00:04:39.340Canadians are just more welcoming generally. So maybe that's had something to do with it.
00:04:44.840i think it's it was me pretending covet doesn't exist really that made it happen so many times
00:04:52.940ah you listen to the joe rogan podcast
00:04:54.760i do i do indeed okay i kid before we get started for anybody who isn't familiar with your work can
00:05:04.300you give a brief background about who you are and what it is you do i'm a trans man um who is living
00:05:10.580my dream as me no uh i'm a greek american kid from brooklyn new york uh i'm a stand-up comic
00:05:17.720i got a podcast called long days with janice pappas formerly i had a podcast called history
00:05:23.320hyenas krista stefano was a lot of fun and uh i'm just a i'm just a wild kid who's uh who's
00:05:31.180currently on 10 milligrams of um of uh i don't even remember what it is because they call me
00:05:36.840bianni biden so i remember i'm on 10 milligrams or something lexapro lexapro that's what it is
00:05:44.820oh man i took lexapro it did not agree with me no no not at all made me really volatile
00:05:52.300and i do not need to be more volatile really are you volatile very very yeah i did my dad's
00:05:59.940personality test, I scored 98% on volatility. Wow. At least you didn't, at least you didn't
00:06:07.080do the Robert Hare test and come up psychopath. That's the worst one, right? As far as personality
00:06:12.360traits. I would say psychopaths, probably not great. Yeah. Well, it's not great for other
00:06:19.240people, but for the psychopath, it's, you live unencumbered by guilt and I just, that's true
00:06:25.260freedom now if you think about who the freest people on the planet are it's probably psychopaths
00:06:30.660because they don't they don't have any feelings so they're totally free of any commitments or
00:06:35.900emotions that's a free life that is a free life yeah that is a free life i've actually considered
00:06:42.900that before not having the guilt or that that voice in your head that tells you when things
00:06:47.420you're doing things wrong yeah that actually doesn't sound half bad for you can i ask you
00:06:51.260question if like they figure out a way to do brain surgery and take out that emotion which
00:06:57.160they'll probably be able to do at some point would you have it removed would you become a psychopath
00:07:02.520i'm curious you know what i because of the amount of guilt that i'm experiencing now no i wouldn't
00:07:11.080be able to go through with it right so my current personality would stop that from happening i would
00:07:16.340just be too curious i'd have to do it i'd have to do it and then i just couldn't wait to look
00:07:21.160at myself in the mirror to just see the death in my eyes and i would just look at myself and go
00:07:25.800cool and then i'd go out in the world and destroy have some fun i think they have the real fun
00:07:32.580i think they probably do well no no i would say maybe not maybe maybe you don't get the
00:07:39.780positives associated with it maybe that's why you have to do more extreme behaviors in order
00:07:43.840to experience joy properly yeah but i mean what's more lit that or just like sitting around
00:07:50.820thinking of weighing consequences i think skydiving sounds a lot more lit i mean we can ask your pops
00:07:57.000he probably knows because he's probably sat down with a few but they just have a lit time i mean
00:08:02.080yeah occasionally they'll bite off a titty but you know that's not all of them that's just like
00:08:06.340a few of them who go awry you know just don't get in the yeah if somebody asks you to get in the
00:08:11.440back seat of a beagle and they're pretending to have a an arm injury just don't get in ladies
00:08:16.400you may lose a titty wise words wise words it's all you really i mean that's all you really need
00:08:23.660to know to have a safe life stay away from someone who's injured asking you to get to help them put
00:08:30.400something in their car oh man i'd fall for that you'd fall for the 10 bundy one two oh instantly
00:08:39.200yeah yeah like oh no an injury he was i've been there i can help but what would it be because of
00:08:47.100his looks or would it be because you just felt bad oh well looks would definitely come into play
00:08:53.140yeah he was a pretty handsome devil to be honest with you for sure i'm i might have helped him out
00:08:59.180too be honest yeah there you go yeah are you able to do shows in new york right now i am i am able
00:09:05.740to do shows i'm a little concerned i have a newborn uh 11 months old so i'm a little concerned
00:09:11.640um not really in new york but like i canceled my texas and florida dates because i'm a cuck
00:09:16.980and uh i care about my daughter god damn it so uh yeah i'm just you know until there's like
00:09:26.160more data about like how it affects kids and stuff like that but it's looking pretty good i
00:09:30.140I read some study. It was a small study of like only a few kids, but they were like in the ICU
00:09:36.520with COVID and no long term effects a year later. So that's good. So I'll probably go down to
00:09:41.800Florida and Texas, or as they like to call it, the real America and do shows soon. But I did
00:09:48.000postpone those shows, but I am now getting back out on the road. And New York is like, yeah,
00:09:53.020New York's wide open. You can do shows now. You have to show your passport, though. There's
00:09:57.860somebody at the door who was let me see your papers says here you're going to switzerland
00:10:02.000i don't think so mr greenberg and dr george
00:10:07.020that so they're actually doing that in new york yeah they're about to do that in ontario
00:10:14.080yeah i think at the end of september yeah yeah i mean you know i talked to all right i talked to
00:10:20.260like doctors like this one doctor i talked to who's like a he's brilliant he's a surgeon
00:10:25.160and he's the Republican, which is why I trust him in this, you know, because like if anyone's
00:10:31.380going to be conspiratorial, it's usually that side with this. And he's like, yeah, man, you know,
00:10:36.600it's a dangerous bug. And, you know, he's like for the mandates because people aren't getting
00:10:43.120the vaccine because he's like, that's the only thing that's going to end this pandemic. So it's
00:10:47.580like, but then I listened to people who turned COVID into content and they're saying something
00:10:52.260different so i don't know who to trust people not on the internet or people on the internet
00:10:56.040nobody absolutely nobody yeah i didn't i didn't trust anyone but i've had covid twice
00:11:03.500and the second time was pretty rough my best friend it's covid's all over toronto right now
00:11:07.520my best friend's kid uh he's six months old he just caught it so both his parents were vaccinated
00:11:12.940but he's little so he wasn't vaccinated and the dad this is just this is interesting it's just
00:11:18.060anecdotal but the dad was vaccinated with pfizer and he got quite ill mom with moderna no symptoms
00:11:24.140and then little levi got sick but he was sick for like two days with a tiny bit of a fever they gave
00:11:30.580him tylenol and he's better now and now he's probably immune for a while so yeah that's my
00:11:35.200anecdotal study on on vaccines well i guess the main thing is that they're all okay no big deal
00:11:42.740for any of them yeah that's the point yeah yeah that's they're all fine I was just in Austin
00:11:48.500checking it out because I was considering moving I don't want to be in Canada anymore I'm tired of
00:11:53.880Canada do you have your so yeah do you have your uh what is it I know you guys got to pay like 10
00:11:58.260grand to get your uh the 01 it's in the works yeah so yeah it's coming good um but I can be
00:12:07.540there for six months hanging out before that comes in so that that'll come in but i was looking at
00:12:14.820austin because i have a whole bunch of friends moving to austin and i was there last month and
00:12:18.120i really didn't like it yeah i don't like it either i was considering a move for a second
00:12:24.340you know because after i did rogan i was and new york was shut right yeah i was like ah maybe i'll
00:12:30.740move down here he's like i'm opening a club man and uh it's gonna be great it's gonna be a comedy
00:12:34.640mecca and uh then i spent some time there and uh you know i got you know homeless people were
00:12:40.140throwing bricks at me and uh i was like wow i'm kidding but i mean there's the homeless are like
00:12:45.660it's like a zombie apocalypse down there in downtown and i was like i don't know if i could
00:12:50.940do this man i'm from new york this is i'm used to a really nice city
00:12:54.360we're just i was new yorkers are arrogant we're arrogant we are
00:13:00.560for a good reason though or or is that just because everyone else there is good reason i
00:13:08.280think i mean let's be honest you like every but you're from new york so you would say you'd say
00:13:12.840that i'm biased yeah but i mean like there's a reason why everyone wants to come here at least
00:13:16.500pre-covid i mean you know it's every other city kind of looks like new york new york uh the the
00:13:22.240casino in vegas to us we go there and we're like wow look at your these are your skylines and we
00:13:26.860like pat them on the head they're like it's so cute nice little job kansas city it's just it's
00:13:33.540new york is a universe crammed into one and then you go to another city and you do the downtown
00:13:38.000like in a day and you're like that's it and uh yeah so it's tough but if you like barbecue food
00:13:43.880and only barbecue food austin's your spot
00:13:47.540now i'm gonna go to nashville nashville's a good one i've made my decision yeah nashville's a good
00:13:56.460one that's a beautiful town i know i love it i'm currently wearing cowboy boots do you like do you
00:14:02.520like country music my wife loves like she's just like a big fan of country music uh i like old
00:14:10.180country i don't know about the new i don't know right maybe one day i will when i'm there and
00:14:14.860it's everywhere constantly right right yeah yeah well you got one of the biggest country singers
00:14:21.820ever right shania twain shania this is true yeah you guys can really you blend in with us
00:14:33.300you know you guys are like you really sneaky canadians are sneaky you'll meet one and i'll
00:14:40.140be like hey you're american and then as soon as that's why i force everyone i suspect is canadian
00:14:45.940and i always said i suspect someone's canadian because you guys have like a molested glow like
00:14:50.720a nice thing you got like that i'm in a cult look in your eyes and so if i see that in the eyes i
00:14:56.780suspect is this person canadian and you can't tell until you hit an a or an about so i usually try to
00:15:02.540frame a question where i know an about's gonna come in and then i'm like gotcha gotcha you canuck
00:15:08.220ah i don't think i sound canadian you don't that's what about yeah you guys blend right in
00:15:14.440like CIA agents you're convenient you're spies for Justin Trudeau yeah no hell no hell no okay
00:15:26.120I want some background information on you like let's do it when did you get started
00:15:30.780how soon did you make comedy a full-time thing I had like a very uh very jagged journey it didn't
00:15:40.780it wasn't a straight line like anything in my life so two steps forward 10 steps back you know
00:15:47.580I started like in 2000 doing stand-up then 2001 in May and I was off to like an auspicious start
00:15:56.140like I started hitting the road I was doing colleges I was having fun uh the the the GL1s
00:16:02.800just came out so me and my buddy started filming and we were doing that before anybody on the
00:16:07.040and then i got shot in um 2001 in a robbery attempted robbery at a nightclub that i was
00:16:14.680working at you know i was just trying to make cash doing comedy and then were you doing security
00:16:19.920no i was working um yeah i mean if i did security i mean rob that club
00:16:25.900i was working like uh you know he created like some bullshit jobs for me because he was a friend
00:16:32.320of mine he was the promoter and his parties were like really like you know it was all like drug
00:16:37.620dealers and you know people would i did the cash register so people would come in i just remember
00:16:42.560dudes just pulling out wads of money and you know it was that type of party um the place i got shot
00:16:49.380at actually uh another fame infamous thing happened where there was this famous director he might have
00:16:55.100been canadian i don't remember if i'm thinking right but he was walking home one night in soho
00:16:59.380and outside of this club i used to work at and this can be googled and people can read about it's
00:17:04.840a crazy story somebody shot somebody in their car and then the guy tried to drive away while he was
00:17:10.800shot and he died behind the wheel and this director like whose career was just taking off was just
00:17:16.340walking home and the guy who was dead in his car got shot hit him and killed him randomly and that
00:17:20.920was that was the club i was working at so that i got shot you know it was kind of a milieu of that
00:17:27.060spot it was a dangerous spot yeah so geez that was that how long did it yeah how long did it
00:17:35.100take you to recover from that it was quick I mean I got so what happened was um you know some some
00:17:40.880guy like tried to rob us and I got shot point blank range like in the car and um yeah and it
00:17:48.020was like in my upper inner thigh and uh I could I stayed overnight in the hospital but it missed
00:17:54.580all the main there's like a main artery there it didn't hit i was lucky and um you know i had a
00:18:01.480very beautiful doctor digging in my asshole to find if it was compromised in any way that was
00:18:06.220embarrassing like when i got to the emergency room you know she just like to check if how to
00:18:10.960make it worse yeah it's just like on top of it yeah and you know what i learned though i really
00:18:16.220and i don't know if i've ever talked about this i learned how women must feel and i mean this
00:18:20.920i learned how women must feel when like their assault or something like that because cops are
00:18:26.940they're very insensitive like when they come to get the story like when a crime happens i remember
00:18:33.440like because i was shot the cops just assumed because usually people who get shot are involved
00:18:39.700in some sort of shady stuff so they were just like making up stuff trying to catch me to lie
00:18:45.440they were like he said because they caught the guy they were like he said this was part of so he
00:18:50.340was the kid was like i don't know armenian or so he was like uh this was some sort of greek
00:18:55.440armenian beef or something i was like no he was like he said he said if you would have said
00:19:01.700if if if i would have said what he said you would have done the same thing so like what'd you say
00:19:06.400to him i was like i don't know who the kid is this is you know and they just didn't believe
00:19:11.420me and they were making jokes with the with the bedpan they were like look captain he's got look
00:19:16.280if he can put it on his head he's got a nice hat and i'm sitting there just like shot and um so when
00:19:22.560they try to get the story it's like they're they're very insensitive so i could just imagine
00:19:26.440being a woman going in there telling their story and they're like yeah but like you know did you
00:19:31.000know the guy what were you wearing you know did it i could just kind of picture that that
00:19:34.980insensitivity maybe now things have changed because of charlie's angels and and um and the
00:19:40.380me too movement i call it charlie's angels where they're just fucking girls activate and get
00:19:44.800everybody i feel like things have probably changed that sounds miserable it was especially wow yeah
00:19:52.460because my my feeling how long yeah sorry no no you go ahead i was just saying my feelings were
00:19:59.060yeah i was like in a vulnerable position and like you know you're just sitting there and how old
00:20:04.900were you i was 23 oh yeah yeah that's that's pretty young for that to happen yeah and so i was just
00:20:12.560like want like the cops were like being skeptical of my story and i was like dude you know
00:20:19.440you know but i get it can i just heal and go home can i just like really can you just hand
00:20:26.220me a lollipop and make me feel better call my mommy and tell her to come yeah geez so how long
00:20:33.660did it take did i mean how much of a hiatus did you take after that so it's interesting so
00:20:38.240i just kind of like they let me go the next day and then like i couldn't really sit on a toilet
00:20:43.580or anything for a while because it was so sore they left the bullet in because it was too deep
00:20:47.980in so they were just like we're just going to leave it in and then eventually your body will
00:20:52.040push it out like you know i guess your body seriously yeah yeah what i didn't know that
00:20:59.140that was a thing that they actually did yeah that seems like the wrong thing to do yeah it does seem
00:21:03.960like the wrong thing to do like hey get this out of me but apparently your body will slowly reject
00:21:10.100a foreign object and push it out like your body knows and that's kind of what happened like it
00:21:13.820would it slowly made its way to the surface where you could like feel it and then I got it removed
00:21:18.400like two two years later um so I I yeah I was home and and then uh and then I I had an SNL
00:21:27.720audition I just started comedy and I got an I had an SNL audition like that week so I did it
00:21:33.960I did it like four days after getting shot. And it was weird. Like, I didn't know the psychological effects of this thing, like PTSD. I mean, so I went on stage and like, I bombed, I like completely bombed. And like, I was like, I was like kind of having these physical reactions, like, you know, shaking and hyperventilating. And I didn't know what they were. I wasn't connecting the two.
00:21:58.140and that went on for like a like a like a while like a year um and i didn't know i couldn't connect
00:22:06.800the two uh that i had ptsd because then i started like i'd get on the train and i just start
00:22:11.940hyperventilating and having a panic attack i get off and i go what is going on like i didn't know
00:22:16.060yeah and i guess i went from this state of like this benign denial of never thinking something
00:22:22.380like that could happen to like my brain going to the opposite extreme going like wow this could
00:22:26.300happen at any time. And I was just, my subconscious was like freaking out. So I went to therapy and I
00:22:30.820got over it, but you know, anxiety has been a part of my life ever since. Thanks for opening that
00:22:35.080door. Whoever the kid was who shot me. Yeah. That's terrible. Yeah. Wow. So I quit comedy
00:22:42.260for a little while. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's not that surprising. Uh, the first time I, so I was
00:22:50.920quite sick when I was young. And I, when I got better, I started having, this has never happened
00:22:56.960to me, but I started having panic attacks when I went into hospitals and just from the association
00:23:02.020of that in surgery. And so the first time I went into a hospital and it, there wasn't like a really
00:23:07.440a mental component exactly, but I went to a hospital and I was like, I had that like physical
00:23:11.960thing happening. I was like, what is happening? Oh, that's like panic just from like my body
00:23:18.140doing that was very strange. Did you have like a, an advantage because of your dad? Did he let you
00:23:23.440know early what it was or? So I told him, I was like, I can't go into hospitals. I don't know
00:23:30.080what to do. Like if I go into a hospital or even anything, I was pregnant at the time when that
00:23:34.840really started happening. So even going to the midwife, just cause it was peripherally associated
00:23:39.080with the hospital, I'd get this panicky feeling again. And I was like, dad, what do I do? Do I
00:23:43.940need to do like exposure therapy and like walk around hospitals for a while and then like go in
00:23:48.720them slowly and and he was like no given what happened to you that's totally a reasonable
00:23:53.340response i was like okay well i guess i'll just figure this out on my own thanks dad
00:23:59.400it's amazing how weird how sensitive we are like uh as humans we're just like these emotional like
00:24:06.840like a psychopaths don't feel anxiety at all they don't fear feel fear that's why it's so free to be
00:24:12.500one but it's just amazing like nothing's happening we're not nothing we're not in danger at all and
00:24:18.660we freak out like we do because we get these big brains and we're pussies
00:24:23.260yeah yeah well also some of these things you can kind of logic out you're like well
00:24:32.660i shouldn't have had that kind of response but something like having surgery or what happened to
00:24:37.820you it's pretty reasonable for your body to be like nope make sure that never happens again that
00:24:44.620seems like a pretty reasonable response yeah to me yeah i mean you would figure your mind would
00:24:51.000just be like you're okay though your mind would but i guess that's how strong the subconscious is
00:24:55.520because i didn't know what it was until a therapist started pointing out i remember like
00:25:00.400the city you know because the city pays for your you know the vic there's some victim fund where
00:25:05.320like you're victim of a crime you go to the hospital it's paid for by the city and then
00:25:08.920they offer you like counseling and uh and I was like why do I need jail yeah I was like I'm fine
00:25:14.880I feel fine and then a year later I mean I was dealing with these panic attacks for like a full
00:25:20.980year and uh yeah whenever I'd go on stage I started freaking out I'd be sweating and
00:25:26.340hyperventilating and so I just kind of quit and then I did something a little more relaxing which
00:25:31.300was social work with 9-11 victims and then i started having more panic attack and i took on
00:25:36.620their anxiety it's brutal brutal time it was a dark time oh yeah that doesn't sound just relax
00:25:44.460don't go on stage in front of a bunch of people deal with trauma victims yeah yeah you needed to
00:25:49.880be like in a cottage somewhere at a beach breathing for a while resetting your nervous system yeah
00:25:56.760yeah i started i did social work then for about five years and yeah that uh they just threw me
00:26:03.380in there at the beginning and i remember like one of my first clients was uh a waiter or no he was
00:26:08.580a pastry chef at windows on the world and they like all he lost all his friends he was off duty
00:26:13.900that day and the first day i pulled we were like talking he i was like because i was a caseworker
00:26:18.980he just started crying to me in the room we were in. And it was my first day. And I was like,
00:26:27.140wow, I was so detached. It forced me to grow up faster than I should have probably. And I think
00:26:36.300it was just too much. And so it was just overwhelming emotionally. And I just went
00:26:40.820into a dark place. And I think it's called countertransference or something where you take
00:26:45.020on the anxiety of your clients. Like you, you know, if you're in social work or you do any
00:26:50.220type of healthcare, I don't, I can't remember the term for it, but I remember I would have
00:26:54.260anxiety going to sleep because I was like helping people get mortgage rental assistance,
00:26:59.500victims compensation fund. We had something. So I worked with people who lost their husbands,
00:27:05.000lost their jobs, lost their livelihood, lost their whatever family members, the breadwinners.
00:27:09.540And then there was something called the unmet needs table where you would present the client's
00:27:13.340case to all these charities, like a group of charities. And then based on what you were asking
00:27:17.480for, they decide what to give. And I remember going to sleep worried about like, I got to get
00:27:21.840this person's rent paid or mortgage paid. So I kind of took on their anxiety. It was a dark time.
00:27:27.980That is an insane job. Yeah. It was wild. That sounds like you might be. So that personality
00:27:36.040test, I'm obsessed with this personality test, this understand myself that my dad's made. I've
00:27:40.380been using it since before it was on the internet giving it to like potential boyfriends judging
00:27:44.480them harshly I'm dead serious about that too but it sounds like you probably scored high on
00:27:50.580compassion you can say counter whatever but people who don't score as high usually are a little bit
00:27:57.400more detached so you might have felt detached but like if you were taking on people's if you cared
00:28:02.480that much you might have scored higher on compassion yeah even though you're a comedian
00:28:07.920Yeah. Yeah. Because I've been in comedy a long time. I'll tell you, there's two types of personalities I've noticed in comedy, either extreme empaths, like very sensitive or like, yeah, or like dictator level sociopaths, nothing in between.
00:28:22.460yeah that that seems accurate yeah that's what i've noticed if you think about it it's a job
00:28:29.260that's very similar to a dictator you stand in front of the crowd you you woo them you get them
00:28:35.020to follow you uh you know you lie make up stories and uh charisma lots of charisma you know we have
00:28:44.520a lot in common with with uh asocial types so ah yeah maybe it's a different way of reading the
00:28:51.760crowd like maybe people who are less agreeable or less compassionate do something more charismatic
00:28:57.540and do a different type of read than people who are empathetic or empaths and then maybe they can
00:29:02.580feel the crowd more not sure how that would work yeah that's a good question i wonder that's why
00:29:07.580i'd love to get into the mind as someone who who's looking seeking to control more than to connect
00:29:12.520because they both work yeah they both work very well you know interesting yeah i've met some okay
00:29:19.220so sorry no go ahead you've met some no i was just gonna say i met some comics who uh you meet
00:29:25.580them off stage and then you see them on stage and you're like oh that's not you at all and it's like
00:29:30.880it's all a method it's all thought out and premeditated it's marketing you know it's a
00:29:36.100it's what madison avenue's been doing for us you know smoke it you know like pure like acting right
00:29:41.660Sure. Like, yes. So sociopathy. Yeah. Like kind of like there's, that's not the person at all.
00:29:50.060You know, look at Bill Cosby. I mean, for example, you know, I mean, evil people always
00:29:56.580pretend to be the opposite of what they are. Nobody comes into a room and announces I'm,
00:30:01.320Hey, I'm gonna, you know, it's like, if you hide behind, I'm clean, I'm wholesome. Look what the
00:30:06.540catholic church does you know it's like call me father uh you know make sure you confess to me so
00:30:11.900i have things to blackmail you with if you try to you know if you find out what i've been doing i
00:30:16.160mean you know it's a we we're holy we're good and it's like they've just been mass raping kids
00:30:20.580it's like it's uh evil people it's always the wolf in sheep's clothing that's how evil
00:30:25.600operates they never walk in and announce they're evil or else they'd be caught yeah true that's
00:30:33.760not good marketing no it's not i'm the evil sociopath trust me yeah that's not gonna happen
00:30:38.800yeah that's what makes them so fun yeah that's true that's true so you did get back into comedy
00:30:47.140so how did that start um it started slow like i started uh i was doing social work uh at that
00:30:54.380point i had like done i was working for an ad hoc agency for 9-11 relief called uh ldr and y and
00:31:01.100that was over two and a half, two and a half years. I did that. So around 2005, I was getting
00:31:07.040unemployment and that ran out. And then I started working with mentally ill, informally homeless
00:31:12.000people in an SRO, which is a New York thing. And then I slowly started doing a show once a week
00:31:17.460with Don L. Rawlings, who was really the guy who got me back in his standup. And I always give him
00:31:21.880credit for that. And he was, if you don't know who he is, he was like Ashy Larry on the Chappelle
00:31:25.500show and now he tours with chapelle all the time and um that was right when chapelle show was coming
00:31:33.080on the air and then it hit big and so he took me on the road with him and burr and charlie murphy
00:31:38.980and i would like sell his posters and do five minutes and um and so that he got me back in
00:31:46.740he kind of pulled me into it telling me i was funny and he gave me the opportunity to perform
00:31:50.140in one of his like rooms that he had in manhattan once a week so i started doing comedy once a week
00:31:54.540again and then slowly I met more people started doing more shows and I got back into it that way
00:32:00.100so that was about 2006 and um so that's when I really started again and started like for real
00:32:07.580you know started going after and then I went full-time in 2008 I quit and uh just lived off
00:32:12.580my girlfriend at the time so okay so since 2008 so that's quite a while yeah I recommend so how
00:32:21.860do you sorry go i was just going to recommend to any young comics it's you know it's it's not
00:32:27.840politically correct to say but it's a good idea when you start doing comedy to just
00:32:32.400find someone who has a job who you can live off of
00:32:40.180when you do sets do you come up with a whole like storyline of kind of what you're going to say and
00:32:50.580you have jokes that are in your head or are you, is it really on the fly? I'm always curious how
00:32:55.100comics can go on stage and tell, you know, story after little story, after story, after story,
00:33:00.760after story, and remember what to say next. I think there's two types of comics. I mean,
00:33:08.180there's variation between those two types, but it's really the comics who write their jokes
00:33:13.500beforehand like um they write them down and then like go perform them and then there's comics who
00:33:21.040write while they're on stage who take a premise and that's what i am i'm a comic who writes on
00:33:25.860stage so i take a premise something that in my head i think is funny or something i say to someone
00:33:31.660who i think is funny uh and then i just take it on stage and play with it and then little by little
00:33:38.160you craft it that way, like a sculptor, you just kind of change a word here. And your goal is just
00:33:44.160really democracy. It's like the, you want, you can't get everybody, but you're looking for
00:33:49.760the most to appeal to the most people, get the biggest laughs in that area. So you craft it
00:33:56.660around that. That's what you have. And you can really only do that on stage. So I think even
00:34:03.340the people who write beforehand, once they test it, they'll go back and rewrite it and tweak
00:34:07.860and that's what comics do you just tweak it to make it the most appealing to the most amount of
00:34:12.740people well it's no wonder you have some anxiety that sounds anxiety provoking it is very anxiety
00:34:20.320it's you know it's the biggest fear people have for a reason you know it's public speaking especially
00:34:24.420if you think about we're expected i think somebody some egghead timed it out like about every eight
00:34:30.560seconds you're expected a laugh in order to do good so uh yeah speaking publicly is nerve-wracking
00:34:37.600enough but when you're expected to get a laugh like every eight seconds at minimum it uh yeah
00:34:43.880it takes a while we all are like turtles i mean comics of like and that's what you build up over
00:34:49.580years is just a thick skin so uh you know whenever i read my youtube comments and someone says like
00:34:55.880my eyes are too close together like i just love it i love you know i love being made fun of i mean
00:35:01.000you could say anything to me i mean i've we publicly are rejected it's the only art form
00:35:05.840where you practice in public and the audience tells you in real time you get rejected in real
00:35:12.560time you can hear it and you can see it in their face you know other artists go in their room and
00:35:18.320they practice practice practice and then they present uh you know somewhat of a finished product
00:35:23.380we are always on display that's a very good point that's a very good point i didn't think i like i
00:35:31.640figured i mean if you're singing or something it's a song that you've recorded in studio and then
00:35:35.600you've practiced it so many times that almost everything is perfect and so that's completely
00:35:41.820different than on the fly trying to make people laugh oh yeah yeah so I'm that ladder type of
00:35:48.920comic where I just I wing it a lot I wing it a lot um and things will come to me in the moment
00:35:56.180necessity is the mother of invention so it's a real tightrope walk I guess I prefer that
00:36:00.940and uh you go out there you try something and um you know it works or it doesn't and um then you
00:36:08.820craft it based on that the next show and the next show and the next show and now with podcasting i
00:36:14.320feel like i feel like comedy's changing too and you're going to see certain comics like who can
00:36:20.040do a podcast like you see you know tim do you know i i have a similar style to tim where it's like
00:36:26.180we just rant for like an hour and uh you you sometimes you watch a tim dylan episode and
00:36:31.700you'll be like that was as good as any crafted special i've seen so it's like because of the
00:36:37.560internet and because of how fast things moves now now and how many things have already been done
00:36:42.620maybe that's changing maybe like stand-up will become more like riffing in the moment uh current
00:36:50.080events things like that because i mean we're kind of like running out of shit you know it's like
00:36:55.340everything's been done oh but the world is changing so quickly there's so much new content
00:37:01.680that's true but it but it what's relevant today you'd be surprised it used to be you can have an
00:37:07.840hour for like two two years and then and then record it and it would still feel kind of relevant
00:37:13.900now things move so fast that you're kind of like you have a bit and you're like or you go and you
00:37:20.680look at twitter and you're like there's 20 people doing tweets about that premise and you know it's
00:37:25.880like so it is a little bit more of a challenge in that way you know what i mean because you're like
00:37:31.620the world moves so fast and there's so many people tweeting and so many people consider
00:37:35.720themselves funny and yeah there's more than just stand-ups now so we used to have a monopoly on
00:37:40.660funny that we don't have anymore that is very true that's very true even with podcasting if
00:37:47.500you want to hop on something you have to find like for me if i'm trying to comment on something i
00:37:53.160have to find someone record it i've eric his team editing it and then release it right away
00:38:00.000and learn about it yeah you're right that is tricky and things do age quickly it's like some
00:38:06.420some controversy like two months ago it's like oh no people already freaked out and
00:38:10.760rioted and protested and now they're over it and on to the next thing and that's that's done now
00:38:16.160yeah yeah that's why i sometimes suspect that we may be coming to the end because you know
00:38:21.100you know when you drop an apple from uh from wherever you know up high the farther it falls
00:38:29.180the quicker it falls and so i feel like we're about to hit that ground because things are moving
00:38:34.040real quick they've sped up so i hope it's not over i got a kid but it's a little it's a little
00:38:41.660scary you know there's this push to get off the planet it's like you know these elites you're
00:38:45.940like, what do they know? What do they know? Like, you know, they're just like, they're trying to
00:38:51.580skip town. I'm trying to skip town. I don't know anything. I'm just like, I'm not comfortable in
00:38:57.620Toronto. Maybe Nashville's Nashville will be nice and comfortable for a while before that angst gets
00:39:02.640there. Yeah. I mean, don't you feel like the news is a little apocalyptic now? It's like reading
00:39:07.960the Bible every morning. It's like fire here, flood here, riots here. You're like, what's going
00:39:14.960on man it's weird and i almost feel like these elites like bezos and they're like they're like
00:39:20.860on the lifeboats of the titanic they've like taken the few of the lifeboats and they're just
00:39:24.740like rowing away you know and we're like we saw this coming a long time ago we have lifeboats for
00:39:32.120myself all our friends some yachts see you guys yeah i see that i see that for sure we'll see
00:39:39.600maybe things will improve maybe things will things are either going to like i don't think
00:39:43.540they're going to stay like this they're either going to improve like the economy is going to
00:39:47.760open up like we'll either get used to covid or or it'll get less bad or things are going to get way
00:39:53.800worse i don't see like uh i don't see us hovering around this weird level we're at now for very long
00:40:01.720people are too angsty i've thought that for a while you know especially with like how zany
00:40:09.200the left has got and in some ways how zany the right has got i'm like this can't last forever
00:40:14.900maybe this is just no people uh you know i think it's people struggling to adapt to something as
00:40:21.640powerful as the internet we've never had anything like this where information there's so much
00:40:26.900information coming at you this fast such a pure democratic medium where everyone has a voice and
00:40:32.820it's people are just adapting to the power of it but every time i'm like ah it's coming to an end
00:40:38.100i read the news and it's like yeah you know trans woman who was a man a year ago just
00:40:44.220choked out a woman in mma i'm like this is getting wild this is getting wild i saw that that's wild
00:40:52.200that's wild yeah it is wild you know and you know it's funny nobody ever really talks about the
00:40:57.940point like it's like how come you never hear any controversy about trans men trying to compete
00:41:04.500with men if there's no advantage to being a biological man why aren't there all these trans
00:41:11.020men protesting to get into men's sports because guess what men would welcome it if there is a
00:41:18.260trans man if elliot page can cover odell beckham jr in the open field god bless him you know some
00:41:26.660little five six trans man who was born a biological woman who's just you know they always got that
00:41:32.260voice like hey i'm a trans man how you doing my name is buck angel if those men can compete with
00:41:39.600male pro athletes god bless them but obviously the point is they can't they can't because
00:41:45.520when you're a man you're just you have an advantage physically that a trans man could
00:41:52.200never catch up to at the pro level yeah i know i don't know like i see news articles like that
00:41:58.100where it's like yeah like that that that woman MMA fighter she got like fairly hurt and it was
00:42:06.080like duh like if we can't recognize that that's going to happen as a society
00:42:13.880we're not very smart yeah um it's a yeah I mean I get it people want to be compassionate they
00:42:24.360want to understand but like but it's not compassionate to let somebody get beaten no
00:42:29.320it's not and especially when that i think he picked the you know she i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm
00:42:35.280on notice i put myself on notice i'm sorry i misgendered her she was like a he a year ago i
00:42:41.620like took up mma a year ago from what i read and then competed like in a pro mma fight against
00:42:47.680women you're like what are we doing and and they test it i guess they test the levels i mean i'm
00:42:53.240those scientists but it's like yeah but it's not all about i mean that's silly too it feels like
00:42:57.480there's no scientists behind that because you can't just test a level of a hormone be like okay
00:43:01.520it's even now like yeah what about all the muscle growth and the bone structure and the shoulder
00:43:06.240width and like what about everything else that has to do with it instead of this one
00:43:09.940like marker that can be like kind of artificially suppressed right yeah you're right it's like they
00:43:16.180cherry pick the one thing and if you see a before picture of that girl that trans woman who just
00:43:22.720choked out that woman in an mma fight in portland of course um or oregon um he was buff i mean he
00:43:31.020was like a big dude so it's funny like the before and after picture he was a big guy and then yeah
00:43:37.580so it's uh it's a wild time it's a wild time we're kind of living in an impressionist painting where
00:43:44.680all lines have been diluted all form is gone anything goes and uh anyone could be whatever
00:43:53.680they want it's uh you know i guess america really is the land of opportunity you can
00:43:57.860you know only in this country can you be born a woman and grow up you only in this country can
00:44:03.160you be born a man and then grow up to be a female champion you can be anything you want in america
00:44:08.780oh brutal i was uh my dad was pretty unhappy with that he tweeted something out about it and was
00:44:16.020like yeah yeah people should be unhappy i don't think things are going to change until like
00:44:21.760there's something that really really unpleasant that happens to like somebody in high school
00:44:27.360and then their parents go okay yeah something needs to change you know unfortunately i gotta
00:44:34.920to say this is a women's issue you know it's like i know women but it this is like women's like we
00:44:40.300don't men you know i gotta i gotta enough to worry about i gotta i gotta get colon i gotta get colon
00:44:44.240checked i you know this is for women because like i said this isn't a we we don't have that
00:44:49.740that we don't have that problem where like there's trans men trying to compete with men and if they
00:44:54.460did we would welcome it because that would be amazing if they could do it yeah so it's like
00:44:59.860yeah women got to uh it just shows you how divided women are yeah strange too because i feel like and
00:45:08.040oh i feel like that that whole issue was kind of brought forward by women as well so like i i think
00:45:16.620more than i mean it was brought forward by a lot of people but i feel like the forefront of bringing
00:45:21.260it forward kind of like women wanting this and now i don't know we'll see what happens i'm gonna
00:45:28.500watch from the sidelines comment now and then hopefully nobody gets really hurt it's it just
00:45:34.680shows you how things are finite the more extreme you go in one direction you come out the other
00:45:39.000side the universe is finite there's a finite amount of notes there's a finite amount of ideas
00:45:43.420because feminism now if you go all the way to the extreme of feminism you're basically advocating
00:45:49.640for a man to go into a female space after he transitions so you're going like you've come
00:45:55.900back to the other side like miss pac-man uh yeah that's why extremists have so much in common
00:46:06.920that they don't acknowledge that they just go full circle yeah in kind of every aspect whatever
00:46:12.500the extreme is yeah that's super weird that that happens that's very true yeah you have to be
00:46:17.980careful you have to be careful if you're if you're really i've found that because i've had i mean i
00:46:23.320feel like everybody has this problem when they're too attached to one idea it's like as soon as
00:46:27.600you're super super attached you're like oh yeah i'm a hundred percent certain about this one idea
00:46:32.000then you have to kind of check yourself and say well maybe there's something i'm missing because
00:46:37.120i probably shouldn't be a hundred percent certain about anything that's a great point yeah that's a
00:46:41.980great point that because then you get blind you become arrogant and uh you become blind that's
00:46:47.940what happens to powerful people that's what that's why uh scientists the scientific method is the
00:46:53.660best way because it's always about amending and case changing changing and uh so yeah i mean
00:47:03.280you know socrates nailed that it's like you know always question yeah you know always i'm dumb
00:47:09.840you know because you are i mean look how big and vast the universes are we're dumb
00:47:13.420yes hear that okay who who are your favorite comics these days um well he's a good friend
00:47:23.520of mine um but tim dylan i think is doing uh something nobody's doing with podcasts for sure
00:47:30.640he's uh off the fly he's just he's he's funny and he's just so naturally talented and smart he's fun
00:47:37.420um uh you know bill burr is one of my favorites as a stand-up um and in anything um patrice o'neill
00:47:48.980was one of my favorites the late great patrice o'neill was was great but there's so many that
00:47:54.320are good now uh you know nate bargazzi's a great clean comic and just so funny and and there's guys
00:48:00.860like dan soder paul verzi there's so many funny guys now but my favorites of all time george
00:48:07.040carlin was the guy i saw oh yeah yeah i saw his special you're all diseased in 1999 it was after
00:48:13.360his wife died so he was like you could tell he was like he put everything i don't know what he
00:48:20.040considered his magnum opus but i consider that to be his best special he was he was surly but not to
00:48:26.000the point where it wasn't funny anymore like towards the end he got like like bill hicks
00:48:30.020towards the end you're going like is this comedy or are you just you know are you just angry but
00:48:34.900it had that perfect balance of like bitterness and humor and it was just he was just so brilliant
00:48:41.600george carlin and prolific so uh there's a lot jackie gleason was a lot of people a lot a lot
00:48:48.140a lot of people don't know about him because he was he was a long time ago but he was just gifted
00:48:52.560and a lot of people don't know he was a stand-up and he would go you know go into rooms with no
00:48:57.100material and just rip the room to shreds and the place would be shaken just because he had so much
00:49:02.160talent you know he used to go into uh the honeymooners um which was a failure at the
00:49:07.840time which is hilarious it bombed and then it became a hit afterwards but um he would go in
00:49:14.320and he would read the script once and this was back this before digital right so it's like you
00:49:19.540would film was expensive they shot on film so like you had to nail the lines he would read the script
00:49:25.320once no rehearsal and go and then you you can watch the episodes and see what he did he would
00:49:31.360memorize it i mean the guy was just he was brilliant wow yeah he would before he would
00:49:36.580drink like a hundred vodkas he would eat like a million steaks he was a very big personality
00:49:42.020and uh you know even bob ho he was nicknamed the great one because he was just the talent
00:49:47.240was just overwhelming of jackie gleason so okay i have to check him out i haven't seen him
00:49:55.040yeah he's dead but i saw yeah yeah uh i saw i saw bill burr live
00:50:01.580um once i think it was in budapest and i almost died he's like i almost died i couldn't breathe
00:50:10.240he's so ridiculous he he could be the best i mean also chappelle and then a one that one that's
00:50:17.160often overlooked and i'm not gonna say for bad reason because i've seen him so many times live
00:50:21.520And it's really a, it's really a, it's a crapshoot, whether you're going to get a good show or a drunk one, but Doug Stanhope live when he's on, when everything clicks, cause you know, he's a bit of a drinker, but when he is on his brain, he's just incredible.
00:50:40.480So he's, he's definitely up there for me too.