True Patriot Love - November 13, 2026


From Scooby-Doo to America's Got Talent ft. Greg Morton

Stellantis Fallout： Is Canada Losing Its Auto Industry？

Episode Stats


Length

40 minutes

Words per minute

178.42

Word count

7,237

Sentence count

97

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
00:00:00 i like to have a laugh i think you know that about me seriously i i like to laugh which makes
00:00:10 doing shows like we're doing today even more fun welcome to the room greg morton comedian and a guy
00:00:17 with a bit of a journey in the last couple of years that i think we all want to hear about
00:00:21 thanks for coming in man thank you mike how are you good nice so let me first of all you have the
00:00:26 greatest voice in Canada. This is Canada's greatest voice. That's good. How does that
00:00:31 sound on the mic? That's probably never been heard. Yeah. Yeah. He's got those buttery
00:00:35 tones. You know what my first job was? What's that? PA announcer. Where? At a department
00:00:40 store. No kidding. Give me an example. Remember the old Wolko? Wolko? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Take
00:00:47 me back, man. What do we got on sale? Good evening, shoppers. Welcome to Wolko. We have
00:00:52 uh ladies underwear now on sale oh that's great because i have ladies underwear on right now
00:00:58 uh well that's a that's an funny enough we have that in common because i have also been that guy
00:01:05 uh when you started the underwear guy not the underwear guy necessarily but the
00:01:09 the red light special guy okay i got right now red light special anyway you were a pa announcer as
00:01:15 well yeah when i was in early radio days i got the opportunity it paid pretty good
00:01:20 yeah okay it was pretty good though back then that's a good question i probably made a couple
00:01:27 hundred bucks for the day yeah uh sitting around at that time that was pretty bad it had zero
00:01:31 talent so it was really great it was great to make money for nothing uh so here you are sitting
00:01:38 in toronto with me is this where you hail from uh no but close i grew up in woodstock woodstock
00:01:43 ontario know it well yeah tobacco country as i that's it yeah yeah that's an interesting area
00:01:49 of Ontario to grow up in.
00:01:51 It's a bit rural.
00:01:52 I bet that you have friends from high school
00:01:54 that you're still friends with today
00:01:56 because of that.
00:01:56 As a matter of fact, yeah.
00:01:58 Yeah.
00:01:59 What was life like growing up there?
00:02:00 Well, challenging.
00:02:02 But I knew it would be
00:02:03 because I think back then
00:02:04 we were the only black family that lived there.
00:02:07 But my family grew up there.
00:02:08 My dad and his brothers and sisters, mom, et cetera.
00:02:13 And so, but my mom and dad, they always prepared me.
00:02:17 They always said, listen,
00:02:18 you're going to have to work twice as hard.
00:02:19 and you know you're gonna have to do this and that they didn't tell me i was gonna have to run
00:02:24 home from school every day but that is a that's a tragic traumatic thing to have to think about
00:02:30 actually it is but i'm i've never been caught up in that like you know how today the new newer
00:02:37 generation is all about that you know right displaying your trauma and i just i just had
00:02:43 accepted it and i think i'm better for it it's funny that you say that because i think that we
00:02:48 do a lot of trauma examination and frankly growing up where you grew up nice place man right maybe if
00:02:57 you weren't from a black family it would have been real different but which is weird to me because i
00:03:01 feel badly hearing this because i grew up in ontario i didn't see much real genuine racism when i was
00:03:07 growing up i was the muncha cake in my neighborhood a lot of italian guys yeah i heard that okay yeah
00:03:14 a bunch of kale okay i got it no big deal no not really no i was a little jealous because their
00:03:20 lunches were extraordinary works of art and i had the wonder bread so i did feel that show
00:03:26 that was my own yeah but no but it's so it's it's hard for me to picture that era in in
00:03:34 in ontario where you might have experienced a little bit of that well you'd be quite surprised 0.75
00:03:39 wow because even some of my teachers were a little ignorant wow i had this one teacher
00:03:45 this was the fifth grade and she thought it would be fun to have a minstrel show as part of the 0.89
00:03:52 assembly so we were all by the way that got a horrified wheezy laugh from nick our producer
00:04:02 both of us i felt i felt the oxygen just leave the room for a minute there
00:04:08 so we're all sitting around and this is a class project and they get out she gets out the black
00:04:17 construction paper they made red lips big boogly white eyeballs sticking out and i go like why
00:04:25 are we making these masks i was completely naive i didn't know what we were doing right and uh and
00:04:31 then people people kids were going like i'm going to wear mine for halloween and i'm going like
00:04:36 what what is this and then we're singing these negro spirituals old black joe and songs like
00:04:44 that i go like what is this i couldn't figure it out and i didn't have the context yeah yeah so we
00:04:51 get into let me see if i get this right yeah you weren't getting spiritual negro music at home no
00:04:56 oh okay in fact there was no radio station that had any of that music right like just put context
00:05:02 in it a kid we listened to country for god's sake a kid from the country in ontario would be doing
00:05:08 this what is this right yeah and uh then it got to the assembly and someone had a brain i guess
00:05:16 it was the principal and he said that this that it was completely unacceptable and it was wrong
00:05:22 and she was admonished but at the time i had no idea but what was great about it is that that was
00:05:29 my coming out into comedy because i was in another sketch which was in a classroom where i just played
00:05:36 a student and i just clowned around and i was getting laughs i'm going like wow this is what
00:05:42 i want to do it's so funny the best feeling in the world is making somebody laugh right seriously
00:05:48 even if it's just myself sold out show you know yeah but uh okay so that's how i kept from getting
00:05:54 beat up all the time in class it is a mechanism i think the class clown is a mechanism to keep
00:05:59 yourself safe uh to be beloved in ways that the jock isn't to be beloved in ways that the the
00:06:05 pretty boys aren't to be beloved regardless right and often more so uh i think the effects of making
00:06:12 people laugh have huge impact on them when it comes to how they view you i think so too yeah
00:06:19 you know it's uh especially in that age group you know to to be known as the funny guy from the from
00:06:25 the group now you were class clown weren't you mike you know i don't think that i think i'll be
00:06:30 asking the question greg i don't think that we need to uh point fingers but there was there was
00:06:36 moments yeah yeah yeah for sure no that was that was really much like you i remember opportunities
00:06:42 in grade school and high school and and uh that gave me the chance to to feel that laughter and
00:06:48 the effects of it thereafter and feeling exalted by myself for having done it you know and yeah
00:06:55 so i so now you you start to get these vibes that you can do this right where do you go next do you
00:07:01 end up like okay i'm gonna focus on going right to comedy well no because at the time i had a
00:07:07 talent for drawing so when i was a kid i would draw pictures cartoons and then make up voices
00:07:14 for them right yeah while i'm drawing because you know i didn't have a lot of toys or gi joe
00:07:20 i maybe had some plastic men or army people or whatever but that was it and that was my
00:07:26 entertainment because i was the only child for the first first nine years so you had nine years
00:07:31 of peace to create create your own world of weirdness yeah very much so yeah totally into
00:07:37 my own imagination and uh at the time i thought i was going to be a cartoonist or an animator
00:07:45 and that's exactly what i did i went to sheridan college i studied classical animation and i was
00:07:51 there for three years and my first job getting out was working on the scooby and scrappy do show
00:07:58 really yeah that was for you nick zoinks like wow right reggie i think we've got something here all
00:08:10 right so um yeah and then i went and i was working diligently on these scenes and
00:08:18 And we've got the first rushes back of our work.
00:08:22 And I watched my work go bloop like that.
00:08:24 And I went, what?
00:08:26 This can't be what I'm meant to do.
00:08:27 That was it?
00:08:28 Yeah, exactly.
00:08:29 Yeah.
00:08:29 Yeah.
00:08:30 Hey, before we go any further, please hit the subscribe button right now.
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00:08:45 All right, back to the show.
00:08:47 And, you know, that's such an illustrious, really illustrious course that you got into and graduated from.
00:08:55 You know, animation companies around the world would snatch you up.
00:08:58 Disney, Nirvana at the time.
00:09:00 Yeah.
00:09:00 All of these major companies, they were looking for you.
00:09:04 So I would imagine there was no shortage of work.
00:09:06 Oh, it was a really hot time in the industry then.
00:09:09 Yeah.
00:09:09 So now you're thinking, I don't know if this is for me.
00:09:12 Right.
00:09:13 What do you do next?
00:09:14 I'm planning my escape.
00:09:16 Right.
00:09:16 Okay.
00:09:17 okay since i but since i draw i made my own logo and it was a caricature of myself
00:09:24 and at the time i had a dj business i was uh working part-time on the weekends since i was
00:09:29 16 years old just doing weddings for friends and then as i got older and more of my classmates
00:09:36 were getting married i got more invites to do their weddings and they were like the class clown
00:09:41 you know the guy he's a dj exactly exactly so then i had this whole thing where i would do skits
00:09:49 with the songs so if it was ghostbusters i'd have a ghostbusters outfit right if it was a bird song
00:09:55 i'd have a bird outfit that's amazing yeah so i made a whole thing greg morton that crazy dj
00:10:02 patterned after you know those wild and crazy guys you know from right snl yeah i had a van
00:10:08 all painted up with my caricature on it and i i go like this is where i'm gonna go this is my path
00:10:13 for the next few years and we'll see where that takes me and how'd that work out well it was fine
00:10:19 until uh i it felt like there was a a ceiling now at the time when i was in college uh we had a i
00:10:31 i had a really good uh english teacher his name was bob smith and what he would do that was an
00:10:38 alias let's be honest bob smith is wanted someplace right but he he used to take us out on field trips
00:10:47 and he'd take us to theater second city yuck yucks so i got all this exposure to comedy
00:10:54 and i'm going like man this is what i want to do this is what i did when i was in high school
00:10:58 i would do skits and that and so we started out and i was like uh we had a duo at the time with
00:11:05 my best friend mike bannon and he played guitar and i wrote lyrics and i would sing the songs and
00:11:11 they were filthy well it's college right yeah fantastic yeah and uh i go like yeah i love this
00:11:18 but i'm not sure where i want to go with this so i took some improv and that and then finally i did
00:11:23 some stand-up my first time it was in london ontario and you know that place yeah yeah i've
00:11:30 done stand-up in towns like that yeah they're they're very conservative they're very difficult
00:11:36 a real challenge everybody was singing along yeah well actually the first time i went on stage i
00:11:43 killed it nice i thought well i'll i'll invite my friends and i bombed there's nothing like
00:11:51 saying to people please come to my show and this moment occurs where you look at right it's just you
00:11:59 honestly there's more people normally
00:12:04 but i kept at it and i kept doing it and i would drive two hours to to uh toronto and drive back
00:12:11 two more and eventually things got better and i go like yeah i gotta make the break i gotta go
00:12:16 full-time this is the only way i'm going to get better at this so i sold my business to my cousin
00:12:22 and i started doing stand-up and uh yeah and that's when i everything's really opened up
00:12:29 so what year is this we're talking about now do you think this is maybe 80 85. so now let me see
00:12:38 if i remember 85 86 now we've got major comedians there's there's waves of comedy i've noticed have
00:12:45 Have you noticed this?
00:12:46 There's waves of comedy where it's really the thing
00:12:49 and there's some big names and it's driving.
00:12:52 And now I think that the social media
00:12:55 has really vaulted that into a faster cycle
00:13:00 of who's hot and who's not.
00:13:02 But you were coming into comedy at a time
00:13:04 where comedy was sexy, man.
00:13:05 It was like, especially there was some big Canadian comedians
00:13:09 out there at the time.
00:13:12 SCTV was killing it.
00:13:13 yeah i mean like you really had a you arrived in a moment that could have been really uh fortuitous
00:13:19 at the time when i was there norm mcdonald was coming out wow came out of uh ottawa it's i
00:13:28 remember going to the ottawa club and seeing him work out he brought up his notebook he's
00:13:34 reading his jokes that he had written that day it was so cool yeah and we're arguing and there
00:13:40 we're arguing and the club owner says he should have that memorized and i go like he's working
00:13:45 out he's working he's working a deal out yeah he's trying to figure himself exactly right and
00:13:51 and then also that it lends itself to his personality it does i'm up here reading
00:13:59 okay okay that's fine uh but that's uh so that is a really wonderful era to kind of be
00:14:05 uh in canada now here you are in canada uh a comedian and we see this with so many comedians
00:14:12 i could name an endless number of comedians in canada that have to make the leap they either
00:14:18 go to new york they go to la they find themselves on tour through the tampa florida
00:14:22 the circuit right did you do that as well uh yes i did well here's a funny thing that happened
00:14:30 um i was a college uh not a convention no i remember this where you would go and you would
00:14:37 show off your act that's it book you right yeah yeah not a single book not like naca that naca's
00:14:42 the states but what was what was it in canada something about colleges yeah yeah yeah it'll
00:14:47 come to me yeah but yeah yeah no that's a big basically a showcase so this is where yeah this
00:14:52 is where all of the student council the student presidencies and the the booking people from all
00:14:57 universities and colleges across canada come to one uh demonstration exactly yeah so you performed
00:15:03 at that well no not exactly this was a pitch basically right and at the time it was mostly
00:15:11 just bands because i don't think comedy was as popular with colleges right as it is you know so
00:15:18 i went there and i'm going i thought i didn't take it seriously and i'm just joking around and
00:15:23 you know trying to argue that you know well comedians are easier an easier booking than
00:15:30 bands well they kind of are well slightly yeah but these people were very offended by that they told
00:15:36 me to leave the country why don't you leave the country oh okay all right fine but you know
00:15:44 something going back home and contemplating this i go like yeah what am i doing here
00:15:49 if they don't want me why why why shouldn't i leave and that's exactly what i did and my wife she
00:15:56 wanted to uh she wanted to study law so she went to new york law school and while she was going to
00:16:03 school i'd write joke jokes during the day and then i'd go to uh catch a rising star at night
00:16:10 wow yeah and do my is catch still around no unfortunately not yeah it's gone yeah that
00:16:15 was a real workout spot that's where comedians really uh really they had a they blossomed out
00:16:21 of there a lot of great names came in i saw dave chappelle wow i i saw chris rock for like two
00:16:29 seconds when i came in i thought you were dave chappelle and i was like i'm not ready for this
00:16:35 but uh yeah that was a and you know it's so interesting you can tell by even your uh presentation
00:16:44 in chatting with me your comfort level is that of a new york comic to be honest with you
00:16:49 you're ready in any scenario to have a good chat well and i think that comes from working out so
00:16:55 much in those hard rooms yes i mean i remember a lot of the guys would do three four spots in a
00:17:01 night just hopping from club to club yeah what were the clubs that you would hop to let's see
00:17:05 we can name it you got catch the rising star uh what else was there at the time something with
00:17:11 new york in it new york comedy new york new york comedy club your comedy club yeah then of course
00:17:18 caroline caroline's was one of the other big ones the seller the seller that was really popular
00:17:22 right still is still is yeah yeah so you had a lot of that was one thing going to that city gave
00:17:27 you the options you wouldn't get anywhere in canada which is clubs operating next week yes
00:17:32 but it's a different level because those audiences are a different level aren't they right right
00:17:38 More, what would you say about the audiences
00:17:41 that you experienced in New York compared to here?
00:17:43 Smart, intelligent, very word-savvy.
00:17:47 Yeah.
00:17:48 Kind of akin to the beatnik days, you know, that poetry, beat poetry.
00:17:57 There are the rhythms that the people connect with, you know,
00:18:02 and I think it's a release for those people as well
00:18:06 because you know that girl in that city what a pressure cooker oh my gosh even when you're just
00:18:11 sitting there it feels like you're doing something right are you watching it yeah it's so true
00:18:16 that's a great point well that's so that's really wild you you stay in new york for how long like
00:18:22 what happens maybe about two or three years i'm really giving i'm doing the history of your life
00:18:26 right now sorry about that but it's fascinating i think to viewers and listeners to understand
00:18:31 what this life is like it is a very different pursuit so you're you're in new york and you're
00:18:40 working it out there what happens where do you where do you go from there well i it i didn't it
00:18:45 didn't feel like a fit for me because i was more of an entertainer than it's just a straight stand
00:18:49 up gotcha so i thought well maybe la would be better for me so i said to my wife let's go to
00:18:56 los angeles she went there and studied up and wrote the bar out there and in the meantime your
00:19:02 wife is a good woman she is a lawyer she really comedian right come on i mean we traveled across
00:19:08 the country wow five or six times back and forth between new york and los angeles in the car wow
00:19:19 she'd call it that mike well she did not kill you so i would have to say true love
00:19:26 uh so that's so you actually ended up in la and what what uh what happens there well uh i liked
00:19:32 it more yeah i thought it was the better fit for me and at the time i was um i was doing
00:19:43 more stand-up but it was different you know i was trying i was kind of trying to meld what i was
00:19:48 doing in my disc jockey days with my stand-up character characters and voices right i didn't
00:19:56 really know it at the time but that's kind of the direction that i was moving right on and uh i had
00:20:02 also had a background in uh voice work so uh before i left for the states
00:20:11 uh somebody said uh oh i got hooked up with an agent here larry goldhart and uh he said from
00:20:18 characters and he says uh would you like to do uh going on on an audition for animation i said oh
00:20:25 yeah that's what i used to do in college i would do voices for my my fellow students films so he
00:20:31 says okay i'm gonna send you out on one and it was hello kitty hello good i know right so the
00:20:37 character what character are you on hello kitty his name was grinder he was he was a dog and he
00:20:43 sounded like this or imagine remember uh car 54 ed gwynn remember ed gwynn he go oh oh oh so every
00:20:50 time he got excited yeah so they wanted that hook for the character so i'm going oh yeah okay kitty
00:20:58 yeah it's so great to be here and these were all ring tellings of all these classic fairy tales but
00:21:04 they had a funny spin on them and they were fun and so i'm working on that and then the director
00:21:09 comes up to me because he was flying up from los angeles to toronto and we're doing this show and
00:21:14 he says hey craig you know you've got some background in this animation how would you like
00:21:19 to direct what well who doesn't want to direct that's everybody right yeah so i ended up directing
00:21:28 voice for cartoons i ended up directing uh cops uh not the tv show but you know the other one
00:21:36 uh bill and ted's excellent adventure uh what else uh super mario brothers the legend of zelda
00:21:44 this is when all these video games were becoming a half hour card that's right i recall that era
00:21:50 yeah yeah yeah so uh so that was my whole background and i thought well if i move to
00:21:55 los angeles this will be a continuation of that right you know fantastic fit yeah yeah you've had
00:22:02 you know what i think making yourself available and having talent has done you done you pretty well
00:22:08 so how long did you stay in la or did you end up coming back here to do this work i did because uh
00:22:14 I spent like about three years in Los Angeles, but it's just so expensive.
00:22:23 I was never there because I was always on the road trying to make money to pay the bills.
00:22:29 Exactly.
00:22:30 So I thought, you know what?
00:22:31 The only way I'm going to get better is to just become a road dog.
00:22:36 And I said, well, I'll make my home here in Canada, but I'll travel across the border into the States.
00:22:42 So that's what I did.
00:22:43 and i'm still doing i still live in toronto and i still cross the border and i still go to work
00:22:49 yeah like this past weekend i was in cleveland oh i'm sorry next weekend's gonna be better
00:22:55 uh i'm just kidding cleveland's nice people still live there cleveland's a good place uh
00:23:02 so now okay you put in you got the chops you put in the time you've had a breadth of experience
00:23:08 yeah could you talk to me about america's got talent sure what the hell what's that like how
00:23:15 do you end up there what's the process like the whole thing tell me it all well they have talent
00:23:21 scouts so they're scouring the internet all the time anything that's viral or it really has a
00:23:27 catch or a hook to it right they're on it and that's how they get all their their different
00:23:33 talent now you might not get in one year but you might get on the second year that that one week
00:23:39 and this was a weekend in uh what was it maybe 2018 yeah 2018 i got two calls i actually one
00:23:47 call one email one for would you like to be on britain's got talent and one and one for would
00:23:54 you like to be on america's got talent and then i'm trying to think how am i going to be on both
00:23:59 of these shows right but i i anyway i would imagine they probably wouldn't have minded that
00:24:05 to be honest with you so that's really wild it's almost like they are sharing their their talent
00:24:11 pools with each other when you get the franchise they likely set everybody up with the same model
00:24:16 of now i don't know what happened in behind the scenes but i ended up you know in america's got
00:24:21 talent so they they reach out to you and say would you like to do this exactly what happens next and
00:24:26 they say what do you want to do and then i go like well i obviously i star wars thing which i've been
00:24:32 doing for for years that's safe it's gonna hit i know it so like they said okay throw it on tape
00:24:38 and we'll look at it do it again do it again do it again and then when then we had to get
00:24:46 uh permission from disney because disney owns the rights to star wars exactly so i had to
00:24:53 make a script of everything that i was going to say during my skit so can you imagine writing down
00:25:02 a wookie going how do you write that wookie noise wookie expression yeah that's fun yeah a very quick
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00:25:41 nothing keeps you informed so thank you now back to the show what a pro so how long did the process
00:25:47 take before you actually showed up to about six months maybe close to six months okay now the
00:25:54 viewer thinks auditions are open the viewer thinks it's a process a lineup that goes on over a couple
00:26:00 of days actually they still are they still do have open auditions because you know you never know who
00:26:07 you're going to find that makes sense yeah so it is i didn't know that they had sort of um scouted
00:26:14 auditions which is great because i think that that's led to some pretty big stars in that system
00:26:19 well if you think about it it's a national television show it's viewed all over the world
00:26:23 yeah you have to have that level of talent yeah you couldn't possibly have a little tiny talent
00:26:29 time no you know like they had in hamilton you know my mom was on that show she really got yeah
00:26:37 her claim to fame probably the first year was big l's talent showcase she had to wait until they had
00:26:42 tv and then the next thing she did was get on it uh but uh so that's fascinating yeah how are you
00:26:49 feeling as all of this is coming on like are you like oh this could change my life this is gonna
00:26:54 change everything scariest thing that ever happened i said we're in the green room which is
00:27:00 the uh which venue the kodak theater oh right okay it's huge it's massive so there's all these uh
00:27:07 uh, two huge bathrooms and, uh, places to do makeup. It's huge. I go like, I'm hungry. I
00:27:16 want to get something to eat. She says, well, there's lots of things. There's lots of things
00:27:19 out there. You know, there's Hollywood Boulevard right there. You just go out there. You'll
00:27:23 see lots of food. I go, okay. So I walk out. I got swarmed. I got swarmed. Hey, it's that
00:27:32 guy. He's from, he's on the show. Next thing you know, I'm signing autographs. I'm taking
00:27:37 pictures i'm out there for 45 minutes just signing autographs i'm going wow this is it baby right it
00:27:46 felt like overnight and then i came back in and she said did you get something to eat i go no no
00:27:51 that was hard fame sucks i'm going home uh that's fantastic isn't that wild yeah yeah so now uh what
00:28:00 what do the moments feel like uh during the taping well i i have to say the taping was interesting 0.84
00:28:06 let me tell you okay so well we're all sitting back uh uh in the green room area you know and
00:28:15 it's just a hurry up and wait thing and i got really close to this uh this one contestant
00:28:22 and she's a flight attendant but she sings over the mic that's cool isn't that cool what a great
00:28:30 hook that was yeah so we're just chatting and and everything we got to them we got along quite well
00:28:36 and i got to know her family and everything so then it comes to the time when we're gonna go on
00:28:42 and she's peeking through the curtain she's oh my god look at all those people out there
00:28:50 freaking out oh she was freaking out because she'd never had a perform she never performed
00:28:55 i think that's i think that's part of the appeal of this show is that the the kid that uh spins at
00:29:01 180 rotations a second while he sings never did that outside of his house before and now he's got
00:29:07 to do it in front of a panel of superstars yeah and an audience yeah yeah and some people do choke
00:29:14 they do i think i might would you really it's quite exhilarating but i look at it as you just
00:29:20 got to jump into the pool it's the deep end you just jump in even if you've never swam before
00:29:27 stuff that i've done on stage uh sometimes i forget elements of it and then i come to and
00:29:32 i've been running around naked on stage no sometimes uh i especially in something that
00:29:41 goes really well or it's a big event or whatever and nothing compared to this i will forget the
00:29:47 first couple of minutes of what occurred because i'm so jazzed about that moment arriving how
00:29:55 i can't even imagine how that felt well that's why they have you practice and make these demo
00:30:01 tapes over and over again so that it's so committed to memory so in your brain that
00:30:08 it can't help but not spill out of your face right when you're when you're up there so you won't
00:30:13 freeze now do they do they start to pay you the minute they scout you are you kidding me they
00:30:17 don't get paid nobody gets paid on that show nobody gets paid on that show no so you've got
00:30:24 to make your own bones coming off that show walking out that door to a crowd of people suddenly that
00:30:29 became your future but think about it that is one of the biggest stepping stones you could have
00:30:35 yeah if you have seen by that millions of people and not just on television but the internet as
00:30:40 well yeah it's those viral videos are millions of views can i can i share an honest moment with you
00:30:47 you said star wars and then your act entered my mind you might have seen me smile
00:30:52 at that moment you were talking about it but it's a big big deal it's in my head clear as a bell
00:31:01 clear as a bell somebody had pulled me off the street right now and said you remember
00:31:04 the star wars act on america's yeah dude think about that join me luke you know what i'm talking
00:31:14 about he did star wars on america's got talent you got to check it out it's one of those things now
00:31:22 you become part of a conversation i know what you're saying you know what i mean you're actually
00:31:27 part of the fabric of society even if it's for a moment in time yeah yeah that's powerful
00:31:34 and there were several examples of that too like i'd be at the airport i'd get recognized
00:31:39 uh i was at the airport one time i went i was in the bathroom the stall door was closed the guy
00:31:46 came up and he knocked on the door you're the guy for me yeah are you the guy that makes all
00:31:52 the funny noises that's what he said no way yes that's what he said and i said yeah and
00:31:56 if you stick around i'll make a couple funny noises exactly wow that's really wild okay so you
00:32:05 come out what was the experience like with the celebrity panel that you faced did you
00:32:10 do you feel do you feel general engagement with them at that moment because it seems like
00:32:14 real real engagement yeah four yeses and uh i felt like at that moment everything that i'd
00:32:22 been working towards my whole career was happening and i just i broke down and i started crying i go
00:32:30 wow it actually happened because you know when you're in it you don't also the way that it
00:32:35 happens yeah it's like angels took you there by the moment you get on that stage you're like no
00:32:43 matter what happened no matter how many gigs i did no matter how many times i called this or
00:32:48 that on stage or in high school all of that doesn't matter none of that struggle even matters
00:32:54 at the moment i've been delivered here by angels to a an elevated scenario that most of society
00:33:00 will never experience it yeah that air is rare as they say so you come off the back end of this
00:33:07 now i'm trying to trying to get inside your head you've had a great success you come off the show
00:33:13 what happens mentally to you and what happens career-wise to you hmm well if the intensity
00:33:23 cranked up so as you you know you go on through the process and you're and i would i made it all
00:33:29 the way to the semi-finals right so that was uh crazy so after you've done this there's more
00:33:36 yeah that was easy what's the what's the right because you you now you're actually hitting the
00:33:42 the ranks how much time is there between that show and starting to get a few months because
00:33:47 they have to show all of the auditions right okay so and i think that's about three or four shows
00:33:53 maybe five auditions i don't know what it is now but so you have quite a bit of time to prepare i
00:33:59 think i had about three months okay but i just said to myself well you did it before just do it
00:34:05 with other movies you love movies just do it and so we're just making things up i'm making things
00:34:11 up as i go along and i'm just going to take this and i'll put that with that and i figure out an
00:34:17 order and i'd make a tape and they'd look at it and i we'd go back to the drawing board because
00:34:21 i had a producer everybody has a producer and uh and then boom there's a there's the next one and
00:34:28 it's all different movies my all my favorite movies that's really cool so now you actually
00:34:35 had a garden you had a purposeful garden that you had to tend creatively okay i'm gonna do this i'm
00:34:43 gonna do this okay so now you start to make and and how many times did you have to do this but
00:34:50 like create entirely new acts four times all four times well actually three three performances but
00:34:58 three four performances but three of them were completely new never done ever done that's crazy
00:35:07 i mean i don't think people can even appreciate i i think you by the way you're making it sound
00:35:11 easy well i just did this and this no but you already have that skill set that you built doing
00:35:15 right this and then can you imagine on top of that the pressure from the producers
00:35:21 you got to have this done we want to know what you're doing this has got to be in stone and
00:35:25 cut and dry yeah and i don't work that way you know right i just open up and i let i'm an open
00:35:31 vessel and it comes in i have faith i trust that it will come in right and they're going we have
00:35:38 a deadline they don't have faith they're a network they don't need faith so that's really wild to me
00:35:44 so now when you get out there do you feel hemmed in a little bit by that oh my gosh well for example
00:35:51 they wanted me to do uh the muppets i go like yeah i i can do the muppets and then i started doing it
00:35:59 i go like wait a minute that's all the same voice it's like one or two guys two or three guys so
00:36:06 i'm going they all sound like yoda yeah exactly yeah so there's no vocal gymnastics okay therefore
00:36:13 there's not a huge amount of dynamic in that performance exactly i got you and i knew that
00:36:18 wasn't going to work so i said well you got to give me a theme can i dress up at least can i
00:36:23 have a costume no you can't do that well can i just how about the muppets uh meet the matrix
00:36:31 or something like that good idea i love it my producer goes like the matrix nobody knows that
00:36:37 movie anymore what are you talking about i think it was the last movie that was made wasn't it so
00:36:42 listen to this this and this manifesting angelic moment i'm in the van i'm in la and i'm coming
00:36:52 from the airport to the studio okay and uh we had this big argument about the matrix no you can't do
00:37:00 it no you can't do it you can't do it i look up and we drive past the theater and the matrix is
00:37:07 playing 20th anniversary of the matrix yeah perfect timing right yeah and i god laughs right
00:37:13 that's so funny that is so funny what's it done for your career it has opened so many doors
00:37:23 uh some great gigs i had this one gig i had a gig in a guy's house and it was for his wife's
00:37:31 birthday i love these stories okay you make big big bucks oh yeah 10k what yeah to perform at a
00:37:39 birthday party yes okay so i'm gonna make other plans for my party i had an idea there but to be
00:37:44 honest with you i don't think financially it's gonna work but anyway i love the idea
00:37:48 how did he takes me he takes me to this this uh door he opens up the door and i said what do you
00:37:55 want me to hide into the hide in the closet while uh she comes in and we're going to surprise her
00:38:01 he says no this is the elevator wow that's a good paying gig what city was this in
00:38:09 this is in uh i think it was staten island ah okay so so i go down the elevator i come down to this
00:38:15 guy's uh rec room if you can call it that it's got a stage oh he's a yeah just a hobby musician
00:38:24 a chef by day or a caterer by day and a musician at night and he's a huge kiss fan and he's got
00:38:31 a kiss memorabilia all over all right it's all signed and uh i go like wow and there was a stage
00:38:38 and and then chairs it was all set up like a comedy club in the basement of his house
00:38:44 wow that's a good gig right and how long did you go oh i think 45 to an hour something like that
00:38:52 yeah that's a lot of money per hour young man you better put some of that cake away
00:38:58 uh but that's beautiful because i think that's that's where
00:39:04 these are the glory days exactly yeah right and now you can really
00:39:10 it doesn't sound to me like you took it easy to be honest with you oh i just kept going as much
00:39:14 as i could yeah great like it seems like you've always made the moves but i've always loved
00:39:20 performing so wow uh this is really this is a beautiful story and in the end i hope inspirational
00:39:28 for more comics more funny people more performers especially here in canada some great talent yeah
00:39:34 so much good talent i just came back uh doing this we've traveled to the east and to the west
00:39:40 extensively three time three tours in the west three tours in the east and uh paul micucci from
00:39:46 the network went to the east i went to the west and there's a distinct lack of comedy in so many
00:39:53 parts of canada where people are really funny and so if we can create inspiration that drives
00:39:59 somebody into the field the field drives clubs to open the clubs drive audiences to arrive
00:40:05 and the whole thing grows uh and i hope that that's the case i hope so too i just wish we would
00:40:12 utilize our comic comedic talent as well yeah give them more shows radio podcasts whatever
00:40:20 i don't even think it's a problem if you tariff us on comedy because we got so much of it yeah
00:40:24 we'd be okay i really appreciate your time today man yeah thank you mike thank you congratulations
00:40:33 Thank you.