call him, Dave, can you just appear in like some of the episode?

00:54:34.000 Yeah.

00:54:34.000 Okay.

00:54:35.000 I called him.

00:54:35.000 He says fine.

00:54:36.000 He'll be in some of them.

00:54:37.000 And they go, okay.

00:54:38.000 Now that was me on the phone for 10 minutes in the world of LA lawyers who want to make their money.

00:54:44.000 That was like a two month back and forth.

00:54:46.000 Why can't we all just sit in a big room and hammer it out in one day for crying out loud?

00:54:52.000 So, back when I was naive about all this, I said, let me see the contract.

00:54:55.000 I'll do it!

00:54:57.000 So they sent me the contract, and it was written in Chinese.

00:55:00.000 I did not understand one sentence.

00:55:02.000 Heretofore, the witness shall therein be, and from heretofore referred to as, Exhibit A. Exhibit A will then, under the property, will take back those rights, wherein to, they will write up to, subjugated in perpetuity of, and I said, alright, back to work guys.

00:55:19.000 Sorry, I can't help out here.

00:55:22.000 So I figure, let's just let these spinning plates spin.

00:55:25.000 And so I do this show, America on $0 a day, where I just walk outside my front door, hitchhike, and I travel America on absolutely nothing.

00:55:33.000 And it was easy.

00:55:35.000 I'd get a job washing dishes.

00:55:38.000 I'd make 40, 50 bucks.

00:55:40.000 I'd go out, get drunk, stay at a hostel, or sleep on a bench.

00:55:44.000 This was in the summer.

00:55:45.000 And then hitchhike.

00:55:46.000 Now I had cameras with me and stuff, so people would be more inclined. 0.90

00:55:49.000 Like I'd bet some lady I could beat her at a slut car race, and if I win I get to stay at her bed and breakfast, that kind of thing. 1.00

00:55:57.000 Great show. 0.92

00:55:58.000 It gets cancelled, of course, because that's the way it is.

00:56:03.000 Travel, by the way, this is, this is, you can go right up to, like, I shot the upfronts.

00:56:08.000 I'm like, hi, I'm traveling on zero dollars a day and I throw my wallet in the garbage and travel, the sign travels behind me and Anthony Bourdain is there saying, hi, I'm Anthony Bourdain, I have a show too.

00:56:19.000 And we have a big dinner and I'm sitting next to the head of programming for travel and everyone's so thrilled.

00:56:24.000 Oh, you're going to be a new thing.

00:56:26.000 People are going to travel on zero dollars a day and then become a hashtag.

00:56:29.000 This was before hashtags.

00:56:31.000 And then, you know, it'll be a whole cultural phenomenon.

00:56:34.000 You'll invent a whole new thing.

00:56:36.000 The Hobo Traveler.

00:56:37.000 It's going to be awesome.

00:56:38.000 Yay! 0.99

00:56:38.000 Crusty Punks. 0.99

00:56:41.000 And then just one day, no, it's over.

00:56:42.000 Oh.

00:56:45.000 That guy, the head of programming, he was the laughing stock back in, I think, 2000, because he bet all his money on some loser named Zach Galifianakis.

00:56:56.000 And he said, Zach is a genius, and he's going to be huge.

00:57:00.000 And he gave him a show.

00:57:02.000 Back then, he would wear this sort of Peruvian hat with the ear flaps.

00:57:06.000 And the show didn't do well. 0.59

00:57:07.000 And then everyone said, see, dummy? 1.00

00:57:10.000 You're a loser. 1.00

00:57:11.000 Zach sucks. 1.00

00:57:12.000 And then a couple years went by, and Zach became the biggest thing since sliced bread, and all of a sudden everyone went back to that guy and said, oh, actually, you are smart. 0.99

00:57:20.000 Sorry.

00:57:21.000 And so he became head of programming at Travel.

00:57:25.000 But I don't know if he's still there.

00:57:26.000 He's the guy who invented the puppy bowl at MTV.

00:57:29.000 He said, look, everyone's watching the Super Bowl.

00:57:32.000 Women who don't like football want something on in the kitchen. 1.00

00:57:35.000 Let's make puppies have a Super Bowl. 1.00

00:57:37.000 They said, you're an idiot. 1.00

00:57:38.000 That's insane. 1.00

00:57:39.000 Again, biggest thing since sliced bread.

00:57:43.000 So then I went back to IFC, and I was persona non grata.

00:57:46.000 Exed forever.

00:57:48.000 Bridge burned.

00:57:49.000 Poop.

00:57:53.000 I also wrote a show with Jay Johnson called The Two Bennys, and it was an update of the Benny Hill Show, but there was two.

00:57:59.000 Me and him.

00:58:01.000 It was so funny.

00:58:02.000 I have all these PDFs I can send you.

00:58:04.000 But, uh... A typical example of a sketch was a guy's Benny Hill is looking at a girl, and I do this sometimes.

00:58:15.000 If I'm looking at someone, and I usually start with the shoes, because if you're wearing platform flip-flops, then we can't be together.

00:58:21.000 So I start with the shoes, see if those pass, then I work up, look at the boobs, whatever, then I look at the face, and sometimes I'll be not happy with the face.

00:58:27.000 I have a very particular type.

00:58:29.000 So, as she leaves, when she's behind me, I'll go... Or something.

00:58:34.000 And then the joke was, her twin sister is ten feet behind her and sees me doing that to essentially her face.

00:58:42.000 So they come by and they start hitting me with purses.

00:58:45.000 But in our version of it, instead of him going... They beat him and beat him with purses until he's just jammed.

00:58:52.000 And you just see like bones and an eyeball and guts everywhere.

00:58:55.000 So it was like...

00:58:56.000 Benny Hill in super overdrive.

00:59:00.000 I thought it was hilarious.

00:59:01.000 And you know what?

00:59:02.000 Working with Jay Johnson was such an honor.

00:59:04.000 I remember one time we were in a bar.

00:59:06.000 We did most of the writing in a bar, and we'd just write bits, and then I would type them out into Final Draft.

00:59:11.000 But he would... I said some joke, and he just stares at me.

00:59:18.000 And I go, what?

00:59:19.000 You didn't like that?

00:59:20.000 And he keeps staring.

00:59:21.000 And I go, you didn't think that was funny?

00:59:24.000 And then he looks at me and he goes, let's put it this way.

00:59:27.000 Did you think that was funny?

00:59:30.000 I don't know.

00:59:31.000 That really stuck with me.

00:59:32.000 It's such a good insult.

00:59:37.000 But yeah, so, Two Bennys, Aging Hipster, we did a show, I did a show for, I did a bunch of pilots for FX.

00:59:47.000 And there's two guys that run FX.

00:59:50.000 FX is a professional operation, I gotta say.

00:59:52.000 I talk about how incompetent everyone is in the top brass, but these guys forget their names.

00:59:56.000 But if you're in their meeting, you're good.

00:59:58.000 And I pitched them Vice TV, and then later I said, look, I've been here, what, 20 times over the past 10 years?

01:00:04.000 You have to take my show.

01:00:06.000 OK. 0.72

01:00:07.000 So that show was based on a Warren Beatty movie where he's a hairdresser and he's straight and he bangs all these chicks.

01:00:15.000 So ours was these three guys who want to get laid so they open a hairdressing salon and they go to the schools and they learn how to become hairdressers.

01:00:25.000 And it's just three dudes out meeting chicks.

01:00:27.000 I think it was hilarious.

01:00:29.000 They get into all sorts of trouble and, uh, uh, that bombed.

01:00:36.000 But again, these are all 40 grand.

01:00:39.000 So you do two or three in a year, you got 120 grand in your pocket.

01:00:43.000 That's a great salary. 0.81

01:00:45.000 So you're making $120,000 a year for the garbage. 0.98

01:00:51.000 I know, it's bizarre. 0.98

01:00:53.000 And it's so inefficient.

01:00:56.000 Like, how about I write, I think, actually I think the way it is now is you have to have written the pilot and shot a teaser, a seven minute teaser, because shooting has become so cheap now.

01:01:06.000 You don't need movie cameras.

01:01:08.000 So now it's become streamlined, but this was back in the early 2000s, 2010, back when it was basically the 1970s record business and they were all looking for their next kiss.

01:01:23.000 And by the way, going over this, I realized there was entire times I didn't, I forgot happened.

01:01:32.000 Like,

01:01:33.000 I did this with Charlie Corwin, me and Scott Campbell, this tattooist.

01:01:37.000 We did a show called Mama Tried about a tattoo shop.

01:01:39.000 And by the way, when we started this, Charlie goes, I want to do it about the art business.

01:01:43.000 Read these books.

01:01:44.000 I read three books about it.

01:01:45.000 And then he goes, nah, I don't want to do that.

01:01:46.000 Let's do like do's and don'ts stuff.

01:01:48.000 OK?

01:01:48.000 No, I don't want to do that.

01:01:51.000 So much gets turfed even before you get to the pitch.

01:01:54.000 But we did pitch the show called Mama Tried about a tattoo shop called Mama Tried, and this guy, he's an ex-junkie, and he's clean, but he starts getting in over his head because his tattoo shop's going under.

01:02:11.000 We're moving up the ladder.

01:02:12.000 I mean, we're meeting other people, and we're pitching it, and then I met this guy, Jim O'Doherty, I think his name was.

01:02:18.000 He did the Tracy Morgan Show, and our pitch was insane!

01:02:22.000 Like, we had a beatbox in it, where we play the theme song from the show.

01:02:26.000 We had got a band to record, and we have special effects, like bloop, bloop, bloop.

01:02:31.000 We're pitching it, and then he's done all these 90s sitcoms, and then we pitch it to FX, and it was amazing, and then FX calls after, and they go,

01:02:38.000 Why don't you just pitch us a 90s sitcom? 0.98

01:02:40.000 That's not you.

01:02:43.000 I'm trying to sell out, guys.

01:02:45.000 I thought you'd like that.

01:02:46.000 No, no.

01:02:46.000 We don't want to do that.

01:02:52.000 So here's sort of my last kick at the can.

01:02:56.000 I did a show called Man vs. Myth for Discovery UK.

01:02:59.000 Flew out to London a few times and they were interested.

01:03:02.000 By now I've been doing this for so long that when they ask for samples or they ask for ideas, I have the 15 pilots I've written and a hundred ideas.

01:03:15.000 Like, I don't like traveling.

01:03:16.000 I like youth subculture.

01:03:18.000 I wanted to hang out with the Mexican Morrissey heads and do a fun little sort of Louis Theroux look at those guys. 0.98

01:03:26.000 Maybe get drunk with them or something.

01:03:28.000 That was my idea of interesting.

01:03:32.000 Or, you know, finding out who's the coolest person in the world.

01:03:37.000 You have to define cool first and then you have to go find him.

01:03:43.000 It might be Josh Homie, the guy from Queens of the Stone Age.

01:03:48.000 I've been through this for hours and hours examining it.

01:03:51.000 That could be a whole other podcast.

01:03:55.000 So we come up with this idea, man versus myth.

01:03:57.000 And I beat out some other contestants.

01:03:59.000 It's funny, this is going to sound crazy, but going to London and competing to be the host of this show, everyone in England is so ugly that I'm basically not Brad Pitt, but I'm breathtakingly gorgeous in London.

01:04:14.000 In Scotland, oh my god, I'm a freak.

01:04:17.000 I'm like, I'm Tom Hardy in Scotland.

01:04:22.000 And I think it's because the Vikings came. 0.95

01:04:24.000 And they raped and pillaged and they stole all the beautiful women. 0.99

01:04:28.000 So you go to Scandinavia and every... a 10 is ugly and you go walk through the streets of Glasgow and it looks like a Mad Magazine comic. 0.98

01:04:37.000 I mean, everyone is hideous.

01:04:38.000 They look like a... what's his name?

01:04:42.000 Basil Wolverton cartoon.

01:04:45.000 So I won easy-peasy in London for the host because I'm obviously incredibly tall at 5'11", broad-shouldered and in great shape.

01:04:55.000 I don't have a nine-month pregnant beer belly and I have all my teeth.

01:04:59.000 Wow, this guy's a looker.

01:05:02.000 And so, we shot episodes.

01:05:04.000 Man vs. Myth.

01:05:06.000 The first one was Lie Detectors, which I met our buddy Doug, who I've had on the show a few times.

01:05:13.000 I'm blanking on his last name.

01:05:15.000 Great guy.

01:05:16.000 He wrote a book called Insidious Orwellian Machines.

01:05:19.000 I wrote an article about him.

01:05:21.000 He went to jail for two years for simply pointing out that polygraphs are complete BS.

01:05:27.000 And it's amazing how mainstream it still is, this scam.

01:05:31.000 It's a Ouija board.

01:05:32.000 It's not even sort of true.

01:05:35.000 They wrap you in wires, and they put stuff on your finger, and they sit you on a butt pad, and they put Velcro around your waist to intimidate you so you'll get nervous and spill the beans.

01:05:44.000 And it sounds so funny when I hear people go, she's actually agreed to take a polygraph.

01:05:49.000 Ooh, you've agreed to use a Ouija board.

01:05:52.000 I'm so scared.

01:05:54.000 Still, to this day, you hear about it all the time.

01:05:56.000 And it ends arguments.

01:05:57.000 Amy Schumer stole jokes.

01:05:59.000 I'll take a polygraph that I didn't steal jokes.

01:06:01.000 Oh, OK.

01:06:02.000 Well, we're dropping it.

01:06:04.000 You want to take a polygraph?

01:06:06.000 I'm so scared of you!

01:06:09.000 What's his name?

01:06:11.000 Doug Williams.

01:06:12.000 Sorry, Doug.

01:06:13.000 I've talked to this guy for a hundred hours.

01:06:14.000 There's something weird about being on a mic where names just vanish.

01:06:18.000 I could forget Dave Kast's name, my producer.

01:06:23.000 So I beat it three times.

01:06:25.000 And it was so easy.

01:06:26.000 You just, what you do is you tell the guy a lie.

01:06:30.000 Like I, the lie was I was cheating on my wife.

01:06:32.000 And we tell him something that's true.

01:06:36.000 I sometimes, back then I would look at my wife's texts.

01:06:39.000 I don't dare do it anymore because I don't want to see bad stuff about myself.

01:06:42.000 But back then I would read my wife's text secretly.

01:06:45.000 That's true, not having an affair.

01:06:47.000 We told him the opposite.

01:06:48.000 We said he's having an affair, he doesn't read his text.

01:06:51.000 And lo and behold,

01:06:53.000 The polygraph guy discovers whatever you tell him is secretly going on.

01:06:58.000 Like, I could say, uh, I was in Afghanistan, but I'm, I don't like talking about it, so I always lie about it.

01:07:07.000 The lie detector, someone else will plant that in the lie detector guy's head, he'll go through his sheets, and he'll discover, oh, yes, he was in Afghanistan.

01:07:15.000 You can make them say anything!

01:07:17.000 It's completely fraudulent, yet Doug Williams goes to jail for two years for pointing it out.

01:07:23.000 He's out now, by the way.

01:07:24.000 Old man, too.

01:07:27.000 75 to 77 in prison is a lot longer than 40 to 42. 1.00

01:07:35.000 You're eating crap food when you're an old, weak man. 0.99

01:07:38.000 You're eating just swill. 1.00

01:07:40.000 And by the end, you could only eat from the commissary.

01:07:43.000 And it wasn't minimum security.

01:07:45.000 I couldn't send him stuff.

01:07:46.000 I wanted to send him, like, Rubik's Cube-type stuff to kill time, but I wasn't allowed.

01:07:54.000 And then the other one we shot was escaping from tracking dogs.

01:08:01.000 Also, easy peasy.

01:08:03.000 There's so many things.

01:08:04.000 You run along a fence.

01:08:06.000 You jump over the fence.

01:08:07.000 Run along the other side.

01:08:08.000 Jump back over the fence.

01:08:10.000 Meanwhile, getting a dog over a fence is a big deal.

01:08:12.000 So just jump back and forth over a fence a few times.

01:08:15.000 You're good.

01:08:16.000 Or run in a direction for a long time that goes to a river.

01:08:20.000 Then throw like a sock of yours or something over the river into the bushes.

01:08:24.000 Then get in the river and go upstream in the opposite direction.

01:08:29.000 Maybe for a quarter mile and then go back on the trail.

01:08:32.000 The dogs and the hunters are going to keep going in that direction you were originally and lose the scent.

01:08:38.000 Hop from tree to tree.

01:08:39.000 There's a million things you can do.

01:08:41.000 We did that.

01:08:41.000 We're shooting that.

01:08:42.000 Now this is around when, and by the way, I was, I was do this with this guy, Sebastian, and it was fun.

01:08:48.000 We would go down, he would get 10% and we would razzle and dazzle him.

01:08:53.000 We always got a yes.

01:08:54.000 Always.

01:08:55.000 I mean, there's seven networks.

01:08:56.000 They know you by now.

01:08:57.000 You just dazzle them.

01:08:58.000 And you get a yes.

01:09:00.000 Oh, by the way, another reason these pilots bomb is, you come back, you're ready to submit it, and they make you spend a couple months writing it, even though you could do it in 20 minutes.

01:09:12.000 When you come back, no one is there from the original cast.

01:09:16.000 They're all gone.

01:09:18.000 And so they go, who are you?

01:09:20.000 And you go, uh, I'm your client.

01:09:22.000 You made me write a pilot.

01:09:23.000 Oh, we don't want it.

01:09:25.000 OK.

01:09:25.000 Well, can I pitch you a new show?

01:09:27.000 Who wants new shows?

01:09:27.000 New group?

01:09:31.000 So, uh, um, we pitched this show, uh, uh, yeah, sorry, Man vs. Myth with Discovery, and we did that, and this is when my, uh, article came out on Thought Catalog.

01:09:45.000 Thought Catalog is this, is this website, it's, it was like Huffington Post or something, but it's all sort of, uh, new concepts, right?

01:09:54.000 Thought Catalog.

01:09:55.000 It's brain games, like, I don't think we should eat food!

01:09:59.000 Or sleep is a myth, or just outside of the box. 0.80

01:10:01.000 But of course, because it's millennials who are incapable of counterintuitive thought, the only time they could think outside the box was anti-white male patriarchy stuff. 0.99

01:10:09.000 So, um, uh, work is rape. 1.00

01:10:14.000 Capitalism should be abolished. 0.74

01:10:15.000 All those kind of crazy, kooky thoughts. 0.98

01:10:18.000 Men are better at home than women. 1.00

01:10:20.000 Men aren't funny. 0.97

01:10:20.000 That kind of stuff. 0.97

01:10:22.000 So I would do the opposite.

01:10:24.000 And I did an article, short hair is rape.

01:10:26.000 Yeah, you heard me. 0.98

01:10:28.000 Because if you're having sex with a woman from behind and you look down and she has short hair, it looks like a 12-year-old boy. 0.99

01:10:33.000 So you just switched yourself out with a 12-year-old boy. 1.00

01:10:35.000 That's rape. 1.00

01:10:36.000 Now obviously you don't want someone prosecuted, but it's just a dumb sort of... It's like when Taylor Swift... When Jonathan Swift said the Irish should eat their babies because of the population. 0.98

01:10:46.000 It's satire with a point. 0.55

01:10:50.000 Um, so that was, that made them apoplectic.

01:10:54.000 And then, and by them I mean the readers.

01:10:57.000 And this guy, Chris, who runs it, he was a noble dude, like he wanted to have people thinking outside the box, but it wasn't working.

01:11:05.000 Uh, oh shoot, we gotta be on the, we gotta get on the train soon there, Dave.

01:11:11.000 But anyway, um, I'll wrap it up shortly.

01:11:14.000 But, uh, uh,

01:11:17.000 I wrote an article called, uh, Transphobia is Perfectly Natural. 1.00

01:11:21.000 And that was, um, that was true. 1.00

01:11:24.000 I said, you're not a woman, you're a mentally ill gay. 1.00

01:11:26.000 Something I still stand by. 1.00

01:11:28.000 I kind of enjoyed that controversy, because it was something I believe.

01:11:31.000 With all this, like, you're a Nazi stuff now, it's, it's tedious, because someone's mad at you for something you don't believe.

01:11:39.000 So you're like, what quote are you talking about?

01:11:41.000 Yeah, I'll explain it, blah, blah, blah. 1.00

01:11:44.000 But back with, uh, trans people are just mentally ill gays. 1.00

01:11:47.000 I'm like, let's discuss! 1.00

01:11:49.000 You got the right guy!

01:11:51.000 You were right, I did say that.

01:11:52.000 I do not believe that a woman is something you can just accrue. 0.88

01:11:55.000 But anyway, while that controversy was going, the company who owns Discovery said, uh, no.

01:12:01.000 You're fired.

01:12:02.000 The whole show is cancelled.

01:12:05.000 And I've told this story a million times, but I'll never forget the sound guy.

01:12:09.000 He was a local sound guy.

01:12:11.000 And I just saw him piling up the milk crates of his equipment back in his truck. 0.86

01:12:14.000 He was fired because the host of the show he was shooting doesn't think that trannies are actually women.

01:12:24.000 He thinks they're dudes dressing up as women.

01:12:28.000 And you're not allowed to record the sound

01:12:30.000 For a show where the host's beliefs include that belief.

01:12:35.000 Can you believe that?

01:12:37.000 I mean, he looked like a deer in the headlights, and I totally understand it.

01:12:42.000 Understand his confusion, I should say.

01:12:45.000 It's insanity.

01:12:47.000 And by then, I was sort of like, you know what?

01:12:49.000 It's kind of good that I'm a pariah, because I'm sick of this business.

01:12:53.000 I love attention.

01:12:56.000 I remember when I was a kid, I wanted to write a poem, so I wrote out a bunch of words that rhymed, and then I showed it to my mom before writing the poem.

01:13:04.000 I go, mom, mom, mom, check it out.

01:13:05.000 These are the words I'm going to use for a poem.

01:13:07.000 And then I'll just assemble those.

01:13:08.000 And she's like, that's nice, dear.

01:13:10.000 But that's not impressive.

01:13:12.000 Write the actual poem first.

01:13:13.000 And I go, I will, I will.

01:13:14.000 I just want you to see that.

01:13:16.000 Like, I want everything I do to get out there.

01:13:19.000 And shooting all these pilots, it wasn't legal for me to release them, because the person who bought them owned them.

01:13:26.000 In fact, I ended up using some of them for pranks.

01:13:29.000 Like, I had one where, well, this wasn't for a TV pilot, but I was, you know that, like, that saying, uh, who pissed in your cornflakes?

01:13:36.000 Uh, I actually pissed in cornflakes and ate them.

01:13:39.000 And it burns your tongue like acid.

01:13:43.000 Um, and I was grumpy after.

01:13:46.000 So the colloquialism makes sense. 0.99

01:13:48.000 I did that because I noticed, I did a card trick once, you can find it online, it's called like street card and street magic, and I put a card in a condom up my butt. 0.94

01:13:56.000 And then I was doing street magic with tourists and I pretend I can't find the card and I go, oh wait! 0.65

01:14:00.000 And then I pull it out and go, is this your card?

01:14:02.000 And it was your card because the entire deck was the same, it was an ace of spades.

01:14:08.000 Trick deck. 0.97

01:14:10.000 And I noticed I was grumpy when I had that card up my ass and the saying what's up your ass makes sense So I pissed in the cornflakes that makes sense, but I couldn't use it So then I went I said I had some challenge out like if you can find me doing this wrong I'll eat a bowl of pissed cornflakes And then I made up someone catching me and then I had to eat them and Gawker and all these lefty blogs They absolutely gobbled it up. 0.98

01:14:33.000 They loved it the way it happened 0.99

01:14:34.000 Ha ha! 0.86

01:14:35.000 Cell phone! 1.00

01:14:36.000 You loser. 1.00

01:14:36.000 And they took the bait. 1.00

01:14:38.000 I did it again with the immersionist.

01:14:41.000 There was a scene where I fought this giant MMA dude in the ring and he knocked me out twice in one fight.

01:14:47.000 And so that footage just sitting there.

01:14:49.000 I can't show it.

01:14:51.000 So I can't show the pilot.

01:14:52.000 So I put out this challenge to say, I will fight anyone in America.

01:14:57.000 And then I pretend that that giant Chinese MMA guy said, fight me.

01:15:02.000 My name's Meatball or Meathead.

01:15:04.000 Yeah, Meathead was his nickname.

01:15:05.000 And I go, no problem.

01:15:06.000 I'm flying down to Oakland tomorrow.

01:15:09.000 And I'd like blogged it and stuff as I was heading down to this fight that had already happened.

01:15:13.000 And he beats me up.

01:15:14.000 And then, of course, Gawker and everyone goes, too sweet.

01:15:18.000 Gavin gets owned.

01:15:20.000 That's more fun to me.

01:15:22.000 Doing stuff.

01:15:23.000 Getting it out there.

01:15:24.000 Money's not really been a driving force.

01:15:26.000 I want to influence society.

01:15:30.000 I feel like my voice is relevant.

01:15:33.000 And if you feel that way, then don't go with the gatekeepers and ask them permission.

01:15:39.000 If you don't feel that way, then don't.

01:15:40.000 If you don't feel like your voice is crucial, maybe it's not, and that's not a big deal.

01:15:45.000 If you just want to weld, weld!

01:15:48.000 We've been lied to by society that we have to be creative, and we have to get your voice heard.

01:15:54.000 You should have a podcast.

01:15:56.000 You've got to talk.

01:15:57.000 No, you don't.

01:15:58.000 And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

01:16:00.000 Every career is equally valid.

01:16:02.000 In fact, I think evolution... I say God, you say nature.

01:16:06.000 I think nature has certain talents.

01:16:08.000 LeBron James was meant to play basketball.

01:16:12.000 Shaquille O'Neal was born to play basketball.

01:16:15.000 He's really, really good at it.

01:16:17.000 Christopher Hitchens was born to debate.

01:16:19.000 Christopher Hitchens shouldn't play basketball.

01:16:21.000 Shaquille O'Neal can't debate.

01:16:24.000 Anyway, I think my voice is relevant, and I think I have a lot to impart.

01:16:29.000 And one of the things I want to impart on CRTV is that I waited too long to have kids.

01:16:35.000 I had poo-pooed the post-cool phase and thought, I'm going to be cool forever.

01:16:40.000 I'm going to be a party guy.

01:16:41.000 I'm going to do Coke when I'm 40 and never have a chick, never have kids. 1.00

01:16:46.000 And that was stupid. 0.99

01:16:49.000 I'm not disparaging the party years, as I discuss in my book, Death of Cool. 1.00

01:16:55.000 That was, uh, uh, I could have cut that off around thirty.

01:16:59.000 Thirty-two.

01:16:59.000 I didn't have to wait till my late thirties to have a kid.

01:17:04.000 And I certainly wish I had my youngest, Johnny, when I was ten years younger.

01:17:08.000 I can't even chase the guy.

01:17:09.000 And he wants to be chased.

01:17:11.000 Kids want monsters to chase them. 0.53

01:17:14.000 And don't do it before bed, by the way.

01:17:15.000 They get too amped up and then they won't sleep. 0.99

01:17:19.000 So what I want to impart is all this smashing the patriarchy, all this old people suck, all this don't have kids, all this America sucks, all this traditionalism sucks stuff is BS. 1.00

01:17:31.000 Give it a chance. 1.00

01:17:32.000 You don't have to do it.

01:17:33.000 Women don't have to stay at home. 1.00

01:17:35.000 But the pendulum has swung too far the other way.

01:17:37.000 Now, what has this got to do with TV?

01:17:39.000 That career was not something I was cut out for.

01:17:43.000 I clearly wasn't talented enough to make it to the air.

01:17:47.000 Um, and it was also hiding my message.

01:17:50.000 Yes, I was writing comedy and fiction and stuff, but my message was still in there.

01:17:54.000 You know, I was still a family man in these characters, for the most part.

01:17:58.000 And I still wanted to get my voice heard. 0.99

01:18:02.000 And I was writing for the garbage. 0.98

01:18:03.000 I was writing behind the gatekeepers. 0.96

01:18:05.000 I was asking permission for my work, my creativity, to be seen by others.

01:18:11.000 And one of the great things about Millennials, yeah, you heard me, is they've circumvented the gatekeeper.

01:18:17.000 Now, if you want to make a TV show, make it for YouTube.

01:18:20.000 And eventually, the gatekeepers will come to you, begging.

01:18:24.000 The privilege of leasing it the way they lease Jackass.

01:18:27.000 Say you want to write, you write on a blog on your own.

01:18:30.000 You tweet, whatever.

01:18:31.000 And then eventually you get followers and they want to read your books.

01:18:34.000 Now Simon & Schuster's begging.

01:18:36.000 Milo's making 10 times the money he's making self-publishing than he would have made at Simon & Schuster.

01:18:43.000 Most books sell about 10,000 copies.

01:18:46.000 That's the big best-kept secret of publishing.

01:18:49.000 So if you're gonna sell 10,000 you should keep 50% of the profits yourself.

01:18:55.000 So, my point is today, that if you feel like you've got an important message that's gonna save the world, don't let the gatekeepers decide how that message goes out and when it goes out.

01:19:06.000 If you have something you want the world to see, and it's not a message to save the world, it's just something you think is funny, then don't let the gatekeepers tell you how it goes out.

01:19:15.000 Because I've met these people, and they're not omnipotent.

01:19:19.000 They're not sentient beings. 0.65

01:19:20.000 They're bureaucrats, they're incompetent, and they're less talented than you.

01:19:25.000 If you want to know how to do something, just do it yourself. 0.78

01:19:28.000 That's something we learned in punk.

01:19:30.000 You want to have a show, rent the venue, book the bands yourself.

01:19:34.000 You're good enough, you're smart enough, and you're not a molester like Al Franken.

01:19:39.000 No, but seriously folks, that is my moral of today's show, is if you've got something you want to get out there, do it yourself.

01:19:46.000 Because I wasted tons and tons of hard work and content trying to get a TV show.

01:19:53.000 I like you more than a friend.

01:19:54.000 And get off my lawn. 0.62

Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes - December 08, 2017

Get Off My Lawn Podcast #11 | As a cop, I've seen things that would make you crap a book on how to puke

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