Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Jeff Ross

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Jeff Ross · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftseetts Podcast. My
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: guest today is the one and only Roastmaster General Jeff Ross,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: who has the best comedy special of the year, whi's
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: on Netflix called Take a Banana for the Ride. Jeff,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: how's your health?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Ooof Well, every time you say I have the best
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: special of the year, my health improves.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Well it is. I mean, I tell everybody to watch it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: You know, Jeff has got a rep as a roaster,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: so you think he's going to be an intense negative guy,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: or you think that's what the special is. I don't
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: want to ruin the special, but it's basically the story
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of your life. It's like if Spaulding Gray was a comedian.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: I love that, but it's all true. You mentioned I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: was going to ask you about your health anyway, what
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you go deeply into in the special. But just before
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: we begin, you mentioned having a colonoscopy.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: How often do you have to have with them? Once
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: a year? The there's a big colonoscopy story in the special,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: and now this is a year later in real life.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Now the specials on Netflix, and now I have to
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: go back to my real life and I came in
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: fast at all day last couple of days, had my GotoP?
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Did you use the pills of the liquid? Both gott
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: to you both.
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  Speaker 2: My doctor is very uh very uh uh thorough. I
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: did the sence.
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  Speaker 1: We're this deep and we're of this age, Bob.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: My colon is as smooth as your scalp. But where
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: is your doctor here? We're in La downtown.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, because you know the way these people make money
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: is they have centers. I go to a guy in
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: West La. Yeah, and he and his firm own the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: place right and they keep going there. But whatever, keep going.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: No, my doctor is at a usc Kech and I
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: go once a year. Now. I had my colonoscopy yesterday.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Took out three polyps and I'm going to send them
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: to the Broadcasting Hall of Fame. They're going to frame
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: them and put them on the wall.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Let's go back. This is in the special butt tell
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: us the trigger that finally got you to get a colonoscopy.
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  Speaker 2: My pal Jordan Rubin is a friend of mine, my
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: entire adult life, comedy director, writer, great guy. He'd been
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: hawking our text chain for a couple of years saying
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: we all need to go get colonoscopies. Jordan is a
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: health not a little bit of a hypochondriac, and he
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: was always saying, have you gotten your colonoscopy? And I
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: would always go, I just blow it off. John Hamm
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: takes credit for getting Jordan to get his colonoscopy. Jordan
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  Speaker 2: found polyps. He was fine, but he realized that if
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: he hadn't, those polyps could have become could become something.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: So it all trickled down eventually to me. When the
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Tom Brady roast was finally over, I was an ep
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: on that I was working very hard and finally I
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, I'm off for a few weeks. Let
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: me take care of myself. Went to the shrink, I
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: went to the dentist, and I finally got a colonoscopy, just.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: To stay here. How old are you today right now?
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  Speaker 2: I'm sixty.
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  Speaker 1: So do you have a primary cure doctor in LA
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: who said, hey, it's fifty you got to get a colonoscopy.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Uh hmm, that's a yes or no question. I know,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: no judgment involved there is had that person okay? Because
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: we're guys, and a lot of guys don't go to
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the doctor or ignore symptoms. Do you go for regular checkups.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Do you address your health normally?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? But I hadn't gotten a colonoscopy.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So but he had been telling you this. We're audio only,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: so I get a little bit of a smirk. Whatever.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So at fifty nine you get the colon fifty eight
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: fifty eight? What exactly makes you call and say, okay,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: let's schedule.
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  Speaker 2: Awareness that that it was an issue for a lot
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  Speaker 2: of men my age, an awareness that I'd never go.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Just to stop here. You did the special, but amongst
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: your buddies everyday life have you? Is it gone from
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  Speaker 1: John Ham to Jordan to you? And now you're the evangelist.
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  Speaker 2: I tell everybody because guys don't realize the guys think
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: the colonoscopy is painful or embarrassing, that they don't. I
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: went yesterday, so I can really speak to this. This
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: is my third one. Now it's nothing. The cleanse is fun.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I like cleaning. I like I eat brisket for breakfast, Bob.
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  Speaker 2: I like the cleanse. I like the cleanse. I like
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  Speaker 2: knowing it's all coming out.
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  Speaker 1: Look at that where wait, wait, wait, just a couple
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: of points.
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  Speaker 2: It's like spring cleaning. Where is the best risk it Oh,
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  Speaker 2: Clinton Manor Caterers, Newark, New Jersey, nineteen fifty eight. Okay,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: after that, I got I think you probably have to
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: go to Katsas Delhi. Okay, you have to go to
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: my cousin Rona's house.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I figured you would say somebody's house. Just to stay
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: on the same tip. Since we're so well versed, you're
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: mentioned nine fifty eight. Where can you truly get a bagel?
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: If you can truly get a bagel, this equivalents the
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  Speaker 1: ones from nineteen fifty eight.
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  Speaker 2: I go to Bob's Bagels on University Place in New York.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I was there a couple of days ago. That was
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  Speaker 2: my pre cleansed meal was chicken salad on a toasted
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: everything bagel from Bagel Bob on University. Okay, very good bagel.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Let's go back. So when you do the colonoscoby at
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  Speaker 1: fifty eight, you've already crossed the threshold you're doing it.
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  Speaker 2: Just to be clear, so far I've mentioned usc kech
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  Speaker 2: and Bagel Bob's. I'm not getting paid for any of these.
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  Speaker 1: These are tipsy. So did you have any anxiety.
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  Speaker 2: About my first colonoscopy?
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  Speaker 1: No?
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  Speaker 2: I just thought it was a routine thing that men do,
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  Speaker 2: that people do. Okay, I had no symptoms. I wasn't scared.
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  Speaker 2: So in fact, I had a blood test and the
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: doctor at the time said, oh, you're gonna be fine.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, having had a number of these myself, I
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: find the just for those people. I don't agree with
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Jeff here the liquid tastes so bad you have to
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: keep They now have pills. It's just they don't well,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: your shit doesn't pass till much later. But you go,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: you wait however long they give you. Michael Jackson, probe
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the fall, and then you lie and then at some
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: point the doctor comes in. I've had a doctor come
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: in like five minutes later or an hour later. And
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: since they're doing this one after another, maybe just say, oh,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: you're fine, we found this and that.
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  Speaker 2: What was your experience my first colonoscopy, I waited too long,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: but I had no symptoms. I felt fine. I was
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: just going in because it's something you do, like a
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  Speaker 2: teeth cleaning, you know, Oh I need to get a colonoscopy.
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  Speaker 2: I'm ten years late. Let me go do that my
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: whole life. I'll never have cancer. That's not going to
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  Speaker 2: happen to me. I'm tough. This never occurred to me
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  Speaker 2: that I would have an issue. And you know, in
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: prepping you get a blood test and that didn't show
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: any cancer. So I was just went into it pretty confidently, like,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: let me just do this routine colonoscopy. And then I
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: woke up an hour later and the doctor looked at
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  Speaker 2: me and said, you need to get a surgeon. You
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: have a tumor in there. So that was shocking, and
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  Speaker 2: I was mad that I didn't get one sooner, mad
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  Speaker 2: at myself.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, you have the anger. How did you cope mentally
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  Speaker 1: with having it? Finding out you had a tumor.
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  Speaker 2: I always go into world beater energy fight. I never
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: thought I was going to die, even though it was
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  Speaker 2: a stage street tumor. I never thought I was going
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  Speaker 2: to die. I knew it was curable. I knew that
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  Speaker 2: I felt good, and I knew that I was going
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  Speaker 2: to drop my life and do everything I could to
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  Speaker 2: get better. And that's what I did. Oh, my sister
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  Speaker 2: came in. My sister, Robin dropped everything. It was summertime.
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  Speaker 2: She's a school teacher, so she was off. She came
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  Speaker 2: in and went to my appointments with me and my manager,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Amy went to appointment with certain doctors. My friends, my
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: friend Tol Wilkinfeld came to meet a surgeon with me,
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  Speaker 2: My friends, my army, if you will, really gathered around me.
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  Speaker 2: That helps a lot and a lot of people when
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: they find something out, they get quiet. I tell anybody,
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  Speaker 2: but I told close friends. I didn't tell the public.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't tell my fans. I sculped around the hospital
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  Speaker 2: trying to be incognito because I didn't know what was happening,
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  Speaker 2: and I didn't want a people to know and then
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  Speaker 2: ask me a million questions everywhere I went. And there's
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: nothing less funny than a guy who's sick, like I
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  Speaker 2: thought it would affect my career. I didn't want people
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  Speaker 2: to think I was sick. But I took a head on.
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  Speaker 2: I did everything they told me to do. I never
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  Speaker 2: complained and went in for the fight.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, it's in the special. You had part of your
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  Speaker 1: colon removed. What's the recovery from that?
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  Speaker 2: The joke in the special is I had a seven
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  Speaker 2: inches of my coal and removed. Now I have a
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  Speaker 2: semi colon right, Well, okay, I don't mind telling the
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  Speaker 2: jokes now. Okay, there's so much in that special that
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: we won't say so. And the recovery is I'll say
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  Speaker 2: this is a gift to anybody going through this. It's
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: not as bad as you think. It's never as bad
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  Speaker 2: as you think. It never hurts as much as you
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: think it's going to hurt. Sometimes it does, but it's over.
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  Speaker 2: You can get through it, you really can. And the
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: recovery was tough. The chemo was tough, but not as
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: tough as it was when we were kids. Like when
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: my mom had to go through leukemia. Chemo, it really
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: erect her and it does wreck certain people. But there's
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: so many advances. I was talking to my doctor yesterday
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  Speaker 2: and he was saying, how ten years from now, they
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: won't operate on this stuff anymore. They'll be able to
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: do it all with chemicals, with chemo. That's how much
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: you're advancing, He said. More and more he's shrinking stage
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: four tumors. I had a stage three, but more and
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: more now, you know. And the guys over at Kech
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: are like scientists. It's a research hospital. They are really
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: progressive in figuring out these recipes, these chemo recipes, and
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: it worked. I responded well enough where he let me
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: drop the last session. My numbers, my blood tests were okay,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: and I was eager to go back to work.
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  Speaker 1: From the moment you had the surgery to the moment
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  Speaker 1: you were he dropped the last given therapy session.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: How long a period of time is that? Say that again,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: from the moment.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: From the moment you had the actual cutting the surgery
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  Speaker 1: till you went to see the doctrine in the doction.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Your numbers are good, you can go back to work.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do the last chemo.
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  Speaker 2: It was from July to Christmas.
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  Speaker 1: Relatively long, shortened life.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, when you're canceling gigs, it's long, but when
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: you're looking at life, it's short.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, I have cancer. I have the only cancers a
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: pill for. Totally change my attitude when I got cancer.
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  Speaker 1: What have you changed in terms of your outlook or
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: anything that's changed since having cancer?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I'm sorry for what you're going through.
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  Speaker 1: Well, as I say, I'm good. I was the first
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  Speaker 1: person of all my friend group to have it. Then
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  Speaker 1: everybody got something much worse. To say, I'm the only
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: one there's a pill for, but it's actually to be
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: leukemia CML.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: But there's LDL.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not LDL, that's cholesterol, but you know, CLL whatever.
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  Speaker 1: They're working on it. But I guess when I got it.
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  Speaker 1: I was fifty six, and suddenly I realized I'm gonna die,
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  Speaker 1: not today, but before that, just conceptually, I thought I
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: was going to live forever.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Let's try. You start to look at your mortality, and
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I still live like a kid. My brother in law
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: is so mad at me because I haven't written a will.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I haven't figured any of that out, and if anything
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: ever happened to me, he'd be stuck trying to figure
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  Speaker 2: all this out.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, COVID you couldn't work a certain period of
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: time and then you real have you saved enough money
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that you could exist fine?
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: In the words of Jackie Mason, the Great Jackie Mason,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I have enough money to ask me the rest of
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: my life, unless, of course, I want to buy something, right, Okay, Okay, okay,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: generally speaking, when you have the net, I'll make this
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: not about money. I have some money saved, but I
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: have the friends and the support system that if I
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: was broke, i'd still be Okay. Okay, that's the wealth.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, but just hanging in there because everybody manages their
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: money differently. Yeah, you get paid for a gig. When
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the money ultimately hits you, let's just sue it's cash
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: and enough times going by. You got a certain amount
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: of cash sitting in your some account. What do you
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: do with it?
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  Speaker 2: What do I do with it?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Okay? There are people who immediately spend it. Basketball starts
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: to have five cars. There are other people who say,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: immediately invest it. Some people are good with money. Traditionally,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: the talent is bad with money. But the people, the
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: business people good with money. They just don't have the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: talent to make the money.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: I'm very conservative. I don't spend a lot of money
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: on All I really do is by take my friends
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: to dinners and that's kind of it, and charity stuff,
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: I guess. But I'm not a big spender, so I
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: don't worry too much about money. My business manager's Dan
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: and Harvey. They know I like to play it close
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: and I'm not a big spender. I don't drive a
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: fancy car. Both of my houses, one in New York
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: and an apartment and a house here are basically unfurnished
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: because I have a German shepherd and I don't really
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: want a wet dog on the couch. So I don't
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: buy a nice couch. I live the same way I
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: lived when I was broke. Okay, except for I spend
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: money on dinner.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Right you talk about having all these friends, Let's go
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: back to the beginning. You're a little kid growing up
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: in New Jersey. Did you always have a group of
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: close friends? So what is it about you? Because of
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: course the nature you know, whether it be any comedian,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: you know someone who is saying negative things about people
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: at the end, away says, I kid, I kid over
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: all having fun here. But what allowed you to have
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: all these friends?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: That's an interesting question to me. It's I'm loyal and
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: I gravitate towards the love and I make friends easily,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: but I hold on to them. In your green room
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: right now, is my best pal from college, Mark who
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: I talk about in my show, who talked to me
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: to being a comedian. You don't get rid of people
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: like that who give you a gift like that. That's
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: my best pal, and when we have life issues we
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: talk about it. Friendship, Bob, is an investment. You invest
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: your memories, your history, your secrets into somebody. So when
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: you lose a friend, either an argument or death. That's
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: the law. That's the loss. That feels way worse to
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: me than financial bankruptcy. When you lose a friend, that's
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: the hardest thing. I had a friend about ten years
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: ago and got sick and he really thought he was
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: going to die and we had say goodbye, and he
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: figured it out and he got well. But I remember
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: that feeling that would have been my first really good
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: pal to go and I thought, wow, this is I
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: would rather be bankrupt and have to lose this guy.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: This guy knows everything about me, he knows everything. We've
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: been through it together, We've been all over the world together.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: So friendship to me is an investment. I look at
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: that the way other people look at a financial investment.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, have you had friends who have pulled away from
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: you for whatever reason, and how have you handled that?
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I try to Yes, it took me about fifty years
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: to figure out you can't be friends with everybody. That
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: was a tough realization, and I take the high road.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: I never bad mouthed, never, And there's a lot of temptation,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: especially me. I'm in front of a microphone every night,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: but I don't do it because I don't think that
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: looks good for me either. I think negativity. I took
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: some hit, some hard losses as a young man. My
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: parents died when I was a teenager, and I realized
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: that if I could stay positive and keep moving forward
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: instead of always looking backwards, I would live longer. Buddy
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Hackett was one of my best friends. He was like
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: a brother and a mentor. And he used to say,
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: when you get a hold in a grudge, the other
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: guy's out dancing, so I hold out of that. I
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: like to be the guy dancing.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna talk a specific story, a lot of
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: history I'm gonna leave out. I have a friend I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: went to college with, one of the closest friends. From college,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: we drifted away, but we reconnected. It's a lot of
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: time together. He lives in a different state. He emailed
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: me when COVID began, et cetera. Then he ghosted me completely.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Now you first you go through your own you know
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: what have I said, what have I done? And in
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: this particular case, you email, you text, you call, you
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: get a hold of the brother, and you get nothing.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: As I say, I'm willing to eat just about anything,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the person wouldn't even respond took me a year to say, Okay,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: just gonna let go.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you hurt people or they hurt you, and you
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: just don't want to go there. I'm assuming you wrote
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: something in your freaking letter to pissed them off.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: That immediately goes through my mind.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what did I say? What I want to say?
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Whatever? Bu blah boy. This is you know with somebody,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: it's not somebody you meet in LA. You know, for
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: somebody you know him for decades, right, you know you
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: want to beat me up? I mean he does this
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: is the There are examples in his life with people
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: where he's done this previously.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: I am not the only person probably shout on somebody's
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: album and you forgot that that was his cousin or
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: whatever it was. Or I guess you know you're in
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: a unique position. You're a little like me and that
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: you know we roast, criticize, you know, we do our thing.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: It's we should get hazard paid, Bob. People don't realize
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: what we're doing is dangerous.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Well, in your case, it's comedy, but it's got an
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: element of truth. I like to see myself as a truth.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: For me, what cracks me up is when people I'll
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: tell you a specific example. This guy's a DJ, not
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: anymore in Chicago, but longstanding. He goes, you know, I'm
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: friends with Peter Gabriel. You want to do a podcast.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Peter Gibbet sure comes back.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: From Peter Gabriel.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: He wrote about how I released my album Never I'm
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: cracking up. It's kind of like, okay, I'll tell you
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: what joke. I'm upstairs at the whiskey with cheap trick. Okay,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Robin Xander is there literally like an inchway. I gotta
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: tell you a joke.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: I've been in this situation where rock.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, so he goes, well, you know, musician goes on
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the road.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, on the road a lot of time.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Comes home, wife's not there, car's not there, can't figure
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: out what's going on. He goes to the next door neighbor.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: You know, you know what's going on? Oh yeah, you
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: know this guy you know kept on coming by, said
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: he was your manager, and you know, I think he
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: took off with your wife. And the musician says, my
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: manager came to my house.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: That's a great joke, right, Well, I.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: I heard it. You know, musician jokes are a club
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: unto themselves and you're saying either at the whiskey. So yes, you're.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Told that very well though I credit you, but I.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Guess that well. I could have told her better. I
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: was in the middle. I mean, okay, I guess for me.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Do you watch show hacks Jean Smartest Beyond Belief? And
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I was never a fan? Did you watch the finale?
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: I haven't gotten there yet.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, well I watched the finale went live last night.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I don't like it when people play safe and pull it.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: The heart springs one thing. If that's what you're doing,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: is like the finale of Seinfeld sucked but they tried,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: so I like when you're try whatever, we're getting way
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: way off play. Let me go back to an earlier question.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You're going to school in New Jersey. Yeah ay, good student? Yeah,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: b B plus okay, school play sports yep, football, karate? Okay,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: So it's a different era you go to school.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: But you asked a question about my friends. I was
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: the one guy in high school who could be friends
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: with the nerds, the jocks, every type of person. I
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: always had that. I always could move from group to group.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I had that especially in college.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, where'd you go?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: This is Middlebury College in Vermont, which is a story
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: unto itself, drew out of water in a different pre
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: internet era. We can talk about that.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: But did you learn anything about broadcasting in college? Because
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: the first thing they teach is not to bang on
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the table when you have like I was on the
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: radio line, I went, I learned the hard way at NPR.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: When you were getting along with all these groups. And
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: if I how many people went to your high school A.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Couple hundred, five, six hundred, I guess that's pretty low.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Would they say, oh, jeff Ross, Oh he's like the
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: most popular guy in school.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no. I was well liked, but
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: I can't say that was the most popular lift Schultz
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: back then. Jeffrey Ross left Schultz. I played football, but
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I didn't start. I had occasional handholding girlfriend, but nothing
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: till college. Really, you know, no, it was not a standout.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Did your success allow you to have more friends? Of course,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: but we all know a bazillion people. I'll give you
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: an example. This is an old story. Okay, you work
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: for this English management company. The people at Capitol Records
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: were not everybody. A couple of people treated me like shit. Okay,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Then I wrote the newsletter that said, oh, this is
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: the only guy who knows what's going on. I'm the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: same guy, right. But so you have a certain level
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: of status, they deal with you differently.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: It's not I don't know if it's status. But you
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: start to have a voice in the world. You mature,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: you have opinions. You evolved, Bob, and that's what it is, Okay.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: I started writing from my school paper. So people start
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: to go, oh, I read your review of the Tattoo
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: you Rolling Stones album and you know, and I go, oh,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: really do you like? And suddenly you're talking to somebody.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: It brings you know, expressing yourself will attract people and
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: also send people away from you. But for the most
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: part I was writing positive things, and I don't I've
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: never been one to push people away. When one of
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: the reasons I wanted to come on here was because
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: you said something nice about You wrote something so nice
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: about me, and I go as a comedian, but also
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: as a human being, I go towards the love. That's
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: what you do in life. So if someone writes something
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: nice and you agree with that, you might suddenly become
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: a fan of theirs. That's just natural. Human nature. I
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: don't know if that's status.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: No, it's an interesting perspective. You know, I haven't consciously
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: thought about it.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I don't think of it as transactional now the way
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: you are. I'm also not getting pitched, and you know
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I'm not under the scrutiny.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Are just it is? We get big this. I was
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: not planning to speak much at all, and suddenly I'm
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: going forth.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: I love this that you're actually opening up a little bit.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: You didn't do this with Carol Leifer. You made her
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: do all the work.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: No. No, my goal is to make it about the
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: person I'm interviewing. Okay, I get to express myself in
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: other places. So it drives me crazy. Interviewers were busy
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: interrupting and telling their own story. Now I only know
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: you from the person on the screen. A lot of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: those people you put a nickel in the jukebox and
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: they just go. So you're steering.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: So I'm only been sitting here with you twenty five minutes,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and all of sudden I realized I'm running this through
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: my head. Say, okay, how's irrelevant to me? How's this
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: state of mind? How's his health? B Is he anxious?
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: In this situation. See does he's worry they're going to
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: hit land mines four? Do I just have to hit
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the right spot. I'll give you an example. This is
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: kind of funny, Malcolm glad Well, you know that is
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of down on now, not for anything personal.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: We go to dinner. What's the number one rule of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: famous people? You do not talk to them about what
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: they're famous about. You go to a musician and you say, oh,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I love you, You're done.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I know. I really fell into this trap the other
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: day with Springsteen with who Bruce?
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: What'd you say?
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: You said? I'm a big fan sen you a hundred
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: times by Bruce, instead of trying to connect with him
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: man to manner as an artist or anything, I just
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: fumbled through.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: It's like Joe walsho I know more than a little.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I see Joe Walsh. I'll talk about Ham Radio. They
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: light right up up about that.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: It's like when you meet Tom Hanks, you don't talk
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: about you know, Forrest Gump, you talk about typewriters exactly.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: You know, he did an event at my friend's bookstores.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: He talked to him about that.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they treat you.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: They put up their guard immediately and I had.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: A million angles on Bruce, and of course I went
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: to the dumb fanboy. I became a twelve year old.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Just to be very clear, what were the exact circumstances
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: you encountered.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Bruce uh was backstage at the Garden. His security guard
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: likes me, pushed me in the room, said Goseida Bruce.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, so it's after the show. Yeah, after the show,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: you're in the room. How long after he leaves the stage?
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Twenty minutes fifteen?
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: You're in the room. Who else is in the.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Room, Oh, my goodness, Joan Biez. Who people? No, twenty people.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: So you're observing a little bit before you go in.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton had already come through, Chris Christy had already
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: come through. You're there, Okay, I'm there, but I don't
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: see myself as a celebrity in that room. I'm there
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: as a fan book.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: But that's not my point. You've been in a lot
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: of these rooms. You wait for your moment. You don't
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: immediately go into Hey, Bruce, I got a call.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: He came over, which was made me nervous. If I
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: had thought I'm gonna meet Bruce tonight. By the way,
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: I met him a month ago at the Forum, Jimmy
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Kimmel brought me in and I did the same thing.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: Instead of saying, hey, Bruce, I saw you on Broadway.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: I just did a Broadway show. It's about New Jersey.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: I think you'd like it, and you'd go, hey, man,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: I'm going to check that out on the plane tonight
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: and we're going to be best friends and I'm gonna
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: call you, and none of that happened. I also could
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: have said, hey, you and I are both friends with
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Eddie Vedder. Look what he wrote on my arm so
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: tattoo it says born to Rose, and he go, hey,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I love Eddie. That's so funny. No, none of that.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: What I did was Bruce, I've seen you a hundred times.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: I really loved that you played the Clampdown tonight, the
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: class song, And he said, hey, Mick Jones was just
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: in my dressing room a minute ago, and I was like, oh,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: like I stammered. I was so starstruck that I just
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: couldn't even wait.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Wait, were there are a couple of things going on here? Yeah,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Bruce comes over to you. Ye met him once before.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: I met him a few times. He saw me perform
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: ones that have benefit for the troops, Like we have
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: some history, okay, but I'm pointed.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: We've all been in these rooms where the famous person
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: is there and somebody's whispering in there. Oh, that's so
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and so right, that's not what was going on. He
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: came to you.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: Maybe they did that. Yeah, I don't know.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Didn't sound like if you met him.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: His assistant is fond of me and we have some
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: mutual friends.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: But let's go back. And so I was not at
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: that show. I read that he did the clampdown. That
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't that bad. You're beating yourself up unnecessarily.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Bob.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: No, seriously, if you feel better if you had said,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: seen you one hundred times, you meant so much to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: be in college. When you play the guitar, he has
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: eyes were rolling in the back of his head. But
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: when you talk about something, because he had to pick
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the clamp down.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: He said, I had to do it, man, I had
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: to do it.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Well, it's like say, but he was somewhere, somewhere to go,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I should do the clip. The other thing, of course,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: is you think of Bruce Springsteen, you don't.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Think of the clash. No, So he felt good.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: He immediately talked about Mick Jones, but you're also backstage.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: There's only a limited amount of time for each Bruce.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Right, You're right, You're absolutely right, And now I feel
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: a little better thinking I was cooler than the next person.
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: And he's said, oh, you know, Tom Morello suggested it,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: and we did have a nice exchange about that. But
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: for him, it's mostly forgettable. For me, I wanted to
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: go wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait. I guess what
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I'm saying is all I want in the world is
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: for Bruce to watch take a banana for the ride
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: Flicks and I didn't tell him about it. That's all
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: I want in the world, just for him to be
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: my fan.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, just just to hang in there. To what degree
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: can you self promote?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: No, all my friends are like, you can't do that.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: You shouldn't be plugging your show to Bruce Springsteen, and
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: I'm like, am I probably would have been able to
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: do or.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: My friends were managing Jimmy Page. He was honored led
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Zeppelin's a Kennedy Center honor, so he's meeting Obama. He
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: gave him the led Zeppelin Live album. I would not
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: do that. But to what degree are you in a
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: situation where you're going to stand up and say I
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: do X or It's like, what makes me crazy is
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: on Twitter X whatever people say, oh I met you know,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the laugh shack on the twentieth and I'm here. The
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: other thing is when they say, oh, read about me here,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: read about me here. It's like, that makes me in now.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of people become very successful that way.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: So I'm asking about you. Bruce is the pinnacle. But
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: if it wasn't Bruce, it was you know, JEFFA meant
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to whatever, you know, etc. And you're talking, would you
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: tell him to watch your special?
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have been No, I would because a minute before,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: a minute after Bruce walked away, Joan Bias kind of
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: looked at me and struck up a conversation. I guess
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: her friends told her I was a comedian, and I
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: immediately told her about my special. I wasn't intimidated, he
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: just and I made a great joke to her.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Start on a more micro level, she walks.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Over, I love how you're breaking this down.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I who speaks first for you?
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: I can't remember. It was our eyes met and I
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: was starstruck because she's so beautiful, and just an incredible artist.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: So the conversation, how does how much goes down before
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: you talk about the special.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: I think my recollection is that my buddy Steve was
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: with me. He'd have to back this up. But what
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: I think happened was I kind of saw her looking
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: and her friends were kind of acting like they might
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: want to take a picture with me. I don't know
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: if they were her relatives or her friends. They were
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: much younger. You know, she's a woman maybe in her
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: eighties or something. She looks great, So I kind of
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: saw that as an opening to wave and walk across.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: Is not much further than we are from here, which
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: is like four feet And I may have said, what
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: a pleasure to meet you. Do you think I could
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: take a picture with you? That kind of thing? I
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: thought in this case, being a fan would be the
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: right approach, just.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: To hang in there. Yeah, to what degree would do
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: you do that with people?
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: In general?
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Hey, let's take a picture when you're not the star,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: when somebody else is someone you would desire. I were
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a picture of it was supposed to be coming up
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I held back a couple of days ago with a big,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: big photo op I decided to be the friend and
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: not the fan. We can get into that after.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I'll just tell you, since we're telling stories back and forth,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I was in Seattle. Yeah, okay, I'll tell you a
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: better story the night the House of Blues opened in
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles, Aerosmith opened.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: It's so funny, and.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Upstairs was not finished, but that was where the party is.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: And I'm talking to Steven Tyler, whom I know, and
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I'm telling a story makes me look good. But you
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: only have so many of these. But then you know,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: not the guy between security and best friend because you
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: know Steven, because I'm like the first guy talking to him.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Who run and he said, he looks at the guy goes,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: this is the most important person here. I'm going to
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: talk to him as long as I like. It's like wow,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: so not how you know? Actually this other story is
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: around the same time. Whatever. I'm in Seattle. A friend
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: of mine's a radio promotion person aerosmiths in town. You
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: got to take a picture. You gotta get in the picture.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I said, no, I mean, I don't know. If you
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: know radio promotion levels of people, it really goes at
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: the very micro level. They can get really intense they
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: try not to go there, but they all the really
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: good ones have that where they push really hard and
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: he looks at me in the eye.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: You gotta do it, Papa.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: But I'm staying in his house. So I go over
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: into the group picture. Steven Tyler looks at me, goes,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: what are you doing in the picture?
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Do you want a picture? We'll take a picture.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: So, but generally speaking, I'm not building a monument to myself.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I don't. I have a lot of opinions on this,
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: you know. I'm not saying, hey, oh, you're a famous person,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: especially now because everybody's got a camera on their phone, Oh,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: let's take a picture, etc. I'm not building a document.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I don't have any awards. But if I had Grammy awards,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: they would be in the bathroom like many people keep them.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: So putting it back to what degree do you have
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: pictures of you with famous people when you were not
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the headliner, when you were not performing?
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: Many? I love them. I'm a fan first. I love them.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: I love it not always for Instagram content, but just
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: to have I have lots of pictures I've never posted.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: I take pictures with rock stars, pop stars, rappers, athletes,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: and I love group shots, Like if there's seven comedians
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: at a party or backstage, I always want that picture.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: I love memories. My show is all pictures, family pictures.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: I'm the keeper of the history. I'm the archivist from
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: my family.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: I got a couple of we's stop stopped. I like
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: too many topics in a gig. An insider a gig.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I'm doing my thing, and Paul McCartney is after me. Okay,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: then we're like in the green room. I'd met him before,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: he would never remember. Actually, this is the perfect example. Okay,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: someone's pushing me to go talk to him. Okay, you
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: know this is all insiders. Okay. I saw that he'd
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: been skiing in vermonts. Hey, I saw you were Bromley
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: ski area. He starts talking about all that. That's how
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I approach him. But then you want a picture, So
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: he said, we're going to take a picture. I would
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: never have said, hey, I put my arm around Paul McCarty,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: Hey take a picture.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Someone, did you favor I mean, a less awkward, less
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: thirstday now is maybe I'm older.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: I don't even really need it. At this point I
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: was there. I talked to Paul McCarty whether it's a
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: picture or not. But this leads into another thing. When
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: you look at your special Give you an example. My father,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit older than you, general than you, it
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: was they all had eight eight millimeter movies with a
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: giant light thing shooting that Those disappeared a long time ago.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: But my father shot a shit ton of slides. Shit
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: ton okay. My mother moved out of the house after
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: fifty years that I grew up in. She was gonna
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: throw them away, okay, And I said, no, no, no, you
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: can't throw them away, et cetera. Now I know what
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: those slides are up. I was positively stunned that you
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: had all this material. Where was it and how did
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: you get it all there?
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: It was always in my very close to me my
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: parents love letters, their wedding albums, my bar mits albums,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: my sister's, my grandfather's false teeth, my parents' death certificates
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: are never more than a few yards from where I live.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: They're always in my house.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Let's be very specific. How did your parents love letters
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: get to you they died.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: My mom had kept them because they were letters my
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: dad wrote to my mom. I never found the ones
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: that she wrote back, and when I found bags of them.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: They just go in a box and they go in
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: the house, and I keep them, not knowing if I'll
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: ever read them or not. And then decades go by
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: and I become a comedian, and then I go I
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: want to talk about life and death and love, and
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: I make a show. So I kept, I keep everything,
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: and I still am that way.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, before your parents died, did you know those letters existing? No,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: So you're going through the house and you found them. Yeah, okay,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Now you're living in apartments. Where's all the shit piled
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: up in close apartment? I always had to get places
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: big enough to store all my stuff. I wouldn't call
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: it hoarding. I would call it keeping the memories. It
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: would pain me to throw it out. My sister didn't
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: want most of it. She wanted some jewelry that was special,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: that was my mom's. That never meant as much to me.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I'm still wearing my grandfather's ring, you know. Right now,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: it's like I can't let go of life and friends
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: and family. I can't let go of it. I want
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to memorialize these things. And sometimes that's just once a
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: year peeking in the closet and going, oh yeah, there's
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: that album, and there's that, and there's that I still
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: have it. Okay, Okay, do you have your report cards
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: from going to Okay, when was the first time you
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: went to see a shrink.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Ten years ago? What was the motivation a breakup? We'll
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: get back to that.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: You get through the breakup with a lot of other
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: stuff is going on. These issues come up. What does
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: the shrink say?
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: What issue?
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, your parents die at a young age. Under you know,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: you could be in a car wreck. That might be worse,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: but under that not good circumstances. Your mother gets leukemia,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: your father od's before many people knew what cocaine was, right, Okay,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: So there's that disconnect. You're kind of, you know, a
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: balloon floating in the sky. One could say, I'm not
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: a psychiatrist. Well, part of you holding on to this stuff.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: These are your roots. This is what's rooting you to
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I never talked to a shrink about any of this.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: This doesn't come up.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: So when you went to see the shrink about the breakup?
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: How long did you see the shrink?
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Oh? I still talk to her and I go three
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: or maybe five six times a year. Okay, I don't
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: go often. Okay, when did this breakup happen? Ten and
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: eleven years ago?
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Okay? How long did you go steadily before?
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: You win? Three or four times a year, not every
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks, for a couple of months.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, are you over that girl today?
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: No?
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's back up a little bit to the general public.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: Use I don't get over people.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: I don't either, That's why I asked.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: I don't have regrets because everything was how it had
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: to happen at the time. But yeah, I don't let
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: go of love very easily.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, but it's so rare love that Okay, but you
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: have never been married? No, and you live alone presently?
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: This woman? How to be a serious relationship for you
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: to go to the shrink in your life? Has that
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: been the only serious relationship where? There have been other
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: ones in that caliber?
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Quite a few, not quite a few, but no, that's caliber. Yeah,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: I've had a few. So what made this been very lucky?
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: What made this one specially? She did some very formidable people?
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: What made this one special? She really loved me and
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: I really loved her?
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Did you fuck it up?
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: I think we were growing apart. I don't think I.
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: Blew the whistle. It's an ever mutual.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: Uh. It was complicated by a health emergency I was having,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: which is not this one. No, I was, I was,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: I thought I was. I didn't know what was happening
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: to me. I was. I was stressed out because my hair.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: I had a big fro and all my hair fell
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: out within a few weeks, and then my eyebrows and eyelashes.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: I thought I was dying and was eventually figured out
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: that I have alopecia, which isn't life threatening, but it
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: is life changing. My fame was gone. No one recognized me.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: I was totally look different.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: This is in the special. But exactly when did this happen?
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: This happened about twelve years ago, ten eleven, twelve years ago,
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: something like right around the time of the Justin Bieber
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: Roast whenever. That was the first time I came out bald.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: I was going to do a show in a maximum
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: security jail in Texas, so I used that as an
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: excuse to shave my head, but in fact it was
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: the alopecia. So well, let me look more like these
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: skinheads in Texas instead of their Jewish lawyer with the
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: curly hair. I'll look more like them. So I was
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: telling my fans that that's why I was doing it,
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: but in fact, I don't have a choice. And we
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: all know how men and women will do anything to
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: have their hair a certain way. And suddenly it was
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: all gone, and it was a little traumatizing. I'm not
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: gonna lie. I was lying about it. I was covering
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: it up. My eyebrows fell out. I lied about it.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I lied on Joe Rogan. I lied to my friends
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: saying I was doing it for a role. I would
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: just say anything to change the subject. How did you
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: decide to come out? Will Smith? Jada Pinkett Smith, The
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Oscars Go a Little Deeper? Did a show in Atlanta's
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Sitting in the hotel room after watching The Oscars, Chris
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Rock makes a soft joke. Will Smith gets up and
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: assaults Chris Rock. Now as an insult comic is a
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: roaster I see, I start crying. I go, oh, my
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: career is over. This guy's getting away with this on
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: the Oscars. I can't If it's okay to hit somebody
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: for a joke, then maybe I need to rethink what
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I'm doing for a living. I'm a black belt, but
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: I don't need to be in this kind of inferno.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: And I remember my doctor at Yale saying that he
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: had a patient he knew of a girl, a young
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: girl who had alopecia, a kid, A lot of young
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: kids get alopecia, and her schoolmates teased her and she
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: killed herself. I'm laying there steaming, going, man, you know
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: Jada Pinkett smanth I just kind of laughed, had been
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: a good sport about it, she would have normalized this
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: condition for hundreds of thousands of people. So I made
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: a post. After years of lying about it, I wrote
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: a post that night, without thinking about it much, with
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: no filter, not I'm sure people could look this up.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: I wrote an essay somewhere. I can't tell people how
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: to feel. I definitely sympathized with Jada, like it said.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: I was very sensitive myself. I was lying. But here
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: was the most beautiful woman front row at the oscars
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: in a gown. She's not there as a hostage. She's
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: in the front row. She knows what this is. And
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: if she had just laughed, I think it would have
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: gone a lot of good. And it struck me as
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: a moment for me to speak up and go. I
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: also have alopecia, and it's not at the end of
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: the world. It's not a death sentence like other diseases.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: It's just cosmetic. I shouldn't say just cosmetic, because it
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: affects your self esteem, which then can affect everything. So
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: I can't tell women how to feel about their hair.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: I can't tell other men how to feel about their hair.
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: But for me it became a coming out and I
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: was very relieved to share that news.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: So I was a response.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: It was huge. It got picked up everywhere. All the
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: trades got picked up everywhere.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Has anybody since you've come out either attacked you or
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: said something negative about it?
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: Maybe? Maybe, But I was careful about what I said.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Let me know, you're walking around in life, you know,
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: in the heat of the moment. Does anybody ever use
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: that to put you down? So this all goes down.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: People don't want to bump Pug the bear right, this
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: is ruthless.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: People go this all goes down with this woman? Where
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: is this woman today?
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: Jada Pinkett Smith.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: No, the woman's the relationship you.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: Will she's with the new guy ten years gone.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, is she married to this person?
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: You don't I'm afraid to find out.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, how do you know that she's with the guy?
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: Mm? Just to be very clear, do you know see
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: them together?
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: You've seen them together. It's not a matter of you're
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: looking online.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: Maybe be a little bit of that. But I'm happy
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: for her, of course. Always want what's best for people
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: that I love always.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, So you're a type of person has no regrets.
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Uh, I don't live like that. Now you don't say
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: I have a great life. I'm not a big complainer.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: I'm not big at looking back. That's why the show
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: is so unique, because it was a chore for me
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: to look back. But for the most part, I'm very
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: much one step in front of the other, keep going.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: Life is so good. I'm so lucky, Bob, I get
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: to do it.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: I love the bush.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I got it. I got that bullshit. No but it's
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: a philosophy.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: No but it's a philosophy. But you are living in
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: your body twenty four to seven. There are thoughts going
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: through your head when you put your head on the pillow.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know what they are. Almost nobody knows who
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: the other one. Life is tough for everybody. There are
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: different layers one way, you have cancer and envelop of
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: a fucking gardener spray dirt all over my car today?
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: You know, Jesus, when do you have to do this
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: in the gutter, et cetera. Okay, that doesn't mean that
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I'm why, But the nature of life has ups and downs.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of these are cliches. The well
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: adjusted people don't become comedians. So you never feel that
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: well Jesus, And I know she's in another world now,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: But if I played my cards right, this this could
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: have been for me.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: No, because we broke up for a reason. You know,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: I didn't accidentally break up.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, So what's your romantic life like now?
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Pretty good?
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: So how do you how does Jeff rossby women?
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: Friends? Usually friends through friends? Social okay, interactions. You're famous,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: I'm infamous.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: As well as famous. The women ever hit on you
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: because of your infamiity I imagine you imagine. I mean,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: if you're in those.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: Way, I can't say why.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: No, if you're working or you're inge with springsteam, that's
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: very different from your friend setting you up on a date.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: If a girl comes.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: Up, yes, I banged Joan Bias. Now it's out there.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: No, what I'm trying to say, is have you met
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: girlfriends that way?
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: Of course, comedy is great for that, Okay, Richard Lewis
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: making someone laugh is a tremendous superpower, right. Richard Lewis
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: before always had the most beautiful people and had a
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: beautiful Joyce, his beautiful wife. Richard Lewis was.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Well talking about Richard. You know the funny thing about
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: Richard my own interactions. He was really that guy. But
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: most people you think there's another person underneath commer. But
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: he said, prior to the wife that he had when
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: he passed, he was with for Good Abount a time
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: before that he had sleeves. He would say, this is
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: what we're doing watching the movie. We're doing this, We're
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: doing that, and they said yes, whereas Joyce would not
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: do that. So have you ever had that experience?
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: I see it this way, I see you have. I've
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: had sidekicks and I've had partners. They're both great, but
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: I prefer a partner.
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: And do you have a partner now? No?
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: So I had one while I was sick and that
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: really helped.
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's great. The person stood by you when I'm
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: talking about romantic life, you told me your friend's setting
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: you up. Is that three times a year or three
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: times a month?
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: Three times a year? Very picky? Okay, I don't have
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of time for dating. Well, one of the
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: criteria sense of humor. That's it.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Do they have to make you laugh? They just have
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: to laugh at your jokes.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: Doesn't matter.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Sense of humor, okay, looks career status, family background.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: They they can't need me, they need they want to
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: have to want me, want to be with me. If
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: they need me, if there's some desperate if they need
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: a friend circle, or if they needed money or a
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: place to live, that's a huge turnoff. I would never
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: date someone like that. They have to be substantial people.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: To what degree is being Jewish a factor?
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: Not?
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: Okay? But it helps. It's fun.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: Way I went to college. I went to high school.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: A lot of Jews went to college. It weren't a
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: lot of Jews. Jewish women very verbal. You may not
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: want to hear what they have to say, but very verbal.
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: I don't mind that and grew up in it. But
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: the reason I'm going here grew up in houses with
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: a sense of humor. I mean, I don't know. It
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: sounds like you know the opening of Annie Hall or
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: is it radio days when you know it is Annie
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: ol Albi when they're living under the No, it's but
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I'm talking radio days when they're all at the table
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: around and they're talking over each other. That's how it
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: was when I grew up. So you know, a lot
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: of times you can be around Jewish women and they
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: have the same background, same sense of you ber, they're
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: coming from the same place. Have you noticed that?
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: Ah, everyone's different. I don't think you can generalize like that.
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's stay on this. The special starts off
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: with a song. The song goes on for a while,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: permit it there. I thought it's gonna be a whole
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: musical special. But the essence of the song, which does change,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: is don't fuck with the Jews. Forget the Let me
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: just simplify it. You're starting right off with your Jewish
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: identity in an era where there's never been as much
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: anti Semitism has ever been in my life, are you
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: conscious of that?
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: So how did you wrestle with that?
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: I'm still wrestling with it. I am because I want
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: because I never really did that in my comedy. So
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: sometimes I'm wondering, you know, if I hadn't done that,
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: would the special have played differently? Would it have been
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: more of a popular But I go, but that wouldn't be.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Somebody said to me the other day, if I had
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: put this out twenty A very smart friend college professor said,
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: if I had put this out twenty years ago, would
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: be the biggest thing ever on Broadway, because that's when
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Billy Crystal did his and that's when a lot of
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: these Jewish jewishness was more commercial. But I liked the
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: song and I liked performing it. I like the way
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: it kicks off the special. It's not political, it's not
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: about Israel. It's about the tough Jews that I grew
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: up with. My uncle Murray World War two, VET helped
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: liberate a concentration camp, my great a Rosi, who started
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: a catering hall in Newark before women really had big
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: businesses like that. And then it goes into more modern
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: elements of my life, my nephew being a firefighter, my
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: sister being a special ed teacher. And I go, well,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: if this was about being Puerto Rican or Italian or black,
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure you'd be asking. Maybe you would, But
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: to me, I go, well, this is just Jewish pride
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: but not Jewish politics. And it's fun. And it was
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: fun every night on Broadway for eight weeks, eight shows
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: a week to see Jewish people, Black people, Muslim people,
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: Greek people, Asian people singing don't fuck with the Jews
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: and clapping in the band, rocking out and it was funny.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: It was a send up.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, to what degree your entire life have you encountered
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: anti semitism?
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: Very little? Have you been in an invite recently?
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, well, let's divide for a second.
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: Very little till now?
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have never growing up with an environment where
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: people making anti Semitic comments, not realizing you were Jewish.
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: It's gotten worse than that. Sitting outside the other day
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: on McDougall Street having dessert with a friend outside and
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: I don't know what this person was, some kind of
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: vagrant just started saying anti Semitic things to us. So
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: now you don't have it's the opposite. They're calling you
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: a Jew in a negative way without knowing whether you're Jewish. Yeah,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: it's worse. Yeah, it's worse, Bob that I that opened
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: my eyes.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: My mother is a year old.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: It's just a slur now, for people you don't like.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, this story has got it's a little bit different.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: They were in southwestern Colorado, Durango and some elder thing,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: you know whatever, and they walk into a restaurant. No
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: one's there, she and her friends and the guy bound
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: the counter goes Jews or I'm living in Santa Monica,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: where I lived for a long time, but just after
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: I moved in there, they spray painted a Jewish star
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: on my garage. My first question is how did they know?
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: I'm the type person I don't want to know my
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: neighbors because they ask for favors and all the stuff.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: And I've had some you know, drive me to the airport,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, you're nice,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: but I don't want to be your best friend. So
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not interacting with anybody in the neighborhood. How do
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: you even know I'm Jewish?
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: That's weird because now they're spying on you or looking
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: you up or following you.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but this was before the internet.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: Gossip.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: So switching gears to the political. What's your take on
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: the political element of being Jewish in Israel?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: I don't pretend to be an expert, but I'm a pacifist.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: I don't like seeing any of this. Oh, let's stop.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: I grew up with Holocaust survivors in the community. They
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: had tattoos on their arms, et cetera. So I was
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: born in fifty three. It was not that far distant. Now,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: I notice the children of my contemporaries come of a
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: different place. Okay, And I don't want to defend NAT
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: and Yahoo, but I'm also aware of the fact the
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: goal of all these peoples to have Israel non exist. Yeah,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: and you know they killed thirty thousand people overnight, essentially
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: overnight in Iran, crickets on campus, et cetera. It's a
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: little bit like, don't fuck with the Jews. Whatever you're
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: talking about. Your thing is like, we just want to
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: live in peace. We don't want to be aggressive. You know,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: if you go back to the sixty seven war, so
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: we can talk about NAT and Yahoo, whether he should have,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: you know, dealt with the problem earlier where they kicked
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: it down the you know street with cutter but then
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: Humas they literally you know everything you say they do.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: They have tunnels, they put them under houses, hospitals. What
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: are you supposed to do. In addition, someone wrote in
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal I thought was good. As long
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: as one Commas person survives, they've won. I'm not saying
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: you have to kill any but as long as you know,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: as they're in government. So the goal is to get
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: rid of Israel. You can't say that, especially at this
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: point in time. Jerry seinfeldstead it on stage, big news, Okay,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: any other ethnic group, if you read the New York Times,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: it's more pro Palestinian. You're here right now, and I
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: ask you, and you say, oh, you're a pastor.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: I got that. I got it.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: You don't want to answer the question, don't want to
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: go on record.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: I got it.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: It's not that I don't want to answer the question.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: It's that I'm not an expert. I'm not in that zeitgeist.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: I would sound in you, but no.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: In your particular case. The reason is interesting is you
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: led the special with being a Jew in a kind
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: of fouder way. Okay, you've seen Foulder right, I know
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: what it is. You got to see. You love it
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: irrelevantive of the Jewish whatever, And most Jews, I know,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: unless they're at summer camp or something. They're not leading
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: with the fact that they're Jewish. Usually it becomes at
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: what point do you reveal that you're Jewish?
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: You're leading? Yeah with this.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so just leaving whatever is behind it. That's a
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: gigantic step for Judaism in America. You're saying, I'm owning
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: my identity.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There's two rationale. One is it's fun. Like the
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: song's fun and in the spirit of mel Brooks, like
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: a funny song about being Jewish. So as a performer,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: I go, this is really fun, and I really like
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: the moves and the nunchucks and the choreography, and there's
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: pictures going and the band is rocking, and you don't
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: have to be Jewish to sing along. There's a bouncing
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: mots of ball. But the reason I led with it,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: the reason I even kept it in Bob if I
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: have to really think about it, which is because when
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: I was torning it before Broadway, before Netflix, and I
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: could have cut it at any time. It's an easy cut.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: It modular, pulls right out, don't need it. Is because
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: I felt like with all the noise, the bloodshed, the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: politics Israel, Gaza, the words we hear all day long,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: the clickbait. What's real? I thought, let me be a
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: positive Jewish presence in the world. I don't have to
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: pontificate about Israel. But what I can do is give
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: Jewish people a source of comfort, pride, and joy. And
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: people are always interrogating me. Jeff, you go on tour
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: with Dave Chappelle. He says some tough stuff about Israel,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: and I go, well, I'm not going to reveal my
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: conversations with Dave, but I'll say my responsibility in the
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: world is to be a positive Jewish presence. I'm not
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: calling myself a role model, but I'm saying I want
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: to be a good The best thing I can do
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: is be a friend to people who don't agree with
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: me and reminds them why Jews are good. And in
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: the song, if you recall, I pivot from my own
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: life to all the things that Jews have brought to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: the world, all the great Jewish creations. I say in
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: the show, I wanted to follow in that great Jewish
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: tradition of creating things. Then the pictures start flashing Barbie dolls,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: Teddy Bears, nuclear powered submarines, bagels, you know, all the
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: things that Jews invent and it goes on for a
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: long time. To me, that's enough.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: As a Jew, I'm watching it. Two things go through
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: my brain. My father used to say, I'm enough thinking
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: and talking at the same thing. You know, everybody hates
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: the Jews, and I have seen it on the most
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: subtle levels, Okay, and just casual thing. Somebody will talk
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: about somebody buying something and then they'll say, oh the price,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Oh you know he's Jewish. Okay, I've heard it, etc.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: When you get really down to it. The other thing.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: Until October seventh, the Mosade had that rep don't fuck
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: with us. But staying on this same tip, are you saying,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: are you frustrated because you believe the inclusion of that
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: and leading with that has hurt the spread of viewers.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's hurted. I think it may have limited.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Well that's what I meant to say, Yeah.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: But I can't even But I could also go, well,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: it also probably brought a lot of people to it.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: When Jews are under this scrutiny or under this cloud
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: right now of anti Semitism, maybe they're finding the show.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of surprised that every Jewish person in the
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: fricking world hasn't watched this and okay and hosted about it,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: let's stay. So there is some frustration there. And I
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: also haven't clipped that part and put it out there
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: on the internet because I didn't want it to to
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: be co opted by other groups. Okay, so I've been
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: careful about it. But let's talk about the special. Like
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: any other musical, right, you want people to have to
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: watch it to see it. It helps to talk about
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: it because when people get curious and they watch it,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: that's how marketing works. So in my head, if this
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: was Avenue Q we were talking about, or Fiddler on
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: the Roof or Chicago or Cats, we would be talking
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: about the songs and then you'd have to go, oh,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: I want to go see that. So I took that
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Broadway tradition and going yeah, I'm not going to show
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: you a clip. I'm not going to play it live
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: on the radio. I want you to hear about it
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: and have to go see the show. I think it
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: worked because people came to see the show and now
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: it's on Netflix. But should every Jewish person be finding
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: some pride in this? Yes? Okay, but it's not Jewish
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: people stopping me in the Street. It's comedy fans, roast
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: fans that are responding to the show, and the Jewish
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: part is just part of my story.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, but just as Jews we would say it's very Jewish.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: But I'm gonna also talk about my Nazi German shepherds,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: and I did a lot of good Jewish jokes in
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: my show.
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: I'm going to change the focus a little bit. Let's
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: say this was the seventies and you made this special,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: and you made a deal. There was really only one outlet,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: HBO or maybe early eighties. They bought it, they would promoted.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: People would be aware of it, just like they were
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: aware of Robert Klein and George Carlin because there was
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: so little in the marketplace. And this is not only
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: comedy specials, etc. In today's multi furious world. You have
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: made this special, so on Netflix, that's the premiere proof
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: in a platform, how do you get the word out?
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: I did Joe Rogan, that's one group, just stay there
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: for a second. And then I did NPR Fresh Air.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 2: That's a whole other group. Then I do Jimmy Kimmel,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: that's a whole other group at late night. Then I
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: do other stuff the view, So to me. Everything's so
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: broken up that I can go to all these different.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: Day in the music business. Yeah, only two things make
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: a difference. Yeah, CBS Sunday Morning Right and SNL SNL
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: primarily because it shows to get on that show, someone's
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: behind it, a focus, and it sends a signal to
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: everybody in the business, we're gonna get behind this. You
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: can be on any late night TV show. You'll get
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: a video. Will not move the needle at all. Okay,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: so you hit the top line. Could you feel that
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: it worked?
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah? How did you feel that? Because I walked down
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: the street and people go heard you on this, heard
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: you on that, love the show, watched half of it,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: going to watch the other half of my girlfriend rewound
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: it love this part. You know, I'm I'm very accessible.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: I read my Instagram comments. I like it, so I
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: know it works. Okay, and I know what it doesn't work.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: It's all been trumped by the Kevin hartroast.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, okay, but now go online? To what degree
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: to Twitter, Instagram, TikTok moved the needle for you as
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: a comedian.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: Not much, not much, because I'm not big on any
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: of those except Instagram. I'm not on Twitter. I'm not
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: on TikTok. I'm on Instagram because it's fun and I'm
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: better at that one. Okay, it's positive. Fifteen years on Twitter,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: if I put something out, there's just trolls waiting to
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: go not funny, not as funny as this one. They
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: just want to fight with you and get attention.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: I'll not get down. Fifteen years ago when everybody thought
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: it would move the needle on Twitter, were you trying
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: that too?
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I was very successful at with that. Okay.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: Then Twitter eventually became a how I way before Musk
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: and all that. I stopped putting jokes on Twitter, maybe
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: almost ten years ago, eight nine years ago, because I
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: just decided it wasn't a good crowd. Oh you know
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: when I stopped. You'll love this when Gilbert Gottfrei had
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: got canceled for Twitter tweet.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: That's a good reason. Yeah, obviously these events have a
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: big effect on you'd like to slap listen. It became
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: an echo chamber. It was growing. Then it became the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: same people.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: Why play. I used to write, if you wrote a
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: funny drunk on Twitter, all the comedians would retweet you.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: Right now, if you write a funny joke on Twitter.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: Trolls are telling you why it's not funny. Okay, that's
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: not a good crowd.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, I there's a nugget in there. I want to
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: address the nature of having a public profiles. You're gonna
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: get hat I remember, like fifteen years ago Tina Fey
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: won some award and she called out a specific hater
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: from the stage. Okay, so it goes with the territory.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: So how do you metabolize it? Obviously bothers you.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 2: I go back to my philosophy of what Bob Saget,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: my good buddy, taught me, which was he would say
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: I don't do negative and I'd argue with him about this.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: Bob would get like any other celebrity, he would occasionally
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: have trolls and haters and negative people on Twitter. And
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: when I got that, I would ignore them. He would
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: block them. I go, Bob, if you block them, they
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: know you saw it. Why wouldn't you just let them
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: float out to see unseen even if you saw it,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 2: Why are you telling them you saw it? And he said,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 2: I don't want people who say mean things to hear
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: me say funny things. He didn't want them on his page.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 2: I've started blocking people out of respect for Bob's advice,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: because because he would get a kick out of that.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: I'm sentimental that way. So now I go, oh, fuck
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: this person. I don't want them to be able to
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: get in my head out of.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: The person that you ultimately block whatever they said when
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: you see it, to what degree does that affect you?
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: Very little unless I know them? Yeah, okay, so very
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: little looking at you, because I can then put my
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: phone down, walk outside, and it's all Jeff high five,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: saw your show, positive, positive, positive, positive, positive positive. Then
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 2: one out of a thousand is like.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but all no, that's a good point. We all
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: know you focus on that one.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: But whatever, right, So it's like when I'm on stage,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: it's like we're all like this as comedians. You know.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: I remember doing a USO show once in Afghanistan, and
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: you know, you got eight hundred troops. There's two guys
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 2: in the front row, arms folded, not having any You
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: focus on the two. You can't help it. So I
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: start going in on them and trying to get them,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: and it takes me twenty thirty minutes and they finally laugh.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: Then I find out from the general afterwards that they
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: buried their buddy of the day before, and that they
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: were and that they were ordered to be there for
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: mental health reasons we all have. But it's also like
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: you always want to win over the one audience member
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: that's not having fun. They can't help it. You focus
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: on that. Okay.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: So in the music business, the only way to really
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: get something started that doesn't have a profile is on TikTok.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: The people were so you did Rogan, you did all
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: these other things you're doing the rows. Are there people
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: who just at this point in time just don't know
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: about it, whether they choose to watch it or not.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: Are there people you haven't reached?
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: I think so, because well, it's like a two you know,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 2: it's like Netflix Release is a special every Tuesday. So
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: you're competing with your own colleagues, your own platform. That
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 2: having been said, mine I believe has pushed through. They've
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: just invited me to my second for your consideration event.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: I've never been a part of anything like that before, right,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: So I go, oh, something's working, and I'm like, as
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: an artist, So then I go from comedian to artists,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: I go, oh, maybe it's not a comedy special. Maybe
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: I wrote a play, and now it's on Netflix, and
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: I'm starting to go.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: You definitely did. That's why it's so great. Come on, Bob,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: this one it's so great. I'm a you know, I'm
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: a harsh critic, so for me to be positive about something, well.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: That's what has happened. You know. I'm walking through the
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: raid and freaking. A dozen of the smartest people I
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: know starts sending me this for Cock, the link to
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: Jeff Ross Special, and I'm like, oh god, what is this?
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 2: Finally a bad review? And I open it up and
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: it's like the best review I got. And I got
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: good reviews in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: you know, And then suddenly you wrote this glowing review
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 2: in the in your letter, and I go, maybe this
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: isn't the number one show Afflicks, but it's having a
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 2: huge impact with the people watching it, like huge. Like
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: the mail I'm getting isn't about Jewishness, and it isn't
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: about comedy. It's about the the human experience loss and
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: resilience and my parents, losing my parents and how I
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: dealt with that as a young man. The takeaway that
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: I'm hearing about from fans the most is the concept
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: of human beings when they lose somebody were made to
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: mourn and move on. You can't mourn forever or a
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: part of you dies. That notion is something I wrote
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: as a young man. I wrote that down in high school,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: and then I put it in Take a Banana for
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: the Ride in the nineties when I was workshopping as
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: a young comic. And then when Bob and Gilbert Godfreed
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: and Norm MacDonald died within eight months of each other
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: a few years ago, towards the end of the pandemic,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: my manager suggested I go back and look at the
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: old show. And I've been thinking about it a little bit,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 2: and people would always remind me of this old show.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: And I went back and I looked at how I
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: dealt with mourning and grief back then, and I realized
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: I was still saying the same things that I was
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: saying thirty years earlier. So I go, whoof, Now I
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: could take my modern life and sew it into my
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: old life and make something that's entertaining. And I added
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: my dogs, and just as I was finishing the show,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: I got cancer. So then I go, fuck, the show's
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: already too long. But I got to add this, so
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: I break down how I dealt with cancer. And that's
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: a word I never even said out loud in my life.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: So now I have to not just say it out
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: loud to the world. I have to make it funny
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 2: and positive, because nobody wants to see a negative show
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: about cancer. That is a show business death sentence. So
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: I had to make that funny. And because I took
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: some of the mystique and stigma out of a coonoscopy
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: and made it interesting and funny. I think the show's working.
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: I know it's working because I took those reviews and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: said Tolix, Netflix was like, whatever, you do this. They
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: wanted the show in its infancy two years ago when
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 2: I was touring it and I said, I kind of
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: want to get it to Broadway. It's always been a
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: dream of mine to do a Jackie Mason Billy Crystal
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: style one person show on Broadway ever since I was
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: a kid. You know, when I was starting out was
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: a young man, my mom was sick. My dad would
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: take my sister and I to visit my mom. She
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: had leukemia, so she was living. She was in the
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: hospital far from our house. So after the you'll love this,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: After the hospital visits. To cheer us up, he would
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: take us to the Carnegie Deli for a sandwich and
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: then to a Broadway show. Back then, all the Broadway
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: shows were about orphans. Annie Oliver, you know so, but
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: it made me go, oh, boy, that's a really special thing.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: Like the theater. It's different than TV, where you go
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: to the bathroom during the commercial or you could change
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: the channel. In the theater, you're locked in, and if
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: the hair is standing up on your arms or the
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: back of your neck, chances are the person you don't know,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: shoulder to shoulders having the same experience. And and there's
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: something really indescribable that you have to just experience the
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 2: live theaters. I go, boy, I really want to do
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: that someday. So I sent to Netflix. I'm not really
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: ready to make a deal. And then I got it
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: to Broadway and Robbie at Netflix said, whatever you do,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: don't shoot it on Broadway. Doesn't help our numbers. If
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: it's from Broadway, or if you shoot it in a
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: theater in New Jersey doesn't matter.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: It's a lot fucking more expensive.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: It's three times the expense, all money I could keep.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: But Beowulf Burd's set design and Stefanya did these incredible
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: projections that I'm up there and everyone said, Billy Crystal
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: gave me great advice. He said, you're going to be
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: on New kinda tired doing the show. But what happened
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: was it invigorated me. I went up there every night
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: and Mattinees and I was like driving a Ferrari. I
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: was like, I have this incredible set and these two
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: virtuoso musicians up there with me, And every time I
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: got emotional different parts of the show, I look over
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 2: my shoulder and I stood the two musicians locked in
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: watching me, never bored. I realized, this is a team,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: this is working. I want to keep doing this. And
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: I did a hal Mary with Netflix and I said,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: you know, you see the reviews, and you saw how
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: the shows evolved. Let's just shoot it on Broadway, capture Broadway.
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: It'll be good. It'll be good. And they did. They
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: stepped up. I got to give them a lot of credit.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: No notes, Okay, you played eight weeks.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: I were seals. Ticket sales during those eight mediocre August August, September,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: so who came. It's interesting in the summer. In the
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: very first preview, weeks. It was a lot of initially
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: roast fans. I saw a lot of father son, father
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: daughter because I was the word was getting around that
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: I was reading a letter that or maybe one of
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: the reviews mentioned it. I was reading a letter that
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: my dad wrote to me when I graduated high school.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: Was the only letter he ever wrote me. And my
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: director was like, you don't need this. It's a tangent
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: after your dad dies in the story. Why are you
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: bringing him back? I said, I know, but I think
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: it might help people. Maybe it slows the show down
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: a little bit, but maybe it's going to help people
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 2: communicate with their sons and daughters a little And I
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: feel like if the show is just about me and
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: my story, I get bored. But if it can help
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: people and give them some nuggets and some actionable items,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: like write a letter. I even wanted to sell stationary
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: in the lobby. We didn't get that done, and I
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 2: wanted it to be where people could have these little
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: doggie bags of advice that they could take home. And
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: people would stop me afterwards, either when I was signing
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: playbills or if I would ran in them on the street,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: they would go, oh, you know, I always felt guilty.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: I didn't cry at my mom's funeral, and I always
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: felt guilty and my sisters were mad at me over it.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 2: But I saw your show and the guilt dissipated or
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: everybody took what they needed, even if it wasn't what
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 2: I meant for it. It helped them in some way.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: It was like a The show is like a It's
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 2: like a wall where you play handball and you can
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: smack anything you want against it and get what you
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: need to get out of it. And I love that
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: By being vulnerable and telling my story and how I
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: dealt with loss and adversity, it helps other people reflect
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: on their own without feeling silly or self conscious. That's
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: the big win for me. Beyond ticket sales, beyond getting
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: into Broadway was the dream. Getting it to Netflix is
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: way beyond the dream.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, people think they know who you are. Let's just
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: assume you're on the road and this shows in a suitcase.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: You're not doing this show. The audience has expectations. I'll
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: ask you two questions, What exactly are those expectations? And
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: to what degree are you boxed in by those?
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: Now? Going forward or going forward? I don't feel boxed in.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 2: I don't feel boxed in. I feel like and I've
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: always done this. I always if something works, most people
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: do it again. That's how you make money. When I
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: find something that works, I go, oh no, let me
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: try something else. I don't do any of this with
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: a business sense.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: I do this with I'm actually my question is a
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: little bit different. I'll use my own self as example.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: As supposed to. If I write something about the music business,
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: that's what the audience expects. If I write something about
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: my life, and I write it and it's so whatever,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: But if I nail something left, get a bigger response
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: than anything else. Okay, so you know what the audience is,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: you know where it is, and then it's an issue
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: of where.
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: You want to go.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: I'm a little caught off guard because trying to think
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: of the right way to articulate this. I don't think
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: you know how big and important this show is. Yes,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: you can. You can say it's on Netflix, X number
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: of people saw it, you know whatever, that's all good stuff.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: Nobody else has done anything like this, And it was
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: from the least expected guy. And he doesn't do a
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: drive by. He keeps crashing the car into these topics.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: So if you're watching, there's a level you said it,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: there's a level of humanity you don't get. Yeah, you'll
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: get a story telling me. You know, even going back
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: to the classics. Any young they'll tell a story, Oh
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: that relates to my life whatever. This is far beyond this.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: If you go to Spalding Gray, who you know, did
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: these monologues Swimming to Cambodia, et cetera. They were always stories,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: but it was kind of like a movie, kind of reaching,
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: keeping you intrigued. He would insert himself. This is flipped.
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: It's you first, the story a second and a It's
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: not who the audience expects it to be. As I say,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: this is a very important work.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: And when you talk about comedian and artistry, that's why
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: it resonates. Anybody can be a comedian. I'm not saying
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: be good, but the doors are open. Okay, there's a
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: well established path being an artist. That's something different. You
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: can look at the varying comedians. There are people do it.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: You know, they're phenomenal comedians. Okay, So if you want
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: to be an insult comic, you know there's Don Rickles.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: I think you know you say Okay, there's a there's
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: a lane there. Wherever you were there was no lane.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: And in addition, you're the least likely person to do it.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: You're known as an insult comic. So I understand you're
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: I am and to the public. But for me it
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: was always on the on the to do list because
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: I did a version of this show after my grandfather
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: died in the mid and late nineties. I did this
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: show and I didn't have the emotional fortitude to keep
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: doing it. I even made some kind of development deal
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 2: at the time, and take a Banana for the ride
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: was a small thing from a young guy about his grandfather.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: It was one hour about me and my grandfather. You
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: could see it as like a Sanford and Son kind
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: of sitcom. That's what the show was. It was about
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 2: him living with me in the house. I grew up
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: into New Jersey and us both being single guys, him
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: dating women from the Senior Center and me. It was cute,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: but it was very intense the way this show the
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 2: new show is. But I was leaving the readings the
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: workshops in a bad mood. I didn't know why My
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: buddy Mark, who's in your green room, was directing and
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: helping me with it, and I put it away and
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: the Roast came along right about that time, and it
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: was way more fun to make fun of celebrities and
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 2: put on a tuxedo and write special material that wasn't
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: emotional but was. I found my lane. But I always
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: knew that it was in me. Every now and then
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: somebody would stop me and go, whatever happened to that
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: show about your grandfather? You know, only a thousand people
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: saw it, maybe in the nineties, at little workshops and
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: comedy festivals, So I always knew. You know, I'm to you,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 2: I'm the last person you'd expect. But for me, it
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 2: was always like, I need to get back to who
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: I am, the son of a caterer in Newark, New Jersey,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: who lost his parents too young, and how I dealt
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: with it, and how I became the rabbi to my
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: friends when they lost their loved ones. They'd all come
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: to me for advice.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: That was not in the special. No, what I'm interested
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: in is your viewpoint on all the shit we talked.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: Okay, I could do five shows on the same theme.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: I know so much.
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've mentioned a number of times you're just living
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: your life. People come up to you a lot of
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: the time they come, oh, Jeff, I love your work,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: and we take a picture. But of the thousands of
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: people come up, some are just like hysterical experiences, or
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: else somebody tells you, like a heartbreaking story they saw
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: the special. That's what interests me. How Jeff the person
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: interacts in his life as opposed to Jeff thinking up
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: jokes to tell some fucking roast. It's like kind of
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: like Steve Martin. I want It's not a completely perfect example,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: but you know, he was very famous playing arena shows
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: and he said, I just can't do it anymore. It's
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: not what I want to do. So if I think
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: a wild and crazy guy not as good as the
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: movie Rocks inne you know, which is a heartfelt movie.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: It touched people, so you have an opportunity. It's kind
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: of like Chappelle. If you watch Chappelle, you say, on
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: the surface, this is just not that hard to do.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: He tells a very long story slowly he builds to
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: a punchline, but the punchline is not like the funniest
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: thing you've never heard. And he's the biggest comedian in
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: the world. He is doing something okay, and as I say,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: he's the biggest, which is kind of funny because he's
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: not doing it like everybody else. Everybody else is basically
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: telling jokes. So I didn't know you had this.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: I didn't know yet.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: You know it could be that person. So for me,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: if you do a stand up special, we're you know, insulting.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: Don't watch it. How often do I? You know, I
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: write about something. It's very different when I insist on
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: the people in my life they have to watch it.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: I've written it. They're all aware of what I wrote.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: My sister called me the other day, he said, if
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: you watch this okay, because Bill Maher did a big
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: thing on Israel. I said, oh, you gotta watch this, and.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: You got to watch.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: I know my sister love it. I just got to
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: push him because it's gonna touch something in them. And
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: it's extremely honest. I could tell here you're you're you know,
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: you're in show business. You don't want to drive the
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: car off the road, especially when it's not important, okay,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: but when you're in control on the show, you can
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: do that. And it's the sensibility that's interesting. Let's shift
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: hears a little bit how did you even become an
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: insult comic?
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: H in the mid late nineties. Well, I'm from Jersey, right,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: so talking smack busting balls is kind of how you talk.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not wait, you're not gonna forget where you were,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: But I have a question I can ask earlier. I'm
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: gonna ask her different difference between East Coast and West Coast.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of differences. I want to focus on
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: this one. You meet somebody in the East Coast once
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: and they said we.
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: Should hang out, and they'll track you.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: Down and you'll hang out. You meet somebody in LA
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: and Native Angelinos, okay, not transplants, say oh yeah, we
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: had a good time, Yeah we should hang out.
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: Never hear from right.
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: La show business, but it's not even show Civilians is
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: a friend. So have you noticed that too? Yes, okay,
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: go back. So your talks back in New Jersey.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: But you said, how did I become an insult comic?
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: It's in my DNA. I didn't know I was funny
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: growing up in New Jersey. Everybody was funny. My whole
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: family was funny. My uncle and my sister, they're all
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: funnier than me. It's the only time I went to
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: Boston University Film School. I realized none of these people
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: are funny. Oh oh, now I kind of see it.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 2: But I wasn't thinking about comedy until a couple of
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: years after that, my buddy Mark, But when.
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: You were still in college, you mean a couple of
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: years after that, or after a couple of years after
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: just just to stay in.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: This because you know your own story.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: You were in college, what was the plan after you graduated?
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: I started a video production company, okay, and the dream
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: was to make industrial films, training films. How am I?
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: But the dream was to have my my own business
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: with a college buddy. He was more of a director.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 2: I was more of a writer. We were going to
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: try to make training films and do our own how
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: to invest films in different little marketing videos. We just
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: wanted to have our own little company in New York City,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: and his fiance's father gave us some free office space
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: and we just started hustling. My heart wasn't in it.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: It was a tough time in New York in nineteen
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: eighty nine. The stock market. It was a tough time,
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: and I was living with my grandfather who was sick.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: My parents were gone, My sister was away at school.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: Was basically this chubby loser living in New Jersey with
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: my grandfather and my buddy. Mark said, I think you
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: should take the stand up comedy class he was taking,
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: taught by Lee Frank, who was a comic at the
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: improv in Hell's Kitchen, and he's like, maybe you'll, you know,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: maybe you'll meet a chick there, maybe you'll learn something
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 2: about yourself. It'll be fun. And it's right near Port Authority.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: It's across the street from Port Authority, so you can
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: go to your video production business on thirty fourth Street
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: by eight o'clock, make it to the class, and then
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: catch the bus from Port Authority back to your house
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: in New Jersey to your GRadha. It was fun. One
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: or two classes in I was like, oh my god,
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: this is so fun. First assignment was to learn another
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: comedian's routine and do it for the class. So I
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 2: went to the library. This is before the Internet. I
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 2: went to the library. I took out Lenny Bruce live
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: at Carnegie Hall. I didn't know anything about him. Somebody
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: said he was the best. I listened to it. It
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: was boring. I didn't really understand it, but I learned
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: the routine, and I did it for the class and
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: it was kind of dry. And the next assignment was
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: tell a real story from your life that's not funny
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: but interesting. So I told a story about my parents
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: working in the catering hall in New Jersey, and I
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: started just saying the real names. Cold Duck Eddie Green
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: was a potwasher, and we went on strike one Sunday
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 2: and my dad had to climb on the roof to
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: fix the air conditioner, and everybody was laughing. The assignment
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 2: was to not tell a funny story, to tell a
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: serious story, but everybody was laughing, and I go, oh,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 2: maybe I'm just naturally funny or interesting or something. We
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: tapped into something that the class responded to. And then
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: we went to an open mic at ye Old Triple
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: In across from the Old Studio fifty four, and I
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: followed a juggler. I was nervous that a shot at tequila,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: and I started telling these catering stories and whatever I
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: was doing pieced together three minutes five minutes. Jokes didn't
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: really work. But there were some Navy guys there on fleetweek,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: and I started making fun of the mustard stain on
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: some guy's uniform, white uniform. A couple of girls laughed
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 2: afterwards told me how funny that was, and I was like, huh,
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: this is kind of interesting. I have no social life
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: at all. Suddenly suddenly these people are talking to me.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Hmm.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 2: So I was like, all right, this, this is cool,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: this is this is a hobby, but it might be
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: more than a hobby. It might be a community. I
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: was lonely, broke, and I was doing that for a
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: while and I started to get some steam opening for people.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: My sister was in college. She got hit by a
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: car a drunk driver collected some money, so she bought
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: me a early computer to write on and a Jeep,
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 2: a car that I could drive to gigs. So I
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: could live in New Jersey with my father, drive into
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: the city, pick up Chappelle or j Moore or one
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: of these guys, and drive them to a college in
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania and make three hundred dollars. So I was now
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: like an opening act. I could piece together twenty minutes
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: to open for people. It was going okay, but I
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: couldn't get on TV. It wasn't really hitting, but I
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: really liked it. And I wasn't good, but I was
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: better than the other open micers. And I was performing
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: at a golf tournament in New Jersey for the Friars Club.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: Greg Fitzsimmons, who is a buddy of mine, In honor
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 2: of his dad, Bob Fitzimmons, who was a broadcaster who
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: had passed away, they had a memorial golf tournament fundraiser.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: Greg asked me to do it. Freddie Roman sorted giving
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: me this dismissive, kind of mean intro. So I went
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: up and made fun of him, and all the Friars
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 2: saw that I did that, and I just did it
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: naturally because I've been working shitholes, so I knew how
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 2: to stay afloat. I've been working firehouses and dive bars,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: so I knew how to like stay in the fight.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: I didn't think much of it, you know. Then about
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 2: a month later, I get a call from Jean Pierre Trebeau,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: the executive director of the New York Friars Club. We
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 2: saw you at the golf tournament. I think this was
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: like ninety six or something. Ninety seven. The year before,
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: there was some outrage with Whoopy Goldberg and Ted Danson
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: at the Friar's Roast. I remember they did something over
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: the top and provocative and now like big stars were
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: not really showing up for the roast.
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: Ted Danson was in blackface.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: Right, which is crazy because Whoopee was on the Rose
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: on the v yesterday saying she doesn't like roast, that's why,
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 2: and even though it was her boyfriend who did it.
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 2: But I get it. Montell, Jordan Montell Williams, Montell Williams,
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: the talk show host stormed out as on the cover
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 2: of every newspaper. So now here it is a year later.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: They can't get big stars, so they're gonna try some
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: new young comics. A couple of writers from SNL and
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: I get the call through the Friar's Roast. Huh. At
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: this point, I'm now in the all the comedy scene,
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: downtown workshopping stories about my grandfather almost giving up on
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: regular stand up. But hmm, well, who's going to be there,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: Milton Burrough, Henny Youngman, Buddy Hackett. I'm in, but we're
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: roasting Steven Segal. I'm like, I don't know him, I
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: don't know anything about him, but I want to be
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: on a show with those guys, those comics. Of course,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: my buddy's Downtown or all making fun of me. Why
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: would you go these guys are not cool names like
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: they are now, it's not historic, they're just has bits.
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 2: But to me, I'm honoring my parents. They love those guys.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: Buddy Hackett, they love those guys. So I go, all right, well,
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: let me go to the Museum of Broadcasting. I pull
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: up a bunch of the Dean Martin Roast and old
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 2: roast that I could find at the museum, and I
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: see how they do it and what they're doing. I
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: go hmm. So I start writing little funny things, and
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: I have way too much, but I'm pretty into it.
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 2: The roast comes along. Milton Burro's the roastmaster host. It's
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: at the Hilton Hotel. It's like fifteen hundred people for lunch.
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: Couldn't fit one more body in this room, biggest audience
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 2: I'd ever had. I'm wearing the one good suit that
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: I had left over from a wedding, and it's like
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: Howard Stearn's in the balcony and the police commissioners there,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: and suddenly I'm on a show that's not all comics.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: It's like there's boxers and promoters and politicians and singers
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: and Broadway people. And like, wow, this is like show business,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: not just comedy club business, but show business. Steven Seagal
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: is literally wearing like a black silk karate gee, like
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: he's promoting under siege to Milton Burle, brings me up
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: late in the lineup. Never met him, dismissive, terrible intro.
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: He just came back from Las Vegas, where he performed
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: for a convention of lesbians with dildo rash. Jeff Ross
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: reads it off a card. I walk up there and
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: I take my time, I remember it well. I look
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: at Steven Singal, I say, I realize a lot of
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: you don't know me, but I feel uniquely qualified to
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: be here today because I'm also a shitty actor. Segall's confused,
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: but the guys are dying. It's like it's like Bucky
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: Den hitting a Homer in the bottom of the ninth,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: like the least guy you expect to kill. I killed.
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: Not every joke, some jokes wouldn't work. But Milt Milton
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: Burrell is sitting next to me. He pokes me in
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: the kishkus and I jump a little bit, and then
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: every time I get a big laugh and there's applause,
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 2: he hits me again. No, one can see it. He's
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: doing it under the table. The only person ever did
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 2: that to me was my Canter during my hoftura to
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 2: make me less nervous. So I figured that's what he's doing.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: But I'm not. I'm in it now. I'm in it.
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: Like finally, after like the third or fourth time, I'm like,
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 2: what are you doing? And he literally interrupts me, starts
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: heckling me Milton, and we're going back and forth. But
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: I'm winning, you know, Milton Burrow. I saw Milton Burrole.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: I saw Uncle Milty today downtown at an antique shop.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: Eight hundred bucks. I'm riffing and I'm trying to stay
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: in it. Buddy Hackett, who I don't know, is twenty
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: Back then the Friars would have like airplane wings, long
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: days of every celebrity that came, every notable person, and
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: without a microphone, Buddy just belts out to the whole room, Milton,
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 2: let the kid work, haha, remember when you used to
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: place of RUPs Again, Milton runs down the dais kiss
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: his buddy on the lips and they have like a
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: funny moment place of reps. Now I'm there at the podium.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: Still no one knows me. No one knows who I am.
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: I go give it up for Uncle Milney and Buddy Hackett.
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 2: Between the two of them, they have over one hundred
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 2: and ten years of homosexual experience. Just nonsense, another laugh.
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 2: I get through my thing and I can tell I've
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: just surprised people, surprised myself. But most importantly, I found
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 2: my Yankee stadium. I found my lane. I could feel
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: that something happened. Think you know, I'm back at the
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: Friars Club. Afterwards, they have like a reception and there's
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 2: two rooms, Milton's in one and Buddies in another. They're
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: holding court. So I go to Buddy's room first, you know,
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 2: mister he's telling me how good I did. Mister Hackett,
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: thank you, thank you. Why do you think? Why do
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: you think Milton Burle would have been poking me under
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: the table. He gets jealous. He don't like when other
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: people get the last. So then I take that in
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: and I go see Burrow. Both of these guys would
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: later become very good friends of mine. But this is
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: my meeting them, Uncle Milty, mister Burrow. Whatever I was saying,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: and I don't even know if I got the question
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: out about why he was doing that. But I might
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: have said something like any advice and I'll never forget this,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: and I use this in my writer's rooms all the time.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: He said, kid, they only remember the home runs. So
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: I took that as I was doing too many jokes,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: staying on too long. I wasn't on a long time,
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: but for whatever reason, and he said that they only
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: remember the home runs. Now I only tell home runs.
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: I don't waste my time. I don't say every joke
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: I think. I stay quiet until I have it. And
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 2: Milton went on to become a mentor, and Buddy went
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: on to become a brother. And that's how I became
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: an insult comic.
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: You kill that knighte?
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: Then what? Oh? Then the next year they're going to
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 2: roast Kelsey Grammar.
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: What happens in your life in the intervening year?
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, I can't wait a year for the
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: next rows. Now I joined the Friars Club. I become
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: an ambassador of new members, bringing in younger members. They're
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: treating me like they're basically giving me the keys to
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: the castle. Over a couple of years, where it reinvigorated
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 2: me as a comic. I leave the one man's show,
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 2: the Grandfather's Stories, Take a banana for the r I
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: leave it all behind. Roasting people is a thousand times
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: more fun and less emotional and celebrities and dressing and
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: all of it like it's even though it's essentially dirty comedy.
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: There was some pushback, like the older guys, they don't
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: always you know. I wound up talking the Friars Club
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: in Comedy Central into doing these on television the Old Guard.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: I eventually get elected to the board of the Friars Club.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: As a young man, Alan King and I would butt
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: heads because he didn't want the Rost on TV. I said,
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: not only should they be on TV, but you and
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: Steve Stewie Stone and Freddie Room and I'm gonna get
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: all you guys on the and I did it, and
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: then they embraced me when they realized it was good
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: for them, and we got it to TV and the
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: climax of that was nine to eleven Hugh Hefner roast.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: Now I'm a producer. I'm not the producer, but I'm
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: a producer. I make sure everybody had good material. I
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: was like writing for everybody there then then in the
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 2: last two days I'd write my own thing real quick,
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: and we had to postponeent. Obviously. Hugh Hefner literally is
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: the reason the terrorists hate us. So I have to
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: write a letter to the Friars Club, to Comedy Central,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: to mister Hefner and saying, we have to go on
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 2: with the show, have to Let's not have an after party,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 2: Let's put the money towards the Twin Towers Fund and
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: do it in three weeks. The hotel wasn't giving us
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: our deposit back, No comedy was happening. SNL hadn't happened yet.
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 2: And we did it. We did it. We did Hugh
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: Hefner Roast. The ashes were still smoldering downtown. Jimmy Kimmel
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 2: hosted it. Hugh Heffner came out. It was wonderful. It
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: really showed me how comedy can make a difference and
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 2: heal people. People needed to laugh. I'll need it a
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 2: little bit of levity. If we don't laugh, we cry.
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: And I know that sounds cliche, but it's really true.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, after you kill the first time, it's a Friar's god,
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: not the golf thing, but in the city, how much
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: you before the next year's roast how much you working
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: gigs and what is the content of those gigs?
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: Oh man, Probably I always worked the crowd. I always
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 2: had a little bit of that element because I would
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 2: host a lot. I was always a good MC. So
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 2: when you're m seeing, it's where you're from, who you're with.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of step one of roasting, right, you're
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 2: talking to the people. I always liked that part of mceing,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 2: but I don't think it. It wasn't a nothing. My
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 2: act was my act. I was still talking about my
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: own experiences. It probably made me a more confident comic,
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 2: but it took a long time till I had the
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: roast reputation and then my expectations of the audience to
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: see me roast people, that took longer.
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: At what point were you making a living from comedy?
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: Pretty quick? Even before that, within a couple of years,
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: I was banging out five six hundred a week just
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: to get.
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: By it okay? And if I talked to Jeff Ross
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: at that point and I asked him, you know what's
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: going to happen here?
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: Jeff?
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: You're making a living, but where you're going you would
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: have said.
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: I said, I'll be a writer. So I'll get a
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 2: writing job. I'm going to stay in New York. The
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: only way I'd ever go to la is if I
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 2: had a job out there. That eventually happened where I
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: got writing jobs.
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: So you do the nine to eleven rows with Hugh Hefner,
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: When do the writing job start?
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: I did some like kind of like under the table
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 2: punch up on The Drew Carrey Show in the nineties,
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 2: and I wrote on the season one of The Man Show.
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 2: I was already pretty established by then. I was like
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: ninety nine. But I would say my first real writing
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 2: job break would have been the two thousand Oscars for
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: Billy Crystal. How'd you get that gig? Great question? I
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 2: wrote him a fan letter and someone else and hosted
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: the year before, and he hadn't hosted in a while.
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 2: And I was like walking past an office building on
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 2: Maple Drive one time, and I saw that I recognized
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 2: face productions on the thing, and I put that together
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 2: that that must be where Billy Crystal gets his mail.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 2: And I wrote a letter saying, if you ever host
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 2: the Oscars again, what a ridiculous thing. I really love
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 2: the way you do it and would love to be
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 2: a part of that. And here's a unedited videotape VCR
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 2: VHS videotape of me roasting Drew Carrey at the Friars Club.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: And it was funny. Drew Carrey is to comedy what
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 2: Mariah Carey is to comedy. It was all very simple, fun, clean,
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: good natured jokes like Billy would do. And I felt
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 2: like my voice was I felt like I was close
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 2: enough to hit his voice where I could help him.
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 2: I had no idea who does that or but I
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 2: sent that. It might have been a year later. I
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 2: got a response, very nice handwritten letter which is now
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: framed in my office from Billy Crystal thanking me for
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 2: the letter and my kind words. And then months after that,
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 2: I was on the phone with my manager and he
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: was getting another call. He goes, hold on a second,
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 2: David Steinberg's calling me, and we knew that that was
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: the biggest manager in the business. He manages Billy Crystal
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 2: and Robin Williams, and he goes, let me call you back. Well,
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 2: that's cool. Couldn't imagine it was about me, you know.
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 2: And ten minutes later, Barry calls me back and he's like, hey, man,
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: are you sitting down? Billy Crystal wants to meet with
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 2: you next week. You got to come out here. So
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: I fly out, thinking, oh, I'm gonna interview for a
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 2: possible job on the Oscars. I don't know if they
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 2: announced that he was hosting or what was happening. And
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: then I walk in. It's him and David Steinberg, just
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: me by myself. I shake Billy's hand and he offers
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: me the job before we sit down, and that's when
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 2: I learned how show business works. He wasn't highering me.
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 2: He he knew before you get to Billy, he's already
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 2: decided he wants you. You can only lose it in
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: the interview. So I really learned that Thatt's how stars operate.
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: It's cool. And at that point I had an apartment,
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 2: a little one bedroom apartment on Doheany so I could
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: literally walk to Maple Drive. So we would go, and
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 2: Billy was directing a movie at the time, so we
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: would work weekends on the Oscars and sometimes we'd go
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 2: to his house, that famous house, which sadly he lost,
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 2: but I remember writing there with him, and he had
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: his core group, Bruce Falanche, John Max, David Boone. Suddenly
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 2: he was putting a new guy in there, and I
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: came in guns of blazing, and I remember making him laugh,
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 2: and I remember him, you know, I remember all of it,
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 2: and it was like going to graduate school. I learned
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 2: a lot from that. He was also very generous with
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 2: his time and advice. When I was going a Broadway
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 2: I reread his play Seven Hundred Sundays the week before
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 2: I opened, just because it was a nice distraction and
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: a reminder that quality is king.
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: So how do you go from one side of the
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: camera to the other?
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 2: What does that mean?
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: You get writing gigs? People who end up writing for
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: Jay Lennon, for David Letterman, who were comics you saw
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: them before and then they're behind the scenes.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: Never meant it never differentiated to me. It was what
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: is the assignment? And I have only written for people
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 2: that are as good or better than me. So to me,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: if Billy Crystal is going to tell a joke I
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 2: wrote on the oscars, the matter, if I'm telling it
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: or he's telling it, he's going to make it better.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: I asked the question earlier. If I asked you the
• 2:01:31
  Speaker 1: dream in your early comedy decrease had to be a writer,
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: that would be the dream.
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 2: It wasn't a dream. It was the only obvious thing.
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 2: I didn't feel like a star, okay, So nobody was
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 2: telling me you're going to be a star.
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, So how did you translate from the writer thing
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: to being a star?
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: None of that was a mission or planned or calculated.
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 2: It was all like, oh, I don't have a writing
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: job this month. I got it. Let me book a
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: couple of clubs. So if anything, it was failed acting
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 2: pilots or whatever part I got, if that forced you
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 2: to make a living a different way. So because you know,
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: that's just what I was doing, and I because those
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 2: were the opportunities, and you could self generate, and every
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 2: joke I wrote, I could do on TV, or I
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 2: could do on a talk show, or I could write
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: into a script. It was all the same. I was
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: never thinking I'm behind the scenes. I'm in front of
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 2: the scenes. And none of that was A buddy of mine,
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: it's not announced yet, is going to host the s p's.
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: I'm going to help him. That's not a money gig,
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 2: that's not a high profile thing for me. But artistically,
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 2: I go, here's somebody I want to work with, and
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 2: I'll do it. When Jamie Fox said, I'm hosting the
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 2: MTV Awards in two thousand and one. I go, I
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 2: would like to help you with that. I was his
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 2: head writer, Chris Rock. I've written for on award shows.
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: You know, how formalized are those relative to like amount
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: of time and compensation?
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 2: Very formalized. It's a contract, it's a guild job. But
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 2: I'm not doing it to get health insurance anymore. I'm
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 2: doing it because I want to help.
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: I understand, So once it's a go, there's a framework
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 1: for the compensation and etc.
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's usually have favored nations you're doing it for.
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: You're essentially doing it for a favor because you want
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 2: to help. You know. Two years in a row and
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Kimmel was hosting the American Music Awards fifteen twenty
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 2: years ago. Bill Simmons and I would be the two
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 2: guys who would meet with him on the weekends. And
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 2: it was great, Like it bonded our friendship. It wasn't
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 2: a career move for me, but it was a relationship thing. Okay,
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 2: what I always tell myself, and this really applies to
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: your question, the gigs and go, it's the relationships that
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 2: sustain us through our careers.
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you do the nine to eleven roast. Let's
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: be very clear, there are a number of people's, especially
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: female comedians, who have built careers on killing it the roast.
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: So you do Comedy Central? Is it a slow build
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: for you? How do you ultimately become the roastmaster general
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: such that everybody knows that you're the guy?
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: How?
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 2: By being better than everybody? I think.
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 1: I'm assuming you're good. But in terms of career, was
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: it a matter of frequency, as a matter of visibility,
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 1: as a matter of who was being roasted?
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 2: There was a lot going on. Not always, but sometimes
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: I'd be the reason the roast was happening. I would
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: talk someone into it. Comedy Central, Drew Carrey, more recently,
• 2:05:09
  Speaker 2: Tom Brady, you know these things don't happen necessarily, okay,
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: So just you gotta like truy, you gotta like make
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 2: it happen. And the reason I would make it happen,
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 2: the reason I got them on the TV with the
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: Friars Club in the nineties was because I didn't like
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: that nobody was seeing how funny I was. Once I
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 2: got used to those fifteen hundred people seeing how funny
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: I was, for a couple of years, I go, oh,
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 2: this should be on TV. I'd be famous or I'd
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 2: be able to show off. So I had to go, oh,
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 2: how do I get this on TV? How don't I
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: get Allent King to like me? How do I get
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 2: the Comedy Central to trust me? What if I just
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 2: don't ask for any money and let them make all
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 2: the money and not be but guarantee a spot for
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: me and my friends? And I just did it out
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: of necessity, creating a gig for myself. I never had
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 2: ownership or anything like that until later.
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: Generally speaking, things move slowly on the production. Then how
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: long and how hard after you had the idea to
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: put the first one on TV, till Comedy Central said yes,
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: and then until it.
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 2: Happened Comedy Central Doug Herzog said yes right away. The
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 2: Friars Club were like, we don't know who Drew Carrey is.
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 2: So I had to walk Chean Pierre Trebeau out of
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 2: the club, down the street to the newsstand, buy TV
• 2:06:34
  Speaker 2: Guide Drew Carries on the cover and go this guy, Oh, okay,
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: these are old school guys. They weren't following the trends.
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: So instead of roasting Milton Burrell and old timers. I go,
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 2: we need to We could put it this on TV,
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 2: but it has to be more contemporary names. The Friars
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 2: had no clue what that way. So you first was
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 2: Drew Drew Carry, he was the first one on TV. Okay,
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 2: you mentioned Jerry Stiller, then you havef neer anything. Wait, wait,
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 2: Carrie philis Diller and then no, no Jerry Stiller, Joey.
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 1: Excuse me? How successful? Were Carrie and Stiller very successful?
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: How did you feel that just raw numbers with ratings
• 2:07:19
  Speaker 1: or you just out environment.
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 2: People environment and what it was doing for my profile.
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 2: I wasn't following ratings back then. I wasn't privy to
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 2: that stuff back then.
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, so now you're literally the roastmaster in general. I
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: would assume some production company called, hey, Jeff, we need
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: another roast. Why don't we do another roast? Is it
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: happened that way? Or you're sitting at home saying, God,
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: I want it's you.
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 2: It's me. Okay, it's me writing a direct message to
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 2: Tom Brady after he wins. Another Super Bowl.
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 3: Was slower slower stuff like that slower slip? Would you
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 3: ever pee or have some water? How do you meet
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 3: three hours. How do you know you're gonna start making
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 3: How don't give me some carbs?
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: How do you know Tom Brady?
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: I don't. He knows who I am and I know
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: who he is.
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: So how do you get the number such as you
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: can do? Or you DM on a platform? What do
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 1: you actually do?
• 2:08:13
  Speaker 2: Can we do this on part two?
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: We can wrap it up very quickly, But I'm getting
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: to the end of an arc here.
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 2: I love this. I'm being a ball bust.
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, you say you DM them a little bit more micro.
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 2: Everyone's different. Every roast is unique. There hadn't been a
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 2: roast in five years the pandemic I think it. Maybe
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 2: Bruce Willis or Alec Balwam was on Comedy Central. Pandemic
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 2: hits Meet to Black Lives Matter, Cancel Culture. No one's
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 2: thinking about doing a roast. No one's letting their client
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 2: be anywhere near these jokes. Right. Comedians are getting canceled,
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 2: Shane Gillis is getting kicked off SNL. It ain't happening.
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 2: But I'm the roast guy going, Oh, I guess I
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 2: figured out how to roast my fans on stage. I
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 2: can still roast, but kind of miss a big celebrity event,
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 2: but no one's really into it, exent me and the Roast.
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 2: Battle fans like there's a market for it, but it's
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 2: not that big. I guess I didn't realize it's percolating
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 2: under the earth. The Roast is like a purge. People
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 2: don't admit how much they love it. Right It's like
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 2: there's no more White House correspondence to or no one's
• 2:09:53
  Speaker 2: talking truth to power. The Roasts are a snapshot of world.
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 2: Sometimes people are divided right now, so the Roast could be.
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 2: But Tom Brady, I saw him as a larger than
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 2: life figure that could handle something like that, but also
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 2: would be a good target. So Super Bowl Sunday rolls around.
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 2: I'm not a giant sports fan, but I happen to
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 2: make a couple jokes on my Instagram about him and
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 2: Gronk that morning, and Tom Brady's playing in the Super Bowl,
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 2: but I notice on my Instagram story he's watching it.
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 2: So on Super Bowl Sunday, when his stress level is
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 2: at a hundred, he's coming to me and the Roasts
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 2: for some levity to calm down whatever. But I clock
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 2: that I go if he wins, I'm gonna write him.
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 2: If he wins, He's gonna retire, and I'm gonna give
• 2:11:04
  Speaker 2: him the best retirement party ever. Now, there hasn't been
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 2: a roast in five years, so it's such a long shot.
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 2: It's a thousand and one. But fuck it, I never
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 2: really do this, he wins, And I forgot exactly what
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: I wrote. I guess I could look at my phone,
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: but he writes back, LFG, let's fucking go. I call
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 2: my agent. He goes, Oh, you know his company is
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: represented by ourn company? Oh is that so? Yeah? Let
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: me call this guy. Within a few weeks we had
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 2: Tom Brady's production company and Casey Patterson's production company, and
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 2: Tom makes a little video for me, and we're like,
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 2: we're pitching, can't believe this is really happening. Hum, it happens.
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 2: He makes a deal. Any unretires, So everything's kind of
• 2:12:04
  Speaker 2: on hold because I don't really want to do it
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: while he's playing, because it's not fun anymore. It's too
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 2: intense and you can't have you want it to be
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 2: a spectacle. Then he gets divorced and delay it again.
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 2: Maybe he doesn't really want to do it, maybe he's stalling,
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 2: but he holds onto it. Got to give them a
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 2: lot of credit. Then Netflix said, let's push another eight
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 2: or nine months till the next Netflix is a joke festival.
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 2: We'll make this. Did it end up on Netflix? I
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 2: have a good relationship there. I wanted it to be
• 2:12:43
  Speaker 2: no holds barred. I wanted it to be freedom of speech.
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 2: I wanted it to be uncensored. No was.
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: It was also live, which Netflix is not famous for
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: at the time.
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: At the time, but I didn't want to. I knew
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 2: that if it wasn't sponsored, we could really have fun.
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 2: And because of the way everybody was so touchy at
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 2: this point in the world, the old days Comedy Central,
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 2: you had Taco Bell and they were very cool about everything,
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 2: and the sponsors were always okay, just don't mention our
• 2:13:14
  Speaker 2: competitors unless you're making a bad joke about you know.
• 2:13:17
  Speaker 2: It was a lot of that. I've been through all
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: the marketing. I was a producer on a lot of
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 2: those Comedy Central roads, so I knew how it all worked.
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 2: But with Tom Brady talking him into the live part
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 2: was tricky. I may have done a little sleight of
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 2: hand there to get him to do that. In that Yeah,
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 2: it'll be different fun. You're used to live it's like
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 2: sports and talk about a whale. I mean, this guy
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 2: is such a great target. But my whole pitch was
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 2: like show the world you're a human being. You'll know
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 2: you if you could sit there through this, you will
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 2: never hear And it's true, he will never hear another
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 2: deflategate joke. He will never hear another Gisel joke. It's over.
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 2: I had done that already for Bieber years earlier. He
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 2: had had all these like sort of like juvenile scandals.
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 2: But he knew him and Scooter Braun knew he had
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 2: a great album in the chamber about to come out.
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 2: He wanted to put the pass behind him. Best way
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 2: to do it laugh at yourself, and then no one.
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 2: If you laugh at yourself, no one's gonna make those
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 2: jokes ever again. So with Tom, no one's ever gonna
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 2: call him. It would just be a way to start over,
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 2: launch his new life as a broadcaster, as an owner.
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 2: It seems risky, but it's gonna work. And he's a
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 2: big game hunter. He wants to And because it was
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 2: done during the festival, I had all the best comics
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 2: in town anyway, So you're advertizing your hotels and your
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 2: travel over the whole over other shows. And Tom should
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 2: get the Nobel Prize for letting us have ad him
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 2: for three hours live on Netflix so that the rest
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 2: of us could forget our own problems for a little while.
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 2: Like he was such a good sport. It was much
• 2:15:25
  Speaker 2: rougher than even I thought it would be that roast,
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: like he really endured some hits on his personal life
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 2: and his career. But what it did do was and
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 2: showed the world that even a goat can take a joke.
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 2: He showed everybody that he can laugh at himself. He
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 2: put the past behind him, for whatever that's worth. He
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 2: went on to get ownership of the Vegas team. He
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 2: went on to become a tremendous broadcaster. His ex went
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 2: on with the Kung Fu teacher and is not in
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 2: his world, like he's never going to hear those jokes again.
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 2: And I sent to him at a promo shoot tell
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 2: me one more time why you agreed to do this?
• 2:16:12
  Speaker 2: And now was too late to back out so I
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 2: could be confident he started with me. I flew down
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 2: there for one. He was going to give us an
• 2:16:21
  Speaker 2: hour to shoot a promo. He wasn't really invested in
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 2: spending too much time on this roast at that point,
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 2: so I flew down there just to watch him do
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 2: the hour promo shoot. He said, why are you here?
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 2: I said, because you've agreed to do this, You've trusted me.
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 2: I want to make sure you come off great. I said,
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 2: why are you here? The question he goes thought matter
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 2: for a second. He goes, because I love the roast.
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 2: I hate the way the world is so sensitive now,
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 2: and this is my way to like maybe help fix
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 2: recalculate comedy. I was so impressed by that, It's like, fuck,
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 2: I gotta really kill it for this guy. So what happens. Yeah,
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 2: Kevin came out him pretty hard with the fuck you
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 2: Tom and the Giselle jokes, and I came out him
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 2: pretty hard, and Niggi Glazer turned him inside out. But
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 2: Gronk Edelman, Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick coming out like Darth Vader.
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of friction. Those guys hadn't seen
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 2: each other in years. Tom left New England, went to Florida,
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 2: won another Super Bowl. I was having a lot of
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 2: smack talk with his former teammates in private meetings with
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 2: the writers. I was learning a lot about Tom that
• 2:17:50
  Speaker 2: they weren't all so friendly for a while, but it
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 2: all melted. Remember Kevin brought them up. They all did
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 2: a shot together, and suddenly they're doing Super Bowl commercials
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 2: together and Duncan Donuts commercials together, and Belichick becomes his
• 2:18:08
  Speaker 2: own celebrity, and Robert Craft, you know, is hugging Tom
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 2: and they become team owners. Like it elevated Tom to
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 2: a Robert Craft level where he now owns part of
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 2: a team in Vegas. He needed Robert Craft's vote to
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 2: get that, and I feel like and then they all
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 2: then there was a big event a month or two
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 2: later in New England where at Foxborough where Tom was
• 2:18:34
  Speaker 2: getting the Patriots Hall of Fame, and that went really well.
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 2: And Edelman, Julian Edelman, who was on those Super Bowl teams,
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 2: said it went well because of the roast. And if
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 2: you talk to any real Patriots fan, they look at
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 2: the roast as like this great sort of Kumbaya moment
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 2: for Tom Brady and his world.
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's one thing about that though. It was a
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: really big success. Being live amplified it even larger. But
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: it's the fir you're in the belly of the beast.
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not, but it's the first roast that I remember
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: where there's an aftermath. There was all the bit about
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 1: the kids and kids, should the kids be exposed to this?
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: And then Tom blinked this was news. Well you roll
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: in your eyes where you said, whoh, this is something different. No.
• 2:19:29
  Speaker 2: I mean he had some points, but he was also
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 2: he also had a personal life. There's always aftermath. There's
• 2:19:40
  Speaker 2: always with these roasts. Always every single roast I've ever done,
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 2: there's some aftermath. Some of it's more public than others.
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: Give me an example of this.
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 2: When there were jokes about there were different times other
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 2: people died and jokes were made and people got mad.
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 2: I don't want to drum it all up again, but
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 2: there's always been some aftermath. There was definitely after math
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 2: after the Hugh Hefner nine to eleven stuff with Gilbert Gonfreed,
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 2: And there's always some aftermath. It might have been bigger
• 2:20:17
  Speaker 2: because Tom's bigger and it was live normally in the
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 2: old days on Comedy Central. The jokes wouldn't make it
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 2: to TV. They'd be set at the roast and the
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 2: New York posts would rewrite them, but they weren't on
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 2: the show, but they were in the world because there
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 2: were reporters there and people would write what happened. But
• 2:20:41
  Speaker 2: we would be able to fix those or cut those
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 2: out if they really that's not even that's not even fair.
• 2:20:48
  Speaker 2: We would leave everything in. The only time we cut
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 2: stuff out is if it didn't get to laugh.
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, So what are the Holy Grail gigs.
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 2: Left for me? Yeah? I don't know.
• 2:21:01
  Speaker 1: That's not me hosting SNL. Sure, I mean if they
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: call you, fine, but are you sitting there go? I
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: like to do it.
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be a dream White.
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: House correspondence if there's ever a comedian again.
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 2: I mean that was My two biggest ones were always
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 2: that roasting the president, whoever that was, and and hosting
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 2: the Oscars. Those are no longer on my bucket list
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 2: the same way because they don't feel as important to
• 2:21:43
  Speaker 2: me for some reason. Okay, Ever since the slap, I
• 2:21:47
  Speaker 2: look at the Oscars a little bit differently.
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 1: Or is it? You know, the Oscars is living in
• 2:21:52
  Speaker 1: a bubble because people have moved on from the movies.
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: It's not the international right. It once was irrelevant of
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 1: the press. That's not how the public feels at it.
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 2: You know what, I'm gonna take my statement back. Obviously
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 2: all that stuff is still having written for Billy Crystal
• 2:22:07
  Speaker 2: for the Oscars, that would be a dream. But for me,
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 2: the dream gig was the Grammys. I always thought the
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 2: Grammys host was the coolest thing because because I love
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 2: music and Billy Crystal, Gary Shanling, they were the cool
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 2: guys hosting the Grammys before they even got to their
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 2: Oscar gigs. To me, that was the the rock and
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 2: roll audience. I felt like I could be funnier.
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, have you ever pitched yourself?
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 2: No, I don't know if I'm big enough or whatever. Wait, wait,
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 2: I remember, I wouldn't even know how to do that.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 1: I remember two thousand or two thousand and one John
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: Stewart and John Stewart was going up. The only show
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: hadn't be remember talking about it the head of the Grammys.
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 2: You'd have to pitch me. I couldn't even tell Bruce
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 2: Springsteen about my fucking show.
• 2:23:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I have too many ups and downs with
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 1: these people. You don't want me to pitch you to
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 1: the Grammy organization, but I think you would be very
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: good because everybody's reading a script, nobody's funny, and the host,
• 2:23:17
  Speaker 1: you know, Trevor Noah, you know you tell about whereas
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: it's always the off the cuff, the nature of being
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: a host on one of those things. You're killing time,
• 2:23:25
  Speaker 1: you're making time, they're not ready whatever, So you have
• 2:23:27
  Speaker 1: moments to throw things off, and that's what makes the show.
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I like, I like a live production. I'm really
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 2: good on my feet, right I I'm like a method roaster,
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 2: method comedian. Before I even write anything, I learn everything
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 2: I can about it, so then I can write it quickly.
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 2: If you're trying to research and write and research and
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 2: write and research and write, you're just doing a lot
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 2: of puff. But if I learn everything I can, like
• 2:23:57
  Speaker 2: I can ahead of time, I can I can write
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 2: it quickly.
• 2:24:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, let's assume you do this research. How
• 2:24:05
  Speaker 1: long might it take you to do the research.
• 2:24:07
  Speaker 2: The second I find out what I'm doing. If I
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 2: have it one day or a year, that's all I
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 2: can do.
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, but let's assume time is reasonable. Is research an
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: hour a day, a week, a month.
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not that type of research.
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, let me ask a questions, because I don't.
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 1: I'm really asking a completely different question. You've done your research, Yeah,
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 1: do you sit down to write or do you wait
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 1: for the bolt of lightning? Wait a second, I'm hot
• 2:24:35
  Speaker 1: right now, now's the time to.
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 2: Do it both. I do sit down to write when
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 2: it's a roast. What I love about roast writing is
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 2: it has a when, Oh, you're writing a roast for somebody,
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 2: you know, Tom Brady, doesn't matter who. To me, it's
• 2:24:50
  Speaker 2: like a tailor making a custom suit. Can only I'm
• 2:24:56
  Speaker 2: gonna make it. It's only can be for that person
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 2: on that night, for their wedding or whatever it is.
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 2: It's like like, I'm those jokes are not going to
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 2: be generic. They're not reusable. Those are bad jokes. If
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 2: you're gonna write generic jokes, then you're not an artist.
• 2:25:16
  Speaker 2: You're just cutting paste. To me, it's the research. Like
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 2: if you're roasting an actor, I watch the movies and
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 2: I read their interviews. If they wrote a book, I
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 2: read the book. That's how I do it. I become
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 2: and I only roast someone if I'm a fan or
• 2:25:36
  Speaker 2: I respect them. If I don't, I don't do it.
• 2:25:40
  Speaker 1: So do you have something in the works right now
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: a roast?
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I didn't want a week ago.
• 2:25:47
  Speaker 1: I know, but some people, you know, in some businesses.
• 2:25:50
  Speaker 1: They're they're constantly looking forward.
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 2: These things are so big and so hard. Once I
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 2: get when done, I need a break. I need to stop,
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 2: to turn that muscle off. I need to be nice again.
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 2: I don't want to be in roast mode. I don't
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 2: think it's good for my health to stay that way
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 2: all the time. I like to let it all go
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 2: and flip it.
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 1: Let's just assume you're doing that and you let that
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: muscle atrophy a bit. How long does it take you
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: to get back in the groove.
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 2: It takes a minute. It takes me a minute to
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 2: get the full roast mode. This is something I've done
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 2: so many times now I recognize that it's a thing.
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 2: It's like a superpower to find the line to make
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 2: someone laugh at themselves, to scratch the skin but not
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 2: break it. When I roast somebody, I want them to
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 2: leave there as my friend. If I don't know them well,
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 2: I want I use the to make them become my friend,
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 2: not to have them go. Keep me away from Jeff Ross.
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 2: That guy's freaking ruthless. He turned me inside out, he
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 2: destroyed I don't want that. Some roasters are like that.
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 2: I don't like that, and I'll even cut a joke
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 2: that will kill, but if they are not going to
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 2: laugh at it, I won't do it.
• 2:27:23
  Speaker 1: Is there a trick? Trick's got a bad connotation, but
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 1: is there a framework of how you come up with
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: a roast joke?
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 2: Well, if it's somebody super successful, like a Tom Brady,
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 2: it plays best. In my opinion. I don't love giving
• 2:27:46
  Speaker 2: away my secrets, but anyone who's gone through three hours
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 2: deserves something listening to this backhanded compliments. If you come
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 2: at it as a compliment, you can get a with
• 2:28:00
  Speaker 2: a lot. And that's the key. Whether you're roasting I
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 2: roasted Donald Trump, I roasted you, Hefner, I roasted Tom Brady.
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 2: These people are you know? Backhand and come. I do
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 2: a lot of private roasts.
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: There is a private roof of like somebody who runs
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: a company or somebody we would know.
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 2: Both, and also somebody who just has money and it's
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 2: their birthday. Occasionally, I'm picky about the ones I agreed to.
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 2: I roasted a couple at their wedding last year. Okay,
• 2:28:34
  Speaker 2: do you have to prepare for those? Of course takes
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 2: me days. I zoom with them, I zoom with their friends.
• 2:28:41
  Speaker 2: I send out questionnaires. I get information. I don't always
• 2:28:46
  Speaker 2: tell the honoree where I got the information. The wife
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 2: is hiring me to roast the husband who's turning fifty.
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 2: You know, they're flying me around. Sometimes I got to
• 2:28:56
  Speaker 2: hide in the back because it's a surprise. You know.
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 2: Maybe now I won't roast somebody as a surprise that
• 2:29:03
  Speaker 2: I learned my lesson. Oh, but it might be a
• 2:29:06
  Speaker 2: surprise to the audience. Oh, I only roast violent. You
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 2: have to opt in, Bob, or it's bullying. I roasted
• 2:29:14
  Speaker 2: Richard Branson his friends hired me twenty years ago, and
• 2:29:19
  Speaker 2: we surprised him with it, and he did not like it,
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 2: and he poured a drink on my head and it
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 2: was humiliating and he wasn't a good sport. And I'll
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 2: never do that again.
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: Could you mend the relationship with Richard Brands?
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 2: No interest? I know people?
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, So we have Nicki Glazer, we have other people
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: who have made their rep roasting. Two things. Are there
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: people in the wings you're thinking of it, could do it?
• 2:29:48
  Speaker 1: And when they do it, do they rise to the
• 2:29:51
  Speaker 1: occasion or do you know they've got it?
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 2: What do you specifically ask him?
• 2:29:56
  Speaker 1: Okay? Do you have in the back of your mind
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 1: if I do another roast, there's a couple of comics.
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know who would be good.
• 2:30:04
  Speaker 1: Comics that are unknown?
• 2:30:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay a lot of it. Is there connection to
• 2:30:08
  Speaker 2: the honoree, right? That helps because you wanted to feel homemade.
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 2: You want the ingredients to be pure and organic. There's
• 2:30:21
  Speaker 2: been bad roasts. The famous one is about Chevy Chase
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 2: and the Friars Club. And I wasn't part of that one,
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 2: but he didn't know most of the comics and he
• 2:30:32
  Speaker 2: wasn't having fun and he didn't meet them beforehand. I
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 2: would never let that happen if I was producing, you know,
• 2:30:41
  Speaker 2: I try to have a dinner for everybody the night before,
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 2: or I try to see everybody at rehearsal.
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 1: That doesn't kill the spontanaity.
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not telling them my material, but I'm looking
• 2:30:51
  Speaker 2: him in the eye and shaking their hand and going, hey, Greg,
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 2: you know, Larry, I want you to meet come over here.
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 2: I want you to meet Nicky. Nicky. This is Tom,
• 2:30:59
  Speaker 2: you know. And they're just not They're not a name
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 2: on the call sheet anymore. They're They're a human being.
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 2: And you're about to do this crazy thing with them.
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 2: There's nothing like this.
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: Who's the funniest person you ever met?
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 2: My grandfather Pop Jack, so funny, so funny, sarcastic, didn't
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 2: didn't think about being funny, wasn't trying to be funny.
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 1: But he knew he was funny.
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 2: I think so, and.
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 1: And he pinched myself. Moments of meeting a celebrity or
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: famous person.
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 2: I didn't meet him, but Paul McCartney was at the
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 2: back of the improblem by himself, and I went on
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 2: and someone told me he was there. So I did
• 2:31:59
  Speaker 2: a fifty minute show offset I mean I killed. There's
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 2: a bit in the Banana Show where I imitate the
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 2: Queen and Prince Philip making love for the last time
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 2: and when she had just died or whatever, and I
• 2:32:20
  Speaker 2: knew he would laugh, So I did that. I really
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 2: killed in front of Paul McCartney.
• 2:32:25
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, did you tell any Paul McCartney jokes.
• 2:32:28
  Speaker 2: No, it didn't expose him being there. He wasn't there
• 2:32:32
  Speaker 2: for me. He was just there. And I was like,
• 2:32:37
  Speaker 2: oh my god, I'm going to go in the lobby
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 2: and Paul McCartney's going to come out, and I'm going
• 2:32:41
  Speaker 2: to have this incredible moment with somebody who's really had
• 2:32:45
  Speaker 2: an impact on my life. I love Paul McCartney, listened
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 2: him every day probably, and I just bought his book
• 2:32:52
  Speaker 2: where he breaks down the songwriting and it's fascinating. And
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 2: I had just seen the six hour documentary and he
• 2:33:00
  Speaker 2: goes out the side door. I don't meet him. I'm devastated,
• 2:33:07
  Speaker 2: cursing the manager for not bringing him out. Why do
• 2:33:10
  Speaker 2: you tell me is Aaron then don't let me? Don't
• 2:33:12
  Speaker 2: Why do you rush him out for? Like I'm just
• 2:33:15
  Speaker 2: I'm so mad. Months later, I'm in some shitty green
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 2: room in a comedy club in the Midwest and buddy of
• 2:33:26
  Speaker 2: mine texts me Rick Ingram He's opening for Chris Rock
• 2:33:31
  Speaker 2: in LA and he says, I'm standing here with Chris
• 2:33:38
  Speaker 2: Rock and Jeff Wills, who runs Live Nation Comedy so
• 2:33:43
  Speaker 2: witnesses and we asked Paul McCartney who his favorite comic was, right,
• 2:33:51
  Speaker 2: and Paul says, uh, the bald bloke who takes the
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 2: piss out of people. You could retire after that. A
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 2: minute later, Jeff Wills sends me the same text. A
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks later, I see Chris Rock and he
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 2: tells me the same story, and Rick said I and
• 2:34:13
  Speaker 2: we asked him, like, are there any British comics that
• 2:34:16
  Speaker 2: you love? He couldn't name one, didn't bother to name one.
• 2:34:21
  Speaker 2: It was just the bald bloke who takes the piss
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 2: out of people.
• 2:34:24
  Speaker 1: As I say, it doesn't get any better than that.
• 2:34:26
  Speaker 2: I didn't need to hear it out of his mouth.
• 2:34:28
  Speaker 2: I had three reliable sources tell me that that's what
• 2:34:32
  Speaker 2: he said. And I was so delighted. I was like,
• 2:34:35
  Speaker 2: I don't ever need to meet. I saw Paul McCartney
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 2: at the SNL RAP party the other night, did not
• 2:34:40
  Speaker 2: say HI, did not want.
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: To well another he would know this is different. Another
• 2:34:48
  Speaker 1: rule is never talked to a celebrity who doesn't know
• 2:34:50
  Speaker 1: you unless you're introduced, never want to go. But he
• 2:34:53
  Speaker 1: does know you, he would have been thrilled.
• 2:34:55
  Speaker 2: It was three am, he was dancing with his wife.
• 2:34:59
  Speaker 1: No, no, the situation, I'm not telling you should have
• 2:35:01
  Speaker 1: done it. Yeah there that you've been in those rooms,
• 2:35:04
  Speaker 1: you know when to do it.
• 2:35:05
  Speaker 2: When not. My buddy that I was with, who's not
• 2:35:07
  Speaker 2: in show business, saw Paul leaving. So he went all
• 2:35:11
  Speaker 2: the way around the room by the exit, just so
• 2:35:13
  Speaker 2: that he could shake Paul's hand as he walked away,
• 2:35:15
  Speaker 2: and I kind of got why he did that, but
• 2:35:18
  Speaker 2: that wouldn't be good for me. So I was like,
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 2: it all goes back to like twenty five years ago.
• 2:35:25
  Speaker 2: Twenty years ago, I was at the Century City Mall
• 2:35:31
  Speaker 2: with my girlfriend at the time, in my buddy comedian,
• 2:35:34
  Speaker 2: great comedian Elon Gold and his wife, and we were
• 2:35:38
  Speaker 2: going to the movies and Melon Brooks and his wife
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 2: and Carl Ryner and his wife came up the stairs
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 2: to go to the same movie and we froze Young Comics.
• 2:35:49
  Speaker 2: There's Melon curl out in the wild, and Elon is like,
• 2:35:54
  Speaker 2: this is our chance. You gotta go, We gotta and
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 2: I go, go for it. You got to come with me.
• 2:36:01
  Speaker 2: I go, I'm not going, He goes, why not I go.
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 2: There'll be a time in my life where I will
• 2:36:07
  Speaker 2: meet those guys. This is not it.
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what he went.
• 2:36:12
  Speaker 2: And years later, Mel was so good to me and
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 2: Carl was so good to me, and you know, I'll.
• 2:36:18
  Speaker 1: Just tell you one little story on that. I went
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: on the Thurstreet promenade to an afternoon movie. And this
• 2:36:27
  Speaker 1: is the last couple of years of Seinfeld and Larry David.
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: There's nobody there. It's me and Larry David. Okay, I
• 2:36:34
  Speaker 1: don't know him. He's there, i'd but no, he is.
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: He hasn't done since Fridays. No one would know he
• 2:36:40
  Speaker 1: was long before Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc. Kind of like
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: Richard Lewis and I say to him, no, the show
• 2:36:47
  Speaker 1: hasn't been as good since you've been there. Because I
• 2:36:50
  Speaker 1: don't want to hear that, I can't say the right thing.
• 2:36:54
  Speaker 2: You never yeah, yeah, yeah. So I always wait until
• 2:36:58
  Speaker 2: it's a just a moment, but a strong moment, and
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 2: it's like goes back to the Springsteen thing. I became
• 2:37:09
  Speaker 2: in his presence, the same kid who stood outside the
• 2:37:12
  Speaker 2: boardwalk waiting for him to walk by. When I say, if.
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 1: If Bruce were here right now, his read on it
• 2:37:20
  Speaker 1: would be completely different. I mean if you said Bruce Kate.
• 2:37:25
  Speaker 1: You know, Bruce passed away. I first heard it. You're
• 2:37:28
  Speaker 1: in the room. You interact with Bruce to man, I'm
• 2:37:31
  Speaker 1: big fancy one hundred shows, and he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, nice,
• 2:37:34
  Speaker 1: nice to meet you. Move's next. Okay, that's not what happened.
• 2:37:38
  Speaker 1: He knew who we were, he came over. You made
• 2:37:41
  Speaker 1: it mention of a specific song on the show. Not
• 2:37:43
  Speaker 1: everybody even knows that fucking song.
• 2:37:45
  Speaker 2: Right then he.
• 2:37:46
  Speaker 1: Told a story about the fucking song.
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 2: You're right, You're right. I'm tough on myself.
• 2:37:52
  Speaker 1: You're right, Okay, okay, So anything you're working on now?
• 2:37:56
  Speaker 2: Uh no. No. My nephew is getting married in a
• 2:38:03
  Speaker 2: few weeks and they asked me to be the officiant,
• 2:38:06
  Speaker 2: and I've never done that before. It's funny. Most of
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 2: the comedians when they have a big show, they capitalize
• 2:38:14
  Speaker 2: it and tore off.
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: It right right right, Super Bowls Classic.
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 2: So what I'm to doing. I tend to do is
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 2: stop these roasts because I don't just perform, I produce.
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 2: I like to take a break, So I'm going to
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 2: take the summer off. I have a couple ideas that
• 2:38:33
  Speaker 2: I might want to do next, but I'm not ready
• 2:38:37
  Speaker 2: to really dive in yet. And I've given my life.
• 2:38:42
  Speaker 2: I think April first, nineteen eighty nine was my first
• 2:38:46
  Speaker 2: time on stage.
• 2:38:48
  Speaker 1: What he did, It's April Fool's Day.
• 2:38:50
  Speaker 2: It was March thirty first, but I didn't get on
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 2: till after midnight. The guy I was with is here
• 2:38:55
  Speaker 2: with me today in the other room. So my life
• 2:38:59
  Speaker 2: really is sort of like I don't have the same
• 2:39:07
  Speaker 2: I'm competitive and I have a drive, but I don't
• 2:39:09
  Speaker 2: have the same thirst to always capitalize on everything and
• 2:39:14
  Speaker 2: talk about everything like I'm okay going home sometimes and
• 2:39:20
  Speaker 2: sometimes I wish I had, you know, maybe a family
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 2: and wife and kids to go home to, but I
• 2:39:26
  Speaker 2: don't have a German shepherd. But I'm so rich with
• 2:39:30
  Speaker 2: love and family and friends and fans that I don't
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 2: always have to have the next thing sitting there. It
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 2: took me a long time to understand that about myself,
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 2: but I think having been sick last year, going through chemo,
• 2:39:50
  Speaker 2: makes me want to make less commitments, make the most
• 2:39:59
  Speaker 2: out the friendships I do have.
• 2:40:02
  Speaker 1: That's what I was asking.
• 2:40:03
  Speaker 2: And now I see why you're asking, and now I
• 2:40:06
  Speaker 2: see what it means. And show businesses is one thing.
• 2:40:15
  Speaker 2: I don't consider myself in show business. I consider myself
• 2:40:19
  Speaker 2: in the comedy business. And the comedy business is small.
• 2:40:25
  Speaker 2: It's not only I only work for a few vendors companies,
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 2: and I kind of like that. I like to work
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 2: with friends and people I trust and admire, and coming
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 2: off a big show that's a hit, I'm good for
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 2: a while.
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: It's like drop the bike bullment, leave it there and
• 2:40:51
  Speaker 1: leave it all on stage.
• 2:40:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Kevin Hart. Sixteen million people watched it. Okay, see
• 2:40:59
  Speaker 2: yeh see in the fall.
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, put a bow on that. One final question. You
• 2:41:05
  Speaker 1: say you're a big music fan. Three favorite albums? Got
• 2:41:10
  Speaker 1: a test?
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 2: I'll go by what I listened to. I listened to
• 2:41:18
  Speaker 2: The Clash Springsteen, Miles Davis, The Ramones, and the Broadway
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 2: original soundtrack The man La Mancha.
• 2:41:30
  Speaker 1: You grew up with your parents playing the soundtracks? Yeah, yeah,
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: this whole thing. Okay, which clash? Do you listen to
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: all of it? I can't listen to Combat Rock whatever?
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 2: I mean?
• 2:41:42
  Speaker 1: You know, the last one was the Rock the Cosma.
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: You know, the definitive statement is London Calling and Sandinista.
• 2:41:49
  Speaker 1: I stayed up one. I was in a really bad space.
• 2:41:52
  Speaker 1: Listened to all six sides.
• 2:41:53
  Speaker 2: And I got it.
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: I love Call Up whatever. Yeah, he the Call Up,
• 2:42:00
  Speaker 1: Don't Want to Die. It's funny how Joe Strummer got
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: all the press because the Mick Jones songs were those
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 1: songs that resonated a little bit more for me. Okay,
• 2:42:07
  Speaker 1: favorite Springsteen album.
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 2: My favorite Springsteen song is I'm Having a brain fark
• 2:42:16
  Speaker 2: because we've been sitting here for so long. I can
• 2:42:18
  Speaker 2: understand that. But it's the earlier late. It's from Greetings,
• 2:42:24
  Speaker 2: Spirit in the Night, No, not a hit, hard to
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 2: be saying the city, No, the one where.
• 2:42:32
  Speaker 1: Growing up. It's looking at his phone here doing a
• 2:42:36
  Speaker 1: little research the magic of the internet.
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 2: And the internet's off here Greetings. And what I love
• 2:42:46
  Speaker 2: about this song is that Brandon Flowers from The Killers
• 2:42:51
  Speaker 2: has the same favorite song, Lost in the Flood.
• 2:42:54
  Speaker 1: Wow, how'd you get turned on to Springsteen?
• 2:42:59
  Speaker 2: Jersey Gunners Turning Home Hungry? Actually no, I know you
• 2:43:06
  Speaker 2: can't play it, but if you talk about it you can.
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 2: So to me, that's the passing of the torch from
• 2:43:16
  Speaker 2: Dylan to Bruce. There's no big, fancy musical intro. It's
• 2:43:21
  Speaker 2: all poetry. It's all visual, it's realistic, but then there's
• 2:43:26
  Speaker 2: metaphor and you don't see any of it coming, and
• 2:43:31
  Speaker 2: it's dark, and I just love it. Lost in the
• 2:43:36
  Speaker 2: Flood by Bruce is my favorite Bruce song, but I
• 2:43:40
  Speaker 2: don't listen to it as much. The song I listened
• 2:43:44
  Speaker 2: to the most when I was doing Broadway. I would
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 2: crank up Manola Mantra and the impossible dream. But also,
• 2:43:54
  Speaker 2: but also I got a feeling from Get Back by
• 2:43:57
  Speaker 2: the Beatles. There's just a there. There's just a mood
• 2:44:01
  Speaker 2: there oh yeah, and some gibberish in the middle.
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: Of everybody had a good oh yeah.
• 2:44:06
  Speaker 2: But before that that, you know, like before you even
• 2:44:09
  Speaker 2: get to the John Lennon part, there's just some crazy
• 2:44:12
  Speaker 2: stuff in there that doesn't mean anything, but it's a
• 2:44:15
  Speaker 2: feeling and a vibe when I was getting dressed and
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 2: getting miked up that made me happy and put everything outside.
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: Well, it's funny we've lived long enough for that song
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 1: to be recognized. I remember when an album no one
• 2:44:28
  Speaker 1: ever talked about that song. There are some songs of
• 2:44:31
  Speaker 1: written about this other day that you say, oh, I
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: love that song, Noe of now people are aware of it,
• 2:44:35
  Speaker 1: especially all the Beatles. We might favorite Springsteen song, Candy's.
• 2:44:39
  Speaker 2: Rope So good. Yeah, it's so good. The drums kick in,
• 2:44:44
  Speaker 2: and you know these Springsteen concerts that he just did.
• 2:44:49
  Speaker 2: I just got a text today from Little Stevens manager
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 2: inviting me to the Philly show. It's the last show.
• 2:44:54
  Speaker 2: I can't go. But the fact that I'm somehow a
• 2:44:58
  Speaker 2: part of all this is makes me so happy, Okay.
• 2:45:03
  Speaker 1: Unlike many comedians, it sounds like you feel like an
• 2:45:07
  Speaker 1: insider as opposed to an outsider.
• 2:45:13
  Speaker 2: It's a loaded question. I didn't mean it that way.
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 2: Comedians have to feel like an outsider to I think
• 2:45:23
  Speaker 2: the ven diagram could have adjusted as I became more
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 2: successful or whatever, or respected or inside. But I always
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 2: had a theory that people from New Jersey always feel
• 2:45:39
  Speaker 2: like outsiders because a little bit like Canadians. There's a
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 2: lot of Canadian community, but New Jersey growing up. All
• 2:45:48
  Speaker 2: my radio stations where New York radio stations, TV stations,
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 2: we're all New York TV stations teams, we're all New
• 2:45:53
  Speaker 2: York teams. So you have a little bit of an
• 2:45:55
  Speaker 2: outsider chip on your shoulder. Canadians, I feel like I
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 2: have that with America. That's why the it's so funny,
• 2:46:03
  Speaker 2: observational comedy and your subversive takes on stuff upending the
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 2: status quo. But we want to feel like insiders. I
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 2: want to win a Grammy, but comics aren't rock stars,
• 2:46:22
  Speaker 2: so we have to host the Grammys.
• 2:46:25
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like, let's go back to Springsteam. You
• 2:46:31
  Speaker 1: can see on your phone, John Lando invite you. I'm thrilled.
• 2:46:35
  Speaker 1: I'm an insider. Yeah, let's assume you were in New
• 2:46:38
  Speaker 1: Jersey in the area and you said, oh, Bruce is
• 2:46:42
  Speaker 1: gonna play. Uh, the it's not the Spectrum any or
• 2:46:45
  Speaker 1: whatever fucking place it is. I'm gonna email Landa. Would
• 2:46:49
  Speaker 1: you have done that?
• 2:46:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah? No, I went to three shows this month.
• 2:46:52
  Speaker 1: No different issue. No one's reaching out to you. Bruce
• 2:46:57
  Speaker 1: is playing. Yeah, you feel comfortable. Hey, John, I want
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 1: to come.
• 2:47:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know John that well, but there's other people
• 2:47:04
  Speaker 2: in that camp that I would I would reach out to.
• 2:47:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they charge you, no, because you know most things
• 2:47:12
  Speaker 1: people don't realize. To not be charged, you have to
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: be pretty close because everything's a no comp show.
• 2:47:18
  Speaker 2: You know. I know a lot of the people in
• 2:47:20
  Speaker 2: the band, and now my way in lately has been
• 2:47:24
  Speaker 2: through Little Stevens's team. They will sometimes ask me to
• 2:47:32
  Speaker 2: do stuff for his Teach Rock charity, which I'm happy
• 2:47:37
  Speaker 2: to do because it's a really good cause. But they
• 2:47:41
  Speaker 2: will invite me knowing that they're gonna want payback, and
• 2:47:47
  Speaker 2: I'm thrilled with that.
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: Let's say we live in a big world. There's all
• 2:47:51
  Speaker 1: kinds of events. I'm old enough, there's nothing too big
• 2:47:54
  Speaker 1: that I can't miss. Let's assume there's something you want
• 2:47:58
  Speaker 1: to go. There's not a direct connection. Will you say,
• 2:48:01
  Speaker 1: you know I am who I am? I have my
• 2:48:03
  Speaker 1: I'll call or my manager because I want to go.
• 2:48:05
  Speaker 2: No, I get lazy about that, Like right now, I'd
• 2:48:10
  Speaker 2: love to be at the next games next week, but
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 2: not sure how to do it, so I'll go. I'll
• 2:48:17
  Speaker 2: just talk myself out of it. I don't know.
• 2:48:19
  Speaker 1: Let's let's let's flip it over. If you decided you
• 2:48:23
  Speaker 1: want to go in your hard hearts, do you think
• 2:48:25
  Speaker 1: it could happen? Yeah, okay, and you're not calling because
• 2:48:29
  Speaker 1: somewhere deep inside it's like a little step too far.
• 2:48:33
  Speaker 2: Or you don't want to get shut down. Yeah, and
• 2:48:38
  Speaker 2: there's always a little boy inside there. I was afraid
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 2: to ask.
• 2:48:43
  Speaker 1: So when you're comedian, slightly different culture, but when you're
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: in Hollywood situations you feel entitled. What I mean, title's
• 2:48:52
  Speaker 1: got a back come of tay you entitled to be there?
• 2:48:54
  Speaker 1: Or does party you ever have imposter syndrome?
• 2:48:56
  Speaker 2: I always have imposters, always, always, always, always, But that's
• 2:49:04
  Speaker 2: like way down there, I have ultimate fomo. Well, I've
• 2:49:11
  Speaker 2: always had the attitude of life is short to get
• 2:49:14
  Speaker 2: hit any minute, don't waste a day. You know, that's
• 2:49:17
  Speaker 2: the theme in the show, but it's also a theme
• 2:49:19
  Speaker 2: in my life. And like I want to be at everything,
• 2:49:25
  Speaker 2: you know, I want to be at everything. So it's
• 2:49:28
  Speaker 2: not about imposter syndrome. To me, it's like fomo, I
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 2: don't want to miss it. I go to the super
• 2:49:32
  Speaker 2: Bowl every year. I like going to every parties. When
• 2:49:38
  Speaker 2: then I get that that text from Guile Sirigo and
• 2:49:41
  Speaker 2: the Oscar party, I'm like, I'm still in show business.
• 2:49:45
  Speaker 2: Kiyo Gio thought of me for the party. I'll be there.
• 2:49:50
  Speaker 2: But then I'm also the guy who will worry about
• 2:49:52
  Speaker 2: what I'm dressed. Do I bring a gift? Like I
• 2:49:54
  Speaker 2: want to be a good guest. I don't show up
• 2:49:57
  Speaker 2: with any kind of entitlement or attitude. I'm not cavalier
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 2: about any of it. And I always want to thank
• 2:50:03
  Speaker 2: you note So I don't feel like entitled to it.
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 2: I feel like I earn it every time.
• 2:50:09
  Speaker 1: But and I would not think otherwise. But you can
• 2:50:13
  Speaker 1: be in a situation where it's one thing you walk
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: in there, Oh Jeff, so good to see you, blah
• 2:50:19
  Speaker 1: blah blah. You could be in a situation where are
• 2:50:21
  Speaker 1: there and you're not the center of attention, no one's
• 2:50:24
  Speaker 1: really paying attention. Are you comfortable? Or you're waiting for
• 2:50:28
  Speaker 1: the interaction, and you find yourself turning it on, Just
• 2:50:32
  Speaker 1: like with Bruce, I'm anxious. I'm kinda you know, I'm
• 2:50:35
  Speaker 1: gonna turn it on a little bit, try to impress
• 2:50:37
  Speaker 1: them and sort of earn my keep here.
• 2:50:41
  Speaker 2: I sometimes feel pressure like that. Yeah, you know, am
• 2:50:45
  Speaker 2: I invited here because they expect me to grab the
• 2:50:48
  Speaker 2: mic and say something funny. But I'm also not so
• 2:50:55
  Speaker 2: insecure or I can't accept that. I observed older comedians
• 2:51:04
  Speaker 2: so much as a young comic the Friars Club that
• 2:51:07
  Speaker 2: I learned where the pitfalls.
• 2:51:11
  Speaker 1: Is that the word that could be?
• 2:51:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know where you go where the pitfalls are.
• 2:51:16
  Speaker 2: One time I was walking down the street in New
• 2:51:20
  Speaker 2: York and you know who Pat Cooper was? Yeah, Pat
• 2:51:24
  Speaker 2: was walking down across the street and I spotted him
• 2:51:27
  Speaker 2: and Pat and I ran over to say hi. He
• 2:51:31
  Speaker 2: was walking down and he was in a bad mood.
• 2:51:35
  Speaker 2: You know, he was pissed off about something.
• 2:51:38
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 2:51:38
  Speaker 2: What is it? What's the matter? He goes, Oh, I
• 2:51:40
  Speaker 2: got invited to some party and then I show up
• 2:51:42
  Speaker 2: and I was eleven guys there, and I'm the fucking
• 2:51:45
  Speaker 2: entertainer and theymembinea and I fucked that guy. I didn't.
• 2:51:49
  Speaker 2: I thought I was just being invited, remember, and and
• 2:51:54
  Speaker 2: uh that was sympathetic. I understood where he was coming from.
• 2:51:58
  Speaker 2: I've been in that situation. But I also go, yeah,
• 2:52:03
  Speaker 2: I'm never gonna let people have that kind of control
• 2:52:06
  Speaker 2: over my mood. I remember other comics getting mad about
• 2:52:16
  Speaker 2: people stopping them on the street for an autograph when
• 2:52:20
  Speaker 2: I was a beginner, and I said, oh, I'm never
• 2:52:24
  Speaker 2: gonna And I remember seeing like comics, you know, famous
• 2:52:28
  Speaker 2: actors with their hat and sunglasses trying to be incognito.
• 2:52:32
  Speaker 2: I remember seeing a famous actor, the Chief from Barney Miller,
• 2:52:42
  Speaker 2: like get annoyed by a fan who's on a mood
• 2:52:46
  Speaker 2: waiting online for a movie. These are vague memories with
• 2:52:49
  Speaker 2: his wife and getting annoyed. Did somebody talk to him?
• 2:52:53
  Speaker 2: And I was like, what is the point of being
• 2:52:55
  Speaker 2: famous if the fans are controlling your mood? So when
• 2:53:02
  Speaker 2: I go out in public, I don't need a hat
• 2:53:05
  Speaker 2: in sunglasses. You want to talk to me? How you doing?
• 2:53:08
  Speaker 2: I walk through Washington Square Park I'm happy to take
• 2:53:11
  Speaker 2: a picture. If I can't, I politely say why I can't,
• 2:53:15
  Speaker 2: I don't. But unless they're touching my head or acting
• 2:53:19
  Speaker 2: disrespectful or interrupting, I'm cool with all of it. You
• 2:53:24
  Speaker 2: would invite me to the party because I'm the funny one. Okay.
• 2:53:30
  Speaker 2: I could also get there and then decide I don't
• 2:53:32
  Speaker 2: want to be funny. It's up to me. I don't
• 2:53:36
  Speaker 2: let people have that kind of power over my mood.
• 2:53:40
  Speaker 2: There's no point in doing all this and then not
• 2:53:43
  Speaker 2: being happy. So why are you so well adjusted? I
• 2:53:49
  Speaker 2: don't know that. I don't know. I don't really talk
• 2:53:52
  Speaker 2: to their shrink munch. I don't really, So what does
• 2:53:55
  Speaker 2: push your buttons? When somebody breaks the bonds of the
• 2:54:02
  Speaker 2: trust of a friendship that kids me. That's when I
• 2:54:07
  Speaker 2: get hurt. That's when I clawed my nails. That's when
• 2:54:11
  Speaker 2: I get stressed out. That's when I feel a fucking
• 2:54:15
  Speaker 2: tumor growing in my colon.
• 2:54:18
  Speaker 1: Just to paint it, you know a million people in
• 2:54:20
  Speaker 1: an average day. You're not technically working, you're not doing
• 2:54:25
  Speaker 1: a gig or whatever. How much contact do you have
• 2:54:27
  Speaker 1: the friends every day? Are you like texting constantly.
• 2:54:30
  Speaker 2: Always I talk to everybody every day.
• 2:54:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, you actually literally talk on the phone.
• 2:54:37
  Speaker 2: FaceTime, text phone. Four buddies came over last night after
• 2:54:43
  Speaker 2: my colonoscopy. I got a buddy with me here. Today.
• 2:54:47
  Speaker 2: We're going to my friend Bernie Shine's birthday party tonight.
• 2:54:52
  Speaker 2: I personally bringing six friends that I haven't seen because
• 2:54:55
  Speaker 2: I've been in New York for two weeks. Tomorrow is
• 2:54:58
  Speaker 2: another big party that I I that I am really
• 2:55:02
  Speaker 2: looking forward to.
• 2:55:03
  Speaker 1: You never have any social anxiety, You never get burned outside.
• 2:55:06
  Speaker 1: I got to stay home. There was too much socialization,
• 2:55:09
  Speaker 1: rarely on that note. I know you wanted to end
• 2:55:13
  Speaker 1: like an hour ago.
• 2:55:14
  Speaker 2: I am very much enjoyed this well, as I say,
• 2:55:18
  Speaker 2: anybody who got through this.
• 2:55:20
  Speaker 1: No they I once, did you know Dwight? Yoakum, yeah
• 2:55:23
  Speaker 1: you know them?
• 2:55:24
  Speaker 2: No?
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, then I won't go deep. I mean I knew Dwight.
• 2:55:29
  Speaker 1: Dwight was going on, and then I realized, I'm just
• 2:55:33
  Speaker 1: gonna let it go. And he went on for four hours,
• 2:55:35
  Speaker 1: and I said, either people can listen to a second
• 2:55:39
  Speaker 1: like a.
• 2:55:39
  Speaker 2: Here's why I worked, Here's why I worked. I've done
• 2:55:42
  Speaker 2: a lot of interviews, not just about this show, but
• 2:55:47
  Speaker 2: I've been on a morning radio and podcasts and TV
• 2:55:52
  Speaker 2: and thirty something years of this, and you alluded to
• 2:55:57
  Speaker 2: this in the beginning, but you didn't really hit what
• 2:55:59
  Speaker 2: was happening. And I've listened to your shows before. You
• 2:56:05
  Speaker 2: stopped interviewing me within five minutes and we started having
• 2:56:09
  Speaker 2: a conversation. And that's why we're able to go for
• 2:56:13
  Speaker 2: three hours. If you were interviewing me and I was
• 2:56:16
  Speaker 2: answering you, this would have gotten really dull quick. But
• 2:56:22
  Speaker 2: because you're sharing. You'd mentioned your father, you mentioned your history,
• 2:56:26
  Speaker 2: you mentioned your friends, you mentioned leukemia. Once you start
• 2:56:31
  Speaker 2: doing that, that allows me to do that without feeling
• 2:56:35
  Speaker 2: like I'm being interrogated or giving content that I might
• 2:56:38
  Speaker 2: want to say for some other show or whatever. I'm
• 2:56:42
  Speaker 2: not saying that's what was happening, But I think because
• 2:56:44
  Speaker 2: we had a conversation today and not in an interview,
• 2:56:51
  Speaker 2: I think we really had a real cathartic bonding, interesting
• 2:56:59
  Speaker 2: three hours.
• 2:57:00
  Speaker 1: I guess. For me, my viewpoint on the podcast is
• 2:57:05
  Speaker 1: listeners know who I am, and they want to hear
• 2:57:07
  Speaker 1: from the guests, So I don't want to put myself
• 2:57:11
  Speaker 1: in most Okay, I already said that, but I'm reemphasized again.
• 2:57:16
  Speaker 1: I talked to my shrink today. Okay, I went through
• 2:57:19
  Speaker 1: something really bad, like thirty five years ago. It's a
• 2:57:22
  Speaker 1: long time, but whatever, and I found my personality changed.
• 2:57:26
  Speaker 1: I used to talk all the time, and then I
• 2:57:29
  Speaker 1: listened more. I'm gonna jump ahead because otherwise we'll be
• 2:57:32
  Speaker 1: here for another three hours. So unlike a lot of people,
• 2:57:37
  Speaker 1: I'm hearing from people all day long online. Okay, so
• 2:57:42
  Speaker 1: I don't like to talk to anybody on the phone.
• 2:57:44
  Speaker 1: Here's my favorite story on this. Peter gross Slide, who's
• 2:57:47
  Speaker 1: long longer with us, was ill. He was a music
• 2:57:49
  Speaker 1: agent at WMA and Ari ran WMA and his brother
• 2:57:56
  Speaker 1: was chief of staff for Obama. Had an illness that
• 2:58:01
  Speaker 1: they could not figure out, and he finally said, Ari,
• 2:58:05
  Speaker 1: can I talk to your brother to get it studied
• 2:58:07
  Speaker 1: by the CDC. The year went by before we.
• 2:58:11
  Speaker 2: Got to this point. This was not the first ask, and.
• 2:58:14
  Speaker 1: Ultimately Ari's okay, here's the number call he called. Ari
• 2:58:18
  Speaker 1: picked up the phone, Uh, rom picked.
• 2:58:20
  Speaker 2: Up the phocos.
• 2:58:21
  Speaker 1: What do you need? That's why I won't talk to
• 2:58:24
  Speaker 1: people on the phone. Yeah, you're asking me about this.
• 2:58:27
  Speaker 1: Just get to the ask first. Those are the business people.
• 2:58:31
  Speaker 1: That's what I was. I know where it's people. Oh
• 2:58:33
  Speaker 1: we gotta we got to meet in person, because no, no, no, no, no, no,
• 2:58:36
  Speaker 1: no tell me. I don't want to tell what it is.
• 2:58:38
  Speaker 1: Tell me what it is you, Mike, time is valuable.
• 2:58:41
  Speaker 1: The other thing is, I know a lot of people
• 2:58:45
  Speaker 1: you put it di, I had a nickel before you
• 2:58:47
  Speaker 1: put a dime in the jukebox. They never ask you
• 2:58:50
  Speaker 1: about yourself, and it just if it's one thing if
• 2:58:53
  Speaker 1: we're talking to the Knicks, but for me to be able
• 2:58:59
  Speaker 1: to talk and feel that someone hears me, I don't
• 2:59:06
  Speaker 1: have enough people in my life where I feel I
• 2:59:09
  Speaker 1: can do that. That's a gross and I have very
• 2:59:14
  Speaker 1: few people I can do that with and that so
• 2:59:17
  Speaker 1: this is a weird kind of thing because about you.
• 2:59:20
  Speaker 1: But if I can talk about these things, that's what
• 2:59:25
  Speaker 1: makes listen. I've bet a It's like jo I'm in
• 2:59:28
  Speaker 1: a million rock stars whatever. That's fun. You want to
• 2:59:31
  Speaker 1: feel like a connection, like oh yeah, the person knew
• 2:59:35
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying and they got it. They don't have
• 2:59:37
  Speaker 1: to do anything with it, et cetera.
• 2:59:39
  Speaker 2: I just realized why. It's because of the show. Me
• 2:59:44
  Speaker 2: being vulnerable in the show, take a banana for the ride.
• 2:59:49
  Speaker 2: Sounds dirty, it's not allows you to feel like not
• 2:59:56
  Speaker 2: feel like you know me even though we're meeting today.
• 3:00:01
  Speaker 2: And I think that's why I wanted to come on.
• 3:00:06
  Speaker 2: Because of what you wrote about the show. I said, Oh,
• 3:00:08
  Speaker 2: he gets it. He not just he gets it as
• 3:00:11
  Speaker 2: a piece of entertainment, but you get it as a
• 3:00:14
  Speaker 2: piece of philosophy. And that I think gave you permission
• 3:00:21
  Speaker 2: in your own head to be a little more vulnerable.
• 3:00:25
  Speaker 2: Let's call it vulnerable about your life and and and
• 3:00:31
  Speaker 2: and share.
• 3:00:31
  Speaker 1: Well, I just to be clear, because there's the issue
• 3:00:34
  Speaker 1: of vulnerability.
• 3:00:35
  Speaker 2: Because because everyone who's seeing the show is people write
• 3:00:45
  Speaker 2: me and stop me about the show. They don't necessarily
• 3:00:48
  Speaker 2: talk to me about the show. They talked to me,
• 3:00:50
  Speaker 2: start telling me their stories exactly. And I'm not sure
• 3:00:53
  Speaker 2: why you're the critic. I'm not.
• 3:01:00
  Speaker 1: Experience, so by talking to you, there's not the line
• 3:01:04
  Speaker 1: between vulnerable and guarded. That's not my issue. I've told
• 3:01:07
  Speaker 1: everybody I've written everything about my life. My life's an
• 3:01:10
  Speaker 1: open book. My thing is if I'm talking, he's the
• 3:01:14
  Speaker 1: other person going to be concentrating on me. He's going
• 3:01:16
  Speaker 1: to hear what I have to say, it's like, you know,
• 3:01:18
  Speaker 1: you're on the phone with people and all of a
• 3:01:20
  Speaker 1: sudden they start running the water and they're slamming. They
• 3:01:23
  Speaker 1: think I stopped talking, you know. So the fact that
• 3:01:26
  Speaker 1: it's a mutual thing, maybe an artificial situation, that was it.
• 3:01:31
  Speaker 1: But I wouldn't have been going saying those things if
• 3:01:34
  Speaker 1: I hadn't seen the special because I realize you have
• 3:01:38
  Speaker 1: that side of your personality, and that's what touched me.
• 3:01:42
  Speaker 1: I had a very long meeting with you'll know who
• 3:01:47
  Speaker 1: it is. So if I qualify, let's just say someone
• 3:01:50
  Speaker 1: very powerful and went on for three and a half hours.
• 3:01:54
  Speaker 1: And he remarks at the end, you know, listing off
• 3:01:57
  Speaker 1: of a number of famous people. Say, you know, if
• 3:02:01
  Speaker 1: I go be on a half hour of these people,
• 3:02:03
  Speaker 1: you know, forget it. Okay, And I'm the same way
• 3:02:07
  Speaker 1: most people. I can't talk at all, but if I clicked,
• 3:02:10
  Speaker 1: I could talk forever.
• 3:02:14
  Speaker 2: Right, It's like a good date. We had a good date, Bob. Absolutely,
• 3:02:18
  Speaker 2: I really thought you'd be cuter in person. But we
• 3:02:21
  Speaker 2: had a good date.
• 3:02:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, what I say? And I got to leave the
• 3:02:24
  Speaker 1: qualifaication out I did the other day when I said
• 3:02:26
  Speaker 1: my girlfriend's family Norman Lear was a good friend and
• 3:02:31
  Speaker 1: when you'd be at a party with him, he'd be
• 3:02:33
  Speaker 1: walking out. He'd always say, to be continued. I love
• 3:02:36
  Speaker 1: that till next time. This is bob lefs it