Dane Cook is a stand-up comedian, comedian, and all-around funny guy. He's been in the business for a long time, and he's got a great story about how he got his start in comedy, and how he ended up performing at Pink's birthday party. He also tells us about the time he got paid to sit courtside for the Lakers-Celtics game, and the weirdest thing he's ever done on the job. And he's not even joking when he says that he's never masturbated in front of a mirror before, and that's a good thing, because he's probably not going to do it again. Also, he's a fan of Pink, so you know what that's pretty cool, right? He's also a big fan of Lady Gaga, so that's cool, too. We're in no way affiliated with the Bill Simmons Podcast, the Ringer, or Bill Simmons, but we can all agree that Lady Gaga is one of the most beautiful women in the world, and we're all in love with her, so why not get to know her a little bit better? We'll talk about it all on this episode of the podcast, of course! Enjoy! -Jon Sorrentino Brian Dan Chris Mike Jake Kristian Matt Kevin Chad Ben Andrew Justin Sam Chelsie Paul Alex Brad Sarah Tim Jack Evan John Matthew Nick Corey Michael Brandon Daniel Shane Will James Jordan Adam Kacz Christian Josh Patrick Ian Chay Joe David Austin Tom Zachary Julian Jared Emily Charley Caitlin Bobby Isabel Shae Can Thank you for listening to this episode? Thanks for listening, and please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! Love ya'll! Thanks so much, you're a good friend of mine, and I'll see you next week! -Kris Thanks, Brian, too, Jon Steve Love,
00:05:28.000Elvis back then, maybe you could pull it off.
00:05:30.000You know, they killed JFK. They could probably fuck Elvis up.
00:05:34.000Well, that was the whole thing is that everybody said Elvis faked his death to get away from the colonel to live a normal life because the colonel was like this megalomaniac.
00:06:24.000You know, the Elvis thing must be so sucky if you were a dude back then.
00:06:28.000How the fuck do you compete with Elvis?
00:06:30.000Your girl is screaming and yelling and you're fucking her and you know she really would way rather be fucking Elvis.
00:06:35.000All you can really do is just play into it and just tell her you love Elvis and take her to Elvis and just try to make her Elvis fantasy come to fruition.
00:06:43.000Yeah, put on the fucking wig, the whole deal.
00:07:02.000Inside jokes with his band members and then he does the thing where he slowly backs up slowly during this one song to his three backup singers and in the middle of the song he just turns and screams in their faces and scares the shit out of them like literally turns and goes and they're all like as they're trying to sing He was gone.
00:07:30.000There's one documentary that Priscilla actually did years ago based on what she wrote where she finally talked about how insecure he really was.
00:07:37.000He had his buddies living with him and shit, and if they wanted to go out to a dinner and he was by himself, he would freak out.
00:09:36.000Our sketch comedy improv group was so bad.
00:09:39.000We were so bad at improv, and everybody, you know, the first rule of improv is don't deny.
00:09:44.000But we were so bad at improv that our first rule was deny.
00:09:47.000So we would just come in and completely ruin scenes by, like, you're pretending, pantomiming, I'm holding a baby, and Bobby can be like, dude, why are you holding a tire?
00:09:55.000And it would just fall apart from there.
00:09:58.000But we just had a blast doing it, man.
00:10:10.000Yeah, that was probably actually better for us.
00:10:11.000Opening with our stand-up, and then we'd just go fuck around and do music or skits or improv or whatever for the rest of the hour to fill it up.
00:10:18.000Do you still ever try to do improv once in a while, or do you just only stand-up now?
00:10:25.000I've been bringing Al, because Al's been hosting down at the Laugh Factory, and I'll bring Al up once in a while, and we'll do stuff at the very end, just to, you know, whatever skit, or Dom Marrera and I will do some stuff once in a while, where I'll just bring Dom up and bat some stuff around.
00:12:07.000One of the few guys that I really would be afraid to go on after.
00:12:10.000Dude, I used to see him in the early 90s in New York, and I would watch him do stand-up, and I would go, fuck, this guy's going to be Eddie Murphy.
00:13:17.000But I don't think it's a very healthy attitude at all to look at someone else's success as if somehow or another it's bad for you.
00:13:23.000And I think if someone's not paying attention to you, like there's a lot of dudes that are like, I don't feel like my act gets the respect that it deserves.
00:13:31.000It gets the exact respect it deserves.
00:13:48.000There's some people that have weird acts.
00:13:50.000Mitch Hedberg, for the longest time, had a really hard time on the road because he would go on and they would put on these super high energy middle acts that would sing.
00:13:59.000I remember there was this black dude in, I believe it was in Ohio, I think it was at the Funny Bone in Columbus, and Hedberg was supposed to headline, and this guy was fucking crushing it every night in the middle spot with singing and dancing and getting those Columbus, Ohio people into it.
00:14:28.000Remember, he'd just go up and kind of He would stand there, I remember for a while, and his hair would just completely be covering his face.
00:14:47.000He had to find his audience, and he had a real hard time with that for a long time.
00:14:51.000That's always a tricky thing, man, when you're coming up in the beginning.
00:14:54.000There's guys who will tailor their material or tailor their act where they don't want to do this, but they do it just so that they can get more people liking them and they can get on a better track.
00:15:31.000This is the stuff that I always like to see.
00:15:32.000Like, I can't talk about what I think is actually funny.
00:15:35.000So when you were doing your stand-up and you did finally leave Boston and hit the road, where did the news radio thing finally even come from?
00:15:41.000So I did this MTV thing and I got a development deal right out of it with Fox to do a show called Hardball.
00:16:52.000All of a sudden, I'm on TV. Which was fun, but in the beginning, when I was on TV, I was very shitty with writing new material, and I wasn't performing that much.
00:17:02.000I was just loving the fact that I was making all this money.
00:19:13.000They wanted Windows 95 on those things.
00:19:15.000I bought the Aston Martin, and then I bought the Casino Royale soundtrack, and I just fucking drove around, and I pretended I was a spy, and I literally was pointing at people on the side of the road and pretending I was shooting them.
00:19:28.000That was to show you too much time on your hands.
00:19:31.000The problem with those cars is when they work, they're intoxicating.
00:19:34.000When you hear the sound of the engine, that fucking powerful, well-engineered engine.
00:19:41.000But it was such a poorly crafted car inside that I was like, why don't I just get a fucking ringtone of that sound and be happy with the fucking sound of the engine and get rid of this plastic piece of shit.
00:21:00.000That's the thing is you can actually sit here and you can tell these stories if you've been fortunate enough to have some success because anybody who knows who's done this for a living, when it's bad, it's fucking bad.
00:21:11.000When it's empty, it is at its emptiest, man.
00:21:14.000So you get a little something or you have a few years of fun that I think it's kind of cool to be able to talk about.
00:21:35.000Don't you ever walk around your house?
00:21:37.000I know you don't smoke pot, but when I do, I'll walk around my house high and I'll just look at the house and I'll just go, what the fuck is this?
00:22:36.000For people that don't know what we're talking about, there was a time where there was another entity that he had called New York Entertainment, right?
00:22:42.000And they were booking colleges, and apparently...
00:22:44.000It was costing too much money to rent the building where they were at, and they were spending more money than they were making, so they started spending the comedians' money and owing it to them.
00:22:54.000Like, you would go to the gig, you would fly around the country, go to these colleges, get your checks, send them in to Barry, and then, you know, you would wait.
00:23:02.000And then you'd be like, a month later, be like, what the fuck, dude?
00:23:57.000To think that your fucking brother, your blood, like someone you grow up with, is so fucking jealous and so shifty and plotting against you that they'll steal your fucking money.
00:24:14.000First of all, absolute, complete betrayal and the way I deal with that with my family.
00:24:19.000But the thing that really was jarring in the best of possible ways was talking about, okay, I've been doing stand-up for 20 years when everything happened.
00:24:30.000I started in 1990. And then I looked and I was like, alright, this is gone.
00:25:30.000It's putting that new chunk and then the new set and, you know, preparing for the next special and feeling these new bits come alive and the tags and the new tags.
00:25:39.000It's like, what a burst you get every time you come up with a new tag.
00:25:42.000It's like this positive energy charge, like, ah!
00:25:45.000And then sometimes on stage, in the moment...
00:25:48.000You'll pause and say the perfect shit out of nowhere, and it destroys, and that becomes the closer.
00:25:54.000I mean, that becomes the part of the bit that ends the bit.
00:25:57.000It's the best feeling on earth, man, really.
00:25:59.000When it all starts to come together, you see that, you know, it's like you have a theme or a through line that starts to come through, and there's nothing better in the world, man.
00:26:05.000And right from the bat, right from the get-go, when you have your first good set, you become a junkie for that feeling.
00:26:37.000But we also, you know, we came out of Boston where, you know, I know the guys that I can't, I mean, I loved Steve Martin and the guys that I always loved just watching growing up that I wanted to emulate.
00:26:49.000And then when I started in Boston, these guys were like killers, man.
00:26:53.000What people don't understand about Boston is everybody knows all these famous guys.
00:27:30.000But he got caught up in this Boston thing where there was all these great guys in this one area and they always drew a crowd and they always got paid well.
00:27:38.000And then they would go on the road and they'd be nobodies.
00:27:40.000They'd be like, why would they be a fucking nobody?
00:27:41.000We're going to be back in Boston making some money.
00:27:43.000The next thing you know, they're back in Boston and they're just doing the same gigs over and over again where everybody else...
00:27:47.000It takes a shot and branches off and disappears and becomes famous.
00:27:50.000But you really would watch these guys and part of you would feel bad that they weren't getting over the hump but you felt like so fucking honored to be opening up and standing watching going I'm learning from the best.
00:28:02.000So when you leave Boston It's like you had that...
00:28:06.000These were guys, like, I always describe it like they had the energy of showmen, but they were like men.
00:29:22.000I learned a lot watching Joe before us because the thing that happened with you, though, was you were the first guy that I saw from the next young generation that when you started headlining...
00:29:32.000You were getting the respect for killing, but you were the first guy that I saw that had real backlash ever in my life.
00:29:38.000That people were like, they didn't know where to put him, and people that he had passed, not going to mention names, but they were just so fucking frustrated.
00:29:48.000And they didn't know how to deal with like, okay, wait a minute, this is the next guy coming up.
00:31:35.000There are some interesting questions for you.
00:31:37.000But there was a few that were just so fucking douchey.
00:31:40.000You're never going to get away from that.
00:31:41.000Those are people too that they really want so badly to perpetuate.
00:31:46.000A moment or something, because they want to see the fucking battle.
00:31:50.000They want to see the battle, and there's also this thing where they don't want to see anybody ever forgiven for anything they might have done in the past.
00:33:21.000It's like all the avatars on my board are all chick sucking dicks.
00:33:25.000Somebody like Blizzard or somebody just recently tried to do that, where you had to have your real name on their message board, but then all these pirates...
00:34:31.000I was living in this shitty little studio on Hacienda, and all I had was a fucking futon and my Alienware computer.
00:34:39.000I don't really know anybody out here anyway when I first came out, but I'd jump on with Joe once in a while and think, like, all right, Quake 3 or whatever we're playing, he would, like, just...
00:35:03.000Dude, not only would Joe be plasma rifling me up my ass, like, every other hit, but then I'd hear through his, whatever, headset, like, he'd be doing something else, which made it even fucking worse.
00:35:15.000Like, I could tell he was not even completely focused.
00:35:18.000And I'm fucking sweating and doing that thing where I'm, like, trying to sound like I'm not fucking raging.
00:35:26.000Turn off the mic, I'm like, fuck, come on!
00:35:29.000Quake is one of those games, for those who don't know it, it's a first-person shooter where you're running down these 3D mazes, and you have all these different gun options.
00:35:37.000And it's one of those games that relies very heavily on playing it all the time, so the mouse and the keyboard literally become like an extension of your mind.
00:35:44.000And you can get it to do what you want it to do, because you're so comfortable with the movements.
00:35:47.000You don't think about, you know, it's W-A-S-D, use the keys to move backward and strafe side to side, but you don't think about it.
00:36:15.000What was weird is that you were really competitive with the game, where I would just hide in the toilet paper roll of the Unreal bathroom map and just sit there and snipe people, where you were more like, kill, kill, kill, number, second...
00:36:25.000You know, my leftover martial arts days, there's still some work to be done in the back of my head.
00:39:14.000What he likes to do, and he talked about it on the Marc Maron podcast, I thought it was really fascinating that he actually opened up to it.
00:40:54.000I think you're talking about my brother now.
00:40:56.000I think I'm talking about a lot of people.
00:40:58.000There's a book written recently called The Enemy Amongst Us or something like that, something along those lines, and it was all about sociopaths, about how many people amongst us really don't feel emotions.
00:41:06.000They just pretend they do to fit in, but they don't fear the consequences of their actions.
00:41:11.000They don't worry about hurting other people's feelings.
00:43:16.000And I was just sitting there and Mr. Hall, the guy who was like the house dean, came up and all of a sudden he just sat in front of me like I was busted.
00:43:25.000And I was starting to do plays or write stuff and he goes, listen man, I know school's not for you.
00:44:46.000It's funny how people that we know that are funny, and when they try, it's almost like they land on stage the furthest place from what really actually makes them funny and fucking interesting.
00:44:56.000Yeah, well, they just don't know how to be perceived.
00:44:58.000They just get confused as to how they should be perceived.
00:45:01.000They want to somehow or another fit this mold to what they think is going to be funny.
00:45:07.000It's like the connection between them and the audience is so distant and fucked up and jagged.
00:45:14.000For most people, they don't understand that in order to be able to be yourself and get on stage and talk in front of somebody, you have to really know how you're coming off.
00:45:25.000You have to really know yourself in a way that a lot of people aren't comfortable looking at themselves.
00:45:30.000It's about being revealing and then finally not giving a fuck anymore that people don't like what they see.
00:45:37.000And then you can slowly find the people that like what they see and build the laughs from there, man.
00:45:41.000And it's got to be a real not give a fuck.
00:45:43.000It can't be I'm pretending to not give a fuck.
00:45:45.000You have to have mastered it to enough where you've understood the situation and you've assessed it and you've been objective about the whole relationship between you and the audience over and over again so many times that you completely mastered it.
00:45:57.000And then you're comfortable with the experience.
00:45:59.000And then, only then, can you go up there and just be yourself and fuck around and be funny.
00:46:02.000But until you hit that vibe, that one groove, you know, you're just going up there going clunky, clunk, clunk.
00:47:14.000And that was when I started really getting passionate about vernacular and wanting to build up a language and paint better stories with words.
00:47:22.000And not only that, but I started having...
00:47:25.000Things happen in my life, in my personal life, especially with my folks, that really were like, alright, you know what?
00:47:30.000I'm not a kid anymore who just goes up and talks about fucking or frat kind of humor, drinking.
00:47:36.000It was like, I have real issues, real problems, but now how do I turn a corner and how can I... It takes a while to be able to not reinvent, but have a metamorphosis on stage with truth and where you're at in your life.
00:47:49.000Do you feel that all the criticism that you've gotten, and I can say this for myself, all the criticism that I've gotten, even the stuff that hurts and even the stuff that was wrong and just hurtful, it helps me.
00:48:49.000No regrets, because everything builds you up to where you're at, but for me, when it was like, okay, I finally hit, I crossed over, and I remember I had a moment where I was like, okay, when all the DJs in the country were really talking about me...
00:49:04.000That's when I really battened down the hatches and I was like, alright, two years from now, I know the way this is going to go and I know the way it's going to come back.
00:49:13.000I pretty much fucking just kept showing up, doing my thing because when the pendulum swings into the good area, it's going the same fucking direction in the other area, man.
00:49:24.000There's a real backlash for somebody who works hard to get attention.
00:51:11.000They get up at 7 in the morning and they're at work by 8 and they fucking work all day in the snow, in the sun, 90 fucking degrees out, hammer and nails.
00:51:23.000And it's like, you know, you're doing that, but when you know those people are coming into your shows, probably why the guys before us, it's like, you better give them a fucking show.
00:51:31.000If you haven't worked a really hard job or you come home tired and you've just been a guy who kind of went from college to comedy and kind of drifted through, you don't appreciate people's attention spans.
00:52:42.000And my friend Duncan's job was just add friends to the MySpace page and I'd send him blogs and he'd put up my blogs and shit like that.
00:52:49.000I love it how attached you seem like you always are.
00:52:52.000It seems like you answer almost everyone's – like I've talked to so many people that you've answered like Twits or MySpaces or Facebooks.
00:52:59.000Are you really on the internet that much?
00:53:01.000Are you that – or do you have like a staff of dames?
00:54:13.000Because I want money and I don't want to live in this fucking shitty apartment with, I think like Don Barris lived downstairs for me.
00:54:21.000He would just be fucking screaming at fucking the middle of the night.
00:54:24.000Don Barris, for people who don't know, he hosts a thing called the Ding Dong Show at the Comedy Store, and it's all the most psychotic open micers.
00:54:32.000There's certain open micers that are completely delusional and absolutely insane, and their acts are just so bizarre that you can't believe they're real.
00:54:40.000Well, Don Barris puts on a show specifically with those people, and he's a fucking genius, but he's always surrounded by nuts.
00:54:45.000And you were Polanski in Windy City Heat, right?
00:57:10.000I did have one with Zandal and those guys, which was great.
00:57:13.000They did an amazing job, but I got a company working on a new app now with just the whole push notification thing.
00:57:19.000I think one of the best companies out there for when people are talking about promoting, how can I promote, I'm a musician, I'm a comedian, whatever, is these things like SayNow.
01:00:05.000What's weird about the whole text messaging and everything, like, somebody calls, I know, I'm not going to say who it is, calls me all the time, never texts me.
01:00:12.000And I won't even answer the phone anymore because it's just, like, stupid questions.
01:03:26.000It's like I'm in this weird, semi-conscious state when I'm writing, where you're just so zoned into what you're doing.
01:03:33.000And as you're zoned in, the sentences just sort of form themselves in your head, and then they change their position, and no, this is in the beginning, and then you read it again, and it offers you another perspective.
01:03:44.000It just all starts, it's literally like you're tuning into something that comes out of, it's in the air somewhere.
01:03:50.000It truly is like the most incredible form of therapy that I can...
01:03:54.000I mean, after my folks passed away and people were like, you should go talk to somebody.
01:03:59.000I was bringing it on stage, but I wasn't...
01:04:01.000And then I started writing and then reading some of the shit that I was writing and realizing I didn't even know I felt that.
01:04:06.000Because you just get in that fucking zen place where you're like, I'm not even looking at the keyboard.
01:05:41.000This may sound super fucking cheesy or something like Bon Jovi would do, but during my last tour, I would bring somebody up out of the crowd and I'd be like, you know the fucking Kool-Aid bit?
01:05:50.000Because I haven't done it in 12 years.
01:06:05.000One of the reasons why I did comedy in the first place was reenacting comedians' bits that I saw on TV to my friends when I was 18, 19. I remember there was a girl that I was working with.
01:06:15.000I was working at the Boston Athletic Club in South Boston, and I was a fitness trainer.
01:06:20.000This girl that was working there had seen Sam Kinison on HBO. She comes up to me and she goes, You gotta see this comedian.
01:06:59.000She did that bit for me in the parking lot, and I was howling, laughing, and I instantly became obsessed with stand-up comedy and with Sam Kinison.
01:08:06.000And the comedy that you do today would probably be too shocking for people who lived it.
01:08:11.000It's like comedy is defined by its certain era.
01:08:13.000So if you go back and watch Live on the Sunsets trip today, it's not going to hit me like it hit me when I was 13. But when I was 13, I didn't know anything about comedy.
01:08:21.000I couldn't believe there was someone actually saying these things.
01:08:50.000That was just the seed of my fascination with stand-up.
01:08:53.000But until I got people that told me that I could do it, I did not think I could do it.
01:08:58.000I was teaching Taekwondo and fighting in tournaments, and these guys that I would train with I would make them laugh in the locker room and on the way to tournaments.
01:09:05.000Because everybody was scared on the way to tournaments.
01:09:07.000We're going to get kicked and punched and shit.
01:09:37.000You just, you know, you've got to be in the fucking mix, man.
01:09:41.000When you're at your best, when you're locked on on stage and crushing, don't you feel, or do you feel, because this is how I feel, I feel like I'm just riding it.
01:09:52.000I feel like I'm tuned into this whole thing, but I feel like as everything's coming out and I'm hitting all the things, it's almost like I'm on autopilot.
01:10:00.000I'm in some crazy groove where I'm getting to watch this and I'm getting to experience the words coming out of my mouth as they happen.
01:10:56.000Well, what he hated is the adulation that came when he became immediately, gigantically successful, and then he couldn't get an honest response from people anymore.
01:11:05.000They would start screaming and cheering as soon as they saw him, and he would do these gigantic arenas that he couldn't control, and they were just totally out of control.
01:11:12.000Which happens to a lot of guys when they get big.
01:11:14.000Like, you know, Chappelle, when he was touring, he would be really frustrated after the Rick James sketch.
01:11:20.000The sketch came out because people would be yelling out everywhere, I'm Rick James, bitch!
01:11:24.000He'd be in the middle of setups, I'm Rick James, bitch!
01:11:27.000And they couldn't kick out enough people.
01:11:30.000That, to me, honestly, when Dice was at his peak, when I first was watching the HBO specials, I watched Young Comedian specials and then he had that...
01:11:38.000I remember feeling like, how the fuck can I do this but not be a character?
01:11:45.000How can I do this and be as real, still be an entertainer, still be on, but be as much me so there's none of that fucking catchphrase?
01:12:03.000Do you get that weird feeling that, you know, it's also like when you are first starting out doing comedy, how old were you when you first got on stage?
01:12:57.000But you were, and I threw off a little bit, because you were saying like, so then when Chappelle started doing the bigger shows, because yeah, even Steve Martin, he lost control of the fucking...
01:13:06.000Did you, how quick was the jump between you doing clubs and you doing these giant places, giant arenas?
01:13:11.000It was actually a slow but steady trajectory where when that web stuff...
01:13:17.000In 2001, my first real website that I put up, in combination of Napster starting to get hot and me uploading all my shit to that with the link, I literally uploaded clips with me at the end going, VisitDaneCook.com at the end of every 20 second clip.
01:13:34.000Then Comedy Central, I did a half hour presents that I thought would air fucking twice.
01:13:38.000That was the one with you and the tank top, right?
01:14:00.000It built my whole fan base and almost immediately went from a few hundred seeders to a couple thousand and then I'm doing all the college stuff in over three, four, five years.
01:14:10.000The emails, the instant messages, doing those schools, renting out the arenas at the schools and it just built.
01:14:18.000How much time do you spend every day talking to fans, emailing, Facebooking, Twittering, all that shit?
01:15:15.000It was not as instant, maybe, as some people thought.
01:15:18.000It's got to be satisfying, though, to know that you went out here and you did some movies and shit and some things didn't connect and didn't happen well for you, but you did it all on your own.
01:15:28.000Everything was done through your own, you figuring out how to self-promote.
01:15:33.000And you changed everybody's attitude about it.
01:15:36.000No comics are good promoters except...
01:15:48.000A couple things, and I want to give credit to Joe, too, and I told you this a long time ago.
01:15:52.000You were the first person to have a website.
01:15:54.000Not only a website, but you had cool shit on your website, man.
01:15:57.000You had fucking cool designs and fucking...
01:15:59.000And that is a direct result of my obsession with Quake, because I was obsessed with Quake, and I ran into this guy, Andrew, who was this nut that I met online.
01:17:25.000I don't have any other fucking abilities.
01:17:30.000You know, I really just, when I was a kid, I had that epiphany moment where I was like, all I really care about is being around performers, talking about performing, talking about, you know, making something from nothing.
01:17:42.000I was like, that's, my favorite conversations in life were with him because he was the kind of guy who would go, yeah, I don't, you know, you're a lot of talk, Dane.
01:18:04.000But my dad was like, yeah, you're not really doing anything.
01:18:08.000In order for you to develop the kind of fortitude that you're going to need to get through the hard times, you have to have something to prove.
01:19:23.000Dan, you should use your Hollywood connections to get, John Hughes was just about to release the extra hour of planes, trains, and automobiles that they filmed.
01:20:07.000I heard all this stuff about him that he's kind of like – maybe not – he's a little socially awkward, all this shit.
01:20:13.000What a trip it is meeting someone that famous, right?
01:20:15.000Meeting really your hero too, which you don't want to do, by the way.
01:20:18.000Usually you meet your heroes and you're like, oh, that kind of sucked.
01:20:22.000But with him, I was like, alright, he sent me a copy of his book and I wrote back just to be like, could I take you out to lunch?
01:20:29.000And he agreed and So I sat down with him for a little bit, and he's really, like, I can be shy.
01:20:35.000I don't know about shy, but I can still be, like, a little bit, you know, quiet.
01:20:39.000But he's very much like, he won't say a word, I don't think, if you don't start the conversation with him.
01:20:44.000But he did say to me at one point, he goes, he looked at me kind of, like, perplexed, and he's like, you look like you really love it up there.
01:20:51.000And I was like, yeah, no, I really do, you know, when you're in the middle of a, and I started kind of, and he goes, yeah, I never had that.
01:21:28.000I was going to bring this up, but fuck it.
01:21:30.000When Phil Hartman was alive, Phil Hartman was really good friends with Steve Martin, and Phil Hartman...
01:21:34.000Was going to set Steve Martin up with what I call a coyote.
01:21:38.000What a coyote is is these really kind of crafty, professional chicks that will fuck celebrity guys in order to try to get famous, try to figure out some way.
01:21:48.000This is pre-TMZ. Now it's like you really can fuck someone and all of a sudden become hugely famous.
01:26:55.000You know, like the Eddie Bravo Falcon cuff.
01:26:57.000Joe, did you ever get to, as far as just comics that you fucking dug coming up, did you ever get to do shows with like, I don't know, who your Steve Martin was or like a Kinison or one of those guys?
01:28:29.000But that's a good way of describing it.
01:28:31.000When I first saw him, he was making Kinnison-like noises and doing sounds in between bits, like the bit didn't go so well, and he'd do this Kinnison-like thing.
01:28:39.000I was like, wow, this guy connected to Kinnison's thing.
01:28:43.000And it makes sense, because he was one of the guys that opened with Kinnison and followed him around the road.
01:29:35.000I saw him do a headliner set At the Comedy Connection and then a headliner set literally like six months later and it was a totally new hour.
01:30:46.000I think one thing that he really latched onto, and maybe it was after going through the...
01:30:51.000The Kinison influence was like, and I appreciated, was like this release of whatever emotion it seemed was going through him, he just allowed it to come out, even if it was mid other story or idea.
01:31:05.000And I would just watch that and I remember thinking that was like empowering.
01:31:09.000I was like, wow, this is a place where you can go up and you can fucking ring shit out and And people, you know, with a joke, I think it's like a good song.
01:31:16.000Sometimes you don't know the lyrics to a song.
01:31:19.000You realize years later, like, I don't even know what they're saying here, but it doesn't matter.
01:31:23.000And I think with some comedians, it's like, it's not even so much about what they're saying as how they're expressing something emotionally behind that.
01:31:31.000Those are the guys that I always watch.
01:33:05.000I have a theory that it's like, when you're a character, not just a character, but like, look at any sitcoms or any fucking, throughout history, if you play a character, especially with a weird name, like if you're like a potsy or like...
01:33:43.000It's like, if I didn't change, you would not fucking hang out and care at all what I was doing.
01:33:49.000Well, there's people that are going to like you at one stage of your career and not at another, and that's okay because that's where they are.
01:33:53.000They are where you were at that stage of your career.
01:34:10.000And when you let go of that and you realize somebody's going to check out for a while, and then I had a guy Write me an email and he goes, dude, listen, I jumped on the hate train or whatever.
01:35:00.000Because then you don't even know what you're doing.
01:35:01.000It has to be what you, what's inside of you.
01:35:04.000But that's how many guys, you guys see this, it's like, that's why when people, new comics come to you out here and they're like, what do I need to do?
01:35:19.000Well, there were so many guys at the Laugh Factory that became you.
01:35:23.000When you became famous, when it was starting to happen, even when you were packing Dublins all the time, I noticed so many guys that were doing you on stage.
01:35:33.000I was like, wow, this is fucking crazy.
01:35:36.000It's like, here's these guys that have noticed something that's working, and they're just jumping on it.
01:35:40.000That's a fascinating thing to see, like a whole new wave.
01:35:44.000There's a wave of guys that came out of the Laugh Factory, Joe Coy.
01:36:19.000People are talking about me when I'm not trying to fucking get something going.
01:36:22.000And the DJs, like, that was really, they were setting this tempo.
01:36:25.000And then there were guys that you see come out, and it's a little flattering and weird when you're like, oh, this guy's kind of like me.
01:36:31.000And it makes you not want to watch comedy because you're a little freaked out by it.
01:36:35.000But then you know that, alright, a couple years down the line, as guys start getting frustrated, those same guys are the ones who would come out of the woodwork and say, oh no, Dane fucking took from me.
01:36:58.000But you know it's like you just nailed it.
01:37:00.000It's like you You take that, you have a voice, you have certain people that you want to emulate, and then you figure out your shit and you grow out of it.
01:37:08.000And I'm as kind of understanding and cool about that because I've been up, down, up, down, and it's like...
01:37:12.000But in the beginning, though, you don't feel that way.
01:37:15.000In the beginning, you feel like someone's stealing from you and you have to put a stop to it.
01:37:19.000Because when you're not famous and you're struggling and you're coming up and...
01:37:23.000And you're just starting to do well, and then you see somebody start ganking off you, and you're like, hey, hey, hey, I created all this success out of hard work, and you're just kind of emulating it.
01:38:21.000It's funny because the first time in my life I ever ran in, that was with you.
01:38:25.000It was like 1998, and Joe called me up.
01:38:28.000I remember I was still living in that shitty apartment, and you're like, dude, there's a fucking bit that you're doing, and it's like my closing bit.
01:38:35.000I remember I was so fucked up by that, not only because I had a lot of respect for Joe, but it was like...
01:38:40.000I don't ever want to be one of those guys that gets put in that position.
01:38:44.000And I remember feeling like that was a defining moment for me because it was like I need to talk even more about maybe not nostalgic things or things that are outward that I see but things that are from me, that happen to me.
01:38:57.000It's hard though because especially if you're influenced by someone else and your bit is influenced by their bit and even though you know it is, you know you shouldn't probably do it because everyone thinks that you kind of stole it.
01:39:14.000It's just you know you could go up there with this one and just fucking slam it in.
01:39:18.000But really, ethically, it's almost like you have to find out what's good about that and cut it out and try to add it to something that you create.
01:39:25.000You can be influenced by something, and you're not even aware of it.
01:39:31.000You ever see where a lot of guys work together?
01:39:34.000We saw that at the comedy store a lot, where guys would work together, and guys would riff in the back parking lot, and then they would go on stage, and it was like a battle over, whose bit is this?
01:39:49.000And he would go on stage, and whenever they would fucking riff, Stan Hope would say a bunch of cool shit, and this guy would go on stage and do Stan Hope's cool shit.
01:40:10.000Or somebody like, You'll have an idea, an original premise, and someone will add a tag to it and then take your whole fucking thing and jump on stage because they added a tag.
01:41:00.000Yeah, and the worst is the one friend that you have an idea, and you start saying the idea, and they try to top it, and they start talking over you.
01:42:51.000I go, you're in movies and people love you and they see you all the time and they're attracted to you and you're meeting all these people, millions and millions of them, and it's not a big deal to you, but to them.
01:43:15.000It's literally one of the top three things that they'll ever fucking want to talk about with their close friends.
01:43:21.000Yeah, I try to tell this dude, the reason why these girls go crazy is because they think you're in love with them.
01:43:25.000They think, you know, this is going to be like a love affair now, and you're just moving on to the next chick, and, you know, you've got to be careful of that, right?
01:44:43.000I know I'm fucked up, but I've figured out how to deal with my fucked up and make it work and be a fairly healthy human being.
01:44:50.000But I know that other people that are fucked up, the odds are we're going to be able to talk and hang out and be cool with each other and make this work out and both be balanced.
01:45:03.000It's just like too many times over and over and again.
01:45:06.000You just deal with all these crazy people and all this psychosis involved in that.
01:45:11.000The auditioning process breaks people's souls.
01:45:14.000Because getting this movie or getting this television show or anything they're auditioning for could be the biggest fucking moment in their life.
01:45:20.000And they're freaking out, and they're pacing around the waiting room, and you get to see them go over their lines.
01:45:54.000And they're doing this for years and years.
01:45:56.000And this is already a person who's psychologically unbalanced.
01:45:58.000Already a person who the reason why they want to be a performer in the first place is they want to be loved because they weren't loved as a child.
01:46:06.000So there's this incredible, horrible imbalance.
01:47:01.000If you're a girl, man, it's a natural feeling, I think, for a girl to want some sort of male companionship and protection.
01:47:08.000For a woman to be by herself, comes here from Omaha, Nebraska or something, she's going to be incredibly insecure, like a cork in the middle of the ocean, by herself anyway.
01:47:16.000Doesn't have any friends, committed to this acting thing, and then just rejection, rejection, rejection.
01:47:21.000And then it's their whole childhood thing that dragged them there in the first place.
01:47:24.000Then you come along and you're like, hey, would you like to go see a movie?
01:47:26.000You don't even know what the fuck you're getting into.
01:47:28.000You're just opening up the door to hell.
01:47:30.000My ex was one of the classic cases of everything that I didn't know until after the breakup.
01:47:36.000Everything she always said she hated, she became.
01:48:16.000I am kind of dating a girl now, but after what I've been through, you're kind of more trepidatious because you're like, all right, if that's going to build up for that one.
01:50:18.000And so that's what I've really done the last, well, year.
01:50:21.000Do you find that, I find that it drives me really crazy when I come up with a bit and then I put it on a special and then right after I fucking film it, I have a way better tagline.
01:51:38.000You want to make sure it's really done.
01:51:39.000I kind of was like, a few years back, I fell into this routine of like, you know, maybe it's never done, and maybe it's always kind of evolving in something else, and that's okay.
01:51:48.000Maybe it's just, again, more about who I am.
01:51:51.000Because I loved guys like even Johnny Carson growing up.
01:51:53.000I didn't know what the fuck Johnny was talking about half the time when I was a kid, but it was like this idea of, oh, you're attracted to this person.
01:52:00.000And there's something glamorous about stand-up where you can't go anywhere else, except for maybe what we're doing here today, without somebody impeding on it.
01:52:09.000And like editing it or some standards and practice.
01:52:12.000There's always somebody fucking with you except comedy is glamorous because you can say whatever it is that you want to say.
01:52:17.000And that's one of the things that I love about this podcast too.
01:52:45.000Other people digging their fingers in it.
01:52:47.000I'll take this over any, like any, even like whatever, reality TV, like everything's so processed and so fucking prepared that why can't something be a little ragtag and a little messy and real and maybe a little uncomfortable and really, you know, have an amazing moment.
01:53:02.000Well, for you, I think this is very important because I think you're a very misunderstood guy and the ability to express yourself for long periods of time will get a chance for someone to see Your real personality as opposed to this projected image that they have of you.
01:53:18.000Because if you're doing like a fucking Tonight Show set or something like that, you're sitting on the couch, you're talking for seven minutes, to me it always feels like it's over.
01:53:47.000And seeing comics and however many entertainers like go from this to getting that fame or fan base or whatever it is without anybody in the middle of it.
01:53:56.000Without managers and agents and It's pretty incredible, man.
01:54:09.000He did a bunch of shit on YouTube, and people loved his songs on YouTube, like comedic songs, and all of a sudden this kid is fucking packing places.
01:56:51.000I used to play chess online and I'm like, some fucking fag is going to have a chess fucking master thing opened up and he knows 10 moves ahead already.
01:57:37.000It's pretty interesting, but think about the Russian mom, how much money the Russian mom has made by cheating, made by getting people's credit cards, made by hacking things, made by doing that.
01:57:46.000It's like when you realize the actual numbers involved, it's a branch of business.
01:57:53.000I mean, it literally is a branch of business.
01:58:02.000I mean, it's like this is sophisticated shit.
01:58:05.000You know, this is being sophisticated stuff being done on a high level.
01:58:07.000Whenever you're going to have any sort of a situation like that where there's kind of an open door, you know, and there's programs, you can run programs in the background.
01:58:14.000Think about how many goddamn viruses there are, you know?
01:58:16.000I mean, viruses and keyloggers and just fuck, man.
01:58:20.000And everything's going into the cloud, man.
02:01:57.000There's an app on your iPad where you can just sit here and put your address in and it'll show you all your neighbors who have Twittered or at least who have said, yes, you can use my location.
02:03:32.000It feels like, as long as you recognize it's a magic trick, the real problem is when dudes who have the magic trick don't think it's a trick, they think, I am this fucking special.
02:04:49.000They were like, we had no clue what we were doing or how big that was going to be.
02:04:52.000I want to know what happened with him because there was definitely a point in his time kind of after planes, trains, and automobiles around Grand Canyon times where it seemed like he just stopped playing Steve Martin and started acting like an old man or something.
02:06:36.000I'm there to make you laugh your ass off.
02:06:38.000I'm there to make you escape for a little bit.
02:06:39.000There's a lot of fucking guys that do it a thousand times better than me, but I figured out how to do it my way to where I can entertain you and we can all forget about the real hardcore shit for a little bit.
02:07:46.000I mean, I love good writing and everything like that, but I love just as much, you know, Joey Diaz, he's got this joke about transvestites.
02:08:08.000It's like, that's the kind of shit that'll make me clap and laugh, and then hours later I'll be at the diner eating, clapping and laughing.
02:08:15.000You know, it's like, that's my favorite kind of comedy.
02:09:17.000I don't have insight, but just from what I hear, he's got some stuff to work out.
02:09:24.000So maybe he's just not in a place where he can face that head-on.
02:09:27.000I know I'm putting it rather delicately.
02:09:28.000Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
02:09:29.000I mean, I heard that crazy story about whatever the hell happened on the airplane, where they had to land somewhere, and the pilot thought that he was a hazard to the flight, so they landed early.
02:09:42.000I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I met him when I did, I mean, comedy clubs in New York, and I did this appell show twice, and he's just always been a cool dude, but I never got to know him deep.
02:09:52.000Yeah, I don't think he's like that, though.
02:09:54.000I don't think a lot of people know him, really, personally.
02:09:56.000He's kind of, you know, living in fucking Utah or somewhere.
02:10:34.000Any level of success and what I've learned having slow but short trajectory is like there's always more people that don't like what you do than more people like what you do.
02:11:45.000I have the most amazing, like, the guy that comes out, my road guy, Al Dottley, he did Zeppelin, he did Elvis, he's got all the gadgets, we put screens, we make you feel like you're in your living room.
02:11:56.000I go in the middle, not because I want to be a gladiator, because it's four theaters at any point.
02:12:01.000It's easier to be close to people from the middle.
02:12:03.000It wasn't like a thing where it was like, yeah, by being in the middle, I'm the rock star.
02:12:08.000No, it's like, I need to be as close to people in these big shows as possible.
02:12:11.000I've only done one theater in the round show ever.
02:12:42.000It's a three-dimensional approach as opposed to standing in this one plane facing this one way every time.
02:12:48.000Yeah, when people are behind you too, and I always keep a little light on everybody, there's a constant flow of energy by seeing other people and feeling...
02:12:56.000It's just, there's something unique about being in the middle.
02:12:59.000Right, like they're seeing people, not just you.
02:13:05.000That's an interesting way to look at it.
02:13:07.000Yeah, like everybody's like, whoa, we're on this together.
02:13:09.000If you're just talking about on an energy level, if you want to talk about that, like for me, it's like what you put out there, and it doesn't dissipate the way I feel it does when you're just launching it at them, like you were meant to look at me.
02:13:19.000When they feel like they're part of it, they're connected to it, It's a different kind of comedy, man.
02:15:25.000I just wrote a chapter in this book I'm writing, all on the very first time I ever bombed, which is a horrible, terrible disaster that I'll never forget, because it was the first time I ever bombed while I was getting paid.
02:15:49.000And the guy who went on before me fucking crushed.
02:15:51.000And there was this chick that I had seen the last time I was there, and she was super hot and I fucked her.
02:15:56.000And she was in the front row, and she brought her friends, and her friends looked, and they were going to sit in the front row when I went on stage, so I was panicking.
02:16:02.000I was like, they're going to be right in front of me.
02:16:04.000I was only like a year into comedy, a year and a half at the most, and this guy who went up, who was the MC, was way better than me.
02:17:11.000I'm just going to fucking go, go, go, go.
02:17:13.000You're just terrified, but you just get psyched up to go, which is the worst thing you could ever do on stage to be nervous and aggressive and fucking and all introspective and turned into yourself.
02:17:58.000I did a place in Florida called The Wrath Skeller.
02:18:02.000They hired me to come down, and it was, like, one of my first road gigs.
02:18:05.000And it was the thing where it's like there's food being served during, the TVs are on, like all that shit where it's like the whole – everything is happening and I'm doing stand-up and like somebody threw a hot dog at me like five minutes into an hour.
02:18:19.000All those shit gigs that Boston Comedy used to book and all those little weird fucking places in New Hampshire you would drive an hour and a half up to – You know, New Hampshire and do some weird bar with a tinny sound system.
02:18:31.000When you look back at it now, how important were those for developing your ability to focus on stage and kill and cut the fat out of your act?
02:19:47.000And they're so drunk, they are, all of them, there's maybe 20 people in the room, all of them are so drunk, they can't even keep their eyes open.
02:19:55.000Their mouths are sliding, like, what's going on here?
02:19:59.000And Scott gets up and starts shitting all over them, and he was not really, you know, he hadn't been doing comedy that long then, really probably shouldn't have been on stage in this sort of a situation anyway.
02:20:08.000And I went on after them, and they had already turned their backs to the comedy show, like half of them.
02:20:12.000They turned their backs and just started a conversation.
02:21:41.000I had a dream that Mike Goldberg, the guy I work with in the UFC, got killed by a grizzly bear.
02:21:46.000And it was a very graphic movie in my head, like a very graphic dream, where it was very realistic.
02:21:52.000And I woke up like, literally woke up like, whoa!
02:21:55.000Like, he was with his wife and his kids, and they were in a river.
02:21:58.000And a fucking grizzly bear came running through the bank of the river, jumped into the water, and just fucked him up in front of everybody.
02:22:20.000Some kind of hybrid DNA government experiments, like half fucking cougar.
02:22:24.000The only reason why there's not sword fights on TV is because no one's put sword fights on TV. If they were, people would love to watch that.
02:22:31.000Two guys with samurai swords trying to hack each other's fucking heads off.
02:22:34.000I think we're going to produce our very first show together, Joe.
02:22:38.000The lions versus the Christians, I mean, those people weren't much different than us today.
02:22:42.000How is that different than GhettoGaggers.com?
02:22:45.000How is that different than some of the shit that you watch, like those Mexican drug dealers cutting that guy's head off with a small knife?
02:24:38.000Anybody who somebody decides to steal on.
02:24:40.000You're in the wrong place at the wrong time and some guy who you never saw coming decides to punch you in the face and Piss on your unconscious body.
02:24:48.000And on that note, ladies and gentlemen, I think that's the end of this fucking podcast.
02:24:54.000Again, we're sponsored by The Fleshlight, fleshlight.com.
02:24:57.000You know, you and I have had our differences over the year, but I always respected your ability to market yourself, and I always respected your ambition.
02:25:04.000And I think sometimes when people are ambitious, things don't necessarily work out the way they should be.
02:25:10.000I know you're a good dude, and I know that you're always working on your act.