This Past Weekend with Theo Von

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00:00:30.000 Hey, fellas, it's about that confidence.

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00:02:41.460 Today's guest is one of the most unique men, comedians on earth.

00:02:48.340 He is a unique man.

00:02:51.980 And that's a tough thing to be sometimes.

00:02:55.360 But he has mastered it.

00:02:56.700 He has a new special coming out on Netflix called Baby J.

00:03:01.820 If you haven't gotten to see his other specials, you should check them out.

00:03:06.120 Today's guest is a talent, Mr. John Mulaney.

00:03:10.380 Shine that light on me

00:03:14.200 I'll sit and tell you my stories

00:03:20.200 Shine on me

00:03:24.900 And I will find a song

00:03:29.120 I'll be singing

00:03:30.300 Almost

00:03:30.880 Yeah, man.

00:03:39.300 I'm just saving it because we never communicated, really.

00:03:44.240 No.

00:03:45.180 It's interesting, huh?

00:03:46.100 Not a bit.

00:03:46.800 Isn't it?

00:03:47.200 I'm still saving it because

00:03:51.620 Zach don't look ready.

00:03:53.320 Yeah, Zach don't look ready, yeah.

00:03:55.120 That's his nickname, Zach don't look ready.

00:03:58.000 I don't say that.

00:03:59.040 See, he gets upset about you, man.

00:04:01.160 We're just joking, Zach.

00:04:02.420 We're just kidding.

00:04:04.040 Yeah, he'll come back around.

00:04:05.700 He's been losing weight, too, so he's feeling more sly, aren't you?

00:04:08.820 What's that?

00:04:09.420 You've been losing some weight recently, huh?

00:04:10.880 I'm trying. I'm out there. I'm hiking.

00:04:12.280 Yeah, you look lean, brother.

00:04:13.220 Hiking is high.

00:04:14.140 You're going to do hiking?

00:04:15.260 Yeah, it's like free.

00:04:16.320 You just go like running.

00:04:17.220 100% free.

00:04:19.420 Yeah, that's freedom, isn't it?

00:04:21.340 Hiking?

00:04:21.880 Yeah.

00:04:22.520 I don't know.

00:04:24.300 Where are you hiking?

00:04:26.340 I'm not.

00:04:27.000 I do Fryman Canyon.

00:04:29.060 Yeah?

00:04:29.800 With Dan Levy.

00:04:30.920 Oh, you go with Dan?

00:04:32.500 Yeah, I only hike with Dan.

00:04:34.260 Oh, wow.

00:04:34.920 He's a good guy to hike with.

00:04:35.920 He's a good guy to hike with.

00:04:36.740 You talk about money the entire time.

00:04:38.420 Yeah, yeah.

00:04:38.920 He'll get you involved.

00:04:39.960 I've been involved in countless things with Dan.

00:04:42.420 I'm still in some...

00:04:43.560 What do you mean?

00:04:43.780 I think I'm in a class action with Dan somewhere along the line.

00:04:46.180 Oh, for real?

00:04:46.680 Yeah.

00:04:46.800 Did you get involved in one of the flips he was trying to do?

00:04:50.080 I don't think it was a flip.

00:04:51.580 It was some sneaker thing.

00:04:53.000 It was like a...

00:04:55.000 I think...

00:04:56.000 Yeah, he has a lot of sneakers.

00:04:57.680 Yeah.

00:04:58.180 Tons.

00:04:58.680 He has a whole special closet in his home for sneakers.

00:05:01.860 His wife doesn't have that.

00:05:03.220 No.

00:05:03.520 But he does.

00:05:04.260 Yeah, and his wife...

00:05:05.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:05:05.340 His wife doesn't have that.

00:05:06.400 His wife doesn't have anything, and he has everything he wants.

00:05:09.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:05:11.080 He's giving his wife nothing.

00:05:12.540 Oh, it's...

00:05:13.340 Three children.

00:05:15.100 And he named them all after...

00:05:16.560 He named them all Dan Levy.

00:05:18.180 Yeah.

00:05:18.660 Well, Danny.

00:05:19.580 Yeah.

00:05:20.140 And then Danielle.

00:05:21.160 Danielle.

00:05:21.560 And then the baby's just Dan.

00:05:22.960 Yeah.

00:05:23.280 The little girl's just Dan Levy.

00:05:24.740 I think you have to be at that size.

00:05:26.600 You have to be at that size.

00:05:28.280 He just bought a Porsche, too.

00:05:30.120 Did he really?

00:05:30.800 So he's really going through it, huh?

00:05:31.840 Yeah.

00:05:32.080 He paid $125,000 for it.

00:05:33.800 Oh.

00:05:34.160 Yeah.

00:05:34.500 And his wife, I think I saw her on a bike or...

00:05:37.960 I think crutches, even.

00:05:39.460 Crutches.

00:05:39.940 Old-ass crutches.

00:05:41.060 Oh.

00:05:41.400 Not good crutches.

00:05:42.480 No, I'm talking...

00:05:42.940 I found the crutches at CVS, and I said, do you guys have a dumpster?

00:05:45.700 And she said, I could actually use those.

00:05:47.560 Oh, yeah.

00:05:47.800 They were just in the parking lot of the Ventura.

00:05:49.160 Oh, she had some real polio chopsticks when I saw her.

00:05:52.220 That sucks, man.

00:05:53.340 It sucks how Dan treats her.

00:05:54.900 Oh.

00:05:56.120 You know, it's...

00:05:57.520 I'll put her on my prayer list, you know?

00:05:59.280 For sure.

00:05:59.860 Yeah, for sure.

00:06:00.840 I'll put her at the top.

00:06:01.720 But it's cool to be married to Dan Levy, probably.

00:06:04.440 Oh, yeah.

00:06:04.740 You get to watch him drive to the improv in a bomber jacket and a Porsche.

00:06:07.920 Yeah.

00:06:08.320 And you get to watch him put all your money into his hair gel.

00:06:12.180 Yeah.

00:06:12.700 There's a lot of hair treatment going on, and it ain't just gel.

00:06:15.700 Yeah, he's always had it.

00:06:16.200 I'll tell you this.

00:06:17.600 Did you ever get involved in a sneaker business with him?

00:06:20.120 I got involved.

00:06:20.920 I've been involved in some things with Dan.

00:06:22.380 Yeah, he sends me links like, these Jordans are coming out today.

00:06:25.360 Why don't you buy 500 of them, and then we'll sell them.

00:06:27.780 Yeah.

00:06:28.120 Yeah.

00:06:28.340 Yeah, and he sends me off-brand, like, players that people have, like, a lot of foreign

00:06:33.200 players, like, you know, these Vlade Divacs are coming out, you know?

00:06:37.420 They make a Vlade Divac?

00:06:38.400 It's a dress shoe, you know?

00:06:39.940 It's a hard shoe, like a church shoe?

00:06:41.520 It's a Czechoslovakia.

00:06:42.780 Yeah, it's like a Czech Republic.

00:06:44.380 Like, there would be a nice brown loafer.

00:06:47.420 Yeah.

00:06:48.040 Good for them, man.

00:06:48.840 Yeah.

00:06:49.640 But yeah, Dan is a talented guy.

00:06:52.820 Oh, he's the greatest.

00:06:53.960 You gotta know Dan.

00:06:54.860 And he is great.

00:06:55.660 His energy is always, he always has energy.

00:06:58.520 He always has energy.

00:07:00.600 His father's an Abraham Lincoln addict.

00:07:03.060 His father is an Abraham Lincoln addict.

00:07:05.640 And we went to, we were doing a show in Springfield, Illinois, this winter, and we went to Lincoln's

00:07:12.400 grave.

00:07:13.300 Really?

00:07:13.900 Yeah.

00:07:14.600 Just basically for Elliot Levy to take a photo.

00:07:17.140 Yeah, for the dad.

00:07:17.640 Show the respect, man.

00:07:18.940 Show the Lincoln.

00:07:20.280 He was one of our, like, first responders.

00:07:22.960 Oh, Abe Lincoln or Elliot?

00:07:24.800 Well, Lincoln was one of our, you know, he liked to salute our first responders, and

00:07:29.280 no one responded, like, there on that, you know.

00:07:32.640 He was like a first responder to slavery, kind of, in a way, I think, wasn't he?

00:07:35.820 There were probably some people before him who had thoughts on it, but he was definitely

00:07:38.720 out there.

00:07:39.640 Yeah, he was like, as far as our history books tell us, he was kind of like one of the

00:07:42.700 guys out there, like, hey.

00:07:44.700 Yeah, for real.

00:07:45.300 Yeah.

00:07:46.320 He was like an EMT, kind of, for slavery.

00:07:48.520 He was an absolute EMT.

00:07:49.880 He did CPR on this country.

00:07:51.120 This country was being ripped apart.

00:07:52.960 This country was dragged under a car.

00:07:54.520 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:07:55.020 And he did CPR on it, because you would do CPR on someone who's dragged under a car.

00:08:00.840 John Mulaney, thanks for hanging out, man.

00:08:02.720 Thanks for having me.

00:08:03.460 It's nice to meet you.

00:08:04.340 Yeah, you too, man.

00:08:04.960 We've never met.

00:08:05.520 We saw each other in passing at the improv the other day.

00:08:08.780 That was the first time, I think.

00:08:10.120 Yeah.

00:08:10.240 I might have, like, might have crossed paths at the store once.

00:08:13.720 Yeah.

00:08:14.000 But I think it was at the improv maybe two months ago.

00:08:17.320 Dude, thanks for all your amazing comedy, man.

00:08:22.040 Thanks for yours.

00:08:22.780 You are really interesting to watch.

00:08:25.900 I love, like, this other, you have, like, this, you're doing your act.

00:08:29.860 It's nonstop, right?

00:08:31.380 Like, I feel like when I watch you, I get my money's worth, you know?

00:08:34.360 Oh, thank you.

00:08:34.880 That's very nice to say.

00:08:35.340 Because it's, like, you're, there's almost a couple of things going on sometimes.

00:08:39.460 You're telling a story or you're telling a joke, but you're also commenting on it with, like, this, and that's how it's going to be.

00:08:45.920 Like, it's almost like there's this other character, and I can't really figure out what the other character is.

00:08:52.140 Like, if it comes from, like, somebody in your life or if it's, like, a, do you know what I'm talking about at all?

00:08:59.620 You mean the way I sound on stage or some, you're talking about some other ingredient.

00:09:06.380 And that's, it's like, I'm watching a story.

00:09:10.380 It's almost like an insider trading.

00:09:12.120 It's almost like this other guy kind of pops out of you at the same time and, like, kind of comments on what's going on.

00:09:18.200 But it's like a.

00:09:18.620 Yeah, there's a part of, there's someone out there, there's someone in me who doesn't like the show.

00:09:22.660 Yeah.

00:09:23.060 And who doesn't like, who's embarrassed maybe by the, by the fact that he's doing it.

00:09:31.300 You know, like when those multiple personalities come out on an episode of Law & Order.

00:09:35.020 Yeah.

00:09:35.360 Where they're like, Franklin's not here right now.

00:09:37.380 You know, and you got to deal with that guy.

00:09:38.400 There's someone in there who's like, by the way, I fucking loathe telling this story.

00:09:43.620 Yes, that's what it is.

00:09:45.700 It's just, and I just, man, it's so awesome to watch.

00:09:49.380 It's so awesome to watch.

00:09:50.100 That's nice of you to say.

00:09:50.860 I appreciate that.

00:09:51.600 Thanks for, thanks for, I've enjoyed you very much.

00:09:53.080 Because I'm like, when's that guy going to pop, you know, it's like, I can't, it's almost

00:09:56.220 gives me something else to look forward to while I'm enjoying the show, you know.

00:10:00.460 Okay.

00:10:01.100 Is that not only are, is John performing, I'm watching, but then there's this other guy

00:10:07.320 who's also part of John, who's going to chime in every now and then and tell me something.

00:10:12.220 Dude, I had a psychiatrist when I was 17 and he told me, he goes, half of you is this

00:10:17.220 really nice guy who wants to, you know, do the right thing and be a good person.

00:10:24.040 And the other half of you is a gorilla whose sole purpose in life is to destroy the first

00:10:28.780 half.

00:10:30.360 Wow.

00:10:30.720 I think that, I could see that.

00:10:33.960 That's interesting.

00:10:35.680 Yeah.

00:10:36.080 I think, I mean, I definitely, I feel I could relate to a lot of that.

00:10:39.040 I don't know if mine's a gorilla.

00:10:40.200 Mine's more probably a chimp maybe or.

00:10:42.720 Oh yeah.

00:10:43.480 Well, that's pretty scary too.

00:10:44.760 That's nothing to shake a stick at.

00:10:46.220 Oh, a chimp can rip your genitals off your body.

00:10:48.680 And he'll throw them 500 feet.

00:10:50.000 That's the story at least.

00:10:51.260 Yeah.

00:10:51.460 That's, you know, the birthday cake story, right?

00:10:53.140 Uh-uh.

00:10:53.600 A guy brought a, guy had two chimps, brought one a birthday cake and not the other, which

00:10:59.260 seems like chimp 101.

00:11:01.200 Yeah.

00:11:01.560 Bring one for both.

00:11:02.700 Yeah.

00:11:03.080 You got a double cake.

00:11:04.000 And then pop, pop, hands off, popped his, ripped his hands off, ripped his feet off, ripped

00:11:08.540 his genitals off, threw them 500 feet.

00:11:10.980 Oh.

00:11:11.260 I mean, there's lots of stories like that.

00:11:12.760 That's just the one I've sort of.

00:11:13.920 But the worst part is if your hands aren't there, by the time you get to your genitals,

00:11:17.080 you can't even scoop them up.

00:11:19.280 Yeah.

00:11:19.600 If you walk the 500 feet, which you can't because you don't have feet either.

00:11:23.660 It's a real, he was like, you can't walk.

00:11:26.120 You can't do anything.

00:11:27.220 You can't reproduce.

00:11:28.080 It was like, bam, bam, bam.

00:11:29.520 No torso shit.

00:11:30.980 He went for the prize areas.

00:11:33.620 He went for the things that really, yeah.

00:11:35.340 Wow.

00:11:35.760 That's it right there.

00:11:36.740 Oh yeah.

00:11:37.200 Well, that, this looks like, yeah, world's most horrific chimp attacks as raging apes

00:11:42.880 rip off people's faces, hands and genitals.

00:11:45.720 But I think, say you get the, the feet are gone.

00:11:48.120 So he took the feet off.

00:11:48.640 So you just Googled chimp birthday cake and that came up.

00:11:50.920 Okay.

00:11:51.060 So I have some of the details.

00:11:52.360 Correct.

00:11:52.900 Yeah.

00:11:53.080 You were correct.

00:11:53.820 Okay.

00:11:54.040 That's fantastic.

00:11:55.440 Yeah.

00:11:55.760 I think if you, if you, I'm trying to think if somebody took my feet off and I don't have

00:12:01.760 any feet, I think you could still stick over there kind of, but that's, you know, like

00:12:05.680 that Oscar Pertorius guy or something.

00:12:07.300 Yeah.

00:12:07.320 But you're talking about the first moment you lose your feet, you think you could stick

00:12:10.520 it?

00:12:10.920 If you don't look at the feet, I think, and you stay out of that shock moment.

00:12:14.500 Okay.

00:12:14.940 I think, and you just drive forward.

00:12:16.520 You're like, we still have feet.

00:12:17.860 I feel like it would take a while of the physical therapy with the bars, with the ballet dancer

00:12:22.960 bars on either side, stumping around.

00:12:25.980 And then, I don't know.

00:12:27.040 I just can't imagine that I could get up and stump it over to my balls in the pants.

00:12:31.940 Meanwhile, I still got to sing happy birthday because you're forgetting that it's still a

00:12:35.860 celebration for the one chimp.

00:12:38.260 So that's rude.

00:12:39.240 You know, dude, I was at a, uh, I was at an AA meeting, right?

00:12:43.220 I'm in a, I go to AA.

00:12:44.680 And so I was at an AA meeting in person or over zoom.

00:12:47.460 In person.

00:12:48.380 Okay.

00:12:48.680 And some guy had.

00:12:50.300 Only because there were so many over zoom during the pandemic.

00:12:52.840 Oh yeah.

00:12:53.100 There were so many.

00:12:53.660 Some meetings stayed in zoom.

00:12:55.140 Yeah.

00:12:55.740 Um, and I, I, some guy had a seizure in the meeting, right?

00:13:00.200 Oh shit.

00:13:00.660 And this other lady was her birthday in the meeting and they sing happy birthday, everybody.

00:13:04.880 Yeah.

00:13:05.340 So she like literally stepped over the guy.

00:13:08.240 It was her birthday.

00:13:09.100 It was her moment.

00:13:09.860 It was like, I'm going to get my cake, you know?

00:13:12.640 So.

00:13:13.040 So, was it like, were you all about to present the cake and the guy had a seizure?

00:13:19.880 Yeah.

00:13:20.220 They're like, uh, you know, uh, Rondra got seven, six years or something.

00:13:25.080 Right.

00:13:25.320 So she comes up and everybody's like, happy birthday.

00:13:28.080 And the guy seizures up.

00:13:29.720 Shit.

00:13:30.040 And then she's just like, steps over him to me.

00:13:33.900 Right.

00:13:34.160 Yeah.

00:13:34.380 Yeah.

00:13:34.560 Yeah.

00:13:34.940 Oh, she sang to me.

00:13:36.260 Yeah.

00:13:36.560 I think nothing was going to take her shine, you know?

00:13:39.900 Also.

00:13:40.460 So it's interesting.

00:13:41.020 Even on regular birthdays.

00:13:42.100 I don't know people that sing to me, but I like that.

00:13:44.460 Yeah.

00:13:44.760 I think it's like, well, times have changed, John.

00:13:46.920 I think people want to, it's about them now.

00:13:50.520 That's a good point.

00:13:51.380 Times have changed.

00:13:52.180 But I think, yeah, dude, I think if my feet were gone, if I don't know about that, I'm running

00:13:56.300 on pure adrenaline.

00:13:57.100 You know, they lift cars off of children, off of families.

00:13:59.600 That's what they say.

00:14:00.820 Yeah.

00:14:01.460 I mean, I assume those stories are true.

00:14:04.180 I think they have.

00:14:05.140 I think, look up like unique powers.

00:14:09.360 Mom lift, unique powers?

00:14:11.820 Google unique.

00:14:13.040 Yeah.

00:14:13.580 Google unique powers.

00:14:14.860 Unique mom powers?

00:14:16.900 Mom adrenaline.

00:14:18.380 Yeah.

00:14:18.880 Oh, now maybe that's what we're starting to sell.

00:14:22.260 Search terms.

00:14:23.520 There we go.

00:14:25.880 How it's possible for an ordinary person to lift a car.

00:14:29.600 All right.

00:14:33.100 In 2012, Lauren Kornacki, a 22-year-old woman in-

00:14:39.080 No, create a BBC account.

00:14:40.320 Let's do it.

00:14:40.800 God damn it.

00:14:41.500 You can't look at anything anymore.

00:14:45.840 You ever try to look up song lyrics?

00:14:48.400 What a fucking mess those websites are.

00:14:50.180 They won't let you look at those either?

00:14:51.260 No, it's just like tons of, it's just, they're the most insane A to Z lyrics or whatever they're

00:14:57.520 called.

00:14:57.620 Oh yeah, I love looking those up.

00:14:58.600 More pop-up ads.

00:15:00.180 It's like, do you not want us to know what the singer was saying?

00:15:02.600 Right.

00:15:03.420 Yeah.

00:15:03.860 And now people are putting like weird, like, you know, everything I do, I do it for T-Mobile.

00:15:09.480 Like people are playing the songs wrong because the ads are popping in.

00:15:12.860 Yep.

00:15:13.180 You know?

00:15:13.720 Yep.

00:15:14.020 It is interesting how there's so much ads.

00:15:17.760 I think if I, but to go back to this, I think if you had pure adrenaline going and, but the

00:15:24.100 saddest part would be to get to your own genitals and not be able to pick, you'd almost have

00:15:29.400 to balance them on your-

00:15:31.100 Yeah.

00:15:31.840 It's like the end of the Twilight Zone where the guy breaks his glasses.

00:15:35.040 You finally get to your genitals, but you don't have hands.

00:15:38.360 And you got to decide what you scoop up with your mouth.

00:15:41.060 Oh.

00:15:42.080 For real.

00:15:42.520 Wow, bro.

00:15:44.240 That is crazy.

00:15:45.740 And then what, yeah, I don't know what you take.

00:15:48.420 Well, you have to take your gonads because you want, if you want to have a family.

00:15:54.080 Yeah.

00:15:54.500 You'd have to see what kind of condition.

00:15:55.820 I mean, you have to make a split second.

00:15:57.500 What kind of condition are these in?

00:15:58.620 By the way, I'm assuming the chimp is making a beeline for you and not at all done, especially

00:16:04.020 if you, um, if you stuck it and stumped away.

00:16:07.240 Yeah, that's true.

00:16:08.540 He's going to be right behind you.

00:16:10.000 He didn't mean to just, you know.

00:16:11.260 God, man.

00:16:13.180 It's so harrowing to think what you would do in certain instances, you know, and if you

00:16:17.060 have the, cause I even noticed like, if I get like scared at night, you know, I'll

00:16:23.860 even say like, is somebody there, you know, like somebody's going to be like, yeah.

00:16:30.860 I mean, you're lying in bed and you hear a noise type scale.

00:16:32.680 Yeah.

00:16:32.800 Like I'll get, you know, I mean, I'm tough and everything, but I will also, in addition

00:16:37.180 of being tough, I will like go be like, you know, Hey, is somebody there?

00:16:41.700 Like I'll do like, um, who's, you know?

00:16:45.560 Yeah.

00:16:45.980 Yeah.

00:16:46.100 Yeah.

00:16:46.240 And like, they're going to say something back.

00:16:48.000 Like I'm here, you know?

00:16:49.540 Burglar.

00:16:49.900 Yeah.

00:16:50.200 Yeah.

00:16:50.700 Yeah.

00:16:50.960 Yeah.

00:16:51.140 Yeah.

00:16:51.360 And it's always a burglar in my mind, you know, it's always that kind of home alone

00:16:56.340 S type of fella.

00:16:57.660 You think it's someone coming in to steal items and just hoping no one wakes up and asks, is

00:17:02.960 anyone there?

00:17:03.700 Yeah.

00:17:04.240 And you just, yeah.

00:17:06.200 I think about home invasion most of the day.

00:17:10.820 Yeah.

00:17:11.260 I mean, you, do you ever yell, I have a gun?

00:17:17.320 No, that's a good idea.

00:17:19.440 Yeah.

00:17:21.360 I have a gun.

00:17:23.000 I have a gun.

00:17:24.660 Oh, that sounded pretty good.

00:17:25.460 With authority, right?

00:17:26.780 I have a gun.

00:17:27.700 Now, when you say you're a tough guy.

00:17:29.120 See, I would mess it up.

00:17:30.280 When you say you're a tough guy in the, in that moment, you're in your home, someone's

00:17:34.700 coming in, you don't know what they're about.

00:17:36.280 Do you feel tough?

00:17:38.980 At first I don't.

00:17:40.220 Right.

00:17:40.760 But then I have to remember, Hey, you are tough.

00:17:43.940 Oh, that's nice.

00:17:44.320 So then I will be able to be tough.

00:17:47.060 Tough meaning I know how to fight.

00:17:48.760 Do you do, uh.

00:17:49.940 I'll go to like jujitsu classes.

00:17:51.240 Oh, okay.

00:17:51.820 All right.

00:17:52.300 But not a ton though.

00:17:53.300 Okay.

00:17:53.820 Just enough to like, maybe take care of like a drug guy in a pizza parlor.

00:17:57.840 You don't do that, the many martial arts, the mixed martial arts?

00:17:59.960 No, no, no, no.

00:18:00.940 All right.

00:18:01.440 I'm a huge fan of it.

00:18:02.740 Sure.

00:18:03.000 But I am a, like I'm a one stripe white belt and there are four year olds that are that

00:18:10.040 or seven year olds, probably not four.

00:18:13.000 But, uh, you know, so it's not, it's not an insane thing to get, but I mean, I do know

00:18:19.160 that once, so once, so say, say there's somebody, I hear something, right?

00:18:22.260 Yeah.

00:18:22.500 I get out of bed, I go over and then I realized the scariest part is you have to turn a corner

00:18:28.260 in your home.

00:18:29.000 That's the scary part.

00:18:29.560 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:30.540 So from now on I turn and I go like, I'll turn and be like, hooray, you know, I will

00:18:36.300 turn like, I'm here or something like that.

00:18:39.640 Like something so that if there is somebody there about to attack me, they're not just

00:18:43.520 going to get on to something that's like sinking away.

00:18:46.680 Yeah.

00:18:47.460 I had a, um, a t-shirt I bought at Kanye West life of Pablo tour and it was a, like a double

00:18:54.420 XL airbrush t-shirt.

00:18:55.740 And on the front it had a, um, airbrush painting of Don to West.

00:19:01.460 Okay.

00:19:01.900 And on the back it had an airbrush painting of Robert Kardashian, Kim Kardashian's late

00:19:05.540 father and OJ Simpson's attorney.

00:19:07.640 I was at home, um, a few years back and it was new year's.

00:19:13.440 It was a couple of days after new year's and I'd had a new year's party where there'd

00:19:17.440 been balloons and shit.

00:19:18.380 So the, the, but the house was still, you know, uh, messy from it.

00:19:22.440 Um, middle of the night, uh, the alarm goes off screaming alarm.

00:19:27.560 Like the loud ass, someone just came in through the door alarm.

00:19:30.580 So I get out fucking threadbare boxers, Don to West, Robert Kardashian t-shirt.

00:19:35.560 I reached behind the bed for my Easton bat and it's not there.

00:19:38.960 I must've been showing it off downstairs.

00:19:40.960 Okay.

00:19:41.420 So now I'm going, I'm like, I'm out in the, uh, in the hallway and I'm like, I got to

00:19:48.160 rush down the stairs, which had two turns to it and I'm like, I've got nothing except

00:19:56.380 maybe the t-shirt to buy me some time of confusion.

00:19:59.520 Like if I jumped out and you saw a big Don to West, I spun around and there was an equally

00:20:04.320 big Robert Kardashian and it said, rest in power.

00:20:07.600 You'd be like, huh?

00:20:08.540 Like you give me a minute of a, holy shit.

00:20:10.600 That's a really nice hologram show.

00:20:12.460 Am I a Coachella?

00:20:13.380 Am I a Coachella?

00:20:14.360 Or just like, wow, that's a really nice way to pay tribute to your parents.

00:20:16.700 And then I could fucking, I don't know any, I could do some Miss Piggy, like karate.

00:20:23.380 It's fine.

00:20:24.160 She would fly through the air and, uh, I go down and it's pitch black and I'm just in

00:20:30.640 the darkness and right then a balloon decides to lose just enough helium that it floats down.

00:20:38.780 Like big ass yellow balloon floats down right in front of my face.

00:20:42.240 I've never like, it's an Asian guy.

00:20:44.640 Is more like, you ever, I've never been murdered by a clown, but I bet right before you're murdered

00:20:50.560 by a clown, a big yellow balloon appears.

00:20:52.500 Yeah, that's what happens.

00:20:53.720 And I said out loud, not like this.

00:20:58.260 I was so existentially scared and it was, I was just like, not, not now.

00:21:04.040 Not like this.

00:21:06.960 I love that, man.

00:21:08.660 Murdered by a clown in a Donda West Robert Kardashian t-shirt.

00:21:12.260 What a way to go though.

00:21:14.500 Yeah, I mean, it'd be in the paper.

00:21:16.440 You know, summertime is knock, knock, knocking on the door, baby.

00:21:20.380 Summertime, I hear the heat.

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00:23:30.680 What a way to go.

00:23:33.720 Wow, man.

00:23:34.460 There is, you know, it really is a test of in those moments what happens, you know.

00:23:39.160 There was a famous UFC fighter, this guy Lionheart Smith, who's an amazing guy.

00:23:44.140 He's from Ohio.

00:23:45.220 And he got attacked in the middle of the night at his home by a guy on methamphetamines.

00:23:49.220 Whoa!

00:23:49.780 And he said it was the hardest fight he's ever been in his life.

00:23:53.120 Just because he had that meth never gonna give you up energy?

00:23:56.720 Yeah.

00:23:57.200 I think he had that meth like Whitney Houston.

00:23:59.580 Is that Whitney Houston never gonna give you up?

00:24:01.560 No.

00:24:01.800 Never gonna let you down.

00:24:03.200 That's Rick Astley.

00:24:04.640 Oh, is that what Rick rolling is?

00:24:06.660 Yes.

00:24:07.000 Okay, yeah, yeah.

00:24:07.800 That's how I know it, yeah.

00:24:09.100 Interesting.

00:24:10.180 Did you ever do methamphetamine?

00:24:12.140 I never did, man.

00:24:13.320 I never did either.

00:24:13.860 I always wanted to.

00:24:15.040 Same.

00:24:16.060 Did you ever smoke crack?

00:24:18.040 No.

00:24:18.760 Okay.

00:24:19.420 Me neither.

00:24:20.280 Yeah.

00:24:20.700 Always wanted to.

00:24:22.320 I didn't get to do free base.

00:24:24.360 I did.

00:24:24.900 I smoked cocaine a couple times.

00:24:25.720 You did?

00:24:26.140 Yep.

00:24:26.780 And do people smoke it out of...

00:24:29.160 You always see that kind of like glass pipe with the smoke stains in it.

00:24:33.920 No, you just do it off of foil.

00:24:35.560 Oh, wow.

00:24:36.420 Yeah.

00:24:37.820 Um, I get one year sober tomorrow.

00:24:40.900 You do?

00:24:41.680 Yep.

00:24:42.660 Congratulations.

00:24:43.220 Thank you, man.

00:24:43.980 Holy shit.

00:24:44.980 Not trying to make it about me, but...

00:24:46.440 Please make it about you.

00:24:47.400 It's important.

00:24:48.000 There's only two of us.

00:24:48.880 Yeah.

00:24:50.920 One year tomorrow?

00:24:52.040 Yeah.

00:24:52.200 Oh, congratulations, man.

00:24:53.020 A lot of our listeners are, um, people that struggle, so...

00:24:57.860 Yeah.

00:24:58.740 It's a good group.

00:24:59.620 Do you mind me asking, when I saw you, I probably saw you two months ago and you told

00:25:05.120 me you had like 10 months.

00:25:06.960 Oh, yeah.

00:25:07.520 Were you, did you take time off from working?

00:25:09.840 Like, what was...

00:25:11.440 Um, like, did I go to...

00:25:13.440 I was sober during the pandemic.

00:25:14.700 You got sober during the pandemic.

00:25:15.480 I went to two different rehabs.

00:25:17.280 Wow.

00:25:17.680 And by December 2020, uh, I was sober.

00:25:22.740 Um, I mean, I was in rehab then.

00:25:24.300 Right.

00:25:25.240 Um, but it was weird because it was this during this kind of pause for everyone.

00:25:31.060 Right.

00:25:31.520 So...

00:25:32.360 What a blessing that it happened then, in some ways.

00:25:33.980 Did it feel like that?

00:25:34.900 Did it feel like that?

00:25:36.440 I don't...

00:25:36.940 Man, I was...

00:25:37.720 I gotta say, I did not experience the pandemic the same way other people did.

00:25:42.080 I, I, I don't know.

00:25:43.400 Like, I was, I was using a lot.

00:25:45.500 Oh, really?

00:25:46.140 And, uh, I just, it didn't feel like, it didn't feel like anything that different.

00:25:53.520 I, I, I, I feel bad saying that.

00:25:56.140 Um, I feel very bad saying that because, uh...

00:25:58.660 You must have been pretty high.

00:25:59.740 You must have been pretty...

00:26:00.980 Yeah.

00:26:01.660 Or into getting high if you weren't even doing the pandemic.

00:26:06.380 If you don't know, there's a, I'll say this.

00:26:08.720 I didn't know that, uh, the nasal swab tests hurt until, uh, well after I got

00:26:16.060 sober.

00:26:16.560 Okay.

00:26:17.580 And then I got one not numbed up by cocaine and I went, jeez, I went, ah!

00:26:23.240 What are they doing?

00:26:23.840 I used to get them and I was like, what is everyone complaining about?

00:26:26.220 Yeah.

00:26:26.360 These don't feel like anything.

00:26:29.140 Um, did you, so cocaine you liked?

00:26:32.540 Cocaine, Xanax, Klonopin, Adderall, Percocet, Ritalin, any kind of speed.

00:26:39.960 Oh, so all that speed, huh?

00:26:41.800 Mm-hmm.

00:26:43.120 Um, would you get, I would get so scared at night when I was high on cocaine, right?

00:26:47.920 Yeah.

00:26:48.800 That I would be like Googling what can I take with cocaine to go to sleep.

00:26:53.460 And that would take me so many hours.

00:26:55.440 I'd look at so many, there'd be like, you get on these answer sites and people

00:26:59.060 would be like, you're dying, brother.

00:27:00.640 Yeah.

00:27:01.540 Yeah, I go to Quora, right?

00:27:02.880 Or whatever that is, right?

00:27:03.960 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:27:04.480 Like count, hey, count down from 60 and you'll be dead.

00:27:06.880 People would say stuff like that and you're just like, oh my God.

00:27:09.280 So you didn't have like, cause that's the thing, I actually, you didn't take any downers.

00:27:13.980 I didn't take any downers, so I would lay there in misery.

00:27:16.840 Wow.

00:27:17.040 I would Google like, can I go to the hospital?

00:27:18.540 May I ask, did you know about downers?

00:27:21.320 I guess I knew about them, but I just had never taken them and I was so scared to mix

00:27:25.360 something with cocaine because it would kill me.

00:27:28.020 That's what I was fearful of.

00:27:28.820 That was your worry, yeah.

00:27:29.860 Yeah, I kind of thought if I didn't have the right balance, yeah, I was more like, if

00:27:36.220 I don't have enough in the right amounts, then something bad could happen.

00:27:40.620 But as long as I'm balancing coke and Adderall with Xanax and Klonopin, I'll be just fine.

00:27:45.940 I remember I walked into my intervention, I'd just been to my drug dealer's department, and

00:27:50.360 I finally got the right balance.

00:27:52.500 Oh, yeah.

00:27:53.080 One pocket, all Adderall and coke, one pocket, all Xanax.

00:27:57.900 And I was like, I have done it.

00:28:00.540 I reached equilibrium.

00:28:02.100 Yeah.

00:28:02.580 Opened the door and a bunch of people.

00:28:05.420 Yeah.

00:28:05.980 It's okay, though.

00:28:06.580 Were you high when you went to your-

00:28:08.120 Yes, but I was insisting that I hadn't used drugs in days.

00:28:12.940 I went, look, I am sober right now.

00:28:15.340 Look at me.

00:28:16.300 I am sober right now, I kept saying.

00:28:18.920 And were you good enough to convince those people that you were?

00:28:21.440 No, I was pretty strung out by then, so it didn't-

00:28:23.880 I could present really well for a long time.

00:28:27.020 Yeah.

00:28:27.480 But I'd reached a point where it was just off the rails.

00:28:31.120 I'm seeing that about you.

00:28:32.040 You're a very good presenter.

00:28:34.860 Yeah, a doctor at rehab was like, it scares me how good you are at presenting like everything's

00:28:41.700 fine.

00:28:42.220 Wow.

00:28:42.900 Yeah.

00:28:43.140 So were you, when you got sober a year ago tomorrow, you were, were you busy with all

00:28:50.580 this shit you do?

00:28:51.560 I was just in my, I was like, I was in my garage and I thought I was gonna just, I was just miserable.

00:28:57.460 I wasn't even using drugs really.

00:29:00.520 I was drinking some.

00:29:01.600 I was burnt out and exhausted, but I just had no program.

00:29:07.940 And I was like, literally, I was just crying to my brother.

00:29:10.760 I was like, man, I just can't live, I just, I just can't live like this.

00:29:16.560 And I know it sounds like such a weak thing to say, but that's just where my mind was,

00:29:21.360 you know?

00:29:22.060 What do you mean, was that a weak thing to say?

00:29:23.640 I don't know, there's something about it when you like look and you know that you have food

00:29:28.280 and you have shelter to be in a space where you're like, to feel like something is wrong

00:29:36.440 with you that you can't fix, I guess.

00:29:41.460 Or if you're just someone who likes to have control and thinks you manage well and you're

00:29:45.340 capable, there's some real thing that feels like almost weak.

00:29:51.500 And I'm not saying it is weak, but it feels weak sometimes to be like, something's wrong

00:29:57.520 with me and I can't, there's nothing I can do about it.

00:30:01.000 I felt like something's so wrong with me that I have like, I've overrided, like, cause we're

00:30:08.000 designed to survive.

00:30:09.580 I'd overrided the desire to survive.

00:30:12.720 Like when you're like, when, when you want pills and drugs more than you inherently want

00:30:19.080 to like make it through the day, that's some weird reverse evolutionary shit for your brain

00:30:27.860 to basically be able to run the scenario and go, we haven't slept in four days.

00:30:34.140 We chain smoke.

00:30:35.680 We eat Sour Patch Kids.

00:30:37.540 We'd never drink water.

00:30:39.560 We're blowing tons of Coke.

00:30:41.420 This isn't going to last.

00:30:42.840 And you go, I think, I think we're going to keep on with this.

00:30:45.080 I think we're going to keep doing this.

00:30:48.660 So you were deep in, how'd you get so deep in?

00:30:51.440 Cause I don't think anyone would look at you and think this is the Coke guy.

00:30:57.780 Good.

00:30:58.220 That was the whole thing.

00:31:01.000 I mean, I certainly tried to talk about it on stage as having had like a drug and alcohol

00:31:07.340 problem, but it, it just, I don't know.

00:31:10.100 Yeah.

00:31:10.400 It didn't something about me seems.

00:31:13.700 So to me, it's like, well, of course the guy that seems like he has it all together

00:31:18.340 has the problem.

00:31:19.640 Cause that's just like how life is.

00:31:22.300 It's Texas.

00:31:22.940 Yeah.

00:31:23.060 It's almost like it's textbook.

00:31:24.480 Yeah.

00:31:25.440 Um, but that's, I don't put that on other.

00:31:29.200 I don't put that on you to be like, how come you didn't see it?

00:31:31.740 Cause I was, I also, I really thought like, I really thought that I was doing life.

00:31:38.900 I was able to achieve it life with the drugs as opposed to in spite of them.

00:31:43.500 It took me a long time over the past couple of years to realize that I did well at what

00:31:48.920 I do in spite of drugs, not because of them.

00:31:51.320 Wow.

00:31:52.080 Yeah.

00:31:52.760 Yeah.

00:31:53.160 Cause it'd be fun.

00:31:53.780 Yeah.

00:31:53.900 From an outsider, I would always look at him and be like, oh, that guy.

00:31:56.720 Like, yeah, drugs would not help that guy.

00:31:59.860 Like that guy is his own.

00:32:02.420 He is so unique in his own way that anything to, uh, like a, a, a, a base that or something

00:32:10.120 or D base that would only mess him up.

00:32:12.400 But I would have thought, I would have thought like, I'm delivering something people really

00:32:15.660 like, and I think I'm delivering it cause I take two 30 milligram Adderalls and then

00:32:20.660 one Z bar.

00:32:21.380 And so I'm really sharp, but I don't seem jittery.

00:32:24.120 And so I go on a podcast or I go on a talk show and I'm just, I'm delivering and I'm

00:32:29.240 giving people what I'm naturally good at, but I'm a little tired, so I can't naturally

00:32:33.740 do it.

00:32:34.960 So it's okay.

00:32:36.760 It's okay to take, it's okay to rip open time release Adderall and dump the beads down

00:32:41.240 my throat and then pop a Klonopin because then I will get to the level that I naturally

00:32:46.760 am at.

00:32:47.580 Like I just got to deliver what I'm good at.

00:32:50.120 And right now we're running on a lean mixture and it used to be easier, but now it's harder.

00:32:56.120 So whatever I'm putting in my body to get to that is fine.

00:32:59.620 That's like a acceptable, you know, acceptable.

00:33:04.200 You're like your own, you're like your own Geppetto almost in a weird way.

00:33:07.460 Let me think about that.

00:33:09.040 How do you, uh, in what way?

00:33:11.340 Like you were, cause if you were kind of running, if you wanted to get yourself, you were a

00:33:17.340 little burnt out.

00:33:18.060 You're trying to get yourself to the place where everybody loves you at and where, you

00:33:21.300 know, you operate best at.

00:33:23.140 So yeah, I wanted to be like, I'd see myself, you ever see a, well, I'd sometimes see a clip

00:33:28.140 and be like, I need to be like of myself and be like, I need to be like that guy.

00:33:30.880 Oh yeah.

00:33:31.760 How do I get, how did that guy's confident?

00:33:34.880 Has a bunch of things to say.

00:33:36.720 Yeah.

00:33:37.420 How did he get the, how did I, how did he have the thoughts?

00:33:40.700 Oh yeah.

00:33:41.380 I thought, look, man, I miss my old self sometimes.

00:33:45.240 You're, you're using self?

00:33:47.300 No, just myself.

00:33:48.500 Like a few years ago.

00:33:50.240 Yeah.

00:33:51.120 There was some, yeah, that's what I was chasing something.

00:33:54.540 There was some moment, maybe, you know, like 2007.

00:33:59.120 I didn't know what it was, but I was like, I had some electricity in my eyes where, you

00:34:04.680 know, I got to get back to that and I just got to get back to that.

00:34:07.700 And I just got to get back to that.

00:34:08.800 Yeah.

00:34:09.240 I got, somehow it'll happen.

00:34:10.880 Somehow I'll find the right amount for real.

00:34:13.760 You know, like I'm a hundred percent serious.

00:34:15.620 I, that's that.

00:34:18.120 Yeah.

00:34:18.760 That's what I think all the time.

00:34:20.020 I look at old things and I'm like, oh man, I miss that guy.

00:34:23.120 Yep.

00:34:24.180 That was a, yeah.

00:34:24.840 That's a really entertaining person.

00:34:26.820 Yeah.

00:34:27.140 And I don't even put it on, I don't even mean like, and I, and I, people demanded, I'm

00:34:32.020 not acting like I couldn't have taken a break and, you know, it's not like the audience

00:34:36.260 demanded this.

00:34:37.040 Not at all.

00:34:37.680 It was what I wanted to do.

00:34:39.640 It's what I wanted to do.

00:34:40.720 Oh yeah.

00:34:40.740 I don't, yeah.

00:34:41.180 I don't get that perception.

00:34:42.060 Yeah.

00:34:42.260 No.

00:34:42.500 Okay.

00:34:43.160 But it's interesting.

00:34:44.520 Yeah.

00:34:44.660 I wanted to get back to him.

00:34:45.760 I wanted to feel back to myself.

00:34:47.140 I wanted to be like, that guy was so creative and original.

00:34:50.380 I know.

00:34:51.020 Now I think some of it, to take drugs because you want to feel like you're 12 or 13 again.

00:34:56.480 It's a little messed up.

00:34:57.600 It's a little messed up.

00:34:58.580 Yeah.

00:34:58.600 But it also makes sense.

00:34:59.780 I think if you, for me, if some of that goes back to, I think I, I felt like I missed out

00:35:07.380 on some childhood.

00:35:08.380 So I, part of me wants to get back to that.

00:35:10.460 I think there's some psychology.

00:35:12.260 Missed out on it.

00:35:13.300 Just missed out on like having some moments of childhood that would have felt more comfortable

00:35:16.840 and fun.

00:35:17.660 Okay.

00:35:18.780 But I think part of it is, I, I used to like the element of surprise when people didn't

00:35:27.580 know me.

00:35:28.720 Uh-huh.

00:35:29.540 You had an element of surprise to people.

00:35:32.140 Yeah.

00:35:32.720 And there were, and there was something that was nice about that.

00:35:38.220 It was like, um, it made you be able to be the only one who presented you to people.

00:35:46.020 Yeah.

00:35:46.660 And then as you get more popular, I think is the term that I'll use, or where people have

00:35:51.760 seen more of you.

00:35:53.740 Um, then there's some expectations or the, this, the, the thing of surprise, which made

00:36:00.300 me feel like unique that I can just be the controller of me.

00:36:04.520 Yeah.

00:36:04.960 That goes away because people have already seen you and have some interpretation of you.

00:36:10.480 And so I think this all may sound really egomaniacal, but that bummed me out a little bit because

00:36:18.900 I think the only thing I ever felt like I had when I was growing up was myself.

00:36:23.700 Okay.

00:36:24.240 And so I wanted to be able to authentically present that as much as I could.

00:36:28.500 Yeah.

00:36:28.900 And, um, and that goes away as you get more people have seen you.

00:36:34.560 Does that make any sense?

00:36:35.820 100%.

00:36:36.220 Okay.

00:36:37.020 I mean, I don't know what it means.

00:36:38.880 Dude, people used to have stage names for a reason because, you know, they could go home

00:36:43.860 and be like, you know, Johnny Starlight is the guy on stage.

00:36:48.500 John Mulaney is me, the person who I, you know, the person like, I gotta say, I, I don't,

00:36:55.900 I don't, you know, there's some real destructive part of me that I've worked on a lot, but I

00:37:01.600 wouldn't say I have low self-esteem day to day, which is a really nice thing.

00:37:06.780 Um, and it doesn't seem like you do either.

00:37:10.020 So it, it becomes like, you know, I, I like myself.

00:37:15.340 Um, yeah, if you like yourself and then yourself is out there in the world and it, and they seem

00:37:21.560 like you just got to think of them as two different things.

00:37:24.320 I'm not saying this, that articulately people had stage names.

00:37:27.200 Cause they could be like, well, that's something else.

00:37:28.740 Right.

00:37:29.060 That's not me.

00:37:29.740 That's not the little kid.

00:37:30.720 I was right.

00:37:32.820 Yeah.

00:37:33.180 I think now it comes from like those people would have fake names cause they'd read a

00:37:37.440 review of themselves and it wasn't their real name.

00:37:40.200 So they'd be like, Oh, that's not me.

00:37:42.700 Right.

00:37:43.140 That's a thing.

00:37:44.460 Now we're so it's hard.

00:37:46.020 Now everybody knows everything about you.

00:37:48.600 Yeah.

00:37:48.820 Within reason.

00:37:49.500 Yeah.

00:37:49.760 Yeah.

00:37:49.980 I mean, it's hard to detect, it's hard to keep some things to yourself.

00:37:53.600 It's even hard to.

00:37:55.440 Yeah.

00:37:56.360 Um, yeah, though.

00:37:58.340 I mean, whatever, whatever people put out there is also.

00:38:01.500 Right.

00:38:01.860 Who knows if it's real or not?

00:38:03.100 Yeah.

00:38:03.460 But it's like, it used to be like, um, like I remember we loved Michael Landon growing

00:38:08.720 up.

00:38:09.020 Right.

00:38:09.240 We had drawings of them and once a year.

00:38:11.120 Yeah.

00:38:11.320 You have highway to heaven behind you.

00:38:13.020 Oh yeah.

00:38:13.840 We meaning your family.

00:38:15.240 I mean, it's whatever, whatever political party builds that dude, I'm voting for him.

00:38:20.660 I'll tell you that.

00:38:21.340 You know, um, uh, he was dying through my whole childhood.

00:38:26.880 It felt like, like Michael Landon, like, I just remember being a kid and being at the

00:38:31.640 supermarket and like every national inquirer was like Michael Landon's final battle.

00:38:36.600 And I was just like, is this person, I didn't even know he was an actor.

00:38:39.480 I thought he might be famously ill, like just a guy in a jean jacket who was always sick.

00:38:44.880 Um, cause I never saw Bonanza till like it was on Nick at night.

00:38:48.480 And then, yeah, there he is.

00:38:52.360 God, look at him.

00:38:53.240 Um, so what, you were into Michael Landon from Bonanza?

00:38:57.240 We loved him from Little House on the Prairie.

00:38:59.920 Oh, Little House on the Prairie.

00:39:00.540 God, we love him.

00:39:01.860 You know what's crazy?

00:39:02.820 One of the first times I learned about drug withdrawal was from Little House on the Prairie.

00:39:06.740 Oh, I know what episode you're talking about.

00:39:08.380 The opium episode.

00:39:08.780 Yeah.

00:39:09.460 Isn't that fucking crazy, that episode?

00:39:11.100 Yeah.

00:39:11.460 I know nothing about Little House on the Prairie, but I saw that once.

00:39:14.540 I think Michael Landon stays up with the kid who's on opium and he sweats it out.

00:39:19.740 It's like basketball diaries level.

00:39:21.380 It really is.

00:39:22.080 In the middle of whatever the hell else used to happen on that show.

00:39:24.620 Cookin' Stew or whatever.

00:39:25.720 Walnut Grove.

00:39:26.740 Yeah.

00:39:27.260 A lot of like, I mean, that's when Pink Eye, you would lose a twin to Pink Eye.

00:39:33.180 I remember one episode they had.

00:39:34.520 Twins would be born with Pink Eye and it was a real problem.

00:39:36.600 Oh, you'd lose one.

00:39:38.080 Yeah, there it is.

00:39:38.740 That's Albert Ingalls right there.

00:39:39.900 He was addicted.

00:39:41.140 Was that that character?

00:39:42.080 So I know nothing about the show.

00:39:43.200 Was that that character's whole deal?

00:39:44.760 Was that he was a morphine addict or was that just a special episode?

00:39:47.060 No, he was adopted and so he had this kind of like interesting like space.

00:39:52.660 He was always kind of could play this outsider character.

00:39:57.660 But he was a friend of their daughter.

00:40:02.260 He was a friend of the daughters.

00:40:03.960 Okay.

00:40:04.520 Albert Ingalls.

00:40:05.540 You know, I saw Nellie Olsen one time at a Starbucks.

00:40:07.860 Who's that?

00:40:08.140 She was the blonde on the show.

00:40:09.760 Okay.

00:40:10.000 She was kind of like.

00:40:10.600 I really only know the opium episode, but she's the daughter.

00:40:14.520 And I was excited.

00:40:16.320 That's really cool.

00:40:17.160 I know she wasn't excited to hear me tell her.

00:40:20.100 I saw the little woman.

00:40:22.380 Remember the principal in Kindergarten Cop?

00:40:28.260 She's a smaller woman.

00:40:30.880 Let me think.

00:40:31.580 Her name is like Linda.

00:40:33.100 Not Linda Ronstadt, huh?

00:40:34.420 No, not Linda Ronstadt the singer.

00:40:36.320 Linda Hunt.

00:40:36.920 Linda Hunt.

00:40:37.700 Thank you.

00:40:38.360 I saw her at Bristol Farms.

00:40:39.660 I was excited.

00:40:40.980 There she is.

00:40:42.200 Remember, she goes, what did it feel like to hit that SOB?

00:40:45.400 Yeah.

00:40:47.160 Anyway, I saw her at Bristol Farms.

00:40:48.620 That just made me.

00:40:49.360 I just thought of that when you said you saw Nellie Olsen.

00:40:53.600 Yeah, Nellie Olsen.

00:40:55.740 So why did you bring up Michael Landon?

00:40:57.260 I'm sorry.

00:40:57.700 I took us on a date.

00:40:58.220 We used to love him.

00:40:59.640 And we would draw every year.

00:41:01.080 Mom would like usually at Easter.

00:41:02.620 Honestly, we would draw a picture of him.

00:41:04.000 And whoever like draw the best picture would get like a candy or something from mom.

00:41:07.000 Wait, you and your siblings would do this?

00:41:08.860 Yeah.

00:41:09.660 And whoever would draw the best picture of him would get like a candy or something from mom.

00:41:14.860 And he was supposed to come to town one year or something like at the fairgrounds or something.

00:41:21.760 Where'd you grow up?

00:41:22.420 In Louisiana.

00:41:23.300 Okay.

00:41:23.580 But something happened.

00:41:24.620 There was like a storm or something and he couldn't come.

00:41:27.540 Oh, shit.

00:41:28.200 Oh, yeah.

00:41:28.840 All the women's hearts were broken, man.

00:41:30.540 Mom went down there and it was like our big like mom's going to meet him, you know?

00:41:36.160 Oh, man.

00:41:36.940 Did you guys bring the pictures to show him?

00:41:39.060 No, no.

00:41:39.660 We didn't go.

00:41:41.000 Oh, it was just like women only.

00:41:42.560 Yeah.

00:41:42.940 Adults only.

00:41:43.800 Michael Landon meet and greet at the county fair.

00:41:45.760 Yeah.

00:41:46.620 And I mean, and I just remember mom coming home and it just was sad.

00:41:50.800 Yeah, for real.

00:41:51.460 But, yeah, it just made me think you couldn't know any more about an actor or character at that point.

00:41:57.440 They were almost just their character.

00:41:59.760 And, yeah, if you saw some tabloids, you could learn some stuff behind them.

00:42:02.560 But you didn't.

00:42:02.900 It's hard to even.

00:42:04.900 Now, I couldn't.

00:42:06.120 I didn't even know about his career.

00:42:07.740 That's how little I knew about Michael Landon.

00:42:09.280 I just thought this man is battling cancer like on the regular in all denim.

00:42:14.520 Yeah.

00:42:14.760 I thought Highway to Heaven was.

00:42:16.360 I don't mean this like as a joke.

00:42:18.000 No, not at all, man.

00:42:18.980 I thought Highway to Heaven was like not a documentary, but I just was.

00:42:22.820 It was like he was always dying and then he had this show called Highway to Heaven.

00:42:26.420 And I just thought they were somehow.

00:42:28.100 I was like, oh, this is just someone we're all watching through go through the final stages of life.

00:42:31.840 Yeah.

00:42:32.320 And it turned out he had a big acting career.

00:42:34.320 Yeah.

00:42:35.880 Like this guy's in traffic to get to heaven.

00:42:38.000 Like how long is it going to take this guy to get to heaven?

00:42:39.920 Yeah.

00:42:40.400 Yeah.

00:42:41.560 But, yeah, we missed.

00:42:42.560 I mean, that was a bummer for us.

00:42:44.620 When you look back.

00:42:45.420 So whenever you start.

00:42:46.300 Whenever you.

00:42:46.720 So were you surprised that you were an addict or did you know you were an addict?

00:42:52.660 I had like.

00:42:55.520 Skin deep self-awareness of like, I have a drug problem.

00:42:59.700 I love drugs.

00:43:01.480 I like them too much.

00:43:03.040 I don't like them the way other people like them.

00:43:05.480 It's not like, oh, that was fun.

00:43:07.980 Let's do that again in two weeks.

00:43:09.340 This was like, I think, think the plan for the morning should be to get more of that.

00:43:15.100 I knew I liked them more than other people, but I, it was, but no, not to the depths that it was.

00:43:22.000 What do I mean to say?

00:43:22.860 I had a, I had a, I had a surface level awareness and I would joke about that and, and, and say, you know, oh, I got sober in 2005, which I did, but I slowly got back into pharmaceuticals over the next, you know, 13, 14 years.

00:43:39.260 Prescribed, then not prescribed or prescribed, then abused, but prescribed, then bought on the street, then everything.

00:43:45.880 Were you buying them off a Craigslist and stuff like that even?

00:43:47.860 No, I always thought that might be cops.

00:43:51.180 Smart.

00:43:53.400 And it's pressed pills.

00:43:54.760 It's a lot of like, I have friends that have gotten them on there.

00:43:56.420 Oh, this was even before I had an awareness that there might be fakes out there like that.

00:44:00.940 Yeah.

00:44:01.240 I've definitely bought Adderall a couple of times and snorted it and thought, this is, what is this?

00:44:07.660 Yeah.

00:44:08.600 Oh, I bought a whole thing of something one time and did it all.

00:44:11.660 And it wasn't.

00:44:12.700 It wasn't cocaine?

00:44:13.800 Nope.

00:44:14.380 No, God.

00:44:15.820 And I don't know what it is.

00:44:17.280 And I still imagine one day I'm going to walk past a chemical and it's going to connect a little.

00:44:22.620 Oh, you'll smell it.

00:44:23.860 Or something.

00:44:24.520 You'll smell a chemical and you'll remember that that was what you bought?

00:44:27.240 You'll be like, oh, it was me.

00:44:28.760 You know what I'm saying?

00:44:29.900 Yeah.

00:44:30.680 No, the realization that I actually had no control over this took a long time.

00:44:39.000 Wow.

00:44:40.320 It's a hard thing for people to convince.

00:44:41.960 It's a hard, I mean, I still struggle sometimes even if I sit in a meeting and there's still part of me that doesn't want to say I'm an alcoholic.

00:44:51.580 Yeah.

00:44:52.380 Or an addict.

00:44:52.920 I, to me, I go, it's more complicated than that.

00:44:56.580 Yeah.

00:44:57.240 Like, you don't get it.

00:44:58.120 It's not, it's not that I'm like, it's not that just that cocaine's addictive and when I do it, I'm addicted.

00:45:04.740 It's, it's a different thing.

00:45:06.160 I use it in a different way and the way I see it and my relationship with it.

00:45:09.860 And it's just.

00:45:10.680 Yeah.

00:45:10.860 I kind of have a romance.

00:45:12.140 It's like a, I romanticize it.

00:45:14.140 100%.

00:45:14.500 I romanticize everything in my life in a weird way.

00:45:16.380 Me too.

00:45:16.860 Yeah.

00:45:17.040 Do you think you're in a movie?

00:45:19.640 No, I don't.

00:45:20.960 I do think I'm in a, like one of those fun houses sometimes, but the fair is fucking closed, you know?

00:45:27.400 Oh, wow.

00:45:28.200 And it's time.

00:45:28.700 Because the storm came in and Michael Landon canceled.

00:45:30.640 And Michael Landon canceled.

00:45:31.780 Who was the first famous person you ever met if Michael Landon canceled that film?

00:45:36.740 Let me think of who it was.

00:45:38.260 That's a great question.

00:45:39.320 Maybe Saw.

00:45:41.520 Uh, probably the D.A.R.E. officer at our school, but he wasn't like nationally famous, but he was.

00:45:47.720 How famous was he?

00:45:48.760 He was like the biggest guy they ever made in the whole world.

00:45:51.520 And what do you mean?

00:45:52.660 When the car would pull up, like I remember one time he like shot people from the car.

00:45:56.660 He couldn't get out of like the officer vehicle or whatever.

00:45:59.680 Wait, wait, wait.

00:46:00.040 He was a huge man.

00:46:00.680 He was a.

00:46:01.120 Oh, he was a big fella.

00:46:02.920 He was an obese man.

00:46:03.980 And he, and he would come to speak about D.A.R.

00:46:07.780 Yeah.

00:46:08.240 And he got out of the car.

00:46:09.640 But there were tales of him at crimes where he'd just pull up and just start popping off, you know, because he couldn't.

00:46:15.560 At some point, he couldn't even get out of the vehicle.

00:46:17.160 Oh, so he'd fire from the vehicle and open fire on people.

00:46:19.800 So he was like, uh, in our area, he was pretty popular.

00:46:23.760 Ronald Reagan.

00:46:25.240 Um.

00:46:26.160 Was his name?

00:46:27.240 No.

00:46:27.740 That'd be crazy.

00:46:28.440 He also happened to be named Ronald Reagan.

00:46:32.980 Uh.

00:46:33.700 The first famous, I don't know, there was this, uh, like.

00:46:36.400 Did you see Reagan somewhere?

00:46:37.920 No, but we built the tallest statue of Ronald Reagan in our town.

00:46:41.100 Whoa.

00:46:41.200 And he was supposed to come and he didn't come.

00:46:43.220 I just realized this.

00:46:44.400 He, you built the tallest statue of Ronald Reagan in the U.S.?

00:46:47.240 Yeah.

00:46:47.440 Or in the world, I guess.

00:46:48.360 10 foot tall.

00:46:49.200 Look it up.

00:46:50.200 Zachary, please.

00:46:51.500 Tallest statue of Ronald.

00:46:52.820 Ronald Reagan.

00:46:54.000 Yeah, Reagan.

00:46:56.300 Covington, Louisiana.

00:46:57.320 There you go.

00:46:58.340 God damn.

00:47:00.480 That's not a bad statue.

00:47:02.280 I thought they did pretty good.

00:47:03.760 You know what I would do if I was putting a photo on this website is I'd show how tall

00:47:06.920 it was.

00:47:07.900 Yeah.

00:47:08.320 As opposed to these close-ups.

00:47:10.020 It's a great point, actually.

00:47:11.160 See it in a cowboy shot.

00:47:12.380 And it's supposed to be real bronze, but that's, uh, that could, some of that could be

00:47:15.120 a rumor, but.

00:47:16.360 Oh, wow.

00:47:17.160 And there we go.

00:47:17.700 Oh, so, okay.

00:47:18.560 Ooh.

00:47:20.300 Look at the, look at the, oh, whoa.

00:47:22.360 Oh, no, that's nice.

00:47:23.860 That's huge.

00:47:25.980 Yeah, they did a good job.

00:47:27.560 Uh, Pistol Pete Maravich was from our, lived in our town, and so his sons went to our school.

00:47:33.220 Ian So-

00:47:33.440 Were they good at dribbling and stuff?

00:47:34.820 They were good.

00:47:35.540 Yeah.

00:47:36.000 They were good.

00:47:36.440 That's a good movie, that Pistol Pete.

00:47:37.620 It is good.

00:47:38.360 Yeah.

00:47:39.040 Um, Ian Somerhalder, do you know who that is?

00:47:41.940 That sounds really familiar.

00:47:43.080 He's a, he's an actor.

00:47:44.620 Can you look him up?

00:47:45.320 Ian Somerhalder?

00:47:46.720 He went to our school when he was like the most beautiful guy that ever existed in the world.

00:47:50.720 And he would just come to the first day of school?

00:47:54.240 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:47:54.980 I, I do know.

00:47:55.640 Oh, that guy's got light eyes like a husky does.

00:47:58.180 Yeah, yeah.

00:47:58.820 Like those dogs with the light eyes.

00:48:00.020 Oh, yeah, like Riff Raff would own this guy.

00:48:03.100 Um, but he, uh, he would come to school the first day just so all the girls knew that he was like in town and then just go off and be like a supermodel.

00:48:12.100 But he would always come the first day of school.

00:48:14.200 Oh, so then he would ditch the rest of the, he'd just be like, I exist?

00:48:17.080 And then he would ditch the rest of the year?

00:48:19.160 Yeah, he was like a kind of-

00:48:20.400 Dummy.

00:48:20.920 No, it was, oh, he was smart.

00:48:22.440 He knew how to do it.

00:48:23.180 He was no dummy.

00:48:23.480 But he was too, almost too handsome to even exist kind of, you know, like he was just that Dracula handsome, you know?

00:48:30.380 Yeah.

00:48:30.780 I remember as a kid not realizing that people disliked Ronald Reagan.

00:48:36.080 Like I, I remember being like, that's the president, so everyone likes him.

00:48:40.040 Yeah.

00:48:40.260 And then this kid in, in class, uh, Matt Murphy, he told me Ronald Reagan hates poor people.

00:48:46.940 And I said, well, that'd be impossible because he's the president and he's like the best person in the world.

00:48:53.320 Cause he's, how, why else would he be the president?

00:48:55.820 Yeah.

00:48:56.860 And I did not have nuanced political views at that time.

00:48:59.980 Yeah.

00:49:00.460 Yeah.

00:49:00.780 Me neither.

00:49:01.340 I think, yeah, if I thought somebody was the president, then they just cared about everybody.

00:49:05.280 Yeah.

00:49:05.780 It was a, it was an outlandish charge.

00:49:07.980 Yeah.

00:49:08.240 To go from, I was, I was clocking him as best person in the world now to find out he especially doesn't care about poor people.

00:49:16.800 Yeah.

00:49:17.520 You know, Morgan Wallen's on tour and so is, uh, Suicide Boys.

00:49:22.540 I love both of them.

00:49:24.320 Uh, Jesse Murph is touring.

00:49:26.040 I like her.

00:49:27.380 I like a lot of different bands and performers, Parker McCollum, all of that.

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00:52:26.280 I'm trying to think of who was the first famous person that you met.

00:52:29.720 Because you've run in some pretty famous circles now.

00:52:32.080 Well, but as a kid, hmm.

00:52:37.680 And you're from where?

00:52:38.540 You're from-

00:52:38.860 Chicago, Illinois.

00:52:39.620 Oh, wow.

00:52:40.280 Yeah, we grew up in the city.

00:52:42.040 Mike Ditka, maybe?

00:52:43.040 Did you see him?

00:52:44.360 You know, I'm trying to-

00:52:45.660 I feel like I saw-

00:52:47.680 Chris Chelios, maybe?

00:52:48.600 Jim McMahon somewhere.

00:52:49.820 Yeah.

00:52:51.300 But I can't-

00:52:52.620 I can't square it.

00:52:55.120 Who was the first I ever saw?

00:52:57.580 Jim McMahon.

00:52:58.940 Jim McMahon?

00:52:59.500 Or was he just so famous I felt like I knew him?

00:53:02.140 That was the weird thing about growing up in Chicago in the late 80s, early 90s, is we

00:53:07.780 just- I just thought that wherever I was, the best basketball team would be.

00:53:13.380 Like, I didn't-

00:53:14.000 I kind of associated it with my own-

00:53:16.160 Well, yeah, and having-

00:53:18.100 With my own presence.

00:53:19.080 And moved to L.A.

00:53:20.000 Wow, that's crazy, dude.

00:53:21.480 I was just like, well, of course, like, my-

00:53:24.480 You know, and everywhere we go on vacation, people will be like,

00:53:26.920 Chicago, Michael Jordan.

00:53:27.900 I'll be like, yeah, I know.

00:53:28.700 Like, we got it.

00:53:29.500 We did it.

00:53:30.560 We got it.

00:53:31.240 We got it covered.

00:53:32.140 And then you moved to L.A.

00:53:34.180 And then, yeah, and then I moved to New York.

00:53:37.920 Yeah.

00:53:38.700 Well, also, the Bulls just, you know-

00:53:41.700 They were so good.

00:53:42.500 97, 98, 99.

00:53:44.280 I saw B.J. Armstrong at my gym.

00:53:46.900 Wonderful, wonderful guy.

00:53:48.180 And I love seeing him.

00:53:49.720 Yeah.

00:53:50.060 Every time I see him, I'm like, I know it's you.

00:53:52.660 And he's like, you've told me that seven times.

00:53:54.280 He's out here in L.A.?

00:53:55.440 Yeah.

00:53:56.000 He's an agent, I believe, at a sports agency.

00:53:59.760 But super nice guy.

00:54:01.180 I think he went to Iowa or Iowa State for college.

00:54:03.620 But I always, I would get so excited seeing him.

00:54:07.780 America loved that team, though.

00:54:09.260 I mean, unless you were, like, in Cleveland or New York.

00:54:12.280 I met Barkley once, or I met him twice, because he hosted Saturday Night Live a couple times.

00:54:16.800 Did he only host once?

00:54:18.480 No, he hosted twice, but I was only there the one time.

00:54:22.200 And I asked him about the dream team.

00:54:24.500 Because we, you know, with Barkley, like, we weren't going to write together.

00:54:28.860 So, Tuesday night, the host would walk around the different offices.

00:54:33.220 And Simon Rich, this writer, and I that worked together a lot, we just asked him, we go, what was the dream team like?

00:54:37.440 And he went, oh, man.

00:54:38.460 He goes, if you ever get a chance to go to the Olympics, do it.

00:54:42.660 I was like, okay, I'll make sure to.

00:54:44.820 But he told me, he goes, we would beat those guys by 100 points.

00:54:49.040 And then they'd ask for photos.

00:54:50.680 Wow.

00:54:51.000 He was like, it was the greatest time ever of anyone doing anything.

00:54:56.760 That's awesome.

00:54:57.720 Larry Bird was on there.

00:54:59.060 Yeah.

00:54:59.720 John Starks.

00:55:01.020 Horace Grant made that team, remember?

00:55:02.760 Yes, he did.

00:55:03.920 92.

00:55:04.720 David Robinson.

00:55:05.620 Horace Grant made the team?

00:55:06.780 I'm pretty sure.

00:55:08.100 David Robinson.

00:55:10.220 Scotty Pippet.

00:55:11.000 I don't know if Horace made it.

00:55:14.520 You're right, he didn't.

00:55:16.180 Scotty.

00:55:18.120 Yeah, Scotty Stockton.

00:55:19.460 Clyde Drexler.

00:55:20.360 Yeah.

00:55:20.660 Who always looked 55 somehow.

00:55:24.100 Carl Malone.

00:55:25.800 Out of Louisiana Tech, yeah.

00:55:27.720 He went to Louisiana Tech.

00:55:28.900 He did.

00:55:29.200 Christian Laettner was on there.

00:55:30.280 I wonder how interesting that was for him.

00:55:33.160 Christian Laettner?

00:55:35.040 No Bobby Hurley?

00:55:36.280 He always looked like the richest guy in the world.

00:55:38.700 You know, he had like the most punch.

00:55:39.600 He had the, it was a haircut.

00:55:41.200 It was just a haircut thing.

00:55:42.580 Yeah, yeah.

00:55:43.880 Let's zoom in on Laettner a little bit.

00:55:45.220 He kind of had the most punchable face in a weird way.

00:55:48.660 Which is a messed up term to use.

00:55:50.240 But he had it, man.

00:55:51.100 He had the most damn punchable face.

00:55:52.260 Wait, was it him or him?

00:55:53.660 Christian Laettner's right there, yeah.

00:55:54.840 Christian Laettner, you got the magnifying glass right over him.

00:55:58.740 He looks a little zooted out there.

00:56:00.920 Yeah.

00:56:02.460 Dude, I ended up, did you ever have a weird scenario?

00:56:04.940 Because I had one, like I ended up in a taxi cab.

00:56:07.400 Okay.

00:56:07.680 I zooted it up, man.

00:56:09.740 Some girl.

00:56:10.280 Where, where, do you mind, where were you living at this point?

00:56:12.720 I was living out here.

00:56:13.760 Okay.

00:56:14.340 And that's when I kind of like, I had a couple nights in a row where I got really just, just

00:56:18.860 coked out, right?

00:56:19.980 And I started just, and then I was in New York one night and a girl said something to

00:56:24.680 me in a taxi.

00:56:26.380 Oh, I tried to give her a smooch, right?

00:56:28.180 And I wasn't being aggressive or anything.

00:56:29.680 She was flirting.

00:56:31.040 I tried to give her a smooch.

00:56:33.320 She kind of like rejected me.

00:56:35.780 She was kind of mean about it, right?

00:56:39.880 Or I took it as mean, right?

00:56:41.460 Okay.

00:56:41.900 And it was fine.

00:56:42.560 She got out of the taxi.

00:56:43.520 There was no animosity between us.

00:56:45.080 It was just, you know, it wasn't going to happen.

00:56:48.960 And, but then I, something in my head, like I told the driver, let's go get some cocaine,

00:56:52.760 you know?

00:56:53.560 So next thing you know, me and this taxi driver are getting some cocaine and, and then he,

00:57:00.540 at one point wants to get some hookers, you know?

00:57:04.060 The taxi driver.

00:57:05.060 Yeah.

00:57:05.500 He wants to get a couple.

00:57:05.900 I'm surprised he didn't think it was a sting that you were asking to get cocaine.

00:57:10.120 I feel like that's, a lot of drivers actually get pinched that way.

00:57:13.180 Yeah.

00:57:13.520 I think, I think maybe, yeah, I guess he didn't give off.

00:57:16.140 You didn't seem undercover.

00:57:17.400 Yeah.

00:57:17.800 Yeah.

00:57:18.180 I seemed to over cover probably.

00:57:20.540 Or I see that.

00:57:21.420 I think he's like, damn, somebody better cover this dude up.

00:57:23.200 You were covered.

00:57:23.620 Yeah.

00:57:23.920 Yeah.

00:57:24.080 Yeah.

00:57:24.840 So anyway, dude, fast forward a couple hours later, I'm driving this guy's taxi.

00:57:29.000 He's in the back.

00:57:29.680 And we're talking about an LA yellow cab?

00:57:31.620 We're talking about a New York.

00:57:34.100 I'm sorry, New York.

00:57:34.960 New York yellow cab.

00:57:35.640 Okay, great.

00:57:36.500 We're up in North Harlem.

00:57:37.620 I'm driving this guy's taxi and he's in the back with a hooker, right?

00:57:41.100 Did he have the beaded seat thing?

00:57:43.120 How was the seat comfort?

00:57:45.080 The seat, the back seat was pretty nice.

00:57:46.920 I remember.

00:57:47.000 No, but the front seat, once you were driving.

00:57:50.000 I thought it was pretty good.

00:57:51.260 I was pretty scared.

00:57:52.100 I just wanted to get back to my hotel.

00:57:54.060 Sure, sure, sure.

00:57:54.700 And I didn't know.

00:57:55.640 I just, I would love to be up in that cockpit for a second, you know, of a real New York

00:57:59.940 city yellow cab and just see the setup.

00:58:02.060 Cause I'd never get my setup right.

00:58:04.240 It felt like.

00:58:05.360 Drinks to phone cord to just like, I never feel like I have my console right.

00:58:09.240 Yeah, you're right.

00:58:09.560 So I'd like to see how they do it.

00:58:11.240 I think it never, it felt like somebody had sat in there who had like, it felt like the

00:58:17.580 guy in there was like, he was going to leave his children probably.

00:58:21.340 Oh, okay.

00:58:22.100 It had a sinking.

00:58:23.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:24.500 You could feel the despair.

00:58:25.640 Also, the guy was in the back seat.

00:58:27.340 That's true.

00:58:27.900 So it wasn't just, yeah.

00:58:29.040 So in terms of his vibe, you had it coming from a bunch of directions.

00:58:32.240 Right.

00:58:33.040 And then anyway, so I ended up on, and I had to do an Opie and Jim Norton that morning,

00:58:37.380 right?

00:58:37.880 Oh, wow.

00:58:38.320 So I ended up on the radio and Daryl Strawberry was in there.

00:58:42.600 And I get to the radio station, I can't even talk, right?

00:58:46.660 I'm just like, blasted out of my brain, you know?

00:58:50.380 And I'm still thinking, I was still ducking off in the bathroom.

00:58:53.320 I'm doing cocaine in the bathroom or in the stalls at Sirius Radio.

00:58:57.480 Andy Cohen's in there peeing in the next one, talking to me, right?

00:59:00.220 And I'm just sitting in there, just blasting up.

00:59:02.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:59:03.240 And then-

00:59:06.080 What I would always kill for the single occupant bathroom.

00:59:11.160 Yeah.

00:59:11.460 With the key.

00:59:13.340 When you got in there, you're like, God.

00:59:15.000 It's your office.

00:59:15.900 Welcome to Rome.

00:59:16.840 Won't I blow this line off of?

00:59:18.640 Yeah.

00:59:19.000 I got every surface imaginable, from counter to counter.

00:59:24.640 The saddest part was doing some cocaine off the-

00:59:27.720 Baby changing station?

00:59:29.040 Yeah.

00:59:29.520 I got a joke about that in my new special.

00:59:31.460 Do you?

00:59:31.940 Yeah.

00:59:32.840 Thanks.

00:59:33.520 Yeah.

00:59:34.700 Just for you.

00:59:35.520 Thank you.

00:59:37.680 But yeah, so that was a night for me when-

00:59:39.980 Oh, and I saw Daryl Strawberry.

00:59:41.100 He was on the radio station, right?

00:59:42.380 Oh, you saw Daryl while gacked up?

00:59:44.360 He was the other guest.

00:59:46.280 Oh, wow.

00:59:47.020 So that was a moment for me where everything kind of lined up.

00:59:50.940 Could he tell?

00:59:51.940 No.

00:59:52.900 Hmm.

00:59:53.340 I don't think.

00:59:54.040 I had on sunglasses, which was weird.

00:59:55.800 I'd been doing well going on this show.

00:59:57.940 Yeah.

00:59:58.260 And I had on sunglasses, and I could barely talk, I remember.

01:00:02.840 Yeah.

01:00:03.420 And that was scary because my only gift I had in my voice, the only thing in my life

01:00:07.140 I'd had to express myself was my voice.

01:00:09.100 Yeah.

01:00:09.460 And suddenly I couldn't use it.

01:00:11.780 Okay.

01:00:12.260 And you had, and your mind, which you now had to use because you were going to be interviewed

01:00:16.420 on the radio.

01:00:17.520 Yeah.

01:00:17.740 And it was real scary.

01:00:18.320 And then also this moment of seeing Daryl Strawberry, someone who I'd always thought

01:00:21.900 was all coped out of his brain.

01:00:23.820 Sure.

01:00:24.080 Because that's all I'd ever heard, right?

01:00:25.540 Yeah.

01:00:25.780 Was the old stories.

01:00:26.720 I didn't know that he was a sober guy and had his deal together.

01:00:30.380 Oh, yeah.

01:00:30.860 I assumed he had his deal together, but I did think he'd be able to spot you still.

01:00:34.580 Yeah.

01:00:34.880 I didn't know what I thought, I think.

01:00:36.180 Okay.

01:00:36.440 You know?

01:00:37.100 Which I don't know if that even makes any sense.

01:00:38.780 But there was some alignment at that moment of like me not having control over my voice,

01:00:44.840 me having a perception of somebody else that was false or something.

01:00:48.200 Sure.

01:00:48.680 And that just lined up.

01:00:49.800 And you hadn't slept and you were on cocaine.

01:00:53.000 Yeah.

01:00:55.360 But that lined up for me that I needed something, whatever that like,

01:00:59.360 like, like the, uh, what's that thing you tighten with the colors in it?

01:01:04.360 Kaleidoscope.

01:01:04.900 Whatever the kaleidoscope is that it makes people have to realize that something is wrong.

01:01:09.340 Yeah.

01:01:09.780 That was the moment where it was like-

01:01:12.380 Oh, that's interesting.

01:01:13.020 I could see right down.

01:01:14.960 Those things never made me, those like being in Midtown Manhattan, have a meeting, have a,

01:01:22.980 you know, have a big like production meeting on something, um, get there, get there half

01:01:29.100 hour late, uh, uh, desperate to have a cigarette.

01:01:33.780 So like finding an abandoned office and smoking out the window and being almost very much in

01:01:39.080 trouble and it being really clear, those moments were so about surviving that, that hour that

01:01:45.280 they never, I never thought about them with any deeper perspective.

01:01:48.560 I never thought, oh my God, what has my life become?

01:01:50.860 I was just like, I, it would be easier to take the train.

01:01:55.920 I'd be faster to take the train home to my cocaine, but I can't do coke on the train.

01:01:59.920 So it was all just like figuring out the video game of being a drug addict.

01:02:04.340 Wow.

01:02:04.760 Took up, it was just a scramble for the present problem.

01:02:08.720 And as soon as that problem was solved, I moved on.

01:02:11.880 I wasn't like, I can't believe, you know, I remember I went, I went into a meeting holding

01:02:18.760 a bottle of Pedialyte because I was not eating anything.

01:02:21.640 I was just drinking Pedialyte, doing cocaine.

01:02:24.480 And I was, I was with people I knew and we were waiting for other people to join the

01:02:27.740 meeting that we didn't know.

01:02:28.700 And I said, if my nose bleeds or if I pass out, it's because I have a sinus infection.

01:02:34.460 Don't worry, you know, and I'll give a signal if I think I'm about to pass out.

01:02:38.260 And then, then, and I, even to them, I was like, cause I'm sick.

01:02:42.640 Right.

01:02:43.220 Cause that's why.

01:02:44.640 Wow.

01:02:45.160 Yeah.

01:02:45.360 Yeah.

01:02:45.620 What's the signal too?

01:02:47.140 I can't remember.

01:02:50.360 Something like I got, you know, Geronimo.

01:02:55.640 That'd be a great thing to say before you pass out and your nose explodes with blood.

01:02:59.240 That covered it well.

01:03:01.360 Or Timber.

01:03:02.900 Timber.

01:03:03.400 Yeah.

01:03:03.800 Uncle.

01:03:04.760 Yeah.

01:03:05.160 I cried uncle to, to all of life.

01:03:07.620 To the gods.

01:03:08.400 Yeah.

01:03:09.620 Wow.

01:03:10.120 So people just didn't know, huh?

01:03:12.120 Well, there reached a point where people wondered.

01:03:17.180 Were you getting too big and pop?

01:03:18.760 Were you getting too popular that people were even afraid to question you and kind of thing?

01:03:21.940 Did that happen?

01:03:22.360 I don't think so.

01:03:23.080 Right.

01:03:23.340 I don't think so.

01:03:25.340 Cause like, I was, I've been very lucky with, I've been very lucky with having an audience

01:03:33.860 that's grown and grown, but you know, you gotta, that, that's a certain level before no one

01:03:39.500 will question you.

01:03:41.000 Right.

01:03:41.640 I don't know if they have that level anymore.

01:03:43.000 I was on TV sometimes, but I wasn't like, you know.

01:03:45.400 Right.

01:03:46.120 I wasn't, uh, Steven Spielberg or something.

01:03:49.860 Yeah.

01:03:50.480 Michael Landon.

01:03:51.640 Yeah.

01:03:51.820 I wasn't some Michael Landon who a bunch of yes men tell him he doesn't need to show up

01:03:55.680 to the state fair.

01:03:57.860 Oh, that shook us, man.

01:04:01.000 What, um.

01:04:01.400 Did you have a lot of people around who knew about your problem?

01:04:05.100 I have family members.

01:04:06.920 It's like addiction is in my family.

01:04:09.160 So there's, um, so I remember I would drive by the AA, there's an AA room down the street

01:04:18.600 from where I stay in Los Angeles and I would drive by there, even through the parking lot

01:04:22.180 sometimes.

01:04:23.040 And one time a family member of mine was like, you know, normal people aren't driving through

01:04:28.640 the parking lot of AA meetings to see what's going on.

01:04:31.800 Right.

01:04:32.000 So there was something inside of me that wondered.

01:04:34.500 And the biggest thing for me is emo is like, like make trying to keep my emotions sober.

01:04:40.160 Like I wasn't insane.

01:04:42.140 Like I definitely partied some, I don't drink because I'm afraid if I have a beer, I'm going

01:04:46.780 to go get cocaine.

01:04:47.900 I've never had a drinking problem.

01:04:49.620 Yeah.

01:04:49.820 I'm going to take one sip and then it just gives me an excuse to get Coke.

01:04:52.960 Right.

01:04:53.960 But mine was just always like thinking something was wrong with me.

01:04:57.460 I always felt like I've always felt like something like there's a to-do list that I never even

01:05:04.420 wrote.

01:05:05.320 Yeah.

01:05:05.800 That I'm responsible to do.

01:05:08.280 And the pain, the energy, the responsibility of it is always every day when I wake up,

01:05:13.880 I'm like, I gotta go.

01:05:15.540 I just have to do so.

01:05:16.540 I always have to do so.

01:05:17.420 It's just, I have to prove, I'm trying to prove myself to nothing.

01:05:21.500 Yeah.

01:05:22.020 I don't even know what it is.

01:05:23.420 So that was something in my life that made it tough, that just exhausted me, you know?

01:05:29.120 So a lot of my stuff came from that kind of thing, like just feeling inferior, trying

01:05:34.140 to always make, like I'd fall in love with a girl and then the second I, if I got a date

01:05:38.400 with her, the second I did, there was some other girl.

01:05:40.900 It was like just, I always needed more.

01:05:42.740 I always needed something else.

01:05:43.980 There was always a missing piece to me being okay.

01:05:46.900 Yeah.

01:05:47.320 And there was no, I could, there was never a piece I could find that was going to make

01:05:51.180 it, that would fit.

01:05:53.000 Right.

01:05:53.200 There was no piece out there.

01:05:54.180 It was just, there was something wrong with my program in a little bit.

01:05:57.060 How did you feel at that time?

01:05:58.460 Did you feel like other shit needs to, other people and other things need to fall into place

01:06:04.100 so I'm happy?

01:06:04.880 Or did you feel like it was on you?

01:06:07.220 You know, people who blame the outside world.

01:06:09.340 Yeah.

01:06:09.580 They go, yeah, my problem is that people come into my life and create stressful situations

01:06:15.080 or that thing of like, if you meet one asshole one day, you met an asshole.

01:06:18.420 If you meet an asshole every day, you're the asshole.

01:06:21.180 I think that happened kind of later, the like, but early on it was just, I'm not doing well

01:06:27.500 enough.

01:06:27.980 I'm not doing enough to be okay for myself was what it turned into.

01:06:34.140 Doing enough, like in your career?

01:06:37.060 In anything, something.

01:06:38.520 Yeah.

01:06:38.800 And it was always this invisible thing, like nothing was ever, I couldn't manage well enough

01:06:46.340 to make things okay.

01:06:48.140 Even if I was managing great, you know?

01:06:51.380 And I couldn't enjoy, I was never, I was never enjoying myself.

01:06:54.940 I was always caught up.

01:06:55.760 How can things be different or better or, you know?

01:06:59.200 So, so a lot of that stuff for me, a lot of like, not even knowing who I was, like I need

01:07:06.340 to, needing you to let me know who I was, if I was okay.

01:07:10.460 Yeah, for sure.

01:07:11.200 All that kind of stuff.

01:07:12.680 So, the drugs was just, I think, I like drugs because, I like cocaine because it, I could

01:07:19.900 feel how I wanted to immediately.

01:07:22.080 Yeah, of course.

01:07:22.780 Like liquor and beer and stuff, it's like, that was just a bunch of damn, just.

01:07:29.480 Yeah, it's, it postpones shit.

01:07:31.480 Yes, I wanted the express train.

01:07:32.960 I wanted to feel, I wanted to feel right now.

01:07:35.100 Oh my God, yeah.

01:07:36.500 But then I would get, I would get, I would end up by myself looking at pornography, you

01:07:41.160 know, just geeked out, looking at hookers, just, it always devolved into some weird space

01:07:47.040 for me too.

01:07:48.200 And well, and you're chasing some, you're chasing, I mean, people say you're chasing the first

01:07:52.760 time you did cocaine, I don't think that's true.

01:07:54.640 You're just chasing the, yeah, you're chasing the first line that night.

01:07:59.100 Oh yeah, and if I think about doing cocaine, say if I think about it, right, I think some,

01:08:03.540 I'm at a party, right, there's somebody, you open a cabinet, there's some tits in there

01:08:07.360 for some reason, right, it's a party, you know, and somebody has some cocaine.

01:08:12.600 If I do some in this hypothetical situation, the next thing I think about doing is another

01:08:18.520 line of cocaine.

01:08:19.580 Oh, of course.

01:08:20.220 I don't think about enjoying the party.

01:08:21.580 I don't think about if, you know.

01:08:23.920 No, I think about getting a bag.

01:08:25.300 I mean, I just go, okay, well, all right, now we need a bag of this and fewer people

01:08:30.380 that know about it, the better.

01:08:31.440 Yeah.

01:08:31.760 Yeah.

01:08:32.500 Now that was a fun thing too, is the secret espionage side of it.

01:08:36.160 It was almost like you were.

01:08:37.080 Oh my God.

01:08:37.760 Yeah.

01:08:38.060 You were like the bad guy that everybody was looking for.

01:08:40.880 You talk about the Craigslist thing.

01:08:42.260 I mean, there was a guy, I don't know a guy, it was a Craigslist ad that someone was selling

01:08:46.540 Adderall in LA.

01:08:49.160 The ad was written like, home from finals and have all this leftover Adderall.

01:08:53.760 And I remember thinking, I remember thinking, how can I pull up?

01:08:58.200 And I was like, how will I know if it's a sting?

01:09:02.220 And also, I kept thinking like, this is a pretty low stakes sting for the LA County Sheriff's

01:09:07.540 Office to be behind.

01:09:09.500 Yeah.

01:09:09.780 Like to want to meet in a recreational park to sell someone 10 Adderall.

01:09:15.080 It's a lot of manpower.

01:09:16.400 Yeah.

01:09:16.640 On a pretty small movement.

01:09:18.560 Um, and then I thought, will it help or hurt that I'm a little famous?

01:09:24.380 Uh, like when I pull up, will it be more like, could I, yeah, will I be more noticeable

01:09:30.400 or, um, will that become a distracting thing where I'm like officers?

01:09:35.480 I'm just, you know, of course it's not me.

01:09:42.180 I don't know.

01:09:43.180 Man, you paint so many great scenarios.

01:09:44.880 I was so late.

01:09:46.220 The funniest thing was I was so late to meet drug dealers because I was a cocaine addict.

01:09:50.620 So everything was always running.

01:09:52.000 And I had a dealer in LA who was fury.

01:09:55.940 I mean, she was so angry about the time.

01:09:58.480 She was always like, we don't do, she, we, she had some operation with her sons or something.

01:10:02.600 She's like, we don't do this.

01:10:04.040 We don't do this.

01:10:05.360 It was like a family recipe.

01:10:06.860 It was just like, this is a half hour late.

01:10:08.440 I was like, you got, you're, you gotta understand your clientele.

01:10:12.200 Like we're nothing, we're not waking up ready for our errands.

01:10:17.100 We're not waking up.

01:10:18.420 Yeah.

01:10:18.920 Yeah.

01:10:19.080 We've been up.

01:10:20.120 We've been up.

01:10:21.520 There's, I'm, you have to go to a bunch of different ATMs.

01:10:25.200 You know that this is a, this is a process.

01:10:27.600 Yeah.

01:10:28.000 I'm on a Pedialyte hotline right now.

01:10:30.040 I'm chugging Pedialyte.

01:10:31.100 And if I yell Geronimo, it means I'm about to pass out.

01:10:33.500 You gotta cut me some slack.

01:10:35.020 Also LA traffic is a real thing.

01:10:37.060 I thought taking Wilton would save time.

01:10:40.220 I had a dealer once who preferred to deal in front of police, who preferred to deal

01:10:46.460 in front of police stations on the theory that if he got jumped, he would rather be close

01:10:51.280 to police.

01:10:52.340 Oh yeah.

01:10:52.760 Yeah.

01:10:53.220 That makes sense.

01:10:54.260 I guess so.

01:10:55.400 Wasn't the most fun.

01:10:56.960 It's scary.

01:10:58.100 Yeah.

01:10:58.380 It wasn't a great meetup, but yeah.

01:11:00.680 Oh, the scariest, like, I remember like this guy would always bring his husky with him,

01:11:05.400 right?

01:11:05.840 Okay.

01:11:06.240 The husky would come up to the car first, right?

01:11:08.940 And kind of, he's like, you know, the drill, like just up to the window.

01:11:12.520 Yeah.

01:11:13.000 And he'd be like, you know, the drill Willis is going to circle the car or whatever.

01:11:15.740 The husky was named Willis.

01:11:16.780 Right.

01:11:17.640 So I'd be sitting in there and I was.

01:11:20.200 What's that drill?

01:11:20.980 What's the, what's the husky doing?

01:11:22.240 The husky would kind of come up and just go around the car.

01:11:24.540 You had to keep the windows down to make sure there weren't other people in the car.

01:11:27.800 I think just to, you know, I think he, you know, the first time he brought the

01:11:30.920 dog in just in the, sat in the back of the vehicle.

01:11:33.300 Okay.

01:11:33.620 So the dog, we get to know your smell.

01:11:35.140 Right.

01:11:35.420 So I think now the dog had like a semblance of, you know, who was who.

01:11:39.500 Right.

01:11:39.700 Okay.

01:11:40.520 So Willis would come up and he starts smelling, but I would get, I was so just

01:11:44.100 gacked up.

01:11:44.720 I was just paranoid.

01:11:45.680 Right.

01:11:45.940 And then one time he gets in, man, and he just starts crying.

01:11:51.200 The dog?

01:11:56.680 The guy.

01:11:57.500 The man.

01:11:58.680 The guy.

01:11:59.540 I don't know if I'd have been able to know.

01:12:00.700 Maybe I could have noticed if the dog was crying, but I don't know if I could have.

01:12:03.580 But the man got in and wept.

01:12:08.640 And he started crying.

01:12:10.000 Yeah.

01:12:10.420 And he said his mom had just died.

01:12:12.260 Oh my God.

01:12:12.920 And I.

01:12:16.860 Did it slow down the transaction?

01:12:19.640 I needed to get that coat.

01:12:21.320 Yeah.

01:12:21.520 So it was like, I remember in my head being like, for 60 seconds, you have to talk about

01:12:28.960 his mom or make sounds that are sad.

01:12:34.220 Sad sounds.

01:12:35.580 Where's Willis at this point?

01:12:37.040 Willis sitting in the back.

01:12:38.060 Okay.

01:12:38.360 Between you two.

01:12:40.680 Yeah.

01:12:41.000 Kind of.

01:12:41.480 We assumed dog's eyes moving back and forth.

01:12:44.360 Yeah.

01:12:44.660 Yeah.

01:12:45.500 Yeah.

01:12:46.540 And I just remember just like, making just like kind of sad, like.

01:12:51.460 God, that's awful.

01:12:52.620 Just like, oh.

01:12:53.640 Oh, that's awful.

01:12:54.700 God.

01:12:55.760 Oh.

01:12:56.460 I remember one of the sounds was like, it was like, oh.

01:13:01.800 Like it was almost a little not sad.

01:13:03.840 It was like, oh, that's the worst sound.

01:13:05.480 And because, oh, you just, you went through your, your SFX bank and you just hit a weird

01:13:09.700 one.

01:13:10.080 Yeah.

01:13:10.500 A through Z of sad sounds.

01:13:11.980 I, yeah.

01:13:12.940 Yeah.

01:13:13.220 Boom.

01:13:14.920 Cool.

01:13:16.520 Dude.

01:13:17.860 And you know, just like, but I remember I got to one.

01:13:20.320 I was like, oh, because I'm just thinking I'm ahead.

01:13:22.200 60 seconds, sad sounds.

01:13:24.060 60 seconds of sad sounds.

01:13:25.460 Get to the coat.

01:13:25.960 Get to the coat.

01:13:26.560 Yeah.

01:13:27.200 And the dude is crying, man.

01:13:28.660 It's just.

01:13:29.540 So moments like that where you're just like, what is going on?

01:13:32.980 I don't know how to handle this.

01:13:34.680 Well, I will say there's a lot of factors in that story.

01:13:38.980 And, and yes, you know, you could have had more empathy in the moment, but he's also

01:13:45.660 a drug dealer who brings a Husky into your car and Willis is sitting in the backseat.

01:13:49.080 So it's an odd situation.

01:13:50.820 Yeah.

01:13:51.120 It's not like anyone else would have handled it a lot better.

01:13:55.180 Yeah.

01:13:55.580 I always took odd situations like that.

01:13:57.100 Like it was totally normal, I think.

01:13:58.740 And I still have.

01:13:59.460 Yeah.

01:13:59.560 A hundred percent.

01:14:00.200 Nothing about that.

01:14:01.160 Nothing about those things.

01:14:02.300 I remember thinking like, God, the day is, how do people get through their day with

01:14:06.260 all these meetups they have to do?

01:14:07.820 Yeah.

01:14:09.340 Cocaine dealers, you mean?

01:14:10.360 Yeah.

01:14:10.600 Just, or like, you know, yeah.

01:14:12.080 Buying pills.

01:14:12.860 I was like, man, I was like, I can barely, I got a call, but I'm supposed to meet this

01:14:17.640 person at four.

01:14:18.120 I'm not going to, you know how many business calls I did on mute, you know, like on a street

01:14:22.640 corner being like, thank you said six, you said six, you said six.

01:14:27.200 Yeah.

01:14:27.940 Okay.

01:14:28.920 Cool.

01:14:30.040 Yeah.

01:14:30.340 Yeah.

01:14:30.480 Yeah.

01:14:31.000 No, I mean, we love, no, like we'd love the script.

01:14:34.300 You said six.

01:14:36.020 I was like, it was a real, it was exhausting.

01:14:41.120 It was exhausting.

01:14:42.980 Yeah.

01:14:43.340 But it kept you in the moment.

01:14:44.500 I'll say that.

01:14:45.200 I had reflexes like an alley cat.

01:14:46.720 Yeah.

01:14:47.040 You know, like, I could grab this.

01:14:49.460 It was like, uh, people meditate to be in the moment, you know, like when people do

01:14:54.520 like mindfulness meditation, it's to be fully present.

01:14:57.360 And like, when I was trying to get drugs, I was full, I was like, okay, bird siren off

01:15:03.240 in the distance bicycle.

01:15:04.340 That's the second time.

01:15:05.280 Like every single thing.

01:15:06.760 We're here.

01:15:07.520 Yeah.

01:15:07.900 Yeah.

01:15:08.140 It did put you right there.

01:15:09.420 Put you right there.

01:15:10.300 There was some immediacy.

01:15:11.280 God damn it.

01:15:11.720 Maybe there was something about that, that I really liked about it.

01:15:14.580 That it puts you right.

01:15:17.360 Like, cause now I will say this, I've thought a lot about the moment, right?

01:15:21.920 Like the moment doesn't exist as much as it used to.

01:15:24.660 The moment, it used to be, if something happened, it wasn't recorded all the time.

01:15:28.860 It wasn't captured on a phone.

01:15:30.640 If you had a good story, you had to get to your friends and tell it.

01:15:34.220 Yeah.

01:15:34.480 And if somebody else had a good story, you had to get them to the party that he, dude,

01:15:38.360 listen to what happened to Ron.

01:15:40.300 Right.

01:15:40.700 And that was the only way the moment was like.

01:15:44.580 It wasn't able to be captured.

01:15:47.660 Right.

01:15:47.740 Okay.

01:15:48.220 So it had so much value.

01:15:50.840 Whereas now all moments are captured.

01:15:53.360 Right.

01:15:53.760 So it's like, there is not as much value to them in a way because they're.

01:16:01.500 Yeah.

01:16:02.020 Well, do you think that's the capturing of it?

01:16:04.800 Like, you mean you can get a photo or a video of it, or do you think that as we get older,

01:16:09.140 we just had so many moments, they become, I don't know, they just become a little less.

01:16:15.480 It's a good point.

01:16:16.100 Like time, like time, people say that about time.

01:16:17.860 That's a really, that's a really good point.

01:16:19.520 Like time, when you're young, everything takes so long, but when you're older, it takes,

01:16:23.900 it goes faster because you've done it so many times.

01:16:26.700 Yeah.

01:16:27.540 Like the most, I mean, we both get to do really exciting things, but we've done versions of them before.

01:16:34.920 And you go, oh, this is, yeah, okay.

01:16:37.720 This is how I thought.

01:16:38.560 This is what I thought it might be like.

01:16:40.260 Okay.

01:16:40.580 Yeah.

01:16:40.720 It's the same feeling as, you know.

01:16:42.900 Yeah.

01:16:43.560 The moment.

01:16:45.000 Yeah.

01:16:45.440 I think.

01:16:46.020 I never take stock in the moment.

01:16:48.060 Really?

01:16:49.020 I never do.

01:16:49.940 I just like.

01:16:51.980 What does it mean?

01:16:53.540 Like playing the world's greatest venue or I never, I mean, you know, I later, I can

01:16:59.400 appreciate those things, but I never have.

01:17:02.380 I remember I was down in the bottom of Patagonia in Chile and it was like all glaciers, three

01:17:09.700 hours from Antarctica.

01:17:10.980 I was just staring at the sun setting over all these glaciers and I was saying to myself

01:17:15.060 like, try to enjoy this.

01:17:16.560 Try to enjoy this.

01:17:17.580 Try to enjoy this.

01:17:18.760 Just, just later I appreciated it.

01:17:22.800 But I'm never really, oh my God.

01:17:25.540 Do you think that the world is boring to you?

01:17:28.040 And this isn't a judgment of you.

01:17:29.300 This is like, I, sometimes as a, I think as a, somebody who's been in and out of recovery

01:17:36.220 and stuff like that, I've noticed at times that I looked at the world in ways the world

01:17:41.520 always felt a little bit boring to me.

01:17:44.200 I used to have that.

01:17:45.200 Yeah, I did.

01:17:46.660 Um, yeah.

01:17:48.920 What do you think that is?

01:17:49.800 Or that boring, or that boring, not that the world was always boring, excuse me, but that

01:17:53.880 boring was the absolute worst state to be in.

01:17:57.900 Boredom was intolerable.

01:18:00.140 Yeah.

01:18:00.280 And it's tough if you have a creative mind because a creative mind can get kind of bored

01:18:05.900 kind of easy because it can think of different things.

01:18:08.880 Yeah.

01:18:09.240 So it has more toys to play with, you know?

01:18:11.100 I also have a thing.

01:18:12.460 So it's less, like you were saying you had kind of a, the grass is greener envy for,

01:18:17.940 you always wanted more of some other scenario.

01:18:19.640 So I also, like, I reached a point where I felt, um, I felt very satisfied.

01:18:29.080 I remember I was doing this tour in 2017 and I was on stage at a theater in St. Louis and

01:18:37.880 it was sold out and it was a Tuesday.

01:18:40.960 You know, it wasn't like, and I remember when I first went to the comedy cellar, Rock or one

01:18:45.800 of these guys being like, anyone can sell out on the weekend, wait till you sell out

01:18:49.080 on a Wednesday or a Tuesday.

01:18:50.320 So I'm on stage and it felt like the end of the movie Comedian, you know, the documentary

01:18:54.380 Seinfeld, which when I saw that, I was like, that's what I want.

01:18:57.920 I want to stand in a theater and do standup.

01:18:59.660 Like, that's what I want.

01:19:00.760 And then I was doing it and I thought it wasn't a bad feeling, but the feeling was, okay,

01:19:08.160 this is it.

01:19:09.280 This is all, this is kind of as big as I pictured.

01:19:12.840 Like, and I'm doing it and that's great.

01:19:15.460 Right.

01:19:15.800 But I had a slight feeling of, I don't know.

01:19:20.360 Okay.

01:19:21.060 I don't know what's next.

01:19:23.120 Like I was a bit, um, I started to, I started to freak out cause I was kind of sad.

01:19:29.700 I was a little satisfied.

01:19:31.420 Yeah.

01:19:31.980 But I, but I don't want to, I don't want to make it seem like it was a good feeling.

01:19:35.460 It was an odd feeling.

01:19:38.540 Yeah.

01:19:38.900 Or sort of, this is it.

01:19:40.440 This is what I wanted and it's pretty cool.

01:19:43.260 Right.

01:19:43.580 But having a goal really kept me, uh, occupied and I wasn't sure if I had another one.

01:19:51.700 Wow.

01:19:52.560 Dude, that sounds like a great entry to like a murder, like a detective scenario.

01:19:58.860 Having a goal really kept me occupied.

01:20:00.740 Yeah.

01:20:01.200 Having a goal kept me moving and I, and I had reached it.

01:20:04.820 I wasn't sure if I had another one.

01:20:05.360 Yeah.

01:20:06.000 It seemed like, I mean, it was a very, very lucky goal.

01:20:09.300 I got to pee, man.

01:20:10.580 Yeah.

01:20:11.520 I'm going to pee real fast.

01:20:12.540 Okay, cool.

01:20:13.120 You all right?

01:20:14.080 100%.

01:20:14.440 All right.

01:20:14.700 So, um, when you think about like your, so I think that these days there's kind of like

01:20:20.380 two, can I ask you something else about addiction?

01:20:22.320 Go ahead, please.

01:20:22.880 Okay.

01:20:23.680 I think there's like two types of addiction that I notice.

01:20:27.960 I notice people that are like alcoholics, right?

01:20:32.180 Like they have what is in like the, the big book of alcoholism.

01:20:36.180 You know what I'm talking about?

01:20:36.780 The disease, yeah.

01:20:37.640 Yes.

01:20:37.920 They have the disease of alcoholism.

01:20:39.500 Then I also noticed there's this other group who have opioid addiction, right?

01:20:45.200 Yeah.

01:20:45.740 Yeah.

01:20:46.000 Yeah.

01:20:46.220 And it's not, I'm not saying that some of them couldn't also have alcoholism.

01:20:49.400 No, but there's something about the, I mean, there's something so insidious about opioids

01:20:54.600 and how they get in people's wiring.

01:20:56.380 Yeah.

01:20:56.880 That you're not, I don't want to get into the whole like willpower and disease.

01:21:02.920 And I know that a lot of people have a lot of feelings about that.

01:21:05.840 All of them valid.

01:21:07.520 But you're not choosing to take that opioid.

01:21:10.380 Like that, that is, um, science fiction level shit, the way it gets into people's, uh, you

01:21:17.500 know, limbic system.

01:21:19.360 And like, you cannot stop taking them.

01:21:21.980 You are in agony.

01:21:23.540 And is that, and that just seems like, that just seems like some other, uh, there should

01:21:30.640 be a different word for it other than addiction.

01:21:32.500 Cause I think most people associate addiction.

01:21:34.500 And most people would say like, yeah, it's not a choice, but you guys are choosing it

01:21:39.020 a little bit.

01:21:39.400 And there's, I don't know.

01:21:41.140 It's a, I'm, I really do respect everyone's thoughts on that.

01:21:45.360 Cause it's a tricky fucking thing.

01:21:46.900 But with the opioid compulsion to take the opioid or the dependence, the opioid dependence,

01:21:52.760 I guess that, that does feel like something else sometimes.

01:21:56.280 Yeah.

01:21:56.680 It's almost like they made a cheat code for your DNA.

01:22:00.260 Yeah.

01:22:00.620 It'd be like, if you, you know, if you like handed someone, someone who doesn't like cocaine

01:22:06.280 and you handed them a flower every day with cocaine and they smelled it, they'd eventually

01:22:09.240 want more cocaine.

01:22:11.240 You're yeah.

01:22:12.400 It feels like you're getting into the wiring of people who were just looking for pain

01:22:17.680 management.

01:22:18.480 Right.

01:22:19.000 Right.

01:22:19.360 And we're not looking to feel, um, you know, some sort of psychological, physical, we're

01:22:26.980 not, we're not trying to feel some drugged out feeling.

01:22:29.540 Right.

01:22:30.620 Yeah.

01:22:31.060 We're not trying to change their state of consciousness.

01:22:33.300 Yeah.

01:22:33.460 It's almost like they just, they took into a lab and like, we're going to find some way

01:22:37.220 to trump the system.

01:22:39.240 Yeah.

01:22:39.460 I mean, drugs are already overriding your desire to survive in a lot of cases and opioids, it

01:22:46.340 seems like 10 times more so.

01:22:48.100 Yeah.

01:22:48.960 Yeah.

01:22:49.400 That's one thing.

01:22:50.040 It's just unbelievable to me.

01:22:51.380 It's like, and how our country lets that kind of happen, like how our drug administration

01:22:56.500 like that, did you see dope sick?

01:22:58.460 I did.

01:22:59.020 Yeah.

01:22:59.300 It was excellent.

01:23:00.220 It broke my heart.

01:23:01.340 Yeah.

01:23:02.480 You know, it just like, you think there's a, I think it used to feel like when Reagan

01:23:08.620 was in, right?

01:23:10.300 Back when Reagan never, never did a thing wrong.

01:23:13.980 Right.

01:23:14.280 But, or just whoever, it used to feel like at a time in, in, in life.

01:23:18.100 Right.

01:23:18.800 And this could be me romanticizing life that there was a time when your government or some

01:23:26.200 overall governing bodies, like they looked out for the humans, for the people in the

01:23:32.880 country.

01:23:33.340 Right.

01:23:34.120 Maybe, and maybe that's a, just a crazy view, but it used to, no, no, no.

01:23:37.860 I don't mean, I, I, I didn't make a face cause it's crazy, but yeah, I guess.

01:23:41.740 And maybe that was just me being a kid and the pledge of allegiance, it could have, you

01:23:45.580 know.

01:23:45.760 Yeah.

01:23:46.000 I think there's a, but then now it seems like you do not, can't, you cannot count on your

01:23:53.300 country to look out for you or your, the administrations within your country.

01:23:57.740 I'd say that.

01:24:00.540 That's what I got out of dope sick kind of, it was like they trumped the, cause they hired

01:24:04.460 people from the food and drug administration to then work on their own board and they kind

01:24:10.640 of like, they made it so they would keep getting these pills like passed, like able to be used.

01:24:17.580 Yeah.

01:24:18.060 Well, it's the basic problem that with, um, with harmful habits, I know that sounds like

01:24:26.320 a corny way to say it, but with things we do to ourselves, we're, we have a morality

01:24:32.360 play about it, you know, like, um, oh yeah, they took, they took opioids for post-surgery

01:24:39.280 and then they couldn't, and then they, they couldn't stop and they started lying to their

01:24:44.420 doctor and it all, it very quickly becomes, um, something got set in motion, but you,

01:24:51.780 the user of the chemical, you're kind of the problem, you know, you're, you don't have strong

01:24:57.860 willpower.

01:24:59.000 You would rather be high on an opioid.

01:25:01.780 I mean, and, and there's again, like, it's a strange thing.

01:25:07.940 Here's how I sort of feel like is our, our drug addicts making a choice when they use drugs.

01:25:12.500 This is a crisis we set in motion, but I don't think we're in control of it at all at a point.

01:25:19.460 I mean, this is, cause it's a crisis whose timing you can't control.

01:25:23.100 Like the, the immediacy of drug addiction, you can't predict you have no power over once

01:25:29.160 it starts.

01:25:29.960 Right.

01:25:30.480 Um, no, it's, it's, it's that we see it as a story of, uh, a bad thing you did, you know,

01:25:39.580 like I think some people look at Tiger Woods and they go, his pill use is kind of because he had

01:25:45.360 a tragic character flaw earlier in his life, as opposed to maybe the guy that has to perform at

01:25:52.220 that level physically might develop a dependence on pills.

01:25:55.480 I do think people like to read into the dependence on drugs, some sort of like deeper moral problem

01:26:04.000 you have.

01:26:06.140 And it might be because when you are on drugs, you make seriously immoral decisions sometimes.

01:26:11.480 So I don't know.

01:26:13.220 So I don't think the country's ever looked out for it.

01:26:16.740 I think a lot of, I mean, I don't judge people for having a harsh view of addicts.

01:26:23.640 A lot of people have addicts in their lives and you can't just go, it's a disease.

01:26:27.440 And I, you know, like it, it can really, um, it's very painful to other people.

01:26:33.800 Yeah.

01:26:35.240 Oh yeah.

01:26:36.040 I mean, it's a mess.

01:26:37.640 They're a mess.

01:26:39.020 Yeah.

01:26:39.620 Life's so hard already.

01:26:41.360 Life's like, life's like a table piled high with so much shit, like a bad, you know, when

01:26:46.880 you go to like a little restaurant and the tiny circular ass table and they don't have room

01:26:51.420 for anything, the table piled high with shit and drugs come in and drugs you think are

01:26:56.160 going to solve all your problems and they kick the legs out from under it.

01:26:59.180 Yeah.

01:26:59.440 They're just a mess.

01:27:01.840 It's, it's, they're a disaster.

01:27:05.600 They're a disaster.

01:27:08.700 Do you, what do you think?

01:27:10.020 I know people use them and they don't feel it.

01:27:12.740 No, and some people are fine.

01:27:13.920 I'm talking just for myself.

01:27:14.740 Right.

01:27:14.860 They're a disaster.

01:27:16.300 Oh yeah.

01:27:17.500 I remember I got back from that trip of doing the, the taxi driver ended up dropping me

01:27:22.480 off.

01:27:23.000 He, uh, after you did.

01:27:25.060 Yeah.

01:27:25.580 Right.

01:27:25.900 So then I had to go to the hotel, go to the airport after.

01:27:29.720 Oh, I ended up, I get to the air on the way to the airport.

01:27:33.300 I'm still texting the taxi driver.

01:27:35.520 Yeah.

01:27:36.040 Seeing if he can get us some coke.

01:27:37.140 Like I'm leaving.

01:27:38.640 There's no.

01:27:39.780 Oh yeah.

01:27:40.220 Yeah.

01:27:40.400 Yeah.

01:27:40.600 I'm texting the guy I've been up all night with.

01:27:42.900 And then when I get home, I had left some cocaine on my counter.

01:27:46.460 I finally get off the plane.

01:27:47.840 It was a miserable flight.

01:27:48.920 You're just kind of rattling the whole way.

01:27:50.820 You get there.

01:27:52.340 I walk in my apartment.

01:27:53.780 There was still some cocaine on the counter and I did it.

01:27:56.300 Of course.

01:27:56.840 And I was like, I got to get some help.

01:28:00.000 Oh, okay.

01:28:00.600 Because I would never, for one, it was part of my career I'd worked so hard for.

01:28:06.160 And then I'm having good opportunities.

01:28:07.700 Like Opie and Jim was an amazing opportunity to be on there.

01:28:11.560 And I was letting drugs, like drugs were there.

01:28:14.260 It was just like, and if you'd asked me the day before, would you ever go to Opie and Jim

01:28:17.460 high on cocaine?

01:28:18.400 I'd be like, you are out of your mind.

01:28:21.000 Yeah.

01:28:21.520 And so there I was, you know?

01:28:23.560 So it was like, wow, I have no control over this.

01:28:27.060 And then it becomes who the hell scheduled Opie and Jim when I'm in the middle of buying

01:28:30.820 cocaine?

01:28:31.920 Are people nuts?

01:28:33.560 You want me to go to Midtown Manhattan to the Sirius Satellite Radio Building?

01:28:37.700 And record this?

01:28:39.000 When you were growing up, were you a hard kid for your parents to kind of deal with?

01:28:42.180 Or do you think that they-

01:28:43.000 No, I tried to keep my personal life very separate from my family.

01:28:46.360 I really, I like, I knew-

01:28:48.920 Were you really?

01:28:49.660 I didn't want to bring trouble home because that's everyone I, I looked at people who would

01:28:55.680 get in trouble a lot.

01:28:56.580 And it's like, they'd leave their cigarettes out.

01:28:59.260 They'd, you know, they'd, they'd get, they'd tag up their own garage, like whatever.

01:29:05.280 Right, right, right.

01:29:05.800 I was just like, leave that shit outside.

01:29:09.160 So you were good at hiding things.

01:29:11.540 I was like, I was like a Michael Clayton of bad kids.

01:29:18.620 I was like, I kind of, I was like a fixer.

01:29:21.540 I was like, all right, here's what we're going to do.

01:29:23.180 He's the fixer?

01:29:24.220 Yeah.

01:29:24.660 Have you seen that movie with George Clooney?

01:29:26.640 He's a lawyer who kind of like, I mean, I guess he doesn't fix the major problems in

01:29:30.980 the movie.

01:29:31.420 So, but he's a fixer.

01:29:33.280 Yeah.

01:29:33.840 Just as a like, you know, we're going to get, there it is.

01:29:36.560 The truth can be adjusted.

01:29:38.820 Yeah.

01:29:39.320 There you go.

01:29:42.380 That's the, that should be the tagline for standup comedy.

01:29:48.320 A lot of these sound like the titles for his festivals that you would have.

01:29:52.140 I feel like.

01:29:52.500 Yeah.

01:29:52.580 The truth can be adjusted.

01:29:54.360 John Mulaney.

01:29:57.100 But yeah.

01:29:57.740 Do you feel like it was any part of your like childhood that like, that you see the

01:30:02.120 like part of your addiction?

01:30:03.980 Like, are you, do you not, is there not a big connection there?

01:30:06.960 Yeah.

01:30:07.180 There's, I mean, um, uh, is that a weird question?

01:30:12.300 No, not at all.

01:30:12.920 I do what I do and I don't let it interfere with business.

01:30:16.880 AKA in that case, school.

01:30:20.300 And I don't let it interfere with my business meeting, you know, eighth grade freshman year

01:30:24.940 of high school.

01:30:25.900 And I don't bring that shit home.

01:30:27.880 You know, I don't, um, I don't smoke pot at my parents' house, whatever it was.

01:30:32.880 I, I, I took great pride in, in having a hard separation between my life and my family,

01:30:38.860 like real mafia, like rules.

01:30:40.700 Like we don't talk.

01:30:41.640 I don't bring that home to my family.

01:30:44.560 That's pretty amazing.

01:30:46.340 Yeah.

01:30:47.100 And because it made my life easier not to.

01:30:49.320 Yeah.

01:30:50.220 I mean, I almost got kidnapped twice and I didn't tell my parents cause I thought it

01:30:53.740 was going to gum up dinner.

01:30:56.480 Yeah.

01:30:56.620 I just thought it was like, I need to be able to move free around the city.

01:30:59.340 I'm eight years old.

01:31:00.200 Okay.

01:31:00.680 Okay.

01:31:01.040 I got shit to do.

01:31:02.180 And if they think, you know, it's dangerous, this is going to slow me down.

01:31:06.900 Yeah.

01:31:07.640 That's kind of the voice that comes out sometimes in your material.

01:31:10.040 You'll be telling a story about being eight years old.

01:31:11.520 You're like, but I need to be able to move free about the city.

01:31:13.900 Right.

01:31:14.040 I don't have time for this.

01:31:15.240 Yeah.

01:31:15.520 This is the game I'm in.

01:31:16.840 This is the game I'm in.

01:31:18.240 Yeah.

01:31:18.660 These are the decisions I've made.

01:31:20.580 Yeah.

01:31:21.280 These are the choices we've made.

01:31:23.540 Um, were you a happy kid?

01:31:28.200 Yeah.

01:31:28.400 I think I was just kind of a loner.

01:31:29.840 I didn't really trust the world.

01:31:31.520 So I got into my own space pretty early.

01:31:33.620 What were your hobbies?

01:31:35.280 I like to collect stuff and hide it under my, I had three shelving unit in my, in my closet.

01:31:41.200 I like to hide weapons under my bed.

01:31:43.820 Did you?

01:31:44.280 Yeah.

01:31:44.460 For home invasions.

01:31:45.780 Oh yeah.

01:31:46.980 Crowbar.

01:31:48.340 Um, hammers.

01:31:50.160 Wow.

01:31:50.700 Yeah.

01:31:50.980 Ready to rock.

01:31:51.680 I, I was on the third floor of our house.

01:31:54.100 Oh damn.

01:31:55.020 I figured I'd hear, I thought no one in my family was ready.

01:31:59.220 That's what I thought.

01:32:00.200 I saw Cape Fear, the Robert De Niro one.

01:32:02.600 Oh.

01:32:03.100 My dad's a lawyer, like Nick Nolte in that movie.

01:32:06.140 And I was like, oh my God, Nick Nolte gets his ass kicked.

01:32:08.660 Like my dad would get his ass kicked by Robert De Niro.

01:32:11.880 Yeah.

01:32:12.340 Long-haired Robert De Niro would beat the shit out of my dad.

01:32:14.320 And so I started to put weapons under my bed and I was just ready to go.

01:32:19.060 And my whole plan was that the, the, the circuits for the house were also on the third floor.

01:32:23.480 So I was going to shut all the power off and now they're on my turf.

01:32:27.320 Now I'm in charge.

01:32:29.320 Dang.

01:32:29.860 Yeah.

01:32:30.540 And I'm 10 and I got a crowbar.

01:32:32.660 But you're planning.

01:32:33.840 It's interesting to have almost so, so many of your own like plans.

01:32:37.460 It was stressful though.

01:32:38.840 Oh yeah.

01:32:40.180 My parents wouldn't set the alarm.

01:32:41.620 I was just like, you are fools.

01:32:43.040 This is a dangerous world.

01:32:44.480 Yeah.

01:32:44.940 And I'm the only one ready to rock.

01:32:46.840 I am locked and loaded.

01:32:48.620 Bro, I would, I was so scared.

01:32:50.780 Like our neighborhood, like people are like, dogs were always giving birth and people were

01:32:54.820 always like, they would always catch men like kind of gay and around like, like married

01:32:59.800 men, like in abandoned pools and shit in the neighborhood.

01:33:02.440 And people were always doing pills and, you know, and getting, you know, filing lawsuits

01:33:08.460 down at the fairground.

01:33:09.440 Cause you go to the fairgrounds like a day early down there and for 50 cents, you could

01:33:12.940 ride any ride.

01:33:13.880 Why would people file in lawsuits?

01:33:15.280 Cause they go do that.

01:33:16.280 And then they try to, you know, the every, you know, half the people that show up are

01:33:19.540 like laying outside of the road.

01:33:21.180 Oh, I gotcha.

01:33:21.660 Okay.

01:33:22.200 Yeah.

01:33:22.740 Yeah.

01:33:22.880 Yeah.

01:33:23.020 You know, it was just that kind of shit.

01:33:24.360 Like, did you feel unsafe as a kid?

01:33:26.300 Oh yeah.

01:33:27.340 Okay.

01:33:28.220 Yeah.

01:33:28.500 People would drive by our house and like throw rocks through the windows and yell the N

01:33:32.140 word and stuff.

01:33:32.840 And it's like, we're not even, you know, it's just like.

01:33:36.540 That could be very confusing to us.

01:33:38.120 Yeah.

01:33:38.840 I was like, well, I don't even know.

01:33:40.760 Yeah.

01:33:41.820 What's happening.

01:33:42.680 You know, it was just a scary place.

01:33:44.780 Right.

01:33:45.100 And so I remember at night I would like, I wet the bed every night.

01:33:50.260 Sure.

01:33:50.800 I'd wet the bed two or three times a night.

01:33:52.520 And so I'd get up some nights and have to clean the sheets and lay them back down.

01:33:57.460 And then if I did a third time, I wouldn't even have any sheets.

01:34:00.280 What a lonely activity that is.

01:34:01.940 Oh, it was a little kid in the middle of the night.

01:34:03.380 Just when you're washing your own sheets, just waiting by the dryer.

01:34:07.840 I mean, like, all right.

01:34:08.580 Yeah.

01:34:09.860 Up all night.

01:34:10.460 No one's, maybe your parents know, but.

01:34:12.560 Just smoking invisible cigarettes even.

01:34:14.640 Yeah.

01:34:15.020 Just like.

01:34:15.860 Oh, I got to be.

01:34:17.200 Okay.

01:34:17.820 I'll switch them.

01:34:19.260 What a lonely, what a lonely little errand kids have to do.

01:34:22.880 Dude, that probably was one of the loneliest moments of my, probably, I would say of my

01:34:26.380 childhood.

01:34:26.740 Not to, and not to try to get into self-pity, but it's like, that was something it would

01:34:31.200 be like, man, I hate that I do this.

01:34:34.820 Cause I'm scared.

01:34:35.740 I feel like something's wrong with me.

01:34:37.760 And then I always have to do this by myself, you know, because it would take, you know,

01:34:42.840 it would take a good 20 minutes if you clean your bed up and then put on some other sheets.

01:34:46.960 And then, you know, even if you didn't have to go wash them, you know, if you had to wash

01:34:52.520 them the next day or something, but just to make it all clean, you know, get out the

01:34:55.180 common or the cleanser and clean the stuff.

01:34:58.100 But I remember I would look in my closet.

01:35:00.220 I would tie a string from one doorknob to the other.

01:35:04.260 Like I would make, I'd have to look outside of the windows and look in every corner, just

01:35:08.160 making sure.

01:35:08.960 Why would you tie one string from one doorknob to the other?

01:35:11.660 And then I put a couple of J bells on a couple of jingle bells on it.

01:35:15.120 Okay.

01:35:15.420 And then you'd hear them if somebody went one way or the other.

01:35:17.820 If someone was coming into your room.

01:35:18.940 Yeah.

01:35:19.300 Okay.

01:35:19.760 So there was just like a ton of like a lot of fear.

01:35:22.440 I had a ton of fear when I was a kid.

01:35:24.480 Yeah.

01:35:25.380 And then I guess when you're in fear, you kind of like, fear is kind of a lonely place

01:35:31.760 to be.

01:35:32.360 Oh, it's very lonely.

01:35:33.320 Yeah.

01:35:33.640 So you're always kind of, you're the one who's looking out.

01:35:37.820 Yeah.

01:35:38.060 So I think maybe a lot of that kind of shaped how I was when I was young, you know?

01:35:42.940 It's probably what hell is.

01:35:45.300 Being very, very afraid.

01:35:47.220 That's a good, interesting call.

01:35:49.580 Yeah.

01:35:50.600 There's nothing worse than being really afraid.

01:35:53.160 Really ashamed and afraid is rough.

01:35:54.980 Oh, ashamed too.

01:35:55.800 If you put that in there, like.

01:35:56.660 Well, if you add to it, like I'm in this disaster and I'm to blame for it.

01:36:00.180 Yeah.

01:36:02.080 Yeah.

01:36:03.420 Did you have any issues as you got more popular with your own ego?

01:36:06.640 Ego?

01:36:08.200 Probably, but, but.

01:36:14.040 Because I've noticed those in my own life, you know?

01:36:16.320 It's not a judgment.

01:36:17.120 I'm just curious about.

01:36:17.840 No, no, no, no.

01:36:18.240 And I'm not, I'm not trying, when I say but, I'm not trying to dial it back.

01:36:23.280 Yeah.

01:36:23.700 I mean.

01:36:25.540 Ego is kind of a scary thing, right?

01:36:26.940 Because you don't really know where it is.

01:36:28.580 Yeah.

01:36:28.900 I don't know where it is and you don't know what doses are healthy.

01:36:31.420 You know how some people have like good boundaries?

01:36:33.620 Yeah.

01:36:33.900 And they're like, no, I don't allow this.

01:36:36.360 And you go like, that sounds, like sometimes there's a side of me that thinks that boundaries

01:36:40.580 sound stuck up.

01:36:42.560 Like that doesn't work for me.

01:36:44.120 I don't allow a hundred people to crash on my floor out of nowhere, you know?

01:36:48.140 Right.

01:36:48.260 And I'm like, but though, go on.

01:36:50.000 Like, I always, that didn't really make sense, my example.

01:36:55.060 It's okay.

01:36:55.360 Um, no, like I, I, uh, let me think about that.

01:37:00.280 I feel like I'm rambling right now.

01:37:02.020 It's okay.

01:37:02.620 My ego, for sure, like.

01:37:06.600 Like, did you feel like once you achieved like some level of success, like, do you think

01:37:10.160 success was your driving force?

01:37:12.040 Like, what do you think kind of was some of your driving force to do standup and to, to

01:37:16.960 entertain?

01:37:17.800 Like, where do you think that kind of comes from for you?

01:37:20.020 Is it a necessity?

01:37:21.340 Is it a desire to be seen as a creative?

01:37:25.040 Is it, what do you think?

01:37:27.140 Do you have any thoughts on it?

01:37:28.140 I have many.

01:37:29.260 I'm trying to, um, let me, I'm trying to think of a semi-interesting answer.

01:37:35.400 Yeah.

01:37:35.860 I wanted to, I wanted people to say that guy's the best at what he does.

01:37:41.860 Wow.

01:37:43.080 Me, even if it's 10 people.

01:37:44.920 Right.

01:37:45.560 I wanted, I wanted some people to go that he's the best at what he does.

01:37:50.380 My dad's a very successful guy and very, um, very smart, very, he just, he, he had stature

01:38:00.720 to me.

01:38:01.440 He still does.

01:38:02.320 I mean, but he has stature.

01:38:03.840 It just, people would tell me growing up, your dad's the smartest person I've ever met.

01:38:08.480 Your dad's the best attorney I've ever seen.

01:38:10.100 Like, he just, I wanted stature from a young age, I think.

01:38:16.080 Well, that makes sense.

01:38:17.060 Which is a strange thing because what does that mean?

01:38:19.080 That means you've already accomplished things, past tense, or, and also it's not great for

01:38:25.600 a comedian, you know?

01:38:27.160 You know, I don't like when, I don't want to be a comedian where it's like, everyone

01:38:31.300 respects me, but I'm not funny anymore.

01:38:33.200 Yeah.

01:38:34.000 I don't think you could ever be that.

01:38:35.680 That's nice of you to say, but we all, we're all running from that.

01:38:38.760 Oh, that's a good.

01:38:39.540 That next bet.

01:38:40.280 Yeah.

01:38:40.800 Well, it's interesting you say about stature because you almost have this thing sometimes

01:38:46.940 in the, I don't know if, or maybe I'm trying to see into this a little, where it's like,

01:38:50.540 can't you, like, you almost operate in a way that, and you said it yourself, like, I've

01:38:56.200 done this.

01:38:57.700 Like, it's already completed.

01:38:59.500 Like, a little bit, guys, I'm already the number one entertainment in America.

01:39:02.680 Can we just sit back and please enjoy it?

01:39:05.100 Right.

01:39:05.340 Even though we, even though you couldn't even enjoy the moments, you know?

01:39:08.800 It's like, even though it's like, but that's almost like what I would perceive like stature

01:39:12.720 to a kid.

01:39:13.620 It's like, it's already been done, you know?

01:39:16.540 Like, it's already.

01:39:18.060 Yeah.

01:39:18.300 It's like the first concert I went to was when I was 11.

01:39:21.060 I went to see Frank Sinatra for my birthday.

01:39:22.920 Of course you did.

01:39:23.860 Yeah.

01:39:24.700 And what else would you take you to?

01:39:28.100 And I, I asked my dad for tickets.

01:39:30.500 I, I, or I told my dad, you know, Frank Sinatra is coming to town and he was like, what?

01:39:35.760 Uh, you know, he's a busy guy.

01:39:37.640 He hadn't totally been checking in with me in a couple of years.

01:39:39.700 Yeah, obviously.

01:39:40.160 He's like, Jesus.

01:39:41.040 All right.

01:39:41.560 So then we went to see Sinatra at a casino in Aurora, Illinois.

01:39:46.180 And, uh, yeah, that's what I wanted to come out and be, and everyone just go like, this

01:39:51.320 guy's the best.

01:39:52.440 Wow.

01:39:52.960 Yeah.

01:39:53.820 There's no question.

01:39:55.680 You know, when you walked out, I've, I don't know if I've ever, I've been jealous a couple

01:39:59.480 of times when you walked out in your Radio City special.

01:40:02.840 Oh, that was true.

01:40:03.760 The way that thing looked.

01:40:05.720 And I was like, man.

01:40:07.900 Oh, well that's all Alex Timbers, our director.

01:40:10.620 And, but I said, that guy looks like a real guy.

01:40:12.800 That's what I thought to myself.

01:40:13.880 Thank you.

01:40:14.140 That was the, that was the intended, that was the desired effect.

01:40:18.100 That guy looks like a real guy.

01:40:20.100 Yeah.

01:40:20.380 I'm very envious when I come into like, when I, when I've run into you, um, like I don't,

01:40:27.200 I don't, I feel very out of place in like LA a lot.

01:40:30.980 Like, I feel like you guys, I feel like I have this thing of like, I'm scared to go

01:40:35.720 to the store.

01:40:36.660 I'm scared to go to the improv.

01:40:38.120 You guys kill in a different way that I can't do.

01:40:41.780 Hmm.

01:40:44.220 I feel like I get, I think there was a time when there was certainly like, kind of like,

01:40:51.360 uh, it was like, there was the same guys kind of at the store a lot, you know?

01:40:57.340 No, you specifically, you, because you're, you seem like you're having fun on stage.

01:41:02.620 Oh, thanks, man.

01:41:03.080 And you're extremely funny.

01:41:04.240 Thank you.

01:41:05.680 You seem like, I wish I could be as, I wish I could, I feel like you're able to access

01:41:16.520 a different level of, um, understanding of comedy that I don't.

01:41:24.440 And I, I, I, when I see you perform or I watch you, I, I have a lot of, I have a lot of envy

01:41:32.540 that this man is, this man is very good.

01:41:37.360 That's nice of you to say.

01:41:38.560 That's, that's, that's that stature I was looking for.

01:41:40.960 Yeah.

01:41:41.160 This man is a 10 foot tall Ronald Reagan.

01:41:43.240 This is a 10 foot tall Ronald Reagan that Reagan won't even visit.

01:41:46.220 Yeah.

01:41:46.480 Yeah.

01:41:46.980 Yeah.

01:41:48.340 Um, I feel like you can go any, I feel like, especially these days, the comedy store is very

01:41:55.620 much like, I don't know if they're even, it's not even that, there's not that many people

01:41:59.640 performing over there that are headliners really, you know?

01:42:03.100 Yeah, I guess.

01:42:04.340 And that's not the term.

01:42:05.140 There's not as many, uh, there's a lot of new folks.

01:42:07.300 I think like I was doing the bourbon room last night and I was backstage and I have this

01:42:13.200 thought a lot where I'm like, I, I'm just like, I wish I was funny.

01:42:17.040 Like, I wish I was funny.

01:42:18.080 Like, like I, I'm going to get out there and I'm going to do my thing.

01:42:22.400 And I just like, I fucking wish, I wish I was like, like watching your special.

01:42:28.580 I'm like, Oh, I wish I was like that.

01:42:30.400 I wish I was fun.

01:42:31.880 Oh, that's sweet of you.

01:42:33.820 Yeah.

01:42:34.180 I wish I, I think I was working on two levels at once.

01:42:38.180 You're working, you're working on two levels where, you know, you both know, and you don't

01:42:44.340 know what you're doing.

01:42:45.360 Yeah.

01:42:46.660 You know exactly what you're doing.

01:42:48.880 The only other person who can do it is like Tracy.

01:42:51.340 I feel like you, like you operate at one level.

01:42:55.260 That's extremely silly and funny, but you're, you're aware of that.

01:42:58.980 But you, what you present to us is that you're not aware of what you're saying.

01:43:03.560 Yeah.

01:43:04.800 Yeah.

01:43:05.160 And I don't know if I am sometimes either.

01:43:06.660 That's the toughest part.

01:43:07.440 I think you are, but it's, but, but it's, but I don't know.

01:43:10.280 And that's, what's really, that's, what's very captivating about it.

01:43:13.820 Oh, thanks, man.

01:43:15.220 I mean, you, I remember when Nate Bargats was on your podcast, you said that you were

01:43:18.600 waiting till you got a little older to watch Malcolm in the Middle.

01:43:21.700 Yeah.

01:43:22.000 And I think about like, I think about that a lot, you know.

01:43:27.740 Thanks, man.

01:43:28.340 Just what exactly that means.

01:43:32.020 Yeah.

01:43:32.420 I think some things I'm just saving.

01:43:33.940 You know what I felt like most of my life?

01:43:36.580 I felt like a late bloomer, man.

01:43:39.020 I felt like only in the past few years when I got into like trying to get into recovery and

01:43:43.960 stuff, have I started to even grow up?

01:43:46.740 Oh yeah.

01:43:47.300 I felt like I put a lot of like, I didn't, I've put a lot of my evolving off and a lot

01:43:54.260 of me has never wanted to grow up because I still want to get the things I deserved as

01:44:02.280 a child from my environment, from my parents.

01:44:07.400 And I think there's a part of me that like, I mean, I can feel it when I even say that

01:44:11.860 I can fucking feel something inside of me, grip the, literally grip the fucking skin inside

01:44:18.320 of me.

01:44:18.900 Yeah.

01:44:19.340 Like, don't make me grow up without being able to have had some of these things.

01:44:27.720 There was a feeling you needed to have as a kid that you didn't have.

01:44:32.060 Yeah.

01:44:32.680 And you don't want to close the door on that until you can give yourself that.

01:44:37.360 Yeah.

01:44:37.660 And I think it makes it real, uh, it almost makes me hate growing up because I'm never

01:44:47.420 going to be able to get back there.

01:44:48.800 You know, I know that sounds kind of crazy, but, um, like I'll never be able to get back

01:44:55.460 to those moments where like my parents should have been in a certain way or things should

01:45:01.040 have been safe or I don't know, uh, but man, I, it, it hurts me.

01:45:10.500 Yeah.

01:45:11.280 You know, and some people say it's like, you got to get over those things and you have to

01:45:15.160 go through your step work and you have to let go of resentments.

01:45:17.860 And, and I believe that, right.

01:45:20.640 But there's something inside of me that's even though I do those things that still has

01:45:28.100 having a very tough time letting go, you know, um, and growing up, it's tough, man.

01:45:36.600 That, that part for me has been tough.

01:45:38.300 And I know some people may sound, that sounds like a baby or whatever.

01:45:42.080 Uh, that's okay.

01:45:43.440 I can't, I can't deny what I feel, you know, or what I know.

01:45:48.440 It's not even a feeling.

01:45:49.280 What's wrong with a baby.

01:45:50.240 They're pretty interesting.

01:45:51.120 Right.

01:45:51.400 That's a good point.

01:45:52.120 Actually.

01:45:54.840 The, the world wasn't that you had some times.

01:45:58.100 The world wasn't that kind to you when you were a kid.

01:46:00.260 Yeah.

01:46:00.440 I didn't trust it right out of the gate.

01:46:01.820 Yeah.

01:46:02.280 You know, and sometimes I don't know why my mother had a really tough time.

01:46:05.700 Like, um, knowing if there was something wrong with you, she couldn't, she had like almost

01:46:09.800 an emotional autism.

01:46:10.960 I use that term a lot, but, and my father was real old.

01:46:13.980 So I think I was always scared he was going to die, you know?

01:46:16.860 Sure.

01:46:17.720 And, uh, so it made it just, I don't know.

01:46:20.240 The recipe was really weird, man.

01:46:22.860 So anyway, I talk about that stuff a lot.

01:46:24.820 I'm not, I'm not trying to harp on it, but there's sometimes you just have to wait for

01:46:28.640 yourself to get there.

01:46:29.720 You know, it's like you can do a lot of the work on the outside, but sometimes it's like

01:46:33.720 that inner child or whatever they say, like that motherfucker can be a little slow, you

01:46:37.280 know?

01:46:38.240 Yeah.

01:46:39.640 And might always, and, and he might always be like that.

01:46:42.800 Yeah.

01:46:43.040 I mean, you got a lot, you got a lot out of being that kid too.

01:46:50.420 Like your independence, the confidence you have, like you had to adapt in a different

01:46:56.480 way.

01:46:57.160 And a lot of that has helped you a lot.

01:46:59.620 Yeah.

01:47:01.180 I'm not saying that makes up for it.

01:47:02.660 I'm just saying, sometimes I wonder myself, I go, I think I'll be like this all, always

01:47:08.100 forever.

01:47:08.720 Hmm.

01:47:09.480 Yeah.

01:47:09.920 I think this might be it and maybe that's all right.

01:47:13.700 You know?

01:47:14.260 I love the way you're able to have this.

01:47:16.260 You have this very like, uh, looking at the presentation of yourself and like, almost like

01:47:22.340 it's a judge at a, at a school fair, you know?

01:47:25.600 It's like, this is what he's doing.

01:47:26.980 It's like the judge at a Michael Landon drawing contest.

01:47:28.960 Yeah.

01:47:30.360 Who's going to get the treat?

01:47:31.540 Well, guess what?

01:47:32.520 No picture's going to be perfect because there's a bunch of fucking little kids drawing Michael

01:47:35.760 Landon.

01:47:36.320 Yeah.

01:47:36.540 So not one of them is going to be perfect, but the effort and the joy of watching a bunch

01:47:42.280 of little kids draw Michael Landon for their mother, hoping to win candy is the, is life.

01:47:49.920 Yeah.

01:47:50.860 Do I have the best drawing?

01:47:55.340 Yeah.

01:47:55.740 I don't know, but it's just the fact that everybody's doing it is a good time.

01:47:59.140 I guess.

01:47:59.520 Yeah.

01:48:00.000 I mean, dude, nothing sounds more fun than a family having a Michael Landon drawing contest.

01:48:05.220 Oh man, we were keyed up.

01:48:07.700 We were excited.

01:48:11.260 Trying to think of what else we can talk about, you know?

01:48:15.060 Oh, you remember your-

01:48:15.880 We've got a special coming up.

01:48:16.320 Oh, sorry.

01:48:16.980 And we'll start, I'll put that-

01:48:18.020 Oh no, no, I don't care about it.

01:48:18.700 I'll put that in the beginning.

01:48:19.580 Yeah.

01:48:19.760 What do you think about new specials as you get, as you get older?

01:48:24.020 Yeah.

01:48:24.420 And as we get further away from the, the, the part of us that was the-

01:48:29.460 The first special.

01:48:30.220 Yes.

01:48:30.600 Yeah, let's just call it, let's call the exciting part of us the first special.

01:48:36.260 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:48:36.720 Yeah.

01:48:37.340 Do you, like, has it been tough to evolve as a person and as a comedian?

01:48:41.860 Has there been scary moments where you're like, I don't know if I want to evolve?

01:48:45.280 Like, who do I evolve into?

01:48:47.020 That's something I think about sometimes.

01:48:48.540 Yeah, I was more, uh, you know, this special I've got coming out, um, is kind of, it isn't

01:48:59.440 kind of, it is about everything from intervention through rehab and after, uh, so at the moment

01:49:07.580 or in the past two years, I haven't wondered what I'm going to talk about on stage, but now

01:49:15.400 having shot this thing and, you know, and I'm really, really happy with it and it's

01:49:23.720 longer than my other specials and it, it, I'm, I'm thrilled that it's longer.

01:49:27.820 It's kind of, this was the time to do this chunk of material.

01:49:31.040 This was the moment in my life to do this.

01:49:32.860 With that gone, now I start to wonder.

01:49:35.060 Hmm.

01:49:35.940 Yeah.

01:49:37.060 Now I'm, now I don't remember how to do comedy.

01:49:40.280 Oh, that's a great statement.

01:49:42.140 Oh yeah, I don't.

01:49:43.100 Last night I was like, I don't have jokes.

01:49:45.300 I don't, um, maybe I'll try this old one that it was part of the hour that I cut, but I

01:49:50.900 just, I don't, what is going on here?

01:49:53.420 How do I do this?

01:49:54.520 I don't know what I'm doing.

01:49:56.340 Wow.

01:49:57.900 Yeah.

01:49:58.300 That's scary.

01:49:58.880 It's really scary.

01:49:59.580 Letting something go, putting out something that's new, putting out something that's more

01:50:03.440 like, obviously we tell stories that are based on our real lives or have moments, some

01:50:08.660 of them, you know, but to put out something that's like, really, this is like me just

01:50:12.720 tracking part of my life.

01:50:14.540 And it was a little bit like, I can't, I can't do, I can't talk about other things

01:50:20.320 until I get this out.

01:50:21.520 I don't mean like people were waiting for it.

01:50:23.000 I just mean, I don't, this, I, this has to be what the next special is.

01:50:30.220 And it was rather easy because there were lots of stories from it.

01:50:34.780 Um, wasn't easy to, to get it where it was, but you know, it took two years of touring,

01:50:40.600 but it, uh, it felt like, okay, inevitably there's, you know, over an hour of nonsense

01:50:49.600 that happened.

01:50:50.300 Um, yeah.

01:50:51.680 So do you, is it interesting?

01:50:54.680 Like, because some people, I think as we get older, they want us to be older in a way

01:51:01.920 or they want, we have to evolve or something, right?

01:51:04.720 Because for sure, you know, we can't have the same thoughts and stuff that we had when

01:51:09.980 we were 10 years ago or 15 years ago when we were starting.

01:51:14.100 Well, I don't know.

01:51:15.020 Is that, is anyone saying that?

01:51:16.760 No one is.

01:51:18.180 I mean, that might, that's a good, I mean, wanting to evolve is a good thing.

01:51:21.920 It's scary though.

01:51:23.080 I think we're always arguing with some straw man that's not really there of what, like

01:51:28.120 what we should be talking.

01:51:29.160 I mean, I don't think.

01:51:30.500 That's a good point.

01:51:31.220 I was just doing that.

01:51:31.980 Yeah.

01:51:32.540 And now it's trying to bring you into it.

01:51:34.280 No, I did that last night.

01:51:35.520 Yeah.

01:51:36.100 Right.

01:51:37.120 I was like, oh, maybe I should be like, maybe I should have a lot of political jokes.

01:51:41.340 I thought this standing back.

01:51:42.440 I was about to go on.

01:51:43.320 Well, you're respected enough, man.

01:51:45.300 And it's such a, you're so yourself that if you just get up on stage, I am curious as

01:51:52.180 to what is John thinking about?

01:51:54.420 No way.

01:51:55.900 That's nice of you to say.

01:51:57.080 But like, I went and saw Stavi at the Pittsburgh Improv.

01:52:01.640 Stavros Hauk, yes.

01:52:02.600 Yeah.

01:52:03.000 Yeah.

01:52:03.440 And that I was like, God, I was like, that's a person who's just funny right away.

01:52:09.480 That's a person who's funny where I'm like, I'm willing, like, I'm just going to watch

01:52:14.000 him talk to the crowd.

01:52:15.280 I'm going to watch anything.

01:52:16.040 I would kill to have that.

01:52:18.460 Wow.

01:52:21.100 That's it.

01:52:21.940 Well, I guess everybody wants a little bit of something else, you know, or would love

01:52:25.660 to have moments of the other person, you know?

01:52:27.940 Oh, yeah.

01:52:29.380 Oh, yeah.

01:52:29.780 That's like.

01:52:30.420 Stavi's wild.

01:52:30.960 He says pussy a lot, too.

01:52:32.660 And I don't say it that much.

01:52:34.240 He does.

01:52:35.000 Yeah.

01:52:35.320 Yeah.

01:52:35.560 He does.

01:52:36.060 He likes saying it.

01:52:36.720 I feel like he almost does it deliberately.

01:52:39.180 You think?

01:52:39.880 I think he, I think he knows exactly what he's doing.

01:52:42.920 Yeah, he might.

01:52:43.220 He goes for it right away.

01:52:44.360 Or Brody.

01:52:45.940 Yeah.

01:52:46.660 Like that.

01:52:47.440 Brody was very interesting.

01:52:48.680 Brody was, he's almost a reverse psychology.

01:52:51.220 I didn't even know what he was doing half the time up there.

01:52:52.880 I mean, Brody, like, oh, I always, I mean, the amount of times I went, why can't I, here

01:53:03.240 I am.

01:53:03.660 It's my own show.

01:53:04.920 I'm in a theater.

01:53:05.900 I'm in an arena.

01:53:06.740 Like if I could bring the same excitement that Brody brought to warming up a Chelsea Handler

01:53:14.560 audience, I'd be, I'd have it made.

01:53:17.760 Why can't I have that thing?

01:53:19.900 You know?

01:53:20.980 But do you, did someone at some point in your life or did some straw man tell you that

01:53:24.860 you don't?

01:53:25.500 Because like when I watched your special last night, I was watching the, um.

01:53:31.000 Yeah.

01:53:31.480 I mean, some, some voice tells me I'm boring.

01:53:34.160 Some, some voices over you're boring and no, no one wants to hear this and you're not fun

01:53:38.380 and you're not, you're actually not, you're not good at performing your own material.

01:53:42.840 That's something.

01:53:44.040 Dude, when I watched that, I was like, man.

01:53:46.240 Um, and I'd seen it before, but I was like, yeah, I'm just so involved.

01:53:52.140 Even when you go to get the sip of water and drink it out of the cup and you probably think,

01:53:55.960 man.

01:53:56.220 It was a last minute decision.

01:53:57.560 No stool.

01:53:58.340 So the water's got to go somewhere.

01:53:59.720 Yeah.

01:53:59.880 It was really interesting.

01:54:00.860 I was like that.

01:54:01.300 He put it there.

01:54:01.960 That's what he's doing.

01:54:02.900 But you probably think.

01:54:03.660 Hit it behind a light bulb.

01:54:04.580 Well, you're going to get it.

01:54:05.640 Yeah.

01:54:06.080 Oh yeah.

01:54:06.580 Everybody's so bored right now.

01:54:08.280 No.

01:54:08.740 In that moment, I was like, can I pick up a glass of water without dropping it in front of 6,000

01:54:13.340 people because I was like, I've never had it on the floor before.

01:54:16.860 So no, I mean, listen, I also, I, I don't mean to sound like, oh, I feel like shit about

01:54:21.540 my, well, we always like what I do, but we always just want to be something.

01:54:25.080 Yeah.

01:54:25.640 Oh, it's funny.

01:54:26.280 I think there's no doubt.

01:54:27.200 There's probably, there's probably 20 guys when I watch on like, oh man, I wish I had some

01:54:31.660 of that.

01:54:32.240 Oh my God.

01:54:32.880 Yeah.

01:54:33.160 That'd be really cool.

01:54:34.320 Absolutely.

01:54:34.640 And you know what?

01:54:35.360 I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

01:54:36.440 I think it's a totally healthy thing.

01:54:37.840 I think we've been talking a lot about also the things in us that we feel are missing,

01:54:41.880 but it's quite, it's a good thing to watch Stavros and be envious.

01:54:48.580 Yeah.

01:54:49.160 Like that's, that's something that gets me, comedians who write jokes that I'm like, you

01:54:54.440 know, when I hear a joke, well, I just saw Nate's special.

01:54:57.660 I was like, God, I wish I had those.

01:54:59.920 Yeah.

01:55:00.080 That's exciting.

01:55:00.980 I don't, there's nothing to me unhealthy about that.

01:55:03.640 Yeah, that's true.

01:55:04.620 It's nice, I think.

01:55:05.940 And it's really just an admiration to that person.

01:55:08.300 And, but I think that there's so many people that for sure that look at you and think

01:55:12.300 that way.

01:55:12.880 Like, I wish I could be as put together as that guy, you know, and use the word haberdasher

01:55:18.660 I saw in one of them.

01:55:19.680 That was great.

01:55:20.220 Did I?

01:55:20.620 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:55:23.480 Harry Truman ran a haberdashery that went bust.

01:55:26.580 Did he?

01:55:26.900 That's the first time I think I heard that word, a little kid hearing about Harry Truman.

01:55:30.380 Some guy opened one up, I think, bust when we were growing up and people thought it was

01:55:34.500 like a hash den or whatever and they shut it down, I remember.

01:55:37.060 Oh, wow.

01:55:38.020 Yeah.

01:55:40.500 But, um.

01:55:41.440 In this violent place you were growing up, someone tried to open a haberdashery?

01:55:45.000 Yeah.

01:55:45.640 Very nice.

01:55:46.520 They had a lot of narcs bust.

01:55:47.960 A lot of people were always doing narcing, you know?

01:55:50.340 Oh, yeah?

01:55:51.000 Where they get some kid to fuck, you know?

01:55:53.260 There was a thing called Snap, was it called Snaps?

01:55:56.140 It was this weird program in Chicago where Chicago PD would send, um, like two 13-year-olds

01:56:03.340 up to a bar to try to get in and then they'd bust the bar.

01:56:07.840 I knew, I knew this one kid whose dad was a detective and they, so they sent him and

01:56:12.140 he went up and he went, don't let me in.

01:56:15.540 I am here with Snaps.

01:56:16.860 I mean, if that was true, I, I, in retrospect, I can't imagine that would be like an actual

01:56:25.080 CPD program.

01:56:26.260 But I like that he, I like that he didn't want the bar to get busted.

01:56:30.860 Yeah.

01:56:32.180 And then he could probably come back the next week and be like, I did you a solid.

01:56:35.740 Yeah.

01:56:36.160 Let me in.

01:56:36.920 Yeah.

01:56:37.080 And then he overdone, then he like gets carted out in an ambulance and they get busted.

01:56:40.220 Um, what was your, like, do you remember like your first relationship growing up?

01:56:44.500 What was that like?

01:56:45.500 What do you mean?

01:56:46.080 Like dating and stuff.

01:56:47.220 Was that tough for you as a kid or were you pretty good at it?

01:56:49.860 No, I wasn't good at it.

01:56:51.260 Um, I didn't realize you weren't supposed to tell girls how much you liked them because

01:56:57.300 in movies, that's what the, uh, that's what the hero would do is he'd be like, I love you

01:57:03.180 so much.

01:57:03.780 And they'd be like, oh my God, no other guy at school talks this way.

01:57:06.760 Right.

01:57:07.340 So I thought, okay, you got to be like that.

01:57:09.660 You got to be like these John Cusack types who tell you how they're feeling.

01:57:12.980 And no one really likes that.

01:57:15.200 Yeah.

01:57:15.740 No one likes that.

01:57:16.600 Yeah.

01:57:16.740 It's too alarming for people.

01:57:17.920 The reality of it is too alarming for people.

01:57:19.540 But that was also like, again, like romanticizing romance.

01:57:25.300 I was just like, no one had, I brought a heaviness to that, that I think people were

01:57:30.000 like, this is, you got to relax.

01:57:32.080 This is, you know, making out in winter coats here.

01:57:34.600 Yeah.

01:57:35.260 Yeah.

01:57:35.840 This is not anything that serious.

01:57:37.540 You don't need to be making speeches.

01:57:39.040 Yeah.

01:57:39.480 Yeah.

01:57:39.600 The train isn't leaving the station.

01:57:41.200 Yeah.

01:57:41.400 Yeah.

01:57:41.800 And this isn't Casablanca or something.

01:57:43.540 Yeah.

01:57:43.820 You need to like, yeah, we're going to share a menthol and then hook up standing up.

01:57:49.820 Like you need to bring it down a notch with this monologue.

01:57:53.500 Yeah.

01:57:55.360 Did you, how did you, what was your first relationship?

01:57:57.600 Yeah.

01:57:57.720 This is Nicolas Cage at the end of Family Man.

01:57:58.740 Exactly.

01:57:59.260 Yeah.

01:57:59.520 At the end of Family Man.

01:58:01.200 Have you seen that?

01:58:02.160 Is that where he can choose between the two paths?

01:58:05.540 Yeah.

01:58:05.820 He's got, we got a house in Jersey.

01:58:07.660 She's stealing.

01:58:08.320 Yeah.

01:58:08.640 Yeah.

01:58:08.840 Yeah.

01:58:09.000 Yeah.

01:58:09.300 Yeah.

01:58:09.380 Yeah.

01:58:09.440 We've got two kids, Annie and Josh.

01:58:12.120 Yeah.

01:58:12.380 And he like explains to her what their life is like.

01:58:15.080 If she doesn't get on that plane, you can always go to Paris, just not tonight.

01:58:19.600 God, dude.

01:58:20.740 Is that a good one?

01:58:22.060 Man.

01:58:22.820 I haven't seen it in some time.

01:58:24.540 It's good, man.

01:58:26.460 It'll make you believe in something.

01:58:28.940 What was your first relationship?

01:58:30.240 Mine, this girl, this girl was like kind of doing BJs at school and she liked me, right?

01:58:39.580 And I didn't, it was like, she was really funny.

01:58:41.680 That's what I liked about her.

01:58:42.720 But she was also doing BJs, right?

01:58:45.540 And people were, and nobody was doing them.

01:58:48.840 Sure.

01:58:49.180 And so it was kind of nervous because I, I liked her, right?

01:58:54.760 I really liked her because she was really funny and she was really cute.

01:58:57.760 But then the doing BJs part, I kind of, I liked that.

01:59:01.720 Sure.

01:59:02.120 But I also was embarrassed in a way because I didn't want people, like people were like

01:59:07.940 kind of like, you know, other people were judging her because she was doing BJs like

01:59:12.480 real early.

01:59:13.280 And you thought they would, they thought your motives would, you thought your motives for

01:59:18.220 hanging out with her would be suspect.

01:59:20.240 Right.

01:59:20.480 And I thought that they would judge me somehow.

01:59:22.840 I've always, I've always been like, I've always taken on the responsibility or taken

01:59:34.380 on the paint or the judgment that other people put on somebody that I have attached to me in

01:59:39.040 a weird way.

01:59:41.160 Oh, you mean you get, I get offended or I get like embarrassed.

01:59:45.120 Oh, wow.

01:59:46.380 For like something that like somebody else will do that I attach myself to.

01:59:51.340 It's really not fair.

01:59:52.100 I think I do that too.

01:59:52.820 I think I do that too.

01:59:54.280 It's really not fair.

01:59:55.060 I had a girlfriend that used to, she wouldn't know where people were like when we're standing

01:59:58.400 around somewhere.

01:59:59.500 She had bad peripheral vision.

02:00:01.400 And yeah, the worst dude.

02:00:03.220 It was unbelievable.

02:00:05.400 So she would always, we'd be talking beautiful girl.

02:00:07.920 I loved her, but she'd always like walk right back when somebody was walking.

02:00:10.620 I'm just like, and it ruined it for me.

02:00:13.160 Oh, wow.

02:00:14.080 You felt her embarrassment.

02:00:15.300 Was she herself embarrassed?

02:00:17.540 Not that much.

02:00:18.420 Oh, interesting.

02:00:19.080 So you weren't even feeling her embarrassment.

02:00:20.880 You were just feeling the only embarrassment.

02:00:23.560 Yeah.

02:00:24.000 It was almost like the universe had to give it to someone and she was unaware.

02:00:27.400 Yeah.

02:00:28.300 Yeah.

02:00:28.640 But I would take it on though.

02:00:30.120 And I would always be like, I'm not going to let you be a reflection of how people see

02:00:34.460 me.

02:00:35.300 Mm-hmm.

02:00:36.120 No matter who that was.

02:00:37.660 And I think that probably goes back to my childhood.

02:00:39.700 I was very embarrassed of my situation that I was in or something about it made me uncomfortable.

02:00:44.400 So that's how I behave still.

02:00:46.400 It's not fair to other people, you know?

02:00:49.120 But then you also like use the way you grew up and those things.

02:00:55.080 And now you know that they're of interest to talk about.

02:00:59.160 Right.

02:00:59.460 Well, it's a big part of my still operating, you know?

02:01:02.020 So it's like some stuff I still have to really work on, I think, you know?

02:01:05.020 I see.

02:01:05.400 Or look at.

02:01:06.200 I see.

02:01:06.760 But only recently in the past five years have I noticed how all these things play a role

02:01:10.560 in my life.

02:01:11.640 Yeah.

02:01:11.900 But yeah, that first relationship.

02:01:14.940 So yeah, and then once, so we went to a party one night and everybody knew that I was going

02:01:18.600 to maybe, you know, she was going to do a BJ on me or whatever.

02:01:22.620 Okay.

02:01:23.300 So we picked like this tree to do it behind, right?

02:01:27.780 And.

02:01:28.300 Did you talk to her about it?

02:01:29.900 Yeah.

02:01:30.240 We kind of having written letters at school.

02:01:32.640 About that specifically?

02:01:34.080 Yeah.

02:01:34.460 Okay.

02:01:35.200 Or talk to a friend, you know, her best friend, like it's going to happen.

02:01:38.400 Sure.

02:01:38.800 So I'm so nervous, dude.

02:01:40.500 I remember I would barely even get out of here.

02:01:41.860 How old are we here?

02:01:43.060 We're probably in seventh or eighth grade.

02:01:44.680 Okay.

02:01:45.020 Wow.

02:01:46.120 And I remember just being so nervous, dude.

02:01:50.860 Yeah.

02:01:51.240 I could barely even walk over there and I get by the tree and then we like barely even said

02:01:56.700 any words, you know?

02:01:57.900 And then she might've felt a responsibility to do it now because we planned it, you know?

02:02:02.720 I don't even know.

02:02:03.400 Well, you'd, you'd exchange many letters over it.

02:02:05.480 Yeah.

02:02:06.880 Yeah.

02:02:07.620 And then she starts doing it.

02:02:09.620 And then the girl's mom, whose party house it was, like we're behind a tree.

02:02:14.060 So the only thing you can't see is the actual kind of BJ in, but you could see me and her.

02:02:19.300 And then the girl's mom came out and busted us.

02:02:22.600 And it was so, and she was a, it was just so embarrassing.

02:02:25.640 Um, it made me, oh, I just felt so much embarrassment.

02:02:31.380 I think for yourself, I think for both of us, you know, but what, yeah, what she's doing

02:02:37.880 is embarrassing me, but then I'm also here to see, you know, I'm in, I'm here too.

02:02:43.080 You were definitely part of it.

02:02:44.360 You were half of it.

02:02:45.040 You might say.

02:02:45.520 So anyway, that was, I think, you know, I had some early uncomfort with that.

02:02:51.960 Uh, and just the fact that I loved, I felt like I kind of loved this girl.

02:02:57.120 Yeah.

02:02:57.580 And other people thought that there was something wrong with her.

02:03:00.980 Uh-huh.

02:03:01.920 And so I think that made me some, you know, I don't know.

02:03:04.340 I think it did something to me a little bit, but.

02:03:07.200 Changed your perception of her.

02:03:09.240 Yeah.

02:03:09.660 And it just made, it changed how it made me often like really conscious of what people

02:03:15.020 thought of who I attached myself to.

02:03:18.580 And do you still have that today?

02:03:20.120 I think I do still have some of it.

02:03:21.580 Yeah.

02:03:22.240 Yeah.

02:03:22.840 It's kind of unhealthy.

02:03:24.520 Well.

02:03:25.400 But it's okay.

02:03:26.220 I just, you know, it's something, I think I got to go through some different, you know,

02:03:29.560 work on it more and that's fine.

02:03:32.340 But.

02:03:34.680 Yeah.

02:03:35.580 It's all okay, man.

02:03:37.360 You know?

02:03:38.000 It's all okay.

02:03:39.020 Yeah.

02:03:40.000 Yeah.

02:03:41.360 Um, John Mulaney, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about?

02:03:45.440 Um.

02:03:46.200 I don't want to take up too much of your time.

02:03:48.660 Because we've chatted for a while, I think.

02:03:50.540 I want to ask, what does Baby J mean?

02:03:52.900 Because weren't you calling your tour from scratch?

02:03:55.180 Yeah.

02:03:56.140 The tour I was just on is called from, was called from scratch.

02:03:59.760 Just because I started calling these shows I did, two months out of rehab, I started

02:04:03.980 doing these shows at, uh, City Winery in New York.

02:04:07.180 And I just called it from scratch.

02:04:09.540 And there might've been, I was trying to, uh, say like, all of this is new and please come

02:04:16.040 to the shows, but it's going to be rusty and it's going to be all worked out and messy

02:04:20.060 and et cetera.

02:04:21.260 And then I just kept calling the tour from scratch.

02:04:23.340 I never loved the name, but, uh, uh, I didn't want to think of a new one.

02:04:29.880 There was too much going on.

02:04:32.100 There was too much going on in early sobriety.

02:04:34.520 And I, I didn't, you know, I just, I just kept going with it.

02:04:39.900 But the special is called Baby J, which is something I refer to myself as in the special.

02:04:44.720 Cause the people like when 40 year old men call themselves Baby J.

02:04:49.260 People find that really cute and like that a lot.

02:04:51.160 Yeah.

02:04:51.700 Yeah.

02:04:52.280 Do you think, is it like about being like a late bloomer?

02:04:54.900 What is it?

02:04:55.300 What, what is it kind of in relation to?

02:04:57.820 I don't know.

02:04:58.260 I just refer to myself as it at one point in the special and it makes me laugh a lot.

02:05:02.440 Oh, nice.

02:05:03.320 Um, but a part of it is trying to get back to that before time, like something, a lot

02:05:10.700 of the, a lot of the, um, tour I just did, we used my first grade photo as the like tour

02:05:16.100 art.

02:05:17.240 And I mean, it just was, uh, it was, it was like you and I were like,

02:05:21.860 I were talking about a little bit trying to get back to that age where there was just

02:05:24.600 like electricity and things were really exciting.

02:05:27.600 Yeah.

02:05:28.500 And some, you know, something went off track.

02:05:33.480 Some, some things got darker and now I'm, now I was sober and, uh, so much of my life

02:05:44.780 had changed and I was out on the road and I was just, I was like, I liked seeing that

02:05:48.740 poster of myself.

02:05:50.140 I liked seeing that photo of me in first grade outside the venue.

02:05:53.940 Like it just put me like, okay, we're trying to get, we're trying to get back to that.

02:05:58.480 We're getting back on track.

02:05:58.920 Something started chasing us after that time.

02:06:01.780 Hmm.

02:06:03.680 Something started chasing us.

02:06:05.040 That's interesting.

02:06:06.020 Yeah.

02:06:06.400 Yeah.

02:06:06.700 That was a thought I had in rehab.

02:06:09.040 Like, I don't mean like I heard, well, I sort of heard a voice, but it said, we've been

02:06:13.660 after you since you were a little kid and I felt like something, yeah, something, something's

02:06:19.780 been, things have, things have had, there's been many great moments, but something, something's

02:06:26.980 been trying to get your attention or to get you, to get me.

02:06:31.480 Wow.

02:06:34.480 You think it's like a disease or something?

02:06:36.660 I don't know.

02:06:38.260 Just some.

02:06:39.300 We've been after you.

02:06:40.160 We've been after you since you were a kid.

02:06:42.380 We, I didn't care for the we.

02:06:44.180 Yeah.

02:06:46.160 Listen, I didn't like hearing voices in detox.

02:06:50.160 I didn't like grinding my teeth.

02:06:51.740 I cracked a molar.

02:06:52.780 It was a whole crazy, but yeah, I didn't, I didn't care for the voice, but if I'm going

02:06:57.420 to hear a voice, I don't like the we of it.

02:06:59.140 Yeah.

02:06:59.500 That's a lot of people.

02:07:00.600 Yeah.

02:07:00.740 That means, yeah, there's a van now.

02:07:03.160 There's a van.

02:07:04.180 That implies bats.

02:07:06.020 Yeah.

02:07:06.360 Guys driving around with bats.

02:07:07.600 How bad, how bad is detoxing?

02:07:09.420 I never had to do something like that.

02:07:10.700 Is it really hard?

02:07:12.220 Benzodiazepine, which is Xanax and Klonopin, that detox really sucks.

02:07:16.020 And do you stay in a room?

02:07:17.460 What do you do?

02:07:18.400 I stayed in, so some people go to detox for a couple of days.

02:07:21.360 I was there for five or six days.

02:07:25.600 They try to taper you off with this medication called Librium, which I don't know if that's

02:07:33.980 a benzo.

02:07:34.520 Anyway, it's similar, but yeah, the first of that week, I was sort of in a medicated

02:07:41.320 detox, and then the second week was like my skeleton wanted to rip out of my body.

02:07:48.220 Wow.

02:07:48.740 Yeah.

02:07:49.920 And does it hurt?

02:07:50.620 Those are the, and they said that they were like, those are the most, um, no, not like

02:07:57.300 ow pain.

02:07:59.100 Mine, mine felt like I cannot be, like I cannot sit, it's not even like, I remember laying

02:08:07.420 on my bed, just like fucking writhing, just like I know every part of me wants to rip into.

02:08:14.340 Wow.

02:08:15.760 But they said that when I got there, they're like, Coke is not, I mean, Coke was my problem,

02:08:20.620 but they said, Coke isn't your problem.

02:08:21.840 These, the benzos, the downers is going to be the real beast.

02:08:25.500 Yeah.

02:08:25.960 Yeah.

02:08:26.980 Could you do an eight ball in a day, you think?

02:08:29.780 Yeah.

02:08:31.380 Wow.

02:08:31.740 I mean, I don't say that, like, maybe it would take a, what was a day also, define

02:08:38.840 a day.

02:08:39.440 That's true.

02:08:40.120 That's true.

02:08:40.520 If you're open.

02:08:40.840 Maybe a day and a half.

02:08:41.940 Yeah.

02:08:42.420 If you're up for 24 hours at eight ball, dang, dude.

02:08:46.920 I would, I remember sometimes I couldn't even inhale anymore.

02:08:50.020 Yeah.

02:08:50.300 Yeah.

02:08:50.440 That, that feeling of, uh, I also, I would feel like vibrating so much, but I remember times

02:08:57.260 when I felt like, okay, I've done too much, like this is serious and I've done too much

02:09:06.000 and maybe I should go down to my lobby and sit there in case I need to get there.

02:09:11.360 I lived right near an, right next to an urgent care.

02:09:14.100 That's great.

02:09:15.000 I was like, maybe I need to sit here and just tell the doorman to grab a paramedic or something.

02:09:19.600 Uh, but there were a couple of nights where I just thought I've done too much, but I'm,

02:09:23.580 then I would still be crashing.

02:09:24.920 So physically I'm like, um, this is, we've done way too much Coke.

02:09:29.820 I can't feel my legs.

02:09:30.900 I'm totally like, this is a real disaster.

02:09:33.380 And then mentally I'd start crashing a little and be like, I need to do, can I do another

02:09:38.680 bump?

02:09:39.880 Is there a way for, to do a bump that would satisfy this, but not affect the oncoming,

02:09:44.780 uh, cardiac arrest we're about to have.

02:09:49.220 Dang.

02:09:49.860 So.

02:09:50.340 Isn't that crazy that we would think that you're in such a balancing act.

02:09:53.320 You're in such a go, you know what?

02:09:54.620 If I'm going to go to the hospital, I probably should do a line first.

02:09:57.560 Yeah.

02:10:00.720 They'd want me to just so I'm talkative.

02:10:03.280 Yeah.

02:10:03.820 Yeah.

02:10:04.900 Yeah.

02:10:05.620 They're, yeah.

02:10:06.160 They would want you to.

02:10:07.540 That's so interesting.

02:10:08.980 You on the road now?

02:10:10.380 Yeah.

02:10:10.700 What do I have doing?

02:10:11.360 I got some shows in Phoenix next week.

02:10:13.400 Oh, nice.

02:10:14.040 Oh yeah.

02:10:14.360 I'm excited about that.

02:10:15.560 I, yeah.

02:10:16.420 You know, I started my tour kind of like, I, I, I should have had my show more mapped

02:10:22.180 out before I put it up into some like smaller theaters, you know?

02:10:25.180 Yeah.

02:10:25.840 So sometimes I feel a little bit bad about that.

02:10:28.460 I thought it was kind of good.

02:10:29.220 Why did they feel rocky?

02:10:30.560 Yeah.

02:10:30.880 They just felt a little rocky.

02:10:32.360 Well.

02:10:32.880 You know, but I just always want to make sure that I give the, you know.

02:10:37.060 Of course.

02:10:37.500 But you were trying to put on the best show you could.

02:10:39.480 Right.

02:10:40.060 I was trying for sure.

02:10:41.780 Yeah.

02:10:42.040 Always.

02:10:42.220 I mean, the other route would be to just what, stay in, do weekends at clubs?

02:10:46.200 Yeah.

02:10:46.700 Yeah.

02:10:47.000 That would have been probably the, the, a route that would have been just to better service

02:10:51.300 the hour, you know?

02:10:52.300 Yeah.

02:10:52.420 I get that.

02:10:52.920 Yeah.

02:10:53.240 I think, but sometimes people are like, come out, come perform.

02:10:55.340 Well, sometimes you have a couple great shows and you go, this is ready for theaters.

02:10:58.620 And then you get there and you're like, this is, yeah.

02:11:01.420 Wow.

02:11:01.660 These people paid money.

02:11:02.540 And yeah.

02:11:03.640 Yeah.

02:11:04.080 And it wasn't bad.

02:11:04.940 It was just, and we have high expectations.

02:11:07.160 Yeah.

02:11:07.180 Of course.

02:11:07.760 Do you have very high expectations of yourself?

02:11:09.280 Of course.

02:11:10.000 Yeah.

02:11:10.160 When I'm out there at the very beginning, figuring out an hour and I'm like, this is

02:11:14.360 actually 40 minutes with 20 minutes of filler.

02:11:16.960 It's, I feel very, I, I, I work hard at the news.

02:11:21.100 I work hard at what I can.

02:11:22.660 And I hope that I have enough charisma to pull off the whole, that, that no one's noticing

02:11:29.400 that this is, you know, padded.

02:11:31.060 Yeah.

02:11:32.500 Man.

02:11:32.960 Yeah.

02:11:33.140 I think you got a ton of charisma.

02:11:34.100 Well, also it's like, you go back on the road after you've just done a special.

02:11:36.620 So you, what you, the last memory you have is this product that was like finally tuned.

02:11:42.000 Yeah.

02:11:42.540 And now you're out there, you know, doing stuff about how big the Denver airport is.

02:11:47.860 Yeah.

02:11:48.320 Cause you just landed in Denver.

02:11:49.920 Yeah.

02:11:50.100 I remember the chart, I had a show in Charleston and literally the next night I had my, I had

02:11:54.280 an hour that came out.

02:11:55.260 And so the next night I knew this is when you have to turn over, when you can't do material

02:12:00.680 that's on the special, you have to kind of turn over, you know, most of it and do new

02:12:04.480 stuff.

02:12:05.060 And that was a tough weekend because the first show was pretty awesome.

02:12:09.440 And, or the, and the second one was not, it was just kind of like, fuck.

02:12:13.960 Yeah.

02:12:14.440 Well, that's the thing is like, you can just hit all green lights one night and be like,

02:12:20.140 I have a new 15 minutes.

02:12:21.800 Yeah.

02:12:22.360 Don't.

02:12:22.900 You have nothing.

02:12:23.620 You have one minute.

02:12:25.240 You have one.

02:12:27.320 Did you do like a first CD?

02:12:30.080 Like, did you make like a comedy album?

02:12:32.700 Yeah.

02:12:33.500 Unrelated to a, not a TV.

02:12:34.980 Yeah.

02:12:35.400 Yeah.

02:12:35.760 I did that too.

02:12:36.580 And I thought when that came out, I can never do any of these jokes again.

02:12:39.540 Wow.

02:12:40.000 No one fucking listened to it.

02:12:41.380 Yeah.

02:12:42.320 I wish I was, I remember going out to do, was I just starting to headline?

02:12:46.960 Maybe I, I think I was going to headline the Houston laugh stop.

02:12:49.840 And I had a CD that was out and I was like, well, if anyone's heard the CD, they'd know

02:12:56.080 the, know these jokes.

02:12:57.180 So I got to do a whole new hour.

02:12:58.920 Oh, no, you didn't.

02:13:00.540 No.

02:13:01.160 Absolutely.

02:13:01.580 No one had heard this album.

02:13:03.480 No.

02:13:03.860 And some guys you can just do, that's one messed up thing about putting things out.

02:13:07.240 It's like, if you never put things out, then you would just be this thing that people can

02:13:10.500 only go see if they go see you.

02:13:12.300 Yeah.

02:13:12.480 I think about that.

02:13:13.580 I think about like the Grateful Dead model too.

02:13:15.760 Yeah.

02:13:16.240 I was like, I wish I could make every show different and tour like that.

02:13:20.860 And you probably could.

02:13:22.000 I guess so.

02:13:23.340 Well, I think a lot of, I mean, what you'd need to do is you'd need to get like three

02:13:26.600 hours of stuff and then you'd just sample between it, which some people do, I guess.

02:13:31.980 Do you think people come to see you or your material?

02:13:34.980 Oh, I don't know.

02:13:37.260 I think the material, because if you don't have it in, like if I don't have it in the

02:13:45.240 first 10 minutes, in the first five minutes, it's not that fun.

02:13:48.880 Yeah.

02:13:49.220 That's true for anybody, huh?

02:13:50.520 I don't know.

02:13:51.020 I mean, in an arena, I don't know.

02:13:52.300 Maybe they're coming just for the, maybe some people come for the, like, this is cool

02:13:58.100 of it, you know?

02:13:59.060 But especially though, no, what am I saying?

02:14:00.760 I think it's all for the jokes.

02:14:03.400 Yeah.

02:14:03.920 Yeah.

02:14:04.280 People want to be entertained for sure.

02:14:06.220 I think at a certain point though, people kind of get to know you, especially probably

02:14:09.400 after this special comes out where people are going to get to know maybe more just

02:14:13.240 about some of your journey.

02:14:14.760 There's a lot in it.

02:14:16.120 You get to know me pretty well.

02:14:18.100 So.

02:14:18.260 I mean, I think letting people get to know you.

02:14:21.360 Uh, that's, you know, it's important.

02:14:25.040 And then they know you, you know, they get to know you.

02:14:27.840 Yeah.

02:14:28.280 It's, it's all fun.

02:14:29.280 It's them getting to know one side of you and then, and then you go, okay.

02:14:33.220 Also, sometimes I'm not a great guy.

02:14:35.300 Oh yeah.

02:14:36.760 Yeah.

02:14:37.100 That happens a lot to all of us.

02:14:39.380 Um.

02:14:40.700 So you're out now.

02:14:42.340 Yeah.

02:14:42.620 Yeah.

02:14:43.460 I'm out and not just do sporadic.

02:14:44.720 Like I was doing like a night and a night and a night in different cities.

02:14:47.600 Yeah.

02:14:48.020 And now I'm doing more like kind of smaller venues, but staying in a city for five nights.

02:14:52.600 That's the best way to do it.

02:14:53.680 I agree.

02:14:54.200 I just did the arena thing and that was awesome.

02:14:56.980 But you are hitting a point where, uh, more, you can do more nights at a theater.

02:15:02.620 More people will come see you, uh, over more people will find out you're in town.

02:15:08.740 Yeah.

02:15:09.420 And you do like a eight night run or something.

02:15:11.460 I did that down in Atlanta and Philly.

02:15:13.240 Did you do it in Nashville too, someone said?

02:15:14.900 I did, um, I think it was four or five nights at the Ryman.

02:15:19.540 Nice.

02:15:19.960 That was really fun.

02:15:20.920 Yeah.

02:15:21.040 That was on my 40th birthday too.

02:15:22.400 Really?

02:15:22.820 Yeah.

02:15:23.180 Oh, I thought you were younger than that, man.

02:15:24.860 You look younger.

02:15:25.840 That was a cool, that's a cool room that Ryman, isn't it?

02:15:27.600 It's the greatest.

02:15:28.560 Yeah.

02:15:29.140 Oh my God.

02:15:29.680 It's the greatest.

02:15:30.600 Yeah.

02:15:30.780 It's awesome.

02:15:31.380 And the Wilbur is really awesome too, huh?

02:15:33.020 The Wilbur is really fun.

02:15:34.220 God, the Wilbur is cool.

02:15:35.260 The Wilbur really, you feel the energy there.

02:15:37.500 With Bill Blumenreich, I think his name is.

02:15:39.460 Yep.

02:15:39.480 He's the greatest.

02:15:40.080 Yeah.

02:15:40.360 He's got the best stories too.

02:15:42.040 Yeah, he does.

02:15:42.640 He's got Foxwoods too.

02:15:44.120 Yeah.

02:15:44.360 He's got the best stories.

02:15:46.640 What other goals do you have in your future?

02:15:47.960 I know you have the amazing animation, right?

02:15:51.360 Is that your series?

02:15:52.560 Which one?

02:15:53.760 Big Mouth?

02:15:54.560 Yeah.

02:15:55.180 Yeah, I'm on that.

02:15:56.120 Yeah.

02:15:57.540 Sorry, I know that.

02:15:59.160 No, that's okay.

02:16:01.420 That's created by Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg and Mark and Jen, the Flackets, and they're

02:16:09.520 great.

02:16:10.240 And yeah, we do that now.

02:16:12.160 Do you have other stuff that you feel like you creatively that you're...

02:16:16.140 Like having done, like worked in television, created shows, do you feel like stand-up is

02:16:21.900 really the best media?

02:16:23.040 Yeah.

02:16:23.320 You do.

02:16:23.920 It's the most fun, best delivery service of comedy.

02:16:28.700 It's, yeah.

02:16:30.240 It's Freebase.

02:16:31.440 It's the best.

02:16:32.200 Yeah, dude.

02:16:34.100 It's the best possible situation in terms of delivering.

02:16:38.360 It's Freebase.

02:16:39.040 Yeah.

02:16:40.220 It's grimy.

02:16:41.580 Yeah.

02:16:42.200 It's a little grimier than TV.

02:16:43.940 Yeah.

02:16:44.620 Yeah.

02:16:44.840 Did you ever end up in a really cool place doing drugs?

02:16:48.840 Meaning a geographic place?

02:16:50.620 Yeah.

02:16:50.820 Or just like a dicey, like, you know, Shoney's or something, you know, someplace that was

02:16:54.380 a little deviant, you know?

02:16:56.920 Karaoke bar.

02:16:58.740 I'm trying to think.

02:17:00.080 Like, were you that guy that wanted to get deep into the trap houses and shit?

02:17:03.800 Were you like, kind of like the, who was the guy, Anthony Bourdain of like trap houses

02:17:09.720 and stuff like that?

02:17:10.640 Like, did Anthony, what's a trap house?

02:17:13.560 A trap house is just like a place where people are doing drugs and there's like a lady who's

02:17:17.360 like, probably like, you know, if you wake her up, she would have sex.

02:17:21.680 Maybe like in the back.

02:17:22.640 It's like a-

02:17:23.060 Anthony Bourdain went to these?

02:17:24.300 No, he didn't.

02:17:24.960 But he went to like food places.

02:17:26.480 He went to restaurants.

02:17:27.380 Yeah.

02:17:27.460 Right.

02:17:27.680 Are you like the guy-

02:17:28.360 I was not the Anthony Bourdain of trap houses.

02:17:31.260 Yeah.

02:17:31.660 Are you like, would you be that guy?

02:17:34.080 Like, where is that kind of your, like, some people like to get into the depths of the-

02:17:38.080 No.

02:17:39.580 5 a.m., you know?

02:17:40.640 And like, just the, like, how weird can I get you?

02:17:43.380 No, my, the weirdest times for me were the days because I was, I mean, that feeling of,

02:17:49.520 you know, when you haven't slept and the whole world has?

02:17:53.420 Yeah.

02:17:53.680 Just the way that, that warmth you feel in your bones, you're going into Starbucks or

02:17:58.320 like, man, like just running an errand and you're like, does everyone know?

02:18:03.380 Can everyone tell?

02:18:04.700 There's just something kind of like shinier about us.

02:18:07.300 Yeah.

02:18:07.780 You know, like just something like sleeker.

02:18:10.360 We're just a faster animal because like, we didn't just lay down for eight hours.

02:18:15.340 Oh, that's true.

02:18:16.220 You are more alert, huh?

02:18:17.660 Oh, you're like an alley cat.

02:18:19.960 Like an alley cat.

02:18:22.320 Yeah.

02:18:22.740 And you're like a fucking very, but you're like-

02:18:25.380 But things also become far more complicated, you know?

02:18:28.660 Right.

02:18:29.580 Oh, I would overthink things so much.

02:18:31.360 Overthink everything.

02:18:32.100 You're like a ghost.

02:18:32.880 You're like a fast fucking, like a Tesla ghost.

02:18:35.320 And you're like, these clothes don't look like someone put them on this morning.

02:18:39.480 Yeah.

02:18:39.780 These look like yesterday clothes.

02:18:41.660 Yeah.

02:18:42.160 Not even that they're wrinkled.

02:18:43.300 Not even anything.

02:18:43.980 Just, you just have an air about you that says, I did not just rest.

02:18:48.260 Yeah.

02:18:48.620 But I think no one can tell if you're still gacked up enough to converse.

02:18:54.500 Yeah.

02:18:55.860 Fuck.

02:18:56.280 I would be so scared, dude.

02:18:57.800 I would walk.

02:18:59.520 Yeah.

02:18:59.720 My depth perception would feel weird.

02:19:01.500 Yes.

02:19:01.840 A lot of like, you know, cars.

02:19:03.560 Everything's coming in from the sides.

02:19:04.360 Yeah.

02:19:04.380 Everything's coming fast.

02:19:05.420 Yeah.

02:19:05.460 Oh, God, dude.

02:19:07.720 They're a disaster.

02:19:08.980 How?

02:19:09.280 Yeah.

02:19:09.680 A disaster.

02:19:10.640 Drugs are a disaster.

02:19:12.540 And that's a nice thing to not have to worry about anymore, isn't it?

02:19:15.260 Oh my God.

02:19:17.100 Yeah.

02:19:17.360 That is not, I'm not in a crisis all the time.

02:19:21.340 Yeah.

02:19:22.520 Did you end up getting help?

02:19:24.120 Like, did you go to recovery after that?

02:19:25.680 Did you go to 12 step or you just kind of went to?

02:19:28.620 I was in two rehabs.

02:19:31.900 I was in sober living.

02:19:32.960 I did 12 step, but you know.

02:19:35.220 Was sober living pretty cool?

02:19:37.240 Sober living was for a couple months after rehab.

02:19:40.560 I can't imagine going from rehab to living on my own.

02:19:46.220 Yeah.

02:19:46.480 That would have been.

02:19:48.360 No, I really needed as many training wheels as possible.

02:19:51.780 Wow.

02:19:52.320 So you really went through it all.

02:19:54.000 Yeah.

02:19:55.080 I mean, no, I mean, through it all.

02:20:01.120 I mean, not like you, you went through the things that people go through.

02:20:07.220 Yeah.

02:20:07.800 To get better.

02:20:08.000 That was a moment where I really needed to get as like textbook as possible.

02:20:15.420 Right.

02:20:16.220 Because I would have told you like, okay, I can go live on my own now.

02:20:20.660 I've just been in, I've been in this place for two months and I'm clean.

02:20:24.920 But it's like, you're clean because you've been in rehab.

02:20:27.540 Right.

02:20:28.840 Yeah.

02:20:29.240 But I would have thought like, I actually, I had a lot of good, and I had a lot of great

02:20:33.680 moments in treatment.

02:20:35.560 Really did.

02:20:36.800 Had great counselor and great people.

02:20:39.960 But like the actual reason that I wasn't on drugs was because I was in central Pennsylvania

02:20:46.400 living in a hospital.

02:20:47.540 Yeah.

02:20:47.960 You know.

02:20:48.740 Was it nice out there?

02:20:49.880 Was it pretty?

02:20:51.360 Um, it was a winter.

02:20:54.000 It was a little desolate, but sometimes it was quite, sometimes it was quite beautiful.

02:20:58.840 Did they have any horses or anything like that?

02:21:02.520 No.

02:21:03.020 Um, I wish we had had some of that, you know, getting to put a shoe on a horse or whatever

02:21:07.620 they have drug addicts do.

02:21:09.800 Crazy.

02:21:10.660 Yeah.

02:21:12.640 Like you're petting them like, okay.

02:21:14.760 I have a joke in this special about, I feel so bad for that horse.

02:21:18.500 Oh yeah.

02:21:19.160 Because it thinks it's going to win the Kentucky Derby, but then it's just drug addicts being

02:21:22.840 like, okay, all right, petting your strong leg gives me confidence.

02:21:29.780 I remember seeing this whenever I saw your set.

02:21:33.400 Um, John Mulaney.

02:21:34.960 Thanks so much.

02:21:35.880 Theo Vaughn.

02:21:36.360 Thanks for having me, man.

02:21:37.080 Dude.

02:21:37.220 It's awesome, man.

02:21:38.160 It was great to talk to you.

02:21:39.140 Yeah.

02:21:39.320 You too, man.

02:21:40.040 I really admire you and your ability, dude.

02:21:42.740 I really admire you, man.

02:21:43.980 It's, it's, uh, very nice to have a conversation with you.

02:21:47.220 Same, man.

02:21:47.720 And you're doing, when you get on stage, man, it is, I want to know what you are going

02:21:51.400 to do and say.

02:21:52.940 Same.

02:21:53.780 A hundred percent.

02:21:54.380 I want you to know that just as a, I am excited that you're up there.

02:21:58.280 Thanks, man.

02:21:59.000 I'm excited when you're up there.

02:22:00.080 Yeah.

02:22:00.360 Thanks, Sean.

02:22:00.780 I envy what you have, man.

02:22:02.000 It's amazing.

02:22:02.840 You too, man.

02:22:03.720 And, uh, yeah.

02:22:04.740 Check out the new special.

02:22:06.480 Um, April 25th, April 25th.

02:22:08.920 And we'll post about it.

02:22:09.760 I'll put a post up on my social media too, man, to make sure.

02:22:12.320 Thank you, man.

02:22:12.540 Not that you don't already have your own humongous audience, but, uh.

02:22:16.240 I'll take yours too.

02:22:17.060 Okay.

02:22:17.700 Awesome.

02:22:18.420 We'll be happy to share.

02:22:19.720 Thank you, dear.

02:22:20.320 Now, I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves.

02:22:26.620 I must be cornerstone.

02:22:31.860 Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind I found.

02:22:37.260 And I can feel it in my bones, but it's gonna take a living.

This Past Weekend with Theo Von - April 18, 2023

E440 John Mulaney

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