00:04:56.000Back when I was still involved with the sandwich shop, one of the things I learned that I never knew, because you had to take a test to get a food handler's license and all this shit, was.
00:05:06.000I didn't know that food started breaking down the moment you cut it.
00:05:11.000Because I was getting into, at the time, meal prep and shit.
00:05:13.000Like, if I cut up, if I chop the tomatoes now, if I chop the carrots now, the cucumbers now, it'll be way easier to just throw a salad together every day.
00:05:22.000It'll make me eat the good thing because it'll be fast.
00:05:26.000And then I learned no, as soon as you cut something, it starts to break down.
00:06:19.000So, listen, all you do is you take that ground coffee after it comes into the little cup, you pour it into the bottom of the fucking French press, and then you pour the hot water in.
00:07:49.000With the dread of humanity in my fucking brain, I'm just like, I need a cup of coffee immediately to just start the day and just clear the head.
00:07:58.000And the longer that takes, the longer I got to sit in that wake up anxiety.
00:08:49.000Do you know what I saw, though, that made me want to get the thing again with the The cream steamer because I don't put cream in, so I don't have any use for it.
00:13:02.000You have an abundance of choices here.
00:13:07.000It took a minute because when I first moved back, because I was here in 2000 for a year, when I first moved back, I was in New York for so long, I forgot that Austin is more of a destination city.
00:15:32.000When I got my first development deal, my manager thought that I had a gambling problem, but it was really just because I was eating steak and lobster every night.
00:15:55.000Until this shit runs out, I don't even know if it's going to last, but I'm riding this bitch right into the rocks.
00:16:00.000My favorite thing about when I finally got to a point of some financial stability with this crazy career that you go through for a long time without knowing what's next, but my favorite thing was when I could go.
00:16:23.000He goes, The most important thing, because other than obviously taking care of your family and mortgage and all that stuff, after life necessity, the big change is being able to go to a restaurant and order whatever you want and not think about it, not worry about the bill.
00:16:41.000And if you can do that, like, you have real freedom.
00:17:39.000When I check out at the supermarket, I try to remind myself you just pulled whatever you wanted off the shelf to fill your cart and you didn't have to worry about can I pay for this or not.
00:17:50.000You're checking out and you're paying for your groceries and it costs what it costs.
00:17:54.000I was like, People, there are people that don't have this man.
00:17:58.000It's here's the question though Do you think that there's value in not having that when you're young and then developing that sort of drive and ambition and desire to earn money and get something because you know what it's like to be poor?
00:18:14.000Yes, or do you think the world would be a far better place if instead of people having to concentrate on necessities like food and shelter, society reaches a point where that is?
00:19:05.000And I don't even know if they really experience it anywhere else.
00:19:08.000I mean, I think there's like forms of socialism, but they all evolve oppression, they all involve government, overreach.
00:19:15.000Any real socialist system always involves like serious restrictions on what you can and can't do.
00:20:21.000I will tell you this, and this might be a byproduct of the culture we live in because we don't have it.
00:20:27.000I will say, there is a noticeable difference to me between people I am friendly with that grew up with money and people that I know that grew up that didn't have it.
00:20:52.000Our society is fucked up, and that desperation that we're putting into people, you're just making the motivation different.
00:20:59.000Like you're enforcing the idea of greed because people become selfish because no one was looking out for them and they have a chip on their shoulder, all that shit.
00:21:06.000Well, you don't necessarily have to have that to have interest in pursuing something to the best of your abilities.
00:21:19.000I think there's bonuses to both, but I also think, too, in the social society thing, Hey, isn't it great if you can go, hey man, I'm a waiter and I'm able to live a normal life and buy a house and be normal, you know, whatever.
00:22:29.000But as far as the society we live in personally, I think it's better to have.
00:22:35.000Known what nothing is, and then go to appreciating what you do have.
00:22:40.000I don't know because I've never grown up any other way.
00:22:45.000But I wonder if you have conscientious parents and you're a young kid, and your dad just sits you down and tells you, hey, buddy, you can be whatever you want, but you're going to have to fucking put in the work.
00:22:59.000There's only one way out of this thing, and nobody rides for free.
00:23:02.000And if you do ride for free, you're going to be depressed.
00:23:04.000If somebody gives you everything that you have, Those are the people that are the most aimless.
00:23:09.000The rich kids that I've met that have no, like, they've had money their entire life.
00:23:14.000Like, their parents just give them a trust fund so they don't have to work and they're worth, like, a ton of money.
00:23:27.000I know one or two people that had trust funds grew up like that but still work their asses off because, again, you're saying it's what the parents.
00:23:51.000I remember she was in my house one day in LA and she's like, I'm not supposed to tell anybody my dad's going to be Thanos in the Marvel movies.
00:23:58.000And I was like, that's fucking crazy, right?
00:24:03.000So, like, but she, dude, she worked for every fucking thing.
00:24:07.000I became friends with her because she was a hostess at the stand in New York.
00:24:15.000She does some acting, but she is not in a situation where her dad put her wherever.
00:24:21.000And I think it's because they're very close, but I think it was because she was just raised in a way where he's like, you're going to earn your shit and you're going to do your thing.
00:24:49.000And there's a lot of people like that that you think of, you know, you think of actors as all being these fucking aloof weirdos who live in this bizarre, liberal, like, progressive, leftist bubble.
00:25:53.000Said a thing to me the first time I ever hung out with him.
00:25:57.000He came to kill Tony, and we were drinking after the show, and we had a great time.
00:26:02.000And at the end of the night, he just goes, and Tony had plugged my special at the beginning of the show or whatever.
00:26:10.000And at the end of the night, and I mean, we'd had a few, we were in Mitzi's, we were all kind of just getting into that, swaying around, you know.
00:26:20.000And I was like, It was great to meet you, man.
00:26:23.000And he goes, Yeah, man, it was fun tonight.
00:26:25.000And he goes, I'm going to watch your special.
00:28:31.000Well, back then, you got to think Hogan's Heroes.
00:28:34.000First of all, how much has society changed and how much more sensitive have people gotten when you think that Hogan's Heroes was a show about a Nazi concentration camp and it was a Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:30:26.000Colonel Klink is not killed, so the practical answer is one named, reoccurring character with occasional unnamed wartime casualties implied rather than shown.
00:34:56.000But even that's like kind of unheard of when Seinfeld, when it was announced they were all going to get a million an episode, I remember that was like groundbreaking.
00:35:03.000It was like, this has never been done before, right?
00:37:16.000Despite it being the easiest job in show business as far as payment time versus reward, it is the hardest type of acting because it is an acting where you have to land jokes and gags and you have to make it convincing.
00:41:58.000You're going to have some lemons when you win.
00:42:00.000I mean, Scorsese's output is incredibly high.
00:42:03.000And it's like, of course, you're going to have a few duds.
00:42:06.000Well, this is one of the reasons why Tarantino's the goat, is because he figured out how to have no lemons other than death proof, which Tony loves.
00:43:07.000See if you could find a photo of Nicole Kidman from that.
00:43:11.000And I'm obviously not saying the movie's bad because Nicole Kidman had plastic surgery, but it does take me out of it when I see somebody doing a period piece with.
00:43:18.000See, that doesn't look like plastic surgery to me.
00:45:35.000And this is a thing you notice with these directors that break through and do an amazing first movie, and then it's kind of followed by a lot of ho hum stuff.
00:45:49.000The Matrix was this cultural phenomenon.
00:45:51.000It changed everything and blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:45:53.000Their movies after that, except for maybe V for Vendetta, none of them really ever lived up to that.
00:45:59.000So now we're seeing this, and I'm like, well, did they just get all the great ideas for The Matrix from this other thing and then they made a great movie and then that's why they were never able to kind of hit that again?
00:47:29.000The worst one is, and I'm a fan of that.
00:47:33.000We're not accusing anyone of plagiarizing, but we're saying if someone was going to plagiarize, why wouldn't they plagiarize from multiple sources?
00:47:39.000You can't just say just because he stole a giant chunk of it from that one episode of a show, that doesn't mean that he didn't steal a bunch of other stuff.
00:47:49.000And I'm not saying anybody stole anything.
00:48:55.000And I don't think James Cameron stole it either because there's no other evidence of him ever swiping something.
00:49:00.000But I do think, like, we all do this thing where we see something, we don't remember.
00:49:05.000It goes into the subconscious, and maybe you go, I got a great idea, and you're not realizing, oh, actually, that's a thing I saw when I was 10.
00:49:11.000He's pretty intensely creative, like an original.
00:49:16.000I don't imagine that he would do that.
00:50:21.000Commentators often mention his Outer Limits episode, Demon with a Glass Hand, but Ellison himself reportedly said his principal claim concerned Soldier, not that episode.
00:50:32.000So it seemed like it wasn't, maybe there was more than one thing.
00:50:37.000Either way, you could, you know, it's like every werewolf movie is a guy gets bit by a werewolf.
00:51:12.000My favorite story of his is he talked about when he was in college and he goes, My literary professor said I had no talent, so I got expelled because I punched him in the throat.
00:51:39.000Did you have when you were getting into well, well, how old were you when you said, I'm gonna go do comedy, I'm not gonna do any of the that I studied in school.
00:51:48.000I'm gonna actually, well, I barely studied in school.
00:51:50.000I only went to school because I didn't want to be a loser, right?
00:51:53.000Literally, I went to UMass Boston, like the continuing education program, so I didn't have to take my SATs.
00:53:52.000And I was realizing, like, I got to get out before I become that guy at the gym because there were some guys that I had met and that I'd watched them deteriorate a little during the time that I knew them and I was training with them.
00:54:59.000This episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee, the only coffee we drink here at the JRE Studios.
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00:56:58.000If you could find a personality that you thought was someone who would click on a sitcom that people would want to watch, you know, every Tuesday night or whatever it was.
00:57:06.000They were willing to pay you a lot of money.
00:57:08.000And then all of a sudden, I was out in LA, but it was never a desire of mine.
00:57:14.000So because it wasn't a desire of mine, I didn't get nervous.
00:57:17.000Like, I didn't get nervous during auditions.
00:57:21.000It was not a thing where I'm like, this could change my life.
00:58:00.000This is so easy compared to stand up and kickboxing.
00:58:04.000Did you notice when you said you were noticing damage happening because your head throbbing and ringing, whatever?
00:58:11.000Did you notice any other effects or did you cut it off before any effects could actually, you know, like actual things that were affecting you?
00:58:19.000No, I didn't notice anything like I was compromised or I couldn't think well or I was forgetting things.
00:59:17.000It makes the rest of your life easier because these hard things that you do voluntarily, voluntary adversity, force yourself to do hard things all the time.
00:59:25.000So then when other things that are seemingly hard come up, you're like, ah, this ain't shit compared to a cold plunge.
00:59:53.000So, you do sprints on the air dye machine, you get off of that, and you do these kettlebell cleans and presses or swings, and you get off of that, and then you do the sled, and you push the sled, or you do backwards on the sled, and it's got varying resistance, and you do them in these 50 second, 40 second, and then 30 second sprints.
01:01:28.000Unless you're trying to do something with that, fuck this.
01:01:31.000Unless you've got some shit you have to get done that's hard and you want to have this attitude where you're going to attack it, like, fuck this.
01:02:13.000Remember when YouTube was doing those masterclasses where like a guy would sit down and like Steve Martin would be like, I'm going to teach you how to do right comedy or whatever.
01:02:46.000You can't stop people from having an opinion.
01:02:50.000There's always going to be people that have an opinion.
01:02:52.000And then in this market of hot takes, there's always going to be people, and their opinion is negative opinions are more valuable in terms of the commodity of attention.
01:03:02.000Attacking someone, calling someone out, it's more valuable.
01:04:40.000And they'll start you off with some simple body weight stuff.
01:04:43.000They'll put you through some different mobility exercises, different stuff to just get the joints lubed up, get everything moving, and then build your body up nice and slow.
01:05:00.000Chuck, right when you and I talked about when you were like, you should get a trainer, Chuck said to me, unprompted, he goes, Joe, let me train with you.
01:05:32.000Let me just come to your place and whatever.
01:05:34.000And so I think I'm going to start doing it with him because I just need to.
01:05:37.000If you go to the wrong trainer, there's some trainers out there that are meatheads or they don't really know what they're doing and they'll beat you down.
01:05:44.000And they're like, We're going to fucking push it today.
01:05:45.000Like, no, You can't push it when someone doesn't work out.
01:05:50.000When someone doesn't work out, you go nice and slow, nice and easy, and then you slowly build up to the point where you can push it, right?
01:10:02.000I don't know a good app, but I'm sure there's some out there that are like a really good workout app that'll vary your workout every day based upon your level, based upon like how much experience you have.
01:10:30.000But yeah, exercise apps, again, there's good ones, I'm sure, but exercise apps kind of became like dating apps where there's a million that are all saying, We're going to change your life in three days.
01:10:42.000I think most important is a real good trainer is more important because he can correct your form in real time, tell you why, don't do it like that.
01:11:00.000Actually, lifting weights, you know, Pavel Tatsulin, who's the guy who really brought kettlebells to popularity in America, Russian cat, and great system of training.
01:11:13.000But one of the things that he said that really stuck with me he said, Strength is a skill.
01:11:18.000And you should think of strength as a skill.
01:11:20.000So, like, when you're working on your skills, like kettlebell cleans and presses, you shouldn't be exhausted.
01:13:26.000This is all high altitude, and it's all like maximum intensity on the airdyne bike, maximum intensity on the sled, maximum intensity on the kettlebell cleans.
01:13:35.000You're beating yourself up because you're only doing it for 50 seconds or 60 seconds, 40 seconds, and then 30 seconds.
01:13:43.000So it's like I do a bunch of different kinds of exercises, but when I do like strength stuff, I don't ever do it to failure.
01:14:34.000They never get to the point where they're dropping the bale of hay because their arms are shaking and they're like, one more rep. But yet they get ridiculously fucking strong.
01:14:46.000It doesn't have to be work to failure.
01:14:48.000In our mind, we think, oh, you have to go to failure in order to get stronger.
01:14:53.000And again, we're talking about very specific things getting stronger, using kettlebells.
01:14:59.000Especially, but you can do dumbbells and other things as well.
01:15:02.000If you're now doing something else, like if you're trying to get the maximum amount of bench press, if you're trying to win a competition or the maximum amount of chin ups you can do, then it's a different thing.
01:15:15.000We're talking about a different thing.
01:15:16.000But if you're just talking about overall building strength for your body, the most important thing is volume, I think.
01:17:34.000He hid in an airport catering container and was taken to a military jet for a secret flight out of the country after the NATO summit last month.
01:17:41.000And this is being reported by the New York Times.
01:17:43.000The thing is, though, I think they put the press on Air Force One.
01:17:48.000So if they flew him out, it was because they were worried they were going to try to take down Air Force One.
01:18:34.000It says reporters on the older plane were not told that Mr. Trump had not flown with them from Turkey to an airbase in Britain, making them unwitting participants in the ruse and leaving them, along with some White House staff members, to serve as unknowing decoys.
01:18:50.000After they arrived in Britain, he was secretly moved back to the older version of Air Force One.
01:20:43.000When he died, He was pronounced dead at Neverland Ranch, and they lied to the press and said that he was at a hospital already and pronounced dead because they had to get the body out of Neverland Ranch.
01:20:56.000And they knew if they pronounced him dead at Neverland Ranch, they wouldn't be able to get the fucking body out of the goddamn house.
01:21:03.000Because they said the press would leak it, and the clamoring of fans and whatever else would literally have blocked them from getting the fuck from transporting the body.
01:21:14.000So they had to lie and say, He's dead already, but he's at this hospital.
01:21:18.000And it was a decoy because that's how fucking famous he was.
01:21:21.000They were like, we can't drive his dead body from this location to another, or we're never going to get it there.
01:21:34.000And here's another crazy thing because I know you've talked about the Michael Jackson, like the conspiracies around his death on the show before.
01:21:43.000There's another crazy thing I didn't know.
01:21:45.000He owned, you know, he had that vast music catalog that he bought.
01:22:22.000Sony wants the publishing back on all these artists and he owns it.
01:22:27.000And when he did his last album, he had to take out a loan against the record company of $200 million to do the album because he didn't have a lot of money left.
01:22:38.000And they said, You got to put up collateral.
01:22:41.000And he goes, All right, I'll put up a portion of the catalog as collateral.
01:22:46.000And then before he died, he goes, They're not promoting my album.
01:22:51.000And because they're not promoting my album, it's not selling.
01:22:54.000And then everybody close to him said, It was a ruse.
01:22:57.000They didn't promote the album on purpose so that he would lose the fucking catalog because he wouldn't be able to pay the loan back.
01:24:12.000The doctor, the one thing that he said that I found very fascinating was that he said that Michael had been chemically castrated when he was young to maintain his voice.
01:26:52.000Chain smoking, chain smoking, drink through the whole fucking day, popping pills, doing coke.
01:26:58.000And the fact that he could still stand and not just stand, choreograph Broadway shows for hours and be that agile and whatever is that's insane to me.
01:27:43.000When you see him pound 16 Bud Lights and not a slur, not a stammer, nothing, doesn't miss a beat, puts the sunglasses on, starts getting crazy.
01:27:54.000We do protect our parks, and he'll have a stack of empties at the end.
01:32:51.000He lives right near where my parents live in Jersey.
01:32:53.000And I was like, oh, dude, man, when I go see my folks, I'm going to get in the car and drive up and hang out with you for a night because it'll be such a great break from just being with my mom and dad.
01:34:38.000It's a very individualized sport in the sense of golf, where you're always playing against yourself, but it's a very communal sport in the sense that you're not playing necessarily in a literal sense with the team like a sketch group would.
01:36:13.000But on Tuesday and Wednesday were some of the best nights because on Tuesday and Wednesday, it would be Jesselneck, Diaz, fucking Greg Fitzsimmons, Dom Herrera, over and over.
01:37:37.000I was like, I did New York, I did LA, I want a new challenge, and there's a new scene now and all that stuff.
01:37:44.000But the thing that puts me on my toes the most, and still does, is this is the best place for young comics to be able to pursue comedy because they can actually live here.
01:38:10.000On my because you're like, dude, it doesn't matter if I'm the only guy on this lineup that has done TV or whatever, you got five people going up that are fucking swinging for the fences.
01:38:22.000Because when you're young, you really are like, I gotta fucking prove myself.
01:38:27.000Yeah, you're following even if it's four unknown people, they're doing their A shit, they are trying to kill as hard as humanly possible.
01:38:37.000And you're like, all right, I guess it's I gotta fucking bring it, you know what I mean?
01:38:42.000There's that, and it's also their intention.
01:39:18.000From your place to Sunset to the Creek to Vulcan, Black Rabbit to Vulcan, and then if you don't mind walking 20 minutes, you can be at Roscoe's, East Austin.
01:40:33.000It doesn't matter what you look like, it doesn't matter what your background is.
01:40:36.000There's, I mean, Kill Tony is like one of the most diverse lineups you're ever going to see.
01:40:41.000For all the people that think that Tony's a Nazi, it's kind of hilarious.
01:40:44.000Because trans people, disabled people, you know, people from all walks of life, literal homeless people who've gone on stage started a career because of Kill Tony.
01:40:55.000They're literally homeless while they're doing it.
01:40:57.000Sleeping in a car, and the next thing you know, they have a career.
01:42:38.000I was like, dude, it's broken our ticket service multiple times where it just the overwhelming demand, the people that are trying to get tickets versus the tickets that are available is so crazy.
01:43:08.000It was like, remember in Casino when Pesci goes out to Vegas for the first time and De Niro goes, and this is whatever Sharon Stone's character's name is.
01:43:20.000And then Pesci looks at Sharon Stone and he goes, Holy shit, Ace, what the fuck you been doing out here?
01:43:57.000But then I started thinking, what if I get COVID and then give it to one of my fucking guests and kill them?
01:44:02.000That was back when people were really worried COVID was going to kill you.
01:44:05.000I was like, oh no, because I have like these people that come in, some of them are older, you know, and I had this lady on who was a scientist, and she was older.
01:44:17.000That was also, but people were really convinced that you could be asymptomatic and still spread it, which turned out really what was going on was there was a lot of false positives for the PCR test.
01:49:19.000My symbol for living in Austin and being a part of this club and that club begetting all these other places that we get to perform in this scene and all that stuff.
01:49:28.000It's a very weird, like kind of full circle thing.
01:49:30.000I didn't realize until right now as we were talking about it.
01:49:32.000We need to have a birthday party for the building.
01:49:50.000I felt it when you never got to be here when it was bare bones, but when it was bare bones, when it was just the movie theater, before we did all the renovations and raised the ceiling or lowered the ceiling and raised the floor and changed it and made the tunnel and all the structure that we put in place.
01:50:07.000When we first got in there, you could feel it.
01:50:10.000You could feel it baked into the walls.
01:50:12.000I mean, Stevie Ray Vaughn performed there.
01:52:27.000We fit 250 people in the big room, but I think we could fit a lot more if we have seating like the Comedy Works in Denver, which I think is the best seat.
01:52:37.000That's what it looked like when we first got there.
01:52:39.000When we first got there, it looked like that.
01:52:41.000And we walked in and we were like, holy shit.
01:52:44.000The stage was really high, obviously, because it was like a movie theater.
01:53:48.000Do we do it just like, like initially we thought, well, maybe we should do it just like this, like have seating like movie theater seating.
01:53:55.000And then we're like, no, we should probably like raise the floor up and make it flat in the front.
01:54:34.000Everybody had got a say in what to do, what to have.
01:54:38.000Like Brian Simpson, it was his idea to have the lights in the green room, the light that shows you someone's got the light in the big room, someone's got the light in the little room.
01:54:48.000And then I think it was Tony's idea to put the timers, one or the other.
01:54:52.000Maybe it was Tony for the lights, Brian for the timer, I forget.
01:54:55.000But everybody had a little piece of the, like, I think it was Brian's idea to have monitors.
01:55:00.000It's like everybody got a say in how it's done.
01:55:03.000That's what it looked like when we first walked in.
01:56:07.000And it's also, I think it's a fire extinguisher.
01:56:10.000I think the center of it is a fire extinguisher.
01:56:11.000I think we had to have one, so we put it in the center of the UFO.
01:56:15.000That same time I was talking about during South by Southwest, and when I did Kill Tony, it was me and Adam Ray were on panel, and the next day, Eric invited us over to see the club.
01:56:28.000It wasn't done yet, you know, but he walked us in.
01:56:31.000I remember him walking me through Little Boy and being like, We're going to do this, we're going to do this, we're going to do this, we're going to do this.
01:56:38.000And I remember he goes, You're going to play here?
01:56:45.000But yeah, it was wild seeing it in the construction phase and whatever, and then seeing the final product and remembering, like, oh, I remember he told me they were going to change that.
01:57:46.000The guy that has to run these fucking places and deal with these maniacs that come in, and especially some of the nuttier ones on the road.
01:57:54.000You know, like, can you imagine if you had to run the funny bone in Columbus, Ohio?
01:57:59.000Fucking animals that show up and miss their flights.
01:58:03.000They're fucking, they do ecstasy the night before.
01:58:48.000Well, also, too, like the profile, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the profile that you were able to bring to the club probably helped you circumvent some of the horse shit that club owners in Idaho have to deal with with agents and all that shit, where it's like, hey, man, sorry, there's an improv there, so we can't take our guy out of the improv or whatever.
01:59:13.000And now there's a whole other battle now that you have to do.
02:01:06.000I don't mean like we're going to do the next blockbuster thing or we've got a franchise or whatever.
02:01:11.000It's like, why don't you take 10 million bucks and make the fucking art fucking movie with all of your friends that you always wanted to make?
02:01:26.000You will break even at the very least.
02:01:29.000I never, ever, ever understood why more people in that position don't do it.
02:01:35.000I don't get it because rock stars do it all the time.
02:01:37.000Rock stars start a little label and they start putting on other bands that they love and they do passion projects because they want to work with their friends.
02:01:45.000I've never, maybe not never, but it's very rare that you ever see a movie star do that.
02:02:35.000I was reading that book and I was like, Brett Easton Ellis has murdered somebody.
02:02:41.000There are details in here where I was like, I don't understand how you would know this.
02:02:46.000One of the darkest scenes in that book is when he goes to get rid of the body and the real estate guy sees him in the room because they're selling the apartment.
02:02:56.000And so he realizes the real estate guy's already gotten rid of the body.
02:03:00.000And they look at each other and he just leaves.
02:04:22.000It's his last novel, and it's a fictional autobiography where the main character is him as a teenager, and there's a serial killer loose, and all these murders are happening.
02:04:37.000They're targeting teenagers, these brutal fucking murders.
02:04:41.000And there's a cult happening that's reminiscent of the Manson cult, and then he's also coming of age and realizing he's gay, and as he's trying to deal with it, The fact that this murder thing is happening and he thinks he knows who it is.
02:07:11.000I'm listening to this podcast about Luigi, the guy who murdered the healthcare executive.
02:07:17.000It's a very, very interesting podcast.
02:07:21.000You know, it details how they caught him, the whole deal.
02:07:23.000But one of the things they brought up was one of the first things they thought of after that guy got assassinated was probably somebody he worked with.
02:09:10.000I'm saying if you're going to go out there and go, I did this because it was justice and whatever, and then go, oh, wait, actually, actually, I was a little crazy.
02:09:18.000If you did shoot a man who had nothing to do with you because you thought it was justice because he was a healthcare executive, I don't know how he picked that guy.
02:09:27.000I don't know the details of what that guy has done.
02:09:30.000Was he particularly bad, the guy he killed?
02:09:46.000So if you think that you should go murder somebody, Like that, you're probably mentally ill.
02:09:55.000If you think that that kind of violence is justified, the problem that a lot of young people are having right now, and a lot of people that agree with what Luigi did and they celebrated it, is because everyone knows that the system is rigged and no one is doing anything to change it.
02:10:13.000And this is what drives people fucking crazy.
02:10:16.000If you get health insurance and their whole business model is to deny as many claims as possible, even if they know that your claims are justified.
02:10:29.000So they're really in the making money business and they're pretending they're in the we're going to take care of you and give you insurance business.
02:12:39.000The people that are going to be the most successful are the ones who are going to be the most ruthless and they're going to squeeze the most money possible without crushing the company's reputation.
02:15:44.000You know, when the Neiman Marcus gang thing was happening, where these kids were running into Neiman Marcus and stealing shit, which, again, I don't think is an okay thing to do.
02:15:54.000But, you know, like my mom, I remember, was being like, can you believe these kids?
02:15:58.000I go, Mom, they just told an entire generation of kids they'll never own land.
02:17:32.000They've ruined, shareholders have ruined, I'm not saying shareholders inherently are evil, but the board of directors and shareholders and all that shit, they have ruined everything.
02:17:42.000It's like everybody goes, Why did the last three Star Wars movies suck?
02:17:47.000Kathleen Kennedy came out and said, We were met with demands by the shareholders to rush the fucking sequels out, and we couldn't make the movies we wanted to make.
02:18:20.000And I don't say this to ball wash you in any way, but you just said it 10 minutes ago about the club.
02:18:31.000And for all the criticisms that people can level at you, whatever the fuck they want to say, whatever, it's like, hey, man, here's a guy I know that has a lot of money that started something that helps other people in the industry he works in and said, I'm not worried about making money.
02:18:46.000I'm worried about breaking even and I want the people that I'm working at my club to benefit.
02:21:46.000Yeah, ideally, what should happen is you say, hey, guys, we made more money this month than we did last month, but the reason we made more money is because we made a better product that brought in even more customers and it was beneficial to everybody.
02:22:13.000So, all these people that are buying things made with avocado oil that they think, oh, this is going to be super healthy.
02:22:20.000Turns out a lot of these corporations are fucking you over and they're using seed oils and fucking safflower oil and rapeseed oil, all these different oils, and they're pretending that it's coconut or it's avocado oil.
02:22:34.000I watched a thing about food where they talked about.
02:22:38.000By the way, what I meant by the potato chip thing was when you, we were just talking about this in the lobby before we started recording.
02:22:44.000When you buy a bag of potato chips now and it's half full.
02:23:49.000Well, you can get them in some stores, but the problem is they get bought out.
02:23:53.000So, say a company comes along and you're making something that has really healthy ingredients and people really get into it, and then Pepsi buys you or something.
02:25:15.000I think he had a problem keeping up with demand too because he came on the podcast and talked about it and then he eventually just bailed on the business.
02:25:22.000Look, man, it's one of the reasons I left my sandwich shop was because I felt like operating in New York was too hard of a thing.
02:25:35.000And we had to keep the four years, five years, whatever that I did it, we had to keep kind of upping prices and whatever.
02:25:44.000And it wasn't, it was not out of greed.
02:25:46.000It was out of, there is no way that we stand a chance to turn a profit unless you keep up with what the demand and the economy of New York City is.
02:25:57.000And I just got to a point where I was like, you know, man, it's just not what I thought it could be.
02:26:05.000And it was, I wish them well, but they're still going.
02:26:08.000But it was just for me, I was like, I just can't, like, this isn't, you know.
02:26:13.000So, what happens is with a lot of these companies that get bought up, it's this Steve Sharippa thing where it's like, hey, man, I'd love to keep doing this at the quality I'm doing it and at the, you know, the tick at which we're moving at or whatever.
02:26:29.000And then somebody comes along like Pepsi and goes, we'll buy you out for $50 million.
02:27:46.000And, you know, once you escape the world of need and you're in a world of decisions based on what you enjoy doing, then you could choose to do a business where you do it however you want to do it and don't worry about it.
02:27:58.000You know, because you're not doing it for money.
02:28:06.000It's not, obviously, difficult to achieve.
02:28:09.000But if you can get there, that's the way to do it.
02:28:12.000It's just that everybody has this thing about chasing the fucking.
02:28:17.000Whatever number it is, whether it's a number in your bank account or the address that you're living in or the car that you're driving, everyone's always chasing the new thing.
02:28:25.000This is a new thing to justify why you're pumping all of your energy into a business.
02:28:33.000Yeah, it's the unfortunate other side of capitalism.
02:28:52.000Is there a way, do you think, is there a way to have the free market with capitalism, but actually have some sort of regulation so these problems that we're talking about can occur?
02:29:02.000Or is it just you have to take the good with the bad and that's all there is to it?
02:29:05.000I mean, there should definitely be regulations without a doubt.
02:29:08.000But I think too much regulations, then you stifle business.
02:29:51.000And the fucking homeless crisis never gets any better.
02:29:53.000And the streets never get clean, the schools never get fucking funded correctly, but yet they keep growing their fucking business, the business of being a fucking person in government.
02:30:06.000One of the things I learned when I worked for the Senate, because when I lived here in 2000, I worked for the Senate during the legislative session.
02:30:13.000It was the 76th legislative session, I think.
02:30:16.000I was a media reporter for the Senate Media Department.
02:30:19.000But one of the things I learned was how low a senator's salary is.
02:30:26.000Versus what they actually make in a year because of donations and whatever the fuck else.
02:30:33.000And I was like, of course, these people don't want to ever step down from this seat.
02:30:39.000This is the fucking joyride right now.
02:30:42.000And once you're in that position, now you got a problem because now it's like, well, who's actually in there to do something versus who's in there to keep the job?
02:30:51.000And if you want to keep the job, keep the constituents happy.
02:30:54.000Well, then you start compromising things and catering.
02:31:37.000You're also dealing with insane corruption.
02:31:39.000Once you get in there, try untangling all the fucking webs that have been spun for decades where they've been moving money to this and moving money to that.
02:31:48.000And you've got to pay a little of this and you've got to pay a little of that.
02:31:51.000Yeah, did you ever see Charlie Wilson's War, Tom Hanks movie?
02:32:45.000And they're like, yeah, we're not rebuilding.
02:32:48.000We're not spending any more money in this.
02:32:49.000And the end of the movie is Philip Sewerhoffin telling Tom Hanks that he doesn't say the name, but he says, the fucking loonies are in the hen house.
02:32:58.000He's talking about Ben Laden that's now taking over Afghanistan and this is going to go real fucking sideways on us.
02:33:05.000And it's just such a great encapsulation of.
02:33:28.000He realized how dirty our fucking politics are and what we're doing when doing regime change in other countries and proxy wars and all the insane shit that we've been involved with forever.
02:34:20.000Well, the question is if a good person does come along, can they stay.
02:34:25.000Can they stay pure or is the system just built in a way where it's like, no, there's no way to do this?
02:34:31.000You know, it's I always equate it to the Hollywood thing.
02:34:35.000It's like, in my opinion, there's no way to become, or it's a very hard thing to become a massive movie star and maintain your morality and your ethics and whatever.
02:34:46.000You're playing in a system that is so fucking foul and so dirty and whatever.
02:34:50.000That's why we're like, it's so rare to meet a Woody Harrelson or somebody like that who's a genuine person.
02:34:55.000And nine out of 10 of those guys, they don't fucking live there.
02:34:59.000They're out, they go somewhere else and they dip in, they do it, they get the fuck out again.
02:35:05.000So I always wonder like, is there, we always say, like, if only a decent man would come along and lead us or take this seat in this office or whatever, is it possible to even remain pure at that point?
02:35:19.000Or is it just, hey, this is how it works, this is all there is to it, and you either play this game or you will be phased out and that's it?
02:35:32.000If you don't have any variation whatsoever, if you're like, hey, maybe we shouldn't take this weird experimental vaccine, you're cast out of the kingdom.
02:35:43.000Like, you have to be full compliance, full compliance to whatever ideology that they have because they're completely in control.
02:35:50.000They get to choose whether or not you work.
02:35:53.000The beautiful thing about comedy and music is another version of that, but less so, I think, is that you just make what you make.
02:36:03.000And if people like it, they come see you.
02:38:13.000But like, When the whole thing happened with like Brent, the year that Brendan Frazier won for The Whale was the same year the kid that played Short Round won for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
02:38:24.000Do you remember that year at the Oscars?
02:39:39.000I go, the mainstream of entertainment could become the, for lack of a better term, wokest whatever.
02:39:48.000That whole thing could come back of PC culture and whatever.
02:39:52.000And they could tell any one of us or all of us, you guys are out.
02:39:56.000There's no way you're going to get anything on streamers or anything anymore, and we'd all still be fine because we all said we found another lane, so fuck it.