Comedian Al Madrigal joins us on the pod to talk about what it's like being a stand-up comedian in the 90s and early 2000s. We talk about his early days at the Old Cobbs Comedy club in San Francisco, how he got into standup, and what it takes to be a good standup comedian. We also talk about how he ended up in comedy, and how he went from radio to standup to becoming a full-time comedian in less than a decade, and why it's a good thing he didn't get into comedy at the same time as most other comedians in his generation. We're sponsored by The Fleshlight. It's a great product and we love it. Put your finger in the cup and let us know if you like it! Joe Rogan is a comedian, writer, podcaster, and podcaster. He's been in the business for over 30 years and is a regular contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times, and has been featured on Comedy Central, and is one of the funniest people in the world. Enjoy this one! -Joe Rogan and the Crew -The Vagabond Podcast is a production of Native Creative Podcasts. Produced in Los Angeles, CA and edited by Joseph Rogan and the crew at Native Creative to bring you the best local music, comedy and standup comedy in the bay area. . This episode was brought to you by Native Creative, a proud member of the Native Creative Crew. and Native Creative Media. , and the amazing people who make it all the best music, and the people who give us the best food in the Bay Area scene in the country and the best coffee in the best live music in the place you can find the best of the best places to get the most authentic and most authentic, the best stories from the best and the most authentically authentic music you can get the best at the best in the most affordable and the coolest places in the greatest place you'll ever to hear it all. in this episode we talk about it all on the best way to do it all of that. -and more! and more. Thank you for listening to Native Creative and supporting Native Creative in this podcast, and we hope you enjoy this episode! -And thank you so much for being here on Native Creative. Thanks for listening and supporting us.
00:00:00.000*music* Throw you in a choke, gun smoke, gun smoke.
00:00:19.000Vicky Smokes for Mayor, the Rack Slayer, the hookah layer Relax and take notes While I take totes of the marijuana smoke Throw you in a choke, gun smoke, gun smoke.
00:00:42.000Biggie Smokes for mayor, the rap slayer, the hookah layer.
00:04:59.000But C2O gave me some free shit, so props!
00:05:03.000But the flashlight, if you go, like I said, if you go to the link on JoeRogan.net, click it, and enter in the code ROGAN, and you get 15% off.
00:06:43.000They evolve just like everything else evolves.
00:06:45.000And when these assholes take their fucking medicine, they don't take it all.
00:06:48.000This is especially true about antibiotics.
00:06:51.000People who get sick and they take antibiotics and they only take it until they feel better, like say if you're supposed to take it for 10 days, the bacteria that survive is like super powerful antibiotic resistant bacteria.
00:07:04.000So that becomes like this strain that's almost impossible to kill.
00:07:07.000That's where this MRSA shit comes from.
00:07:09.000The people are dying from these crazy staph infections.
00:07:12.000It's because assholes don't take their fucking pills.
00:07:15.000They take like a percentage of them and then they quit.
00:07:18.000And they develop this new fucking super virus because of that.
00:09:43.000That's where the new trucks, they come and get your shit.
00:09:45.000They're shipping it to fucking China, where they're paying for cheap landfill.
00:09:48.000So huge, huge, like, secret in the night fucking barges full of our shit.
00:09:55.000It shows up in China and there's just landfill all over the place.
00:09:58.000And so, I mean, us flushing pills down there, I mean, that's the least of our trouble.
00:10:03.000It's all these foreign countries that don't have any fucking laws that are just allowing you to dump and bury and fucking there's toxic waste that we're shipping over there.
00:12:33.000It's right there and I'm watching a TV. Yeah, it's ridiculous.
00:12:36.000I like it on the UFC just because it's like the different camera angles, especially when you get on the ground, you can't see anything on the floor.
00:14:29.000And you used to have that, you put in the recorder, what I always appreciated, that Joe bought a digital recorder, not a digital, a CD burner for the club.
00:14:38.000And so I'd go in there with a CD just constantly on a Friday night and just show up and handle my CD. I have all the...
00:14:45.000Well, I had three different things that I bought.
00:14:47.000I started out with a DAT player, a DAT recorder.
00:14:50.000I had digital audio tape installed there.
00:14:51.000But the problem with that is that no one had a DAT player.
00:15:42.000The real issue there was that they stopped nurturing good comedy, and they had a lot of the issues that Al and I were talking about right before the show that he's dealing with there right now.
00:16:58.000Whenever I would kick somebody out, I would go, look, I know that we just went through this douchey moment together, but we can change this.
00:18:29.000And when you have an opportunity to correct the vibe of the room.
00:18:34.000You know, if you can do it like that, that's really what it's all about, right?
00:18:37.000Now, Al, you said you used to do a podcast like five years ago when the podcast first came out, and those were really big back in the day, and they kind of died.
00:19:02.000It was, it was, we had sort of many names for the thing, but it was the, I did it with Peter Murrieta, a comedy writer, and so it was just, he's half Mexican and I'm half Mexican, and it was two.
00:19:15.000Combining full China, together you were one Mexican.
00:19:17.000It was called the two, yeah, one Mexican.
00:19:48.000And then you move down to LA, and immediately I got put in this HBO Aspen comedy thing where it was me, Jeff Garcia, Freddy Soto, Willie Barsena, all these guys together.
00:23:24.000I go, I'm just as fired up as you've killed guys, you know, and fucking annihilated people.
00:23:31.000And I don't have the ability to do that, but I still feel fucking angry as shit.
00:23:37.000So you got angry at him saying that you were scared on stage, that he was talking shit about you on stage.
00:23:41.000I just don't like when any comic brings up to your next comic before them and starts really fucking referring to somebody, you know, and...
00:24:16.000So your relationship, it's more like he's actually mocking you.
00:24:19.000Yeah, I think it really fucking means it.
00:24:20.000I don't want my kids to grow up like you all scared.
00:24:22.000At Montreal in 2002, and I've told him this story, and we've talked about it, and I walked up to him, and he was the only other non-white, you know, like, he's the only Latino guy there, and I don't know anybody, and I waved to him.
00:25:07.000When I do the weigh-ins and I have to pronounce dudes' names, I have to decide whether or not I want to commit to that super Spanish way of saying things, you know?
00:25:15.000And there's a lot of Mexicans in the UFC, right?
00:30:02.000Yeah, everybody wants to pretend they're a fucking DJ. Yeah, you know, I'm gonna get a real good sample of this music, you know what I'm saying?
00:30:08.000I need full coverage of my ears, you know what I'm saying?
00:31:45.000I think Blaine Kompatch, who's a very funny comedian, said, if comedy clubs were a video game, Then the Comedy Store would be one of the hardest levels.
00:32:52.000They're trying to, you know, put out good art.
00:32:54.000They're trying to put out good comedy to support it.
00:32:56.000You know, it's like it's very obvious what they're up to.
00:32:58.000And so because of that, that's the kind of crowd they attract.
00:33:01.000The Comedy Store is just, people are just walking by, you know, and they've heard the name, and they stumble in, and they don't know any better, or they know who's up.
00:34:50.000You go to the store, there's a piece of paper that fucking Tommy's got spilled coffee on, you know, and has everybody's name written on it.
00:34:58.000You know, and if you call in and you ask, oh, who's up tonight?
00:36:29.000Yeah, well, there's a lot of negative energy in that place.
00:36:33.000What you were talking about before that you don't want to talk about, obviously.
00:36:36.000There's a new comedy thief at the comedy store, a guy that got kicked out of the Ha Ha Cafe, and he's another one of these guys that's blatantly on purpose looking to steal people's material and use it.
00:36:48.000Yeah, but I have to be very clear, and I don't even want to get involved.
00:36:56.000What I was talking about was how the club justified it, and how they actually told you when you brought the guy's name up that he's not bad looking on the eyes.
00:38:15.000But other than that, if they all hung out at fucking Waffle House, I'd be there.
00:38:18.000Brian, you remember that time we were filming and that hooker came back and just started talking to us about the business and how she meets guys and how she sets it up?
00:38:56.000Well, think of the world that you travel in, though.
00:38:58.000You travel in a very interesting world.
00:39:00.000I mean, if you looked at your life from any other part of the world, you take some guy from Idaho and say, hey, I'm going to hang out with this guy.
00:39:43.000Not that there's anything wrong with being a hooker, man.
00:39:46.000A buddy of mine was talking to me about this Thai massage place that he goes to, and they give you a real Thai massage, and then they jerk you off.
00:39:52.000And he talked about it like it was the greatest meal.
00:39:56.000You know, like I would talk to you about a certain steakhouse that knows exactly How to fucking cook a good piece of meat where you cut into that medium rare and the outside is just crispy, but the inside is juicy and delicious and warm and the fucking blood from the meat just fires up your synapses.
00:40:13.000That's how this guy talked about getting jerked off by this Thai lady.
00:40:17.000He was talking about it like it was the most amazing thing.
00:40:19.000He goes, somebody told me to go to this place.
00:40:21.000I didn't think it was that kind of place because it looked like a real place.
00:40:55.000And the next thing you know, she like glances over his dick and he arches his back like towards her hand as she glances over his dick and then she just gets, that's the green light, she gets a hold of it, pulls out the lotion, starts rubbing his balls, jerks him off, bam, done.
00:44:46.000When I was on news radio, dude, I didn't write anything.
00:44:49.000And here's one of the things that turned it around.
00:44:51.000I did sets, and when I would do these sets, I would basically do the same fucking material that I had had for years and years and years before.
00:44:59.000I would just go up on the weekends, because it was easy, because it was something to do.
00:45:03.000You know, I had this TV show, so I was doing the TV show all the time, and the weekends, I'd only been in LA a year, I didn't really know that many people, so my social life was going to the comedy clubs.
00:45:13.000So I would go up and I would just do the same act pretty much, just over and over and over again.
00:46:42.000I also try to work new stuff in constantly.
00:46:46.000I'm always adding just little chunks here and there.
00:46:48.000Not even a whole new bit, but just adding to the old shit that I have.
00:46:52.000And they're always growing and evolving.
00:46:54.000That's why I have a hard time putting out bits too quickly.
00:46:57.000Like, if you do something and then, you know, you put it out, you put out like a DVD, and then the next year you want to do another one like Louis C.K.'s doing, which is...
00:47:06.000But in my career, the things that I've done, they've always gotten way, way, way better as I kept doing them over a long period of time and sort of completely tweaked them and got them to the place where I have just the right punchlines and the right places, the right setup, think about the right material to do before you do it.
00:47:26.000Yeah, I got an album that I just put out and I felt exactly the same way when I locked it.
00:47:57.000If you really want to keep moving, there's no way.
00:47:59.000You can just do the same thing forever.
00:48:01.000I'll do a few bits and people call them out.
00:48:02.000Like when I do a Q&A sometimes, especially if I've had a couple of cocktails and I'm feeling it.
00:48:08.000But, you know, that's the hardest part about comedy is just to keep that momentum going and keep finding out new and interesting things to talk about.
00:49:48.000Well, I don't know if I... Would or wouldn't, I do see just being in it how competitive it is and how it really is hard to get to a certain point of where you can survive, like higher up than the normal comics.
00:50:07.000Like, there's so many really good comics, but they seem like they all get to a certain level, and then they kind of balance off, you know, where, yeah, they're making money and stuff, but a lot of them are still kind of struggling here and there.
00:50:18.000But it seems like it's really hard to get to the next level where you're just like, you know.
00:50:22.000I mean, you use the baseball analogy or any pro football or anything like that, any sporting thing.
00:50:26.000It's like, you know, a certain amount of people get a certain distance in the, you know, there's levels of professional, and people just climb up that level of professional.
00:50:35.000There's a lot of different things to think about, because it's not just being a comedian and being funny, it's also the marketing of yourself, which is very alien from the creative aspect of stand-up comedy, so it's real tricky.
00:50:45.000What gets you to the next level, a lot of times, has nothing to do with your proficiency as a comedian.
00:50:50.000You know, there's a lot of comedians that we know of that, you know, they're really good, they're really solid, but for whatever reason, they never enter into the...
00:50:56.000Oh, you're talking about Brian Holtzman is a clear example.
00:50:59.000The Zeitgeist never accepts them, for whatever reason.
00:51:01.000Nothing, you know, they never figure out how to get promoted correctly.
00:51:04.000And also, they sabotage their own career.
00:51:07.000I remember, I don't even know if I have the story right, but Holtzman jumping in, and Martin Lawrence came into the audience, and Holtzman had people there to see him, and it was a big deal, and he was finally going to get a shot.
00:51:17.000And then Martin Lawrence's bouncer came in and said something, and I guess Holtzman just looks and says, Fuck it!
00:51:25.000And just jumps in, and I guess the bouncer just knocks him right out.
00:51:38.000And Brian Holtzman was on stage, and Martin Lawrence was heckling, and Martin Lawrence went off stage and was saying, Ladies and gentlemen, this is Martin Lawrence.
00:52:19.000But what you're saying about the marketing thing, it's also, it's that book, that Malcolm Gladwell book, The Outliers, you ever see any of that?
00:53:21.000If you're so smart and fucking smug about everything, what are you out there, swimming in the human condition every day as a bouncer, getting to know the dark side of humanity?
00:53:31.000What are you, a fucking Charles Bukowski poet-type character?
00:53:34.000Or are you the smartest man in the world?
00:53:36.000Because there's a disconnect there, fella.
00:54:06.000Like, if he's that fucking smart, let's get him working on something.
00:54:09.000No, you're, socially, there's the needs, social intelligence needs to be factored into the whole idea of intelligence.
00:54:15.000You know, your IQ does not include your ability to fucking maneuver around human beings.
00:54:20.000Yeah, that's exactly what they're talking about.
00:54:21.000And then a similar kid with a big, you know, really wealthy upbringing that had the same IQ went, you know, that many times further.
00:54:30.000You know, his life became this great, you know, I had a friend when I was living in New York who was a pool hustler, and he was a brilliant guy, not just socially, he had a brilliant mathematical mind as well, but he was the first guy that I'd ever met socially that would look for traits in someone, look for things that people are doing, look for ego things.
00:54:52.000He could do impressions of people, really good impressions of them.
00:54:55.000They wouldn't sound like the person, but it would be exactly the type of shit that that person would say.
00:55:00.000analyzing people's personalities and looking for weaknesses you know i did not know until i met this guy that people were out there that did that that like would look for a weakness in how in your game look for weakness and how you talk look for weakness and how you behave and then they find that little spot and that's where they start picking they start picking on whatever got you to say that in the first place whatever got you to stand up for yourself whatever got you to make an excuse about something that happened you know it was kind of sick that day and Normally, that would never go down like that.
00:55:57.000So it's also like there's a couple rules in place where not only have you had that thought and found that opportunity, but now you've got to put this through this filtering process to determine whether or not it's okay to fucking make it up on stage.
00:57:07.000Once you get good at them and get them all tight and you know exactly how to hit them and they have all these fucking punchlines one after the other.
00:57:51.000Comedy is still the most fun thing for me to go see.
00:57:54.000If I know that Stan Hope is going to perform, or Louis C.K. is in town, or Nick DiPaolo, or someone that I really think is really funny, I fucking have a great time.
01:03:06.000For people who don't know, there's a guy, and if you haven't heard this story, there was a guy that was standing on the side of a road and he had a sign that said, you know, we'll use my golden voice for, you know, God gave me a voice and give me a dollar.
01:03:47.000Well, Dr. Phil sits down with him and discusses all the challenges he had in his life.
01:03:51.000And he first denied the incident in which Dr. Phil was accused of violent behavior, public urination, stealing customers' cars at a tire store in Ohio, and all this other crap.
01:04:03.000In the interview, the guy finally admits that he did all those things.
01:06:58.000And I was there, and we were talking, and me and Eddie Ift were talking, and one of the things that this kid was saying was that he never had to struggle.
01:07:08.000He never went out and did the shitty one-nighters.
01:07:10.000No, he's famous on YouTube, by the way.
01:07:11.000He's like, bam, right away, famous, doing big shows.
01:07:19.000Who was the first internet celebrity, like, going back?
01:07:22.000Justin Bieber's, like, the big one, right?
01:07:23.000Well, no, no, I mean first, like, 10 years ago, 15 years ago.
01:07:26.000Like, was there an AOL celebrity back in the day?
01:07:29.000Well, when YouTube first started, it was the History of the Dance guy became one of the ones that was the first YouTube sensation, really, to start commanding high dollar.
01:07:46.000It's a guy who's got his butthole face in the camera, and he's wearing a wedding ring, and he's stretching his asshole out, like pulling it like it's rubber.
01:11:01.000And made a whole song just about how I wanted to fuck this girl and stuff like that.
01:11:05.000And I replaced that song, that file, with the original file so that when people went to her MySpace page, it just started playing that song.
01:17:41.000So I'm surrounded by old people, and it's Eagle Rock.
01:17:45.000It's an up-and-coming neighborhood still, and there's a lot of cool people that live near me, but at the same time, I was just surrounded by old people that are in my business.
01:17:53.000I went on my roof to clean up my gutters, and it's like they all assembled below me while I was conducting some AARP meeting, and they're all in my business.
01:20:01.000And even with household shit, if anything breaks, you know, we've had stuff where I've been on the road doing stand-up, I travel all over, just like, not as much, but I, you know, I go out a fair amount.
01:20:42.000God, I didn't say that, but that's how I feel.
01:20:46.000They all get all pissed and bent out of shape if I... I'm not talking to a neighbor for two years because of our parking.
01:20:52.000We had construction people over our house and the Latino guys parked there and he came running back, the old guy, and fucking started yelling at the Latino guys to move their car.
01:22:02.000And he goes, okay, I'm going to have to ask you to not do that when I'm home because it's just like I'm in the living room and all I hear is creak, creak, creak, creak, creak, creak.
01:22:12.000And I'm like, so you're saying that because of the structural instability of this shithead fucking apartment building, you don't want me walking in my living room because it's annoying?
01:26:21.000It's also, you know, I've said this before, but I'll say it again, the real problem is the generic label comedy.
01:26:27.000It's like you don't go to see live music, not knowing if you're going to get Barry Manilow or Guns N' Roses or, you know, a rap band, you know, but with comedy, you could get that.
01:26:35.000And you could get that all on the same night.
01:26:37.000You can get like five different comics can go up at the improv and they all have five different, totally different acts.
01:29:23.000It's just another one of those stories.
01:29:26.000It's been the interesting thing about being a comedian and living in LA is watching the whole story of humanity unfold for many different people and many different players.
01:29:36.000They take their part in the game and they all go through it and you get to watch them.
01:29:40.000A lot of them you get to learn from, too.
01:29:42.000Just learn from their fuck-ups and learn from even their successes.
01:29:44.000You can sort of pick the path that you want to go.
01:32:12.000He said even after he does all these years and he does these shows at the Mirage in Vegas or wherever he goes, and, you know, massive fucking crowd.
01:32:38.000You do comedy all these years and people are there to see you and they're all psyched up and they're cheering when they're bringing your name.
01:32:44.000And as you're walking to the stage, you're like, what the fuck am I even doing?
01:32:48.000Tom Papa told me great stories about that.
01:32:51.000He worked to sell out comedy clubs and then he started selling out some comedy clubs and then he moved to the smaller theaters.
01:32:56.000And then as a guy in a smaller theater, he didn't take a moment to go, this is it, I'm in the smaller theater.
01:33:02.000He started thinking about getting in bigger theaters.
01:34:21.000Well, now there's also so many different applications that you can use that allow it, you know, the communication to be just, you know, it's a lot easier before you're doing, you know, just emails if you're doing that or some sort of weird email newsletter with asterisks, you know, as a separation points, you know, there's a lot more out there now.
01:36:53.000No, it was a dream sequence for a strip club.
01:36:56.000Perfect ASU chicks well before being married.
01:37:00.000And I go in there, and during the day when I was by myself, old guy just in the corner in a wheelchair, and this girl, he's a regular, and this girl who's really hot goes up to him and starts rubbing on him, and I was looking at her before, and she starts like, he's like, hey John, how are you today?
01:39:06.000And she puts her one hand on his lower back and one hand on his chest, and he's got his arms around her, both of them, clasped behind him, and she's rubbing up against him.
01:39:14.000I'm like, whoa, I'm watching a victim.
01:39:17.000She's going to inject him with venom and suck all the money out of him.
01:41:35.000Well, that's like also riding the wave of these comedy careers because sometime point you can get, like look at a guy like Elon Gold, you know, the comic.
01:42:14.000You know, if your stand-up is strong and you headline all over the country and you get a big following and, you know, especially develop an internet presence, then you don't have to ever worry about things.
01:45:01.000So he shows up with a fucking suit and tie standing in front of Phil Hartman's house and acting as a liaison between the entertainment industry and the press.
01:45:12.000And trying to ask the press to use respect and to use good judgment.
01:45:47.000I mean, he had a bunch of famous neighbors.
01:45:48.000And it wasn't someone saying, hey, this is my neighbor, please leave him alone.
01:45:53.000It was a guy who just shows up and he says, the cameras are going to be here.
01:45:56.000I'm just going to get on camera and I'm going to speak for the...
01:45:58.000And he thought, he was like, yeah, it's some sort of a message.
01:46:00.000But the real message that everybody was getting out of it was like, Why the fuck is Steve Guttenberg there with a suit and tie on in front of a murder scene?
01:47:56.000I mean, I've been on the road with Marilyn Martinez, Mitch Hedberg, This other guy passed away, Dan Crawford, that I was very good friends with, was in San Francisco, which is horrible.
01:48:07.000We do a benefit, if you ever did San Francisco Punchline, the Dan Crawford Memorial Fund.
01:48:11.000You know, we give a comic a free liquor tab for the whole year.
01:48:59.000He was a kid without health insurance.
01:49:00.000So, I mean, if anybody's up in the Bay Area, I'm doing the Dan Crawford scholarship thing in March, and we raise money to give to a free clinic.
01:49:07.000How would they find out about the date?
01:54:14.000I was like, that was my job at my parents' family business, is that I used to be the fucking hatchet, man.
01:54:19.000Wow, you got some Negative karma shit going on.
01:54:21.000Well, no, they deserved it for the most part.
01:54:23.000But sometimes it's an unfortunate time.
01:54:26.000It's like a privilege to be working and having somebody pay you.
01:54:30.000If you had a fucking employee and you didn't have the money anymore, there's nothing else we can do.
01:54:34.000There's a bunch of different ways of looking at this economy being all fucked up.
01:54:37.000And I see some people who are very pragmatic look at it like, hey, you know what, these jobs...
01:54:41.000These jobs that these people are losing, these jobs weren't important in the first place.
01:54:44.000These motherfuckers, you know, we lost all our jobs overseas, and what we need to do is strengthen our economy, and this is just a symptom of a bigger evil.
01:54:51.000I see that on an individual, one-on-one basis, man.
01:54:54.000Whenever I think about these people that are going broke, and people that are losing their houses, and people that don't know what to do, especially if I think that they're dumb, And that their occupation options are limited and then they have children and shit too.
01:55:22.000He's the type of guy who would go and sit in a big recliner and get like a thirsty two-ouncer and just fucking sit there and watch TV. No aspirations to do anything.
01:55:30.000And he plays golf, but people are fucking like that.
01:58:35.000I watched a Mad Men where they're at a park and they take their big blanket and they just dump the thing and shake out the blanket and all the garbage just goes everywhere and then they just walk away.
02:00:05.000Like, I didn't get it until when I first moved out here and you got mad at me because I flicked my cigarette on the ground and you got mad at me.
02:01:17.000But as a whole, if you looked at the human race or looked at just the human race in America, you know, the ones that we understand, the culture that we understand.
02:02:43.000But there's a bunch of those that are only, they're really marketed, something King Cobra, I think it was, marketed for the black community, like straight up.
02:02:51.000You know, the smooth taste, it goes down easy.
02:02:53.000Like even the way it's written, like the ads are written.
02:02:56.000It's just like, just straight to the African American community.
02:03:00.000And when you start drinking that stuff, those are so strong We are so strong, and you don't give a fuck.
02:03:05.000You drink that shit, you don't give a fuck.
02:04:42.000I mean, spending your New Year's in a fucking strip mall, dancing.
02:04:46.000Some guy wore Dom Perignon at a strip mall, and he's trying to show off in front of his girlfriend, and a fight broke out because somebody spilled it.
02:05:13.000And then the kid who's the son of the mom who was dancing, who was dancing really fucking funny with this young Latino kid and she was old and this Latino kid was just dry humping her on the dance floor.
02:06:31.000She was one of those relationships where like we would break up and then, you know, something happened and then I would take her back just because I know how broken she is.
02:06:39.000And then this third time was just like so quick and fast.
02:07:49.000You know, when you meet someone, man, and you fucking really click, and you're hanging out, and you're fucking like four or five times a day, and you're just kissing all the time, and you can't wait to see him, that's like an intense fucking, you know, intense romantic thing.
02:08:15.000Well, then you're stepping on eggshells because you're afraid of offending her because you're in a situation where you're like, Jesus, I don't want to fuck this up.
02:08:22.000This is the greatest thing of all time.
02:08:54.000And so it becomes some weird thing where you just get real comfortable with each other and you don't fuck as much.
02:09:00.000And then some other guy comes along and that other guy shows the same potential for being the guy that's so in love with you and this is it.
02:09:14.000And then the rage is on again and it's just this mad fucking crazy dash from one person to the next who can provide the next charge, the next beginning of the relationship, thunderous, orgasmic type of interaction.
02:09:28.000And it sucks because I've gotten to the age where I totally know that, you know?
02:09:32.000And so I am like, this person gets hurt, and I'm like, you know, I want you to know.
02:09:37.000I can tell you what happened to our relationship.
02:09:39.000And, you know, we can really work this together.
02:09:42.000And I'll do the stupid take girl back.
02:09:45.000I need to, I don't know, I just need to stop.
02:11:00.000Listen, you're a creative weirdo, okay?
02:11:03.000And if you're dating another creative weirdo, she's gonna be just as fucked up as you are, but in a way you can't understand because she's gonna be a woman.
02:11:10.000That's what the hardest part about living in California, though, is because 90% of the population is out here to be in the same entertainment industry.
02:12:21.000I loved the idea that I would see, like, fucking deer every day driving home, that there was eagles flying overhead, that the sky was crystal.
02:12:28.000But those same deers that you see every day is going to jump in front of your car, and you're going to be like, fuck deers.
02:13:11.000Just taking care of two little babies at the same time, you know, one two and a half and one nine months old or seven months old, it's tricky.
02:13:40.000The other thing that you realize when you have a kid is that you change and you hit some weird new next level of evolution where there's so much more at stake now.
02:14:30.000Either way, if you're too big, though, if you get too drunk, say you just get wasted, or some guy's just fucking crushing it and unable to operate.
02:15:01.000I don't have to, like, become this fucking straight-edge person just because all of a sudden I have children.
02:15:06.000If I thought there was something wrong with smoking pot, I would have stopped doing it because I think it's bad for you.
02:15:11.000If it was detrimental to my health or to my mental well-being or something, if I thought it was an issue that I needed to deal with, I would deal with it as an issue.
02:15:37.000I get high and I go into the isolation tank and I rethink my whole life and I come up with new strategies and new ways of behaving and I have a new appreciation for everything and a new respect and love for my friends and my family.
02:15:51.000I wind up calling people that I haven't talked to in months just getting out of the tank.
02:16:10.000The combination of the two things, people don't realize that that's there, is that You do feel like taking a step back and not taking things so seriously.
02:16:18.000Even though I still get fired up, I keep everything in perspective pretty well, too.
02:16:22.000I mean, I'm not making too many fucking stupid decisions over here.
02:17:35.000But if you're just more a carefree person in the first place, and the college is a perfect example, because you really don't have too many responsibilities.
02:17:41.000You can go home by yourself for the first time and not have anybody scrutinize you once you get there.
02:17:47.000And so it's an opportunity, no real bills to fucking pay if somebody's taking care of that.
02:17:53.000So less responsibility and you can't just fucking let go completely.
02:17:57.000But more and more shit that you've got going on, like a daughter.
02:17:59.000And we talked about the porn thing with the daughter.
02:18:01.000You just sort of put, you have more shit built up.
02:18:05.000The thing about porn is, you know, I don't want to say why anybody gets into porn because I don't know.
02:18:39.000And even if you're the coolest person to hang out with ever, like a lot of them are, you know, a lot of them are really fun to hang out with.
02:18:45.000You're still, you're this way because somebody was shitty to you.
02:19:04.000Well, you don't ever become a comic or anything like that, a singer or any...
02:19:08.000Anything where you're asking for this exorbitant amount of attention, like this really unbalanced amount of attention, to say I want to be a comedian is to say I want to be the one with a light shining on me while everyone else is in the dark with my voice amplified.
02:20:25.000But when I was seven, it was devastating.
02:20:28.000When I was seven, that guy, the fact that my dad wasn't in my life anymore was just like, whoa, it was just crushing.
02:20:33.000And so that, whatever sets you off when you're seven, or whatever it is, what age it is, you have this dad issue, that's what gives you this incredible energy and desire to pursue this stand-up comedy thing.
02:20:50.000And your motivation has to go from, I want all this attention to, I want to produce all this art and make people happy.
02:20:56.000I want to produce all this shit that people love.
02:20:59.000I want people to come see Al Madrigal in concert, and I'm going to give them a fucking rocking show where they get all excited and can't wait to see me again.
02:21:05.000I think about what my kids, I can't help but think about this.
02:21:10.000I think about my kids looking at my stand-up when they're 18 years old and looking back and seeing what I did for them.
02:21:42.000I mean, if it's a relationship problem or if my cat gets hurt problem, it's all excuses.
02:21:48.000I mean, cigarettes, I know you say that you're over and stuff like that, but most people, even if it's been a year, I still thought about it at least once a week.
02:22:21.000I really did smoke, and I'm just done with it.
02:22:23.000I think if I have kids, that's going to be a real big pushy thing.
02:22:26.000But when you're hanging out at a comedy club, drinking, and every single person's smoking, it is almost impossible to fucking quit smoking unless you have a kid at home that you're like, okay, I'm doing anything for this fucking kid.
02:22:37.000Especially when you get a couple of drinks and you're like, fuck it.
02:22:39.000But everybody else is smoking and you're sitting around.
02:22:41.000It's also an easy way to step away from a situation.
02:22:44.000If I'm at a party, one of the best things about smoking for me is that you're in a party, And I get to walk outside and just sort of collect my thoughts and be by myself.
02:23:53.000You always give the guy a cigarette, because you know that if you see him and you don't have a cigarette, he's got a cigarette, and you're good.
02:25:33.000Well, there's a thing called the vaporizer, ladies and gentlemen.
02:25:35.000And what it is, is it looks like a UFO. Jiffy Pop.
02:25:39.000Yeah, it looks like it's making Jiffy Pop.
02:25:41.000But what it's really doing is taking my ground-up plant material and vaporizing it so that there's no smoke, but instead it's a mist, and it's a THC mist.
02:25:52.000And what it does is it fills this bag up with this THC mist.
02:30:54.000Well, then the other thought is that if you look at the whole machine of life, if you look at all these different things in life, the good and the bad, there's a lot of people that believe, and this is sort of a staple in Eastern religion, is that almost you sort of have to have negative in your life to recognize the positive.
02:31:14.000And the yin and yang, the reason why it exists is because that's the only way anything ever gets done.
02:31:18.000And even events like 9-11, they're terrible events, but In some ways, they bring people together.
02:31:24.000Like, New York, after 9-11, after that, was like the friendliest fucking place in the world for the longest time.
02:31:31.000Senators holding hands on top of the...
02:32:24.000It's weird how that changed, but for that long time.
02:32:27.000So it's almost like a negative thing can oftentimes inspire this positive reaction in the opposite way.
02:32:33.000And there's a lot of people that think that all these things are in place and all these fucked up people are in place and fucked up situations to get us to appreciate the situations that aren't.
02:32:41.000You know, to get us to really, you know, to really try to be better and help us evolve so that we can get past these unfortunate but unavoidable situations.
02:33:20.000And because of that, all of a sudden you find yourself at many levels of accepting this bullshit in a place where you never would have just accepted it straight up right off the bat.
02:33:31.000You just kind of let it happen like that.
02:33:33.000Just builds and builds and builds and builds and your credit gets out of control and all of a sudden you're evicted and you just fucking don't handle your shit.
02:33:40.000And yeah, you do look at that to get motivated because this is the bottom.
02:33:43.000I've seen the bottom and I don't want to be near the fucking bottom.
02:33:50.000When I watch a hoarder, me and my wife actually watched one the other night, and this show is difficult to watch.
02:33:56.000Because you're right that they do gradually accept that they have to shit on top of fucking Capri Sun boxes or something in their way and shit.
02:34:04.000And it just stacks up around them, and they're just shifting.
02:34:08.000And then we just started living in one room.
02:34:26.000Life's maintenance needs to be fucking done.
02:34:28.000You can't let shit get out of control.
02:34:30.000But we've all gone into this weird spiral.
02:34:32.000I think anybody that I've ever met, especially anybody that's ever been in a tumultuous relationship...
02:34:37.000You go into this weird spiral where you don't feel like you have that much control over your thoughts and actions.
02:34:42.000When guys get in a devastating relationship, you get your heart broken, you can't sleep, you can't think, especially when that happens young in your life and you don't really have it mastered yet, you don't really understand who the fuck you are, that shit can send you on some kind of crazy spiral.
02:34:58.000And if you go through all that and you've got some sort of a history of mental illness in your family, next thing you know, done.
02:35:08.000I mean, you don't want to ever accept that it could happen to you, but you look at someone who's really devastated by any sort of a fucking obsession like that.
02:35:18.000Dude, my in-laws live in dirty Vegas, so out near the Air Force Base, out where there's all of those poker places, and it's just a pawn shop, poker place.
02:35:28.000Just shut down fast food, fast food, pawn shop, poker, poker, poker.
02:35:32.000And you go into one of those places, like a Terribles Casino and shit like that.
02:36:58.000Yeah, they're cheating in my neighborhood because they have a place where you can turn recyclables into money, and then every night I see them just fucking going through everyone's recycle bins and just taking out all the shit from the recycle bins and then selling it down the street.
02:37:35.000They were in a downtown LA, like shopping mall or something like that, and they saw...
02:37:39.000Or an office complex, and they saw one of these fountains where people throw money in the fountain.
02:37:43.000And they were just standing there going, oh my God, what a beautiful fountain.
02:37:46.000And then this Latino family came in, just rolled up all their sleeves and went in the fountain and just started taking all the money out of the fountain.
02:38:37.000There's enough money in that fountain for you definitely need to get something to eat.
02:38:40.000You know, it's always quarters and nickels and pennies.
02:38:42.000There's a comic that, uh, a Conan writer that actually does that as a bit, I'm sorry, I forget his name, but he goes, imagine coming from another country, like, where they have no water, where you have to go to a well, you know, really just out in the middle of nowhere, and there's the one water hole, and there's a fucking tiger there.
02:39:06.000And there's fucking water shooting up out of the ground, and kids are fucking frolicking, and then we're Taking our extra money and throwing it in the fucking fountain.
02:39:15.000Just like, here's our money and our water.
02:42:45.000That way we can move around more, too.
02:42:47.000We're not married to this one spot and we can face each other better.
02:42:50.000Listen, folks, this shit is ever evolving.
02:42:53.000I'm working on some sort of a TV. To look at the Ustream, it really does look like a professional environment, though, with the mic in front of your face.
02:43:00.000And it looks like, you know, I mean, it is a very professional setup, but I'm saying fucking raise this shit.
02:47:29.000We are in an atomic soup that no one understands, and it's been going back and forth, on and over, from the Big Bang to the end of creation forever.