00:01:42.000And right now, the comedy store is greater than ever.
00:01:46.000Yeah, it's wonderful there because, you know, I even got Jay Leno to come back, you know, because he remembered the old days and hadn't gone back.
00:02:24.000Yeah, and I think it frees us up in a way.
00:02:28.000I'll say things and try things and not worry about seeing them on YouTube when they're not ready or when I've made a mistake and gone too far and said something.
00:06:03.000Speaking of, this has nothing to do with you, but I did a podcast last week with Theo Vaughn.
00:06:09.000And in it, there's like a video on the internet that's accusing me of lying about something.
00:06:15.000And what I said was that I was in the mountains of Utah when the Charlie Kirk thing was going down.
00:06:22.000What had actually happened was I was here doing a podcast with Charlie Sheen when the Charlie Kirk thing went down.
00:06:31.000We stopped and took a piss break, right?
00:06:33.000And that's when we found out about it, right?
00:06:37.000And then when I was in the mountains of Utah, that's when the Jimmy Kimmel thing was happening.
00:06:42.000When Jimmy Kimmel was getting in trouble, and I was getting all these messages, but I didn't have any service out there, so I had to hook up the Starlink in order to find out what was happening.
00:06:50.000When I did the podcast the other day, it seemed like I was saying that I was in the mountains when Charlie Kirk got shot.
00:07:45.000And I don't know where the fuck everything is.
00:07:47.000See, as you were talking, the first thing, everything goes to sports for me.
00:07:52.000Some of our greatest home run hitters, they strike out a lot because they're swinging all the motherfucking time trying to get it to McCovey Cove or something.
00:08:29.000So creatine is a great supplement when you're tired.
00:08:33.000It really, there's been studies that show that creatine supplementation, especially like 10 to 20 grams, actually alleviates all of the problems that happen with sleep deprivation.
00:08:49.000But I've been, I just was doing some blood work.
00:08:53.000So when I knew that I was going to do my blood work, I didn't take any creatine for a month because I want to, because I'd read something about creatine possibly being bad for your kidneys.
00:09:02.000So I wanted to get a baseline, do it, and then do it again when I saw it.
00:10:10.000Creatine is not just a supplement for muscles, creatine is actually a really good cognitive function supplement.
00:10:17.000It's actually a cognitive enhancing supplement.
00:10:20.000Yeah, there's a lot of research on that.
00:10:22.000And the other thing that hit me is I was listening to you talk recently, and you talked about smoking herb and how it enhanced the weightlifting process.
00:10:51.000Those guys don't do it, but a lot of guys do.
00:10:53.000I think one of the, I don't want to throw them under the bus, but one of the brothers was really into smoking weed and doing jujitsu, and arguably the best one.
00:11:57.000And then there's a lot of people that also get like super paranoid and they get anxiety and they freak out.
00:12:02.000And then there's people that there's a lot of connections to marijuana and psychosis or schizophrenic states.
00:12:13.000But the problem with that is, were they already like, did they already have a propensity towards schizophrenia and marijuana pushed them over the edge?
00:12:40.000If you're already fucked up, if there's already some things that you're like struggling to hang on to everyday life, yeah, you probably shouldn't do acid.
00:13:03.000Some people, they got one drink and then they're doing Coke and they're getting hookers and they're fucking driving on the freeway and ah, they're shooting at cops.
00:13:47.000It's a nice one, too, because it doesn't fuck with your body.
00:13:50.000The problem with alcohol is, you know, it feels good while you're doing it, but then the next day, you're like, Oh, yeah.
00:13:57.000Your fucking head and your body's tired.
00:14:00.000I hear swelling, you know, and different kinds of things.
00:14:05.000And also, I'm from a home where my favorite person, my cousin, because I didn't have brothers and sisters, biological brothers and sisters.
00:14:14.000So when my cousin came to live with me, a male, he's a teenager, and he had a drinking problem.
00:14:20.000Like I would go inside my toy box and find scotch.
00:18:04.000Yeah, the one I was just talking about.
00:18:05.000It would probably be good to be loopy, you know?
00:18:08.000Like, because, you know, the writers on news radio, they would stay up all night on purpose just to get loopy because they didn't really do any drugs.
00:18:17.000They just would use sleep deprivation to be silly.
00:18:22.000Like, these guys would start writing at like 2 o'clock in the morning.
00:18:27.000Like, they would stay up, they would play video games, and they would start writing a script at like 2 o'clock in the morning.
00:18:31.000And then they would stumble in to, like, when we have a table read, they would stumble into the table read, like, just finishing the script.
00:18:38.000They would lay it out to us, they just got done printing it.
00:18:42.000And these guys would be fucking just completely out of it, hair all fucked up, barefoot.
00:18:47.000It was really funny the way they operated, but there was a method to their madness.
00:18:52.000And that method was the more tired you get, the more exhausted you get, you get into sleep deprivation, you get loopy.
00:18:58.000And you get silly and you start thinking silly things.
00:25:17.000So when you look at something you've done and you're watching a role in dailies or, uh, At the premiere, you don't love what you see so much that you do more of it?
00:25:37.000And it's being around actors because you're around people that need to think and need to talk in a very specific way because they're always worried they're going to be cast out of the kingdom.
00:28:45.000He was happy with the simple shit, you know?
00:28:47.000And sometimes, I mean, it's nice to have, isn't it cool to have money but still eat burgers if you want to?
00:28:53.000I mean, Because I remember walking through supermarkets and pretending I was shopping and eating out of the child cart, that little top part, and then leaving the supermarket.
00:29:06.000So it's nice to be able to buy anything we want.
00:29:10.000But at the same time, I get that thing of the simplicity and no guard gate.
00:29:19.000Nobody's knocking down your door trying to get to you.
00:29:22.000Yeah, just a contour with no furniture.
00:29:24.000And for a guy like that, for the greatest that I've ever known in our world, to say I was happy when I had a little place with no furniture, I didn't think about it enough then, but later I realized what he meant when I was in a house that was too big with guest houses.
00:29:44.000That would, you know, you walk into a guest house and cobwebs get on your face, you know, because you ain't been in there in a while and you realize, okay, This is what Richard was talking about.
00:29:54.000I'm doing a lot of shit for other people that I don't need.
00:32:27.000Perhaps, I mean, he's a businessman, that's his thing, but what drives him nuts is this idea that people are overcharging him because he's wealthy.
00:32:38.000Joe, the craziest I ever went was I had a barber when I had hair, you know, and you know, a black barber is a skilled scientist, you know, because back then I had it fried, dyed, and laid to the side with three Adidas stripes over on the left.
00:32:57.000And, you know, my shit was intricate that year.
00:33:01.000And my business manager happened to be a business manager for two other entertainers.
00:34:46.000A lot of the young guys don't understand what you did because what your show was, like back in, I guess, when did it first come on the air?
00:36:56.000And he was trying to get the young vote, so he did me.
00:37:00.000And then the next day, they decided to do MTV because I think what my show did that night was change how you run for the highest office in the land.
00:37:14.000The joke I had just done was finally a Democrat blowing something other than the election.
00:37:22.000When you look, you remember jokes in the moment.
00:37:25.000And, dude, so what's interesting is after this, Presidential candidates realized they had to come to Rogan and Sunday morning to meet the press.
00:37:42.000You know, they have to go everywhere now.
00:37:45.000Well, they go where the people are paying attention, right?
00:37:48.000But it was different because if they did the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, it would be, you know, a very competent interview, but it would be stiff.
00:37:59.000It was like very, I mean, not even stiff is not the right word, it was traditional.
00:39:42.000And I was like, that's very cool, you know.
00:39:46.000And it came about sitting with the writers, and I had done it at the comedy store, and he says, you know, we could use that and just throw any joke in there, like randos that we don't know where to put.
00:40:22.000Well, it was just finally there was a different kind of talk show.
00:40:26.000It was like finally there was a talk show that was more fun.
00:40:29.000Hey, the desk thing, my partner, And executive producer Marla Kel Brown.
00:40:37.000We were sitting around one day, and she said, After coming to America, I had done the Joan Rivers thing.
00:40:42.000I'd filled in for her for 11 weeks, and I think her husband committed suicide, and she was going through all that period, right?
00:40:50.000Conan's creating the Wilton North Report in the room that I leave, and I go to Paramount, and she says, I'm asking you one thing.
00:40:58.000She said, I watched you do stand up the other night at the comedy store.
00:41:04.000There is a freedom that you have that I would like you to have on the talk show, and I don't think we can have it with that desk between you and the guest.
00:41:12.000So I want you to just try without the desk.
00:41:15.000And I tried it without the desk and never went back.
00:43:10.000And it's just like, and you find your own, as long as you do it long enough and you put the right attention to it and do it honestly, you'll find your own lane.
00:43:21.000You'll find your own way of doing things.
00:43:22.000I have friends who have children who have shows.
00:43:26.000Makeup tutorials and successful things going on in their bedroom.
00:43:30.000One of the biggest shows on YouTube for a long time was a kid that was like unboxing toys.
00:45:49.000And then all of a sudden you have 150 channels, and now you have like, Literally, an infinite number of channels because of streaming and YouTube.
00:46:44.000Like particle physicists talk about the way they find new particles by using particle colliders and large hadron colliders and the amount of energy required to duplicate the conditions that happened right after the Big Bang.
00:47:02.000I watch a lot of that shit and then I just watch people play pool.
00:47:05.000I watch people play pool and I watch people make furniture and people cook.
00:48:09.000I mean, I know people like Bill Clinton.
00:48:12.000The first time I sat and talked to Bill Clinton, not on the air, or the second time, I guess I should say, it was kind of daunting because he, no matter what your politics is, he's a really smart guy.
00:50:13.000And then they form ideologies that you cannot stray from.
00:50:17.000So if you're one of those people that says, like, hey, maybe an open border is a bad idea because terrorists can come through, like, oh, no, no one's illegal on stolen land.
00:50:29.000Everybody gets crazy because there's a party line that you have to stick with.
00:50:34.000Today, things are incredibly polarizing.
00:50:36.000But if you go back and listen to some of the things that Clinton was saying when he was running for president and when he was president, boy, these are like almost right wing talking points.
00:51:05.000That education was of crucial importance and that discourse was crucially important and that you have to look out for citizens in the sense of like having social safety nets and having.
00:51:17.000Welfare programs and food stamps and all those things are which are really important for a society because not everybody is in the same position in life.
00:51:25.000And if we're a community of people, which is what a country is supposed to be, you're supposed to look out for everyone.
00:54:43.000There's like, we have a problem in this country where we have a two party system.
00:54:47.000Two party systems are inherently flawed because there's no fucking way that one side is going to represent you entirely.
00:54:55.000And it's much more likely if you have like five, 10, 15 different parties that are all legitimate because we don't have another legitimate party.
00:55:03.000If you vote for libertarian and I've voted libertarian before, you're basically saying, fuck these people.
00:55:46.000When they allowed corporations to just essentially give as much as they feel like it, Like, and when corporations and not just corporations, but other countries, this episode is brought to you by BetterHelp.
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00:57:34.000Well, I felt that way also about the lockdowns in California.
00:57:38.000I was like, all these people that are saying that you should have no outdoor dining, your paycheck should be entirely dependent on the GDP of your city.
00:57:45.000And if your city starts suffering, you should fucking suffer.
00:57:48.000And I guarantee you want those businesses to open right the fuck back up because it didn't make any sense.
00:57:53.000They were doing things for optics only.
00:57:55.000And they were doing things because they like control.
00:58:26.000Right now, there's some talk about journalists getting in trouble for leaking information about the downed pilot and that they want to prosecute these journalists.
00:58:37.000At the same time, no one's being prosecuted for the Epstein files.
01:00:36.000But I don't think your participation is having the kind of effect that you'd like it to have.
01:00:41.000I think it's having an effect on the way you think and feel.
01:00:44.000Much more, like a disproportionate effect on your mental health and your anxiety levels, and all these different things that you cannot control by paying attention to it.
01:00:52.000You can't control what these fucking people are doing.
01:02:22.000Like a peaceful, God loving person who's just looking out for everybody's best interest who really only wants to do this because they think they can affect change.
01:02:29.000And then once they do try to affect change, they get fucking shot because nobody really wants that because they're all making money.
01:02:35.000When we were coming up, remember the Sam Kennison bit?
01:02:51.000I mean, anybody that really wants to rock the apple cart, like that person's a problem, you know?
01:02:57.000And all these people that are making, all these sociopaths that are making fucking billions of dollars just being cunts, they do not want you coming along and waking people up to that and saying, hey, we should put a stop to all this.
01:03:09.000We should, you know, We should stop these people from making like that's why people cheered when that guy got shot.
01:03:15.000The United Healthcare guy, he got shot.
01:03:20.000Like, finally, at first, I thought it was, I thought homie who shot him, I thought it was his eyebrows, you know, because women were going crazy.
01:03:26.000You know, he's a hot guy, yeah, he's a good looking guy, too.
01:03:28.000It was like perfect guy to be like a martyr, like an assassin.
01:03:33.000But by the way, have you noticed throughout history, good looking people get treated differently when it comes to the justice system?
01:03:41.000They've done experimental trials where the hot guy gets off.
01:04:17.000I heard someone talk about that, saying that there's women that like men that are capable of killing.
01:04:23.000Because back in the day, it was if someone was, if you needed someone to protect you, you didn't want someone that would hesitate if they were going to kill someone.
01:04:34.000You wanted someone who has experience killing people.
01:04:37.000So it's almost like an attractive trait that someone's willing to cross that terrible line and just has no problem murdering people.
01:04:44.000And if they like you, they won't murder you, but they'll murder other people.
01:09:40.000Saturday morning was, that was life for me.
01:09:44.000There's no shows where there's like a bunch of people performing music on TV anymore.
01:09:51.000Well, that's the gap between me and you as talkers.
01:09:57.000One of the problems I had, and I talk in the book about this, I love music, and I grew up wanting to do that show.
01:10:04.000So, when they start telling me, you know, you can get better numbers with Howie Mandel just talking than you can with this, because I put boys to men and the temptations together once.
01:14:13.000Sometimes it's really important for me to look back and say, I love that show that I did, and I don't regret a moment of it, but I get a corporate organization saying we can make more money and we can get more people in.
01:14:33.000Yeah, if I was a corporate, I would be a terrible corporate executive, by the way.
01:14:37.000Because you would leave it with your heart.
01:15:53.000A lot of people don't even know that he did that.
01:15:56.000You think of Ice T, you think of Six in the Morning, you think of you know, Hustler, you think of all those classic songs, colors, you think of that, you don't think of Body Count, which is like Ice T reinvented himself, and he was like, I always love this kind of music, you can't tell me what the fuck I do.
01:17:52.000Especially in those weird settings where most of the time when people were coming on talk shows, they would just have this very canned, sort of pre programmed thing that they would talk about.
01:18:03.000They would talk about their character and the way they were talking.
01:18:06.000People don't know we have pre interviews, which you don't have in a show like this, but I get a card that morning.
01:18:13.000It's like, okay, here's what Jackie Collins would like to talk about.
01:18:36.000And it's again, you're dealing with too many different people that are peripheral people where all their money is dependent on this one person performing.
01:18:45.000So they just want to make sure they make the maximum amount of money possible.
01:18:48.000Like, don't make any ripples, don't cause any waves, don't cause any problems.
01:18:52.000Just go out there and smile and we'll sell more records, we'll sell more movies, TV show will get better ratings.
01:19:45.000Well, Prince was just, he was so unique, man.
01:19:48.000And he predicted a lot of the things that we're dealing with now and going through.
01:19:52.000I remember the first time he talked about what became Napster.
01:19:56.000And he talked about owning your own property and what was going to happen, slave on his jaw.
01:20:02.000And we thought that was silly, but it meant something.
01:20:05.000Well, he was dealing with these crazy contracts where these record companies, these predatory record companies, would lock you into these contracts and they fucking owned you.
01:20:16.000So his response to that was like, okay.
01:21:44.000I remember the Musicology album where he toured and he attached the album to the ticket so that when you bought a ticket, you were buying an album.
01:21:55.000And it instantly became a million dollar seller with that philosophy.
01:21:58.000He had genius that was way ahead of the pimps.
01:24:47.000He was very interested in what people listen to and what moves people in clubs.
01:24:51.000And I told him about an after hours joint down the way south of Wilshire that was in a lady's house.
01:24:56.000And you have pit bulls and a fence, and they let you in, they lock the chain back, bring you to the back, and you put money on the counter and they put your liquor in a solo cup.
01:26:41.000A Smith Wesson 38 long, but it was fixed up so the microphone was where the barrel is, so he could hold the gun and sing into it like that.
01:31:09.000Their pain is so minor in comparison to the pain of poverty, the pain of struggle, the pain of not getting enough attention when you're young and moving around a lot, all the different shit that most comics go through.
01:31:22.000I've never met a good comic who had a great childhood.
01:31:25.000As you're talking, I'm thinking, I'm like, do we know any comics who are good, who are from wealth?
01:32:36.000You know, and even like he wanted to do, we talked, Years ago, about him coming on my podcast, and he was like, I'd like to, but I'll say some crazy shit and then I'll get in trouble because he was in that what I call the velvet prison, the TV velvet prison.
01:32:51.000You're doing TV shows, you're playing a dad on a TV show, you know.
01:32:56.000You can't come on a podcast, talk about getting your dick sucked.
01:32:59.000It's just Howie Mandel goes through that.
01:33:02.000I work with him a lot, and Howie is on America's Got Talent, exactly this real commercial television vehicle, but nobody is more real.
01:34:17.000I mean, Pauly's a rare dude in that regard.
01:34:19.000Like, he became a really funny comedian while he was, you know, living with a woman who's the great.
01:34:27.000In terms of, like, people in comedy that are, like, some of the most critical, important people, she is the most important person in the history of comedy that's not a comic.
01:37:58.000Man, there'd be something that would happen in the news like the day before, and Mooney would go on stage and have like 15 minutes on it and just crush.
01:39:35.000The coolest conversations at the comedy show, when Richard would come up every night and Richard would go from five minutes to an hour and then it would become.
01:39:43.000A great special that you go to at the theater to see.
01:39:46.000But I would watch Paul Mooney before we had cell phones.
01:39:50.000After it was over, Richard would go and have a cigarette in the main room, like on a Monday or Sunday, I think it would be closed.
01:39:56.000And that's where he would call it holding court.
01:39:58.000He would go in there first and just want to dry off for a minute, smoke a cigarette, and Paul would come in with a napkin with stuff written on it.
01:40:07.000And he would just, you know, oh, and how about this?
01:42:40.000Well, Jamie, we should get some of these photos and, yeah, get some of these photos and let's print them up and put them in the green room at the mothership.
01:44:57.000But also, we live in a different time.
01:44:59.000You know, in the 1960s and 70s, when those guys are getting arrested, they're getting arrested for like having a joint or something like that.
01:50:17.000I mean, Jay Leno and like that famous scene in that movie that talked about it, where Jay Leno would hide in the closet and listen to them talk about it because.
01:50:25.000He wanted that spot when Johnny retired, but they wanted Letterman.
01:50:29.000And it was like this battle between, like, it made no sense to me.
01:50:32.000I'm like, Letterman has the Letterman show.
01:55:12.000It's weird that it took, it wasn't even 10 years, and then everybody just got accustomed to having a phone with them all the time.
01:55:22.000Like, there was, think about like the difference between, like, it was probably like, what is it, like 97, 98 when everybody had those Motorola's, right?
01:57:51.000But you didn't have to worry about the things that kids have to worry about now.
01:57:54.000Like I was watching this thing about Roblox, that game that kids like to play.
01:57:59.000That they're getting like predators are on roadblocks and they're trying to pick up kids, like child predators.
01:58:07.000So you have to worry about the games they play.
01:58:10.000You have to worry about them getting DM'd by creeps.
01:58:13.000You have to worry about so much more access than just a phone to call people.
01:58:19.000There was a time when my kid used to play games with a headset on and he would play with people you don't know, just somebody in the world.
01:58:42.000Well, when I first started playing video games, you'd have to chat by pulling down a window and you'd have to type in the things that you wanted to say.
01:58:55.000But then the problem is, whenever there's anything that kids are doing, you're going to have some creeps that are targeting kids and they've Find where the kids are hanging out, what the kids are doing, and then they try to get those kids to meet them somewhere.
01:59:08.000That's what's scary about cell phones and the internet and all that shit is that it's not just a phone, it's a way that you can connect with people.
01:59:18.000And there's always creeps that are trying to connect with kids.
01:59:22.000I was lucky as a kid because I talk about being a magician and I worked at a magic shop when I was 12, took cash because I couldn't actually have a job.
01:59:53.000Yeah, I really got lucky because I, you know, when I was writing the book, I'm looking and I'm saying, there was a guy I met who worked until he died for Penn Teller.
02:00:05.000And this dude, I met him at a magic show.
02:00:07.000And every year when he would come to Cleveland, I would go sit with him.
02:00:10.000My mother, Never knew I had this 40 year old friend.
02:00:18.000Yeah, that's the thing about latchkey kids.
02:00:20.000I mean, the thing is, though, I was watching this YouTube video where they were talking about kids of our age, you know, our generation, latchkey kids that grew up like that are so much more resilient because no problems were solved for you.
02:00:52.000You had to figure life out in a way that, like, helicopter parenting and parents that are like tracking their kids, you know, like a lot of parents, like, they're tracking their kids on their phone.
02:03:05.000I have old cars, but I have what they call resto mods, where they take an old car, but they put like modern suspension, modern brakes, modern steering.
02:03:14.000Handles like a new car, but they have all the outside of an old car.
02:03:18.000And then the dashboard of an old car and all that stuff.
02:07:41.000When I was in college, we would go in the TV lounge and watch Jay Leno.
02:07:48.000To this day, I remember him saying, I was a philosophy major, and so I just got out of college and opened up a little philosophy shop.
02:07:55.000You know, just to explain what bullshit majors were actually being peddled to us.
02:08:01.000Well, he was the edgy comic in the 1970s.
02:08:04.000And when he would go on Letterman's show, he was like the edgy guy that would sit on the couch and be like, Letterman would say, What's your beef?
02:08:10.000Yeah, and he would always be mad at something.
02:08:12.000He was like, people don't realize that.
02:08:14.000You'd see him as, but again, that carrot, the carrot for him was the Tonight Show.
02:08:18.000That was more important to him than anything.
02:08:20.000And once he got that Tonight Show, everything else was like, took a back seat.
02:10:59.000Are you a comic who, when you're on stage, it can be 200 people laughing, but that one person who's not laughing annoys the fuck out of you?
02:12:02.000Especially like we do this show called Bottom of the Barrel.
02:12:05.000And Bottom of the Barrel at the Mothership is there's like a whiskey barrel, and you reach into the whiskey barrel and you pull out premises, just ideas, and you just run with it.
02:13:31.000And I have to figure out how to make a house out of that frame.
02:13:34.000That's what I loved about going to the original room back in the day when we were young, watching Richard take out a pack of cigarettes, take a cigarette, and Mitzi had those smoke things that popped, and it got smoke and everything.
02:13:49.000And Richard would have two minutes, and then he'd have five.
02:14:36.000Damon is one of the great ones, and I hope he continues to do stand up and pop out to the clubs because he's one of the great ones that a lot of people don't realize.
02:14:45.000They don't realize how great he was when he did The Last Stand, that one HBO special that he did way back in the day.
02:15:15.000Well, I think he never really started.
02:15:17.000You know, one other thing that he did that is very unique Damon brings a camera to all of his shows and he films all of his shows and he archives them.
02:15:33.000Because one of the things that he does, like I said, is he'll take a premise and just try to find it on stage, try to figure out what about it works, what about it pops.
02:15:45.000And you know, I guess like doing that with a camera, and then you can go home, sit, and watch it on the computer, and just go, What is in this?
02:15:54.000There's something here, I gotta find it, and just look at it from every angle.
02:15:58.000Look at it over here, look at it over there, try to do it backwards, try to figure out what the makes it work.
02:16:04.000Yeah, and he would just have no fear of silence.
02:16:08.000See, that's that's the sentence right there when it's quiet in the comedy club, I lose my mind.
02:18:09.000It's a new thing to distract you from the most, the primary thing.
02:18:13.000The primary thing is, What are you talking about?
02:18:15.000Like, what is this thing you're talking about?
02:18:16.000Let me get inside your head while you explain this thing that's so hilarious.
02:18:21.000But if you're doing that and changing outfits and changing stages, like, I know you perform in different places, I know you wear different clothes.
02:18:41.000Different people like to do different things and try them.
02:18:43.000I just didn't like that for that reason.
02:18:45.000I felt like it was an added element that took me away from the premise itself.
02:18:50.000And by the way, something that's come out of this conversation in my head is the guys who are the best seem to go deeper and work the hardest.
02:20:55.000But honestly, when I lived in New York, I really liked doing the road more because when I did the road, I could make money.
02:21:02.000So, like, I came up in Boston, and in Boston, You made a lot of your money not in the clubs in town, but you made a lot of your money in like the bar shows, you know, outside of town in the suburbs.
02:21:14.000And the thing about that is like you could headline.
02:21:17.000And so you could do 45 minutes or an hour.
02:21:20.000And that allowed me to grow and like to really become a headliner.
02:21:25.000Whereas like I found like a lot of the New York comics that I would go on the road with when I would work with them, even when I was a middle act and they were a headliner, they had like these 10 and 15 minute sets that they'd stitch together.
02:22:41.000But I had gone to an Al Green concert, and Al Green had a comic come out.
02:22:46.000House lights are on, people are still making their way to their seats, and this guy slowly gets them, and then the lights go down, and by the time he gets to 30 minutes, he's killing.
02:22:59.000And all he had was a glass of juice, something on the stool.
02:23:04.000And this is a kid who just lost his house and his cymbals and his tom toms and his doves and his boxes.
02:23:34.000Like, I would come to the comedy store and I would have a really nice car because I'd spend most of my time on the road with Patrice Russian and Johnny Guitar Watson.
02:23:47.000Opening for musicians is a different kind of comedy because, like, they're not there to see you.
02:23:52.000And that's what I found to be the challenge.
02:23:54.000It's like, I'm going to make you motherfuckers who don't know me and are mad because a lot of people would look at you like, that ain't one of the temptations.
02:25:23.000I remember those times being on the road and if there were six girls in the green room and you're opening for the Temptations, Number six is yours.
02:28:50.000It's just this incredible moment when I realized, yo, he's getting ready to bring Michael back in a crazy way.
02:28:57.000I'm listening to, you know, you got me working, working day and night, you know, and he'd just take out everything and just have Michael's voice.
02:29:04.000And I'd never been in a recording studio.
02:29:06.000And he's at the board, 18 channel track studio.
02:29:12.000And then he says, You're from Ohio, right?
02:29:14.000And he had seen me do stand up at the Roxy and invited me to his studio.
02:31:24.000Because Joan leaves, goes through all the stuff she's going through, and they give me this show for 11 weeks, and it starts to get numbers.
02:31:35.000And I know that she left because of a lack of numbers.
02:31:52.000And I realized they had hired Conan O'Brien to create a show.
02:31:57.000And I think the show was called The Wilton North Report or something like that.
02:32:02.000But I realized I wasn't in their future.
02:32:05.000So, Paramount, they were popping over to say hi, sending me flowers.
02:32:13.000And when I finished coming to America, actually halfway through, they were like, when you finish, you can do that talk show here in first run syndication.
02:33:49.000There's also the problem in that, when you compare it to things that are on the internet, is that you have to stop conversations every seven minutes for a commercial.
02:36:11.000You're in that's a weird primal connection with nature where you're going to eat this thing, you're sneaking up on this thing that has these survival instincts and sense of smell, and tears pop up.
02:36:24.000Yeah, and you have you know, you don't want to it up either.
02:37:13.000I'm not interested in anything that's going to ruin my life, but I'm interested in things that are going to help me grow and help me expand my capacity to do things that are scary.
02:42:21.000They figured out a way to keep them there.
02:42:24.000They just pushed people there like they started doing it decades ago, where they would take all the problem people out of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills and they would just bring them to downtown and go, You got to stay here.
02:42:42.000Oh, they shut them down during the Reagan administration.
02:42:45.000That was one of the giant errors of society when they shut down all the mental health institutions and they just let all these people just exist in the street with schizophrenia.
02:42:56.000And in some places, give them drugs and give them needles and encourage them to come there and give them money so they could stay on the street.
02:43:04.000Austin loves you, but you ever think about back in the day not leaving California and running for governor?
02:51:21.000I went to a Parliament Funkadilic concert where they landed in some shit like that, and George Clinton came out and sang One Nation Under a Groove.