Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #071 _STORY INSPIRE: Decisions that transforman with Joe DeRosa
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast
- 0:08by night, all day.
- 0:13Speaker 2: Cheers. Good to see you. I went through a whole,
- 0:22like a series of different coffee machines that I tried out.
- 0:24I tried out one of them that was like this
- 0:26little thing that's like a tea dipper almost, like for
- 0:30an individual cup of coffee. You put the grounds in
- 0:32this little thing. It's a little tiny press.
- 0:35Speaker 1: Okay.
- 0:35Speaker 2: And you boil the water, put it in the coffee cup,
- 0:39and then you sit in there like it's tea. And
- 0:41then you press it.
- 0:42Speaker 1: Okay.
- 0:42Speaker 2: And it makes like a French press.
- 0:45Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
- 0:46Speaker 2: So then I went to an AeroPress. I like that
- 0:49one a lot.
- 0:50Speaker 1: What's an AeroPress?
- 0:50Speaker 2: I use that every day. So with an AeroPress, I
- 0:54boil the water, grind the beans, and then I pour
- 0:57it into this glass tube. And the glass tube has
- 1:00a filter at the bottom of it, like a mesh filter.
- 1:03Like a steel or an aluminum or some kind of
- 1:07metal mesh. And then that's what it looks like. And
- 1:10so you press down and it makes a cup of
- 1:14coffee real quick. And it's one cup. And so that's
- 1:17what I like. Because I was making coffee like I
- 1:19was doing French press for a while. I had a
- 1:22coffee machine. But the issue is that you're not supposed
- 1:25to really be drinking out of hot plastic. All that
- 1:28shit is plastic. There's plastic. The water goes into plastic.
- 1:30There's plastic here and plastic there. I'm trying to eliminate
- 1:33as much plastic in my life as possibly, as I
- 1:36possibly can.
- 1:37Speaker 3: I'll tell you too. I, a couple of times in
- 1:40my adult life splurged on, you know, some fucking.
- 1:45Speaker 2: One of them Italian espresso machines. Yeah.
- 1:48Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:48Speaker 3: It grinds the beans every time you're going to wet.
- 1:51Those fucking things go sideways on you in a year.
- 1:53And then you're like, I got to get it fixed.
- 1:55And they're like, yeah, um, there's a shop. It's 90 minutes.
- 1:59Speaker 1: North of you. You drive the machine up there. You're
- 2:01just like, Fuck this shit, man. So I went back.
- 2:05I have an espresso, and you put the fucking pot
- 2:07in and whatever.
- 2:08Speaker 2: There's a company that makes one. I should shout them out.
- 2:11That makes one that's all steel. I think it's called
- 2:14Simply Good Coffee. I follow them on Instagram. I haven't
- 2:19used their machine, but that's all steel. It's an all
- 2:22steel coffee machine, which is what you want. But I've
- 2:25got it down to the AeroPress. The AeroPress, to me,
- 2:29very simple machine. The minimal amount of like parts. It's
- 2:32just a tube. The grinds. The coffee tastes pure. It's simple.
- 2:37I make one cup of coffee a day.
- 2:40Speaker 3: Here is what I miss because I will drink a
- 2:42lot of coffee if I'm able to.
- 2:44Speaker 1: Here's what I miss about like a traditional Mr. Coffee
- 2:48pot of coffee. Okay. You set it. It starts doing
- 2:52it in the morning. You wake up. It's already going,
- 2:54you know. Right.
- 2:56Speaker 3: I get two cups hot in the morning. I put
- 2:58it in the fridge. And then in the afternoon when
- 3:00I start feeling sluggish, I got two cold cups. And
- 3:04it's just a nice.
- 3:05Speaker 2: So you just want volume.
- 3:07Speaker 1: I love volume.
- 3:08Speaker 2: Then make a French press. It'll taste better. This right here.
- 3:12Speaker 1: But then you got to make it every time. You
- 3:14got to do one cup every time.
- 3:15Speaker 2: You don't have a job. You lazy motherfucker. You don't
- 3:20even have a job. You literally talk shit for a
- 3:25living and you're like, oh, making coffee so hard. Someone
- 3:31had a skin of fucking buffalo just to stay warm
- 3:34in the winter.
- 3:35Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 3:35Speaker 2: Just to stay alive. They had to shred the skin
- 3:38off of it with a stone knife and they had
- 3:40to pull it and stretch it and tan it and put.
- 3:43animal brains on it to make sure that it's softened
- 3:46up and salted down.
- 3:48Speaker 1: And guess what? If you would have said to that guy, hey,
- 3:50we got this thing called Mr. Buffalo, it'll just do
- 3:53it real fast. He would have been like, okay, this sucks.
- 3:58Speaker 2: Mr.
- 3:58Speaker 1: Buffalo.
- 4:01Speaker 2: He would be fucking sitting in his teepee going, bro, Mr.
- 4:04Buffalo's the shit. Yeah. He'd get fat and lazy.
- 4:08Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 4:08Speaker 2: So true.
- 4:09Speaker 1: But yeah, I like to make more than one cup
- 4:12at once. So that thing, that airbrush.
- 4:14Speaker 2: Dude, French press is so easy. You talk about making
- 4:17it hard. This right here. This is an all-metal French press.
- 4:20No plastic parts at all. It's the fucking easiest thing
- 4:23in the world, dude.
- 4:24Speaker 1: So this can make a full pot, though?
- 4:26Speaker 2: Yes.
- 4:27Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
- 4:27Speaker 2: Well, then that's... Yeah, look at this. And this is
- 4:29not expensive. It's just a steel French press. This is
- 4:33the best-tasting coffee you're ever going to get because it's
- 4:35got all the oils from the beans, man. You get, like,
- 4:39the real coffee dorks. You know, there's something happens in
- 4:43the filter. So in the filter, yes, you remove the grinds. Yes.
- 4:47But also you remove some of the flavor.
- 4:50Speaker 1: Yes.
- 4:50Speaker 2: Just a touch.
- 4:51Speaker 1: Yeah. It's funny, man. Back when I.
- 4:56Speaker 3: Was still involved with the sandwich shop, one of the
- 5:00things I learned that I never knew, because you had
- 5:01to take a test to get a food handler's license
- 5:03and all this shit, was I didn't know that food
- 5:07started breaking down the moment you cut it.
- 5:10Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Because I was getting into, at
- 5:12the time, meal prep and shit.
- 5:15Speaker 3: If I chop the tomatoes now, if I chop the
- 5:17carrots now, the cucumbers now, it'll be way easier to
- 5:20just throw a salad together every day. It'll make me
- 5:22eat the good thing because it'll be fast. And then
- 5:26I learned, no, as soon as you cut something, it
- 5:28starts to break down.
- 5:29Speaker 2: Is this just vegetables?
- 5:31Speaker 3: I think it's mainly vegetables. Raw meat is fine or whatever,
- 5:35but vegetables.
- 5:36Speaker 2: That makes sense because the inside is exposed to the air.
- 5:39Speaker 1: But it's got to be the same principle with coffee beans,
- 5:41I would think, right? Like once they're ground.
- 5:44Speaker 2: That's a good question. Yeah. I think people like to
- 5:47grind them right before they– I always grind them right
- 5:51before I make the coffee, which is easy. I will
- 5:54grind them. It's a one-step, one button. I press it.
- 5:58It takes 13 seconds. I count it. It goes– 13
- 6:01seconds is the exact amount of beans that I want
- 6:04for one strong– I like a strong cup of coffee,
- 6:07one strong cup of coffee with that AeroPress thing. But
- 6:10it's the same thing with a French press. You take it.
- 6:13You just get a determined amount and you can dial
- 6:15the knob on the grinder. It's so easy. Grinders are
- 6:18so simple. So listen. All you do is you take
- 6:21that ground coffee after it comes into the little cup.
- 6:23You pour it into the bottom of the fucking French press,
- 6:26and then you pour the hot water in. Done.
- 6:28Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 6:29Speaker 2: That's it. And then you wait one minute, and then
- 6:31you push this fucking plunger down, and you drink the
- 6:33best coffee in the world. And it doesn't have any plastic,
- 6:35and it doesn't have any bullshit, and there's no moving parts. Yes.
- 6:39There's nothing. It's just that thing. And if the grinder breaks,
- 6:41you get another fucking grinder. Okay? And grinders don't break.
- 6:44I've never had a grinder break.
- 6:46Speaker 1: But you've got to boil the water first, correct? Oh,
- 6:48my God.
- 6:48Speaker 2: Are you okay? Are you going to be okay? You've
- 6:51got to turn the knob on the stove. Are you
- 6:52going to be okay? What the fuck is wrong with
- 6:55this guy? I hit a button on the boiler. This
- 6:58is so ridiculous. He's so ridiculous. He's like, whoa, I
- 7:02can't be the water. I got to boil it.
- 7:05Speaker 1: Dude, I get out of bed.
- 7:07Speaker 2: Get an automatic kettle. You get a kettle. There's literally,
- 7:11I have one that has a setting that says French
- 7:13press on it. It's a steel kettle. Okay. And it
- 7:16works all electronically. So it's temper regulated temperature and it
- 7:20beeps when it's done. Press 200 degrees. And then I
- 7:23press start and it goes.
- 7:25Speaker 1: Okay.
- 7:26Speaker 2: And when that happens, I pour the water onto the beans.
- 7:30Speaker 1: Well, now we're talking.
- 7:31Speaker 2: Now we're talking.
- 7:32Speaker 1: An electric kettle. I'm thinking I got to put a
- 7:34fucking pot on the stove. That's even easier, you fucking
- 7:37lazy bitch. It takes too long. Dude, I get out
- 7:41of it. You're such a lazy bitch. It's not laziness.
- 7:43You're so lazy.
- 7:44Speaker 2: I get out.
- 7:46Speaker 1: I swear it's not like this. I wake up with
- 7:49the dread of humanity in my fucking brain. I'm just like,
- 7:52I need a cup of coffee immediately to just start
- 7:55the day and just clear the head. And the longer
- 7:58that takes, the longer I got to sit in that
- 8:00wake up anxiety.
- 8:02Speaker 2: I understand.
- 8:04Speaker 1: So, but now we're talking. You know what I'm going
- 8:06to get? I'm going to get a boiling pot that
- 8:07you can set a timer on.
- 8:09Speaker 2: Yeah, they're easy. They're electronic kettles.
- 8:11Speaker 1: They sell them online.
- 8:12Speaker 2: And they have, like, settings for tea, settings for this,
- 8:15settings for hot cocoa. You know, it's like five or
- 8:18six different settings or something like that, depending on the model.
- 8:21All right. They're fucking so easy, dude.
- 8:22Speaker 1: You sold me. Yeah.
- 8:24Speaker 2: And it's the best coffee. It tastes good. And I
- 8:26don't have to think. I had a whole year. One
- 8:28of these really nice machines and it can make an espresso,
- 8:31can make a coffee, can make a latte. It's got
- 8:33a little fucking foam thing that I've never used once. Never,
- 8:37never even thought about using it. Never even thought about
- 8:39steaming milk in my fucking house.
- 8:41Speaker 4: Never.
- 8:41Speaker 2: But I always was thinking, I'm just, it's all plastic.
- 8:45Every time I filled up the water thing, I'm like,
- 8:46this is all plastic. Everything's plastic.
- 8:49Speaker 3: Do you know, do you know what I saw though
- 8:50that made me want to get the thing again with
- 8:52the cream steamer? Cause I don't put cream in, so
- 8:54I don't have any use for it.
- 8:56Speaker 2: Black coffee, right?
- 8:57Speaker 1: Black coffee, always. Fuckin' man.
- 8:59Speaker 2: Always.
- 8:59Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
- 8:59Speaker 2: Me too.
- 9:00Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 9:00Speaker 1: Tony shits on it.
- 9:01Speaker 2: Of course he does. Tony needs a fuckin' umbrella in
- 9:04his coffee. He needs an umbrella and a pineapple.
- 9:09Speaker 1: A cookie with it, yeah.
- 9:10Speaker 2: And he holds it with one pinky out when he
- 9:12drinks his coffee.
- 9:16Speaker 1: I go, I drink it black. He goes, ah, you
- 9:18fuckin' hate condiments. I was like, what are you talking about?
- 9:21Speaker 2: I like the taste of coffee.
- 9:22Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 9:24Speaker 2: I genuinely like black coffee.
- 9:26Speaker 1: You know what I saw, though, that made me want
- 9:27to get the foam steamer was not for foam. You
- 9:32know Alton Brown? Yeah. I love Alton Brown. He did
- 9:36a thing. He did a video where he made this
- 9:38thing with eggs and he used the foam steamer to
- 9:41like foam the eggs up. And I was like. I
- 9:47want to get it just for that, just to do
- 9:48the thing with the eggs.
- 9:49Speaker 2: Interesting. So you're lazy when it comes to making coffee,
- 9:53but you go way out of the way for some
- 9:54foamy eggs.
- 9:55Speaker 1: I'll cook. You'll use a steamer? I like to cook.
- 10:00I'll cook.
- 10:01Speaker 2: There it is right here. Look at that. Wow. Wow.
- 10:07Speaker 3: He said this is like apparently incredible. It's like two eggs,
- 10:11a little cheese.
- 10:12Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting. And so you... You whisk it up like that,
- 10:19and then you add the foam, and the foam cooks it?
- 10:23Is that how he's cooking it, with the foam?
- 10:24Speaker 1: He cooks the eggs with the foam. Oh.
- 10:28Speaker 2: So what is in the foamer? Is it just hot water?
- 10:31Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 10:32Speaker 2: That's it?
- 10:33Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 10:33Speaker 2: Okay. So this hot water from the steam is cooking
- 10:36his eggs.
- 10:37Speaker 1: Look at the egg cooking. Look at that.
- 10:38Speaker 2: Pretty fucking dope.
- 10:40Speaker 1: Look at that.
- 10:41Speaker 2: He's eating. Or you just eat eggs. What the fuck's
- 10:46wrong with you? Just crack some fucking eggs. Fry some eggs.
- 10:49What's the problem?
- 10:50Speaker 1: You don't think that looks good?
- 10:51Speaker 2: It doesn't look as good as sunny side up eggs.
- 10:54Speaker 1: Foamy eggs?
- 10:54Speaker 2: I was looking at it and I was like, fuck
- 10:55those foamy eggs. I want a real egg.
- 10:58Speaker 1: Could you imagine Duncan toasting those foamy eggs?
- 11:00Speaker 2: Come on. No, because I don't even eat toast.
- 11:02Speaker 1: Come on. Toast once in a while.
- 11:04Speaker 2: Occasionally.
- 11:05Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 11:05Speaker 2: You know when I get it? With steak tartare. I
- 11:09like those little toast points.
- 11:11Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 11:11Speaker 2: You ever get some steak tartare with the toast points
- 11:13at Jay Carver? You ever go to Jay Carver?
- 11:15Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
- 11:16Speaker 1: Of course. Yeah, yeah. What's your favorite spot in Austin
- 11:20to get a meal?
- 11:22Speaker 2: It's impossible to say. There's so many good spots. There's
- 11:27so many good spots. Austin is crazy with the amount
- 11:30of great restaurants, like really high-end restaurants. I've eaten steak
- 11:34at every fucking restaurant in town, and I got to
- 11:36think the best one is Jeffrey's. Jeffries is– I still
- 11:41haven't gone.
- 11:42Speaker 1: I got to go. It's perfection.
- 11:44Speaker 2: They're all great. Like I've never had a bad steak
- 11:46at Jay Carver's. I've never had a bad steak at
- 11:50Eddie V's. They're all great. But there's something about whatever
- 11:53Jeffries is doing. I think they got rated like the
- 11:57number two steakhouse in the country, something crazy like that.
- 12:00Speaker 3: I got to go to Jeffries. I've been dragging my ass.
- 12:02I love Jay Carver. Jay Carver is amazing.
- 12:05Speaker 2: Amazing. Their steak is different. Jeffrey's Steak, like Jay Carver's Steak,
- 12:10he's using one of those Argentine grills. So it's all
- 12:13live fire over wood. Delicious flavor.
- 12:16Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
- 12:16Speaker 2: But man, there's like another level. Like whatever Jeffrey's doing,
- 12:21like fuck.
- 12:22Speaker 3: I go, I love Gary, the bartender at Eddie V's.
- 12:26And he makes killer martinis. I love to go in
- 12:28and get a martini.
- 12:29Speaker 2: It's a great bar.
- 12:30Speaker 1: Shrimp cocktail.
- 12:31Speaker 2: Beautiful bar.
- 12:32Speaker 1: And some steak. But I love, I got to tell you,
- 12:34it's the same owners as Jay Carver's. I actually think
- 12:38I like the steak at Red Ash a little bit
- 12:41better than Jake Harbor.
- 12:43Speaker 2: How?
- 12:45Speaker 1: There's just something different about it. I don't know what
- 12:47the difference in the prep is, but just the steak.
- 12:50And then also having the option of all the Italian
- 12:52foods that you can get with the steak.
- 12:53Speaker 2: Yeah, Red Ash is phenomenal, too. They have another place
- 12:56called the Kimberly. That place is phenomenal, too.
- 12:59Speaker 1: Kimberly's very good.
- 13:01Speaker 2: There's too many good restaurants. You have an abundance of
- 13:04choices here.
- 13:06Speaker 1: It took.
- 13:07Speaker 3: It took a minute because when I first moved back,
- 13:10because I was here in 2000 for a year, when
- 13:13I first moved back, you know, I was in New
- 13:16York for so long, I forgot like Austin is more
- 13:19of a destination city. You have to kind of find
- 13:21the places. And Tommy Pope was like, dude, give me
- 13:26your phone. And he went into my Google Maps and
- 13:28he bookmarked 10.
- 13:30Speaker 1: Spots and was like, Get this here. Get this there.
- 13:34Get this here. In every spot, I was like, okay,
- 13:36now we're rocking and rolling. It was great.
- 13:39Speaker 2: Yeah, imagine back in the day before the internet, you
- 13:42couldn't just Google, like, what's the best steakhouse in Austin.
- 13:46I mean, that's kind of an amazing thing now. You
- 13:49get to be told about a restaurant. Right.
- 13:51Speaker 1: Yeah. I do that in cities.
- 13:55Speaker 3: When I'm on the road, I'll look up what's the
- 13:57best Italian sandwich in the city. Sometimes it's right. Sometimes
- 14:04it's like, you know.
- 14:05Speaker 2: The most popular touristy place.
- 14:07Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 14:07Speaker 3: Sometimes it's just a place that paid for publicity. So
- 14:10they're getting on these lists and it's not accurate. But
- 14:14when you find it, it's great. The Internet is a
- 14:16great tool to help find these places. Like you said,
- 14:20it used to just be word of mouth. You just
- 14:22have to say what's good.
- 14:23Speaker 1: And now you're depending on some guy's opinion, which is
- 14:26not always the best.
- 14:27Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's some certain places. It's like people are
- 14:33your own little Siskel and Ebert for movies, but for restaurants.
- 14:37Like you've got to find a fat guy who loves food.
- 14:39That guy is going to tell you where the best
- 14:41spots are.
- 14:41Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know who knows everything.
- 14:45Speaker 2: There's like East Coast places, though, that you're just never
- 14:48going to get anywhere else other than the East Coast.
- 14:50There's certain like kind of small Italian restaurants in particular.
- 14:55There's this place I used to go to when I
- 14:56lived in New Rochelle, Frank and John's. I think it
- 14:59was Frankie and Johnny's. I think that's what it was called. Okay.
- 15:01In New Rochelle, this Italian place.
- 15:02Speaker 1: It was so fucking insane.
- 15:04Speaker 2: It was so insane.
- 15:05Speaker 1: It was so good. They made a movie about that.
- 15:07Speaker 2: Really?
- 15:08Speaker 3: There was a movie called Frankie and Johnny with Al Pacino.
- 15:11And I think it's about that restaurant. I think he
- 15:13works at that restaurant.
- 15:14Speaker 2: Really?
- 15:15Speaker 1: Yeah. I think so. Yeah. It's got to be.
- 15:18Speaker 2: There's a lot of restaurants. Right? But it's called? I mean,
- 15:21I'm 90% sure it was in New Rochelle because that's
- 15:23where I lived. I lived in New Rochelle. If it
- 15:25wasn't in New Rochelle, it was in the surrounding areas,
- 15:27like maybe Mount Vernon or something like that. But, oh
- 15:30my God, dude, it was so good. When I got
- 15:32my first development deal, my manager thought that I had
- 15:35a gambling problem, but it was really just because I
- 15:38was eating steak and lobster every night.
- 15:40Speaker 1: It's, Go, where's all your money going?
- 15:44Speaker 2: He's like, what are you doing? You're spending so much money.
- 15:47Do you have a gambling problem? And I was like, no,
- 15:50I'm eating steak and lobster every night. I've been poor
- 15:53my whole life. I'm fucking eating like a king. Until
- 15:55this shit runs out, I don't even know if it's
- 15:57going to last, but I'm riding this bitch right into
- 15:59the rocks.
- 16:00Speaker 3: My favorite thing about when I finally got to a
- 16:04point of some financial stability with this crazy career that
- 16:09you go through for a long time without knowing what's next.
- 16:13But my favorite thing was when I could go, I can.
- 16:16Speaker 1: Eat whatever I want now. Like that was a huge
- 16:19moment to me.
- 16:20Speaker 2: That's one of the biggest. Brian Callen said that to
- 16:22me once. He goes, other than obviously taking care of
- 16:27your family and mortgage and all that stuff, after like
- 16:31life necessity, the big change, the big change is being
- 16:36able to go to a restaurant and order whatever you
- 16:38want and not think about it, not worry about the bill.
- 16:41Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 16:41Speaker 2: And if you can do that, like, you have real freedom. Like, that's, like,
- 16:46the first big leap.
- 16:47Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
- 16:48Speaker 2: And then everything after that is like these little things.
- 16:51It's great. Oh, look. I live in a nice apartment. Oh, look.
- 16:54I have a nice car. Oh, look. I got the
- 16:55shoes that I wanted. Oh, look. That's all fine.
- 16:58Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 16:58Speaker 2: That's nice. But the weight that's lifted off of you
- 17:02when you don't have to worry about your bills, that's
- 17:04number one.
- 17:04Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 17:05Speaker 2: That's the big one. Yeah. That's the giant leap. That's
- 17:07between the two buildings. Like I don't know if this
- 17:09is going to work out to wee, bump. Yeah. OK.
- 17:13I'm going to be OK.
- 17:14Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 17:14Speaker 2: Now it's just about how hard do I work and–
- 17:17What kind of success do I have? But I can
- 17:19feed myself now with no fears.
- 17:21Speaker 1: Dude, I actually might have said this to you the
- 17:24last time I was here. I don't remember. But it's.
- 17:30Speaker 3: The most profound moment for me in practicing gratitude for
- 17:35my life. I swear to God, it's the supermarket. When
- 17:39I check out at the supermarket, I try to remind myself,
- 17:43you just pulled whatever you wanted off the shelf. to
- 17:46fill your cart and you didn't have to worry about,
- 17:48can I pay for this or not? You're checking out
- 17:51and you're paying for your groceries and it costs what
- 17:53it costs. I was like, people, there are people that
- 17:56don't have this man. Remember this.
- 17:57Speaker 1: This is a ton of people.
- 17:58Speaker 2: Here's the question though. Do you think that there's value
- 18:02in not having that when you're young and then developing
- 18:07that sort of drive and ambition and desire to to
- 18:11earn money and get something because you know what it's
- 18:13like to be poor.
- 18:14Speaker 1: Yes.
- 18:14Speaker 2: Or do you think the world would be a far
- 18:18better place if instead of people having to concentrate on
- 18:24necessities like food and shelter, society reaches a point where
- 18:29that is a given and no one ever has to
- 18:32worry about food and shelter. And now it's all about
- 18:36what do you want to pursue and how much energy
- 18:38you put into it. Do you think that you have
- 18:41to have that struggle?
- 18:43Speaker 3: I think– look, I don't think that that struggle and
- 18:46the transition out of that struggle is ever bad for anybody.
- 18:49I think it's a– it builds your spirit and it
- 18:53builds your– who you are. That said, the other version
- 18:57of it, I don't know because it's just not a
- 19:01thing that we have here.
- 19:02Speaker 2: It's not a thing that people have ever experienced here.
- 19:05And I don't even know if they really experience it
- 19:07anywhere else. I mean I think there's like forms of
- 19:10socialism but they all involve oppression. They all involve government overreach.
- 19:15Any real socialist system always involves like serious restrictions on
- 19:20what you can and can't do.
- 20:21Speaker 3: I will tell you this, and this might be a
- 20:23byproduct of the culture we live in because we don't
- 20:26have it. I will say there is a noticeable difference
- 20:31to me between people I am friendly with that grew
- 20:34up with money and people that I know that grew
- 20:37up that didn't have it.
- 20:38Speaker 1: Right.
- 20:38Speaker 2: But is that because of our society?
- 20:40Speaker 1: That's my question.
- 20:41Speaker 2: This is the question that I have. Is it necessary
- 20:44that that has to be your struggle in order to
- 20:46develop the kind of discipline that you need to be
- 20:48successful in life? Or– is it just our society is
- 20:52fucked up and that desperation that we're putting into people,
- 20:56you're just making the motivation different. Like you're enforcing the
- 21:00idea of greed because people become selfish because no one
- 21:03was looking out for them and they have a chip
- 21:05on their shoulder, all that shit. But you don't necessarily
- 21:08have to have that to have interest in pursuing something
- 21:11to the best of your abilities.
- 21:13Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 21:13Speaker 3: It's, it's, it's, it's a tough thing to define.
- 21:17Speaker 1: It's, it really is.
- 21:18Speaker 3: I think, um, I think there's bonuses to both, but
- 21:21I also think too, in, in, in, in the social
- 21:24society thing, Hey, isn't it great if you can go,
- 21:29Hey man, um, I'm a waiter and I'm able to
- 21:32live a normal life and buy a house and, and,
- 21:35and be normal, you know, whatever.
- 21:36Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 21:36Speaker 2: But that's not socialist. That's just a, we were fucked
- 21:39in terms of like the amount people earn versus what
- 21:42you can buy versus like the 1950s, the 1950s, you know,
- 21:49The way a person can make a living and feed
- 21:52an entire family off of one paycheck, it was way easier.
- 21:55Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 21:56Speaker 2: It was a lot easier.
- 21:57Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 21:57Speaker 3: Well, it always makes me laugh because one of my
- 21:59favorite TV shows of all time is All in the.
- 22:02Speaker 1: Family, right?
- 22:03Speaker 3: And the whole thing with All in the Family was
- 22:05supposed to be that they were kind of struggling. Like
- 22:08Archie was a cab driver and they didn't have a
- 22:10lot of money or whatever.
- 22:11Speaker 1: You look at that fucking house they lived in, you're like,
- 22:14that house would be– $ 10. 3 million now. They're living pretty
- 22:20fucking good. It's a nice house. Right.
- 22:22Speaker 2: It's all clean and nice inside.
- 22:23Speaker 1: It's got two floors.
- 22:25Speaker 2: Yeah. And the guy's a cab driver.
- 22:26Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So it's a tough thing.
- 22:29Speaker 3: But as far as the society we live in personally,
- 22:32I think it's better to have known what nothing is
- 22:37and then go to appreciating what you do have.
- 22:40Speaker 2: I don't know because I've never grown up any other way.
- 22:45But I wonder if you have conscientious parents and you're
- 22:50a young kid and your dad just sits you down
- 22:54and tells you, hey, buddy, you can be whatever you want,
- 22:57but you're going to have to fucking put in the work.
- 22:58There's only one way out of this thing, and nobody
- 23:01rides for free. And if you do ride for free,
- 23:03you're going to be depressed. If somebody gives you everything
- 23:05that you have, those are the people that are the
- 23:07most aimless. The rich kids that I've met that have
- 23:11no– like they've had money their entire life. Like their
- 23:15parents just give them a trust fund so they don't
- 23:17have to work and they're worth like a ton of money.
- 23:18They're all sad.
- 23:20Speaker 1: Right.
- 23:20Speaker 2: They're all sad. They're all super insecure. They all act
- 23:25real weird.
- 23:26Speaker 1: Yeah. I know one or two people that had trust funds,
- 23:30grew up like that, but still worked their asses off.
- 23:32That's great. Because again, you're saying it's what the parents–
- 23:34I think a.
- 23:36Speaker 2: Big part of that is what the parents are telling you.
- 23:38Speaker 3: There's all this talk now of Nepo babies and all
- 23:40that stuff. I was good friends years ago with Eden Brolin.
- 23:46She's Josh Brolin's daughter. And she was very close with
- 23:49her dad. I remember she was in my house one
- 23:52day in L.A. And she's like, I'm not supposed to
- 23:55tell anybody. My dad's going to be Thanos in the
- 23:57Marvel movies. And I was like, that's fucking crazy, right?
- 24:03Speaker 1: So, like.
- 24:04Speaker 3: But she, dude, she worked for every fucking thing. I
- 24:07became friends with her because she was a hostess at
- 24:09the stand in New York.
- 24:11Speaker 1: Like she always had regular jobs. She plays in a
- 24:15band now.
- 24:15Speaker 3: She does some acting, but she is not in a.
- 24:19Speaker 1: Situation where her dad put her wherever.
- 24:21Speaker 3: And I think it's because they're very close, but I
- 24:24think it was because she was just raised in a
- 24:25way where he was like, you're going to earn your
- 24:27shit and, you know, and you're going to do your thing.
- 24:30And And she's an amazing person. Like, there was none
- 24:33of that, none of that my dad's famous and I'm
- 24:36comfortable arrogance.
- 24:37Speaker 2: But he's a cool guy. He's a very normal guy.
- 24:39Speaker 1: I never met him.
- 24:41Speaker 2: He's a very nice guy.
- 24:41Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 24:42Speaker 2: Very, very smart and very normal. Like, you can hang
- 24:44out with him, talk to him, jokes around. He's like,
- 24:47he's very present.
- 24:48Speaker 1: Yeah. And.
- 24:49Speaker 2: There's a lot of people like that that you think of,
- 24:52you know, you think of actors as all being these
- 24:55fucking aloof weirdos who live in this bizarre liberal, like,
- 25:00progressive leftist bubble. And a lot of them are. There's
- 25:03a giant number that are. But, man, there's a ton of, like,
- 25:07really solid, cool people that are actors. Like Billy Bob Thornton.
- 25:11Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 25:12Speaker 2: Cool as fuck, man.
- 25:12Speaker 1: He seems awesome.
- 25:13Speaker 2: So cool. He actually got me this short shirt. Shout
- 25:16out to him.
- 25:17Speaker 1: That's awesome.
- 25:18Speaker 2: I said, nice shirt, man. So he hooked it up.
- 25:20Speaker 1: I'd love to meet him. He's great. I'd love to
- 25:22meet him.
- 25:22Speaker 2: He's great. There's a lot of those guys that are
- 25:25really great. Woody Harrelson's fucking great.
- 25:27Speaker 1: I was just going to say.
- 25:28Speaker 2: Matt McConaughey's great.
- 25:29Speaker 1: Great guys. I became friendly with Woody and his wife
- 25:32through Tony. He's so nice. He's the fucking best. They're
- 25:36both amazing.
- 25:38Speaker 2: He's so fucking cool, man. So cool and present. He
- 25:43has zero ego. He's just always chill and hanging out,
- 25:47always super friendly and nice to everybody. Woody's so nice.
- 25:52Speaker 1: He said a thing to me.
- 25:54Speaker 3: The first time I ever hung out with him, he
- 25:57came to kill Tony, and we were drinking after the show,
- 26:00and we had a great time. And at the end
- 26:03of the night, he just goes, and Tony had plugged
- 26:06my special at the beginning of the show or whatever.
- 26:10Speaker 1: And at the end of the night, And, I mean,
- 26:12we'd had a few. We were in Mitzi's. We were
- 26:14all kind of just getting into that, swaying around, you know.
- 26:20And I was like, it was great to meet you, man.
- 26:22And he goes, yeah, man, it was fun tonight. And
- 26:25he goes, I'm going to watch your special. And I go, thanks, man.
- 26:29And he goes, I never promised you a Rose Garden.
- 26:32And I was like, yeah, that's the name. And he's like,
- 26:34I'm going to watch. I'm like, this fucking guy remembered
- 26:37the name of my special from a plug– Five hours ago.
- 26:43And I was like, that's fucking awesome, man. That's very cool. Like,
- 26:46what a fucking.
- 26:47Speaker 2: He's just a good dude.
- 26:48Speaker 1: Yeah. What an awesome dude.
- 26:50Speaker 2: Yeah, they exist, Matt. You know, there's a lot of
- 26:53them out there. You'd be shocked. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck,
- 26:56very cool guys. Like, talk to them on and off air.
- 26:59I've talked to Matt before. I actually randomly ran into
- 27:03Matt Damon a few years back in Italy at a
- 27:05restaurant where he was seated under.
- 27:07Speaker 1: A picture of him.
- 27:13Speaker 2: So I had already met him before at the UFC.
- 27:15And then we were in Italy. I was with my
- 27:18family and he was with his family. And he sat down.
- 27:21We were already sitting down and we were right across.
- 27:23I go, oh, look at that picture of Matt Damon.
- 27:25And then literally Matt Damon walks in and sits right
- 27:29under the picture of Matt Damon. I go, hey, Matt.
- 27:33He's like, hey, what are you doing here? Gave me
- 27:35a big hug. And I was like, but this is
- 27:37so meta.
- 27:38Speaker 1: Did you ever see.
- 27:38Speaker 2: So strange to like look at a photo of a
- 27:41guy on the wall and go, oh, I know him. Yeah.
- 27:43That's Matt Damon.
- 27:44Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 27:44Speaker 2: And then he comes in and sits right there right
- 27:46after you say it.
- 27:47Speaker 1: That's so funny.
- 27:48Speaker 2: What are the odds?
- 27:49Speaker 1: That's so funny.
- 27:50Speaker 2: What are the odds?
- 27:51Speaker 1: Did you ever see, did you ever see Autofocus? The
- 27:53Bob Crane movie?
- 27:54Speaker 2: Yes.
- 27:55Speaker 1: What a crazy movie, man. I love that movie.
- 27:57Speaker 2: That movie's crazy. Do you think the guy killed him,
- 27:59his buddy?
- 28:00Speaker 1: Yes.
- 28:01Speaker 2: I do. I do. It seems like it.
- 28:03Speaker 1: I do. I think so. But that's when they show
- 28:06how he would get laid on the road.
- 28:08Speaker 2: Crazy. He would wait for the reruns of Hogan's Heroes
- 28:11to be on TV and then he'd sit in front
- 28:13of the television.
- 28:14Speaker 1: He knew when they were on. And there's that scene
- 28:17where he tells the bartender.
- 28:18Speaker 3: He goes, could you put on Channel 22, whatever. She
- 28:20puts it on and he's sitting under it. And then
- 28:22the hot chick comes up and she goes, oh.
- 28:24Speaker 1: My God, is that you? And he goes, oh, how embarrassing.
- 28:27I don't give a....
- 28:31Speaker 2: Well, back then, you got to think Hogan's Heroes. First
- 28:34of all, how much has society changed and how much
- 28:37more sensitive have people gotten? When you think that Hogan's
- 28:41Heroes was a show about a Nazi concentration camp and
- 28:46it was a comedy.
- 28:47Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 28:48Speaker 2: It was a comedy.
- 28:49Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 28:50Speaker 2: It was a comedy about prisoners of war that were
- 28:53captured by the Nazis.
- 28:54Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And they had like lovable Nazis.
- 28:58Speaker 2: Lovable Nazis that were like bumbling buddies. Nobody died. The
- 29:05show was on for like five years. Nobody died.
- 29:07Speaker 1: Nope.
- 29:08Speaker 2: How many seasons did Hogan's Heroes go?
- 29:10Speaker 4: 168 episodes, six seasons.
- 29:12Speaker 1: God damn.
- 29:14Speaker 2: 168 episodes, six seasons, and no one died.
- 29:18Speaker 1: They didn't kill anybody?
- 29:20Speaker 2: No. How many people died on Hogan's Heroes? Run that
- 29:22through our AI sponsor, Perplexity.
- 29:25Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 29:26Speaker 2: How many people died during World War II in a
- 29:31Nazi prison?
- 29:32Speaker 1: Not a one. Not a one. Nobody got tortured.
- 29:35Speaker 2: In six years and 148 episodes.
- 29:37Speaker 1: Yeah. It's so insane.
- 29:39Speaker 3: Do you think– they get into a little bit of
- 29:42this in the movie, but they play it down. But
- 29:46do you think there was a lot of pushback? Do
- 29:48you think there was like– they were like, what are you,
- 29:50fucking crazy? We can't make this show.
- 29:51Speaker 2: This is nuts.
- 29:52Speaker 1: Or– Was it just there?
- 29:54Speaker 2: In the movie? Was there pushback? I don't remember.
- 29:56Speaker 1: There's a little bit where he's like, it's kind of crazy.
- 30:00Speaker 2: Almost nobody dies on screen or as a plot event
- 30:03in Hogan's Heroes. It was a broad comedy and the
- 30:05regular heroes, Hogan, Klink, heroes. Klink, Colonel Klink, Schultz, the
- 30:11fucking Nazi guard. He's a hero. And the prisoners survived
- 30:15the series. The notable fictional death of Major Wolfgang Hochstetter.
- 30:19Who was reportedly killed during an Allied bombing raid and
- 30:22the Commandant dies at dawn. The title is misleading. Colonel
- 30:27Klink is not killed. So the practical answer is one
- 30:30named reoccurring character with occasional unnamed wartime casualties implied rather
- 30:36than shown.
- 30:37Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 30:38Speaker 2: Nobody died, obviously. That's– Clink was like, remember, I see nothing.
- 30:43Speaker 1: He saw nothing.
- 30:44Speaker 2: He was always like, I got to get out of here.
- 30:46I see nothing. Like they're all plotting fucking devious things
- 30:51to try to get back at the guards. And he
- 30:52was like, I see nothing.
- 30:54Speaker 1: It's like having a show where the Klan. And then
- 30:58the Klan is like kind.
- 30:59Speaker 2: Of the black guys are like breakdancing. The Klan's having
- 31:02a good time with them.
- 31:03Speaker 1: Yeah. The closest I've ever seen to it is Tarantino
- 31:06in Django when he makes the Klan scene funny. When
- 31:10they're all kind of dumb. Do you remember that scene?
- 31:12Speaker 2: I don't remember that scene, unfortunately.
- 31:14Speaker 3: There's a scene with the Klan, and I think Jonah
- 31:17Hill has a cameo in it, and they're all kind
- 31:19of dumb, and it's like funny.
- 31:21Speaker 1: Dialogue with the Klan. You're like, I don't know how
- 31:23he just pulled this off, but he did.
- 31:24Speaker 4: It's the scene with the bags where they're trying to
- 31:28talk about the, like, my wife made mine.
- 31:31Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 31:33Speaker 2: Okay.
- 31:33Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
- 31:34Speaker 2: Well, my point was that if you go back to
- 31:38that year, like what year was Hogan's Heroes? Was it
- 31:41the 70s?
- 31:41Speaker 4: 65 to 71 is when I heard it.
- 31:44Speaker 2: 65 to 71. Okay. Being on television was a very
- 31:48new thing.
- 31:49Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 31:50Speaker 2: Very new thing. A sitcom star was a very new thing.
- 31:53It was only at the most, what, two decades old?
- 31:58How old is The Honeymooners? What year was that?
- 32:02Speaker 1: Honeymooners are the... Early 50s, I believe, right? I think.
- 32:07Speaker 3: And it was a spinoff of the Gleason Variety Hour,
- 32:11whatever the fuck that was called. It was a sketch
- 32:13they did.
- 32:13Speaker 1: 55?
- 32:13Speaker 4: Yeah, it's only on TV for a year.
- 32:16Speaker 2: What?
- 32:17Speaker 1: Yeah. What year did it start?
- 32:18Speaker 2: It says it.
- 32:19Speaker 4: Originally aired from 55 to 56.
- 32:21Speaker 1: Wow. That's the thing.
- 32:24Speaker 2: The Honeymooners, there's only one season?
- 32:26Speaker 1: So I have both Honeymooners box sets because I love
- 32:28the show. 39 episodes.
- 32:29Speaker 2: 39 episodes in one season. That's a lot.
- 32:32Speaker 3: The main box set is called the Classic 39 because
- 32:35that's all the episodes that weren't sketches on the show
- 32:38or anything like that. He did 39 episodes and he
- 32:41was like, we did it.
- 32:42Speaker 1: It's done. It's like nobody does that now.
- 32:45Speaker 2: Right.
- 32:46Speaker 3: You know, Seinfeld did it and Ricky Gervais does it.
- 32:50He does three seasons and he goes, that's it. They
- 32:53did 39 and it was a massive success. And they
- 32:56were like, you have to do more of these.
- 32:58Speaker 1: And he's like, nope. We did it. We're good. We
- 33:00have nothing left to say.
- 33:01Speaker 2: Really?
- 33:02Speaker 1: Yeah. And then they did reunion shows and shit, but
- 33:04that was it. That's wild. That's wild.
- 33:07Speaker 2: Well, he went on to do all kinds of other shit, though. Oh, yeah.
- 33:10He was in The Hustler in 62. He played a
- 33:13serious role.
- 33:14Speaker 1: Minnesota Fats.
- 33:15Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. You know, he was like the only guy
- 33:19that's ever been in a movie about a pool player
- 33:22that was a real pool player. Mm-hmm. Like, he could
- 33:24fucking play. Oh, yeah. Like, when you watch him play
- 33:27in the movie, you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. That's a
- 33:29real pool player.
- 33:30Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 33:31Speaker 2: Like the way he strokes the ball. He strokes the
- 33:33ball like a pro. He could run– I think he
- 33:36ran like 75 balls in straight pool. It might be 100.
- 33:40But like 100 balls is like the number. If you
- 33:42could run 100 balls in straight pool, people are like,
- 33:44that guy is legit. He can run 100 balls.
- 33:47Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 33:48Speaker 2: And he could do that.
- 33:50Speaker 1: Gleason was an incredible.
- 33:51Speaker 2: What's that, Jamie?
- 33:52Speaker 4: It's kind of interesting about the show, the– The sketches
- 33:55were over 35 minutes or more, and the writers felt
- 33:59restricted by the half-hour format.
- 34:02Speaker 2: Wow.
- 34:02Speaker 4: So that partially had something to— also, he had a contract issue, too.
- 34:07Speaker 2: So they felt restricted because they didn't have enough— They.
- 34:10Speaker 4: Didn't want more time to— they said it was too slapstick
- 34:13and fast-paced, according to TV Guide.
- 34:16Speaker 2: Huh.
- 34:16Speaker 1: Look at this. He had $ 7 million left on his
- 34:20contract in 1956, which is crazy money. The excellence of
- 34:25the material could not be maintained. I had too much
- 34:27fondness for the show to cheapen it. Wow. I mean,
- 34:30that is baller shit back then. Like, that is not
- 34:33something people were doing back then.
- 34:34Speaker 2: Or he just got lazy because he had so much money.
- 34:37Speaker 4: CBS was going to give him a three-year contract for
- 34:41what would have been $ 132 million today. He was going
- 34:44to get close to, like, a million dollars an episode.
- 34:46Speaker 1: Wow. Jesus Christ.
- 34:49Speaker 2: A million an episode back then?
- 34:50Speaker 4: It was close to that.
- 34:51Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no.
- 34:52Speaker 2: Like, What today is.
- 34:53Speaker 4: I forget where it was on here.
- 34:55Speaker 1: But even that's like kind of unheard of when Seinfeld,
- 34:59when it was announced they were all going to get
- 35:00a million an episode. I remember that was like groundbreaking.
- 35:03It was like this has never been done before. Right. Whatever.
- 35:05This guy was offered the equivalent of that back in
- 35:0956 and said, no, I'm good.
- 35:12Speaker 2: Well, he probably already had so much money and he
- 35:14was drunk all the time.
- 35:15Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 35:15Speaker 2: That guy drank all the time.
- 35:17Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 35:18Speaker 2: He was so fun.
- 35:18Speaker 1: Do you ever watch his final interview?
- 35:20Speaker 2: Yes.
- 35:21Speaker 1: Yes.
- 35:21Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 35:22Speaker 3: He's in the tracksuit, just chain smoking.
- 35:24Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. He didn't give a fuck.
- 35:26Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 35:27Speaker 2: Tracksuit, chain smoking. Wow, he's making $ 839, 000 now, the equivalent.
- 35:33Speaker 4: But he had to pay for production costs, it says.
- 35:36Speaker 2: Oh, that's different.
- 35:37Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 35:37Speaker 4: Oh, okay.
- 35:38Speaker 1: Art Carney received $ 3, 500 a week, which is $ 42, 000.
- 35:39Speaker 2: A week now. Audrey Meadows, $ 2, 000 a week. Wow, women
- 35:40got fucked over back then.
- 35:50Speaker 4: No, but Jackie Gleason Enterprises was running the show, so
- 35:52I mean.
- 35:53Speaker 2: Yeah, he fucked her over is what I'm saying. Art
- 35:58Carney got fucking almost twice as much as her.
- 36:01Speaker 1: God damn.
- 36:03Speaker 2: Jesus Christ. She was his wife.
- 36:04Speaker 1: Only one person got residuals.
- 36:06Speaker 2: What?
- 36:07Speaker 4: Yeah, reportedly the only cast member to receive residuals when
- 36:10they were being broadcast.
- 36:12Speaker 2: Oh, because they had to change that shit later. Yeah,
- 36:16that's where those strikes and the Writers Union and the... SAG,
- 36:21all that stuff plays a part because you get– I
- 36:24got residuals for news radio and they're not what you
- 36:27think they are. Like people think it's going to like
- 36:30change your life. You never have to work again. That's
- 36:32only for the people like Jerry Seinfeld that own the show.
- 36:35The regular people that get residuals, it's nice. It's a
- 36:38good thing. But it makes sense. They're showing the fucking
- 36:42show over and over and over again. It's still your work.
- 36:45Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 36:46Speaker 2: It does make sense. You're reselling it, so it's not
- 36:49the original deal that you had to put it on
- 36:51NBC for one hour. Now it's like a thing where
- 36:54you're going to sell it again, and so all the
- 36:57actors get paid again. It makes sense.
- 36:59Speaker 1: Dude, I've told you this before. I'm going to tell
- 37:01you again, so it's documented. And I know you're not
- 37:05that interested, but you need to fucking keep acting, dude.
- 37:09You're fucking great on that show. That is not easy.
- 37:12Speaker 3: In my opinion— Multi-cam sitcom, despite it being the easiest
- 37:17job in show business as far as payment time versus reward,
- 37:22it is the hardest type of acting because it is
- 37:24an acting where you have to land jokes and gags
- 37:27and you have to make it convincing. That is very, very,
- 37:31very hard to do. You are so fucking good on
- 37:34that show. And I watch news radio all the time still.
- 37:39I told you last time I was here, one of
- 37:40the things that got me through COVID was doing news
- 37:43radio front to back.
- 37:44Speaker 1: You need to keep acting.
- 37:46Speaker 2: That's very nice of you. Thank you very much. But
- 37:48I think your idea of what's very hard to do
- 37:50and my idea of what's very hard to do are
- 37:52two totally different things. Because acting on a sitcom is
- 37:55easy as fuck. Okay. It's so... It's boiling water.
- 37:58Speaker 1: You know what?
- 38:04Speaker 2: You know what? This is Joe DeRosa in the green
- 38:06room of the mothership. You know what? How many times
- 38:10do you have to say that? Okay.
- 38:14Speaker 1: I go to that green room. You're all fucking– I'll
- 38:17go after you, dude. You walk funny. You look diseased.
- 38:21It's just not stuff.
- 38:23Speaker 2: It's fucking easy. If you're a comic, it's easy. If
- 38:26you're used to doing stand-up in front of a live audience,
- 38:29that's a lot harder. And then the acting, they give
- 38:33you– especially if you're working with great people. I was
- 38:37doing scenes with Dave Foley and Maura Tierney and all those.
- 38:40They were amazing. The cast was incredible. Kathy– Excuse me,
- 38:45Vicky Lewis, Andy Dick, Candy Alexander.
- 38:48Speaker 1: Stephen Root.
- 38:50Speaker 2: They were incredible.
- 38:51Speaker 1: I will say this to you, though.
- 38:53Speaker 3: The fact that what you just said, it's easy, is
- 38:55why I think you should be doing it. I think
- 38:58you are a natural fucking actor, and I think you're... Let's.
- 39:02Speaker 2: Just pretend, dude. It doesn't... Listen, it's not Daniel... I've
- 39:06never done Daniel Day-Lewis acting. That's like the real acting.
- 39:09Val Kilmer acting.
- 39:10Speaker 1: Right.
- 39:10Speaker 2: In Tombstone. That's real acting.
- 39:12Speaker 1: I think you could.
- 39:14Speaker 2: Well that's not interesting if I had another life if
- 39:17I had another life I love movies I fucking love
- 39:19movies you know what's.
- 39:20Speaker 1: A great show what's that a great.
- 39:22Speaker 2: Show it's called Lucky and it's on Apple it's about
- 39:26what is that lady's name with the big eyes yeah
- 39:28I watched the first episode she's really beautiful but very
- 39:30unusual looking. What is her name again? Anna Taylor Joy.
- 39:34Is that her name?
- 39:34Speaker 1: I think so.
- 39:36Speaker 2: She was in The Queen's Gambit. She fucking killed it
- 39:39in The Queen's Gambit.
- 39:40Speaker 1: Anya.
- 39:40Speaker 2: Anya.
- 39:41Speaker 1: Anya Taylor- From The Witch, right?
- 39:43Speaker 2: Is she in that too?
- 39:44Speaker 1: I think that was her first movie was The Witch.
- 39:46Speaker 2: I didn't watch The Witch. No one in my family
- 39:47would watch it with me. I want to watch it.
- 39:49I'm a giant Robert Eggers fan. I think he fucking
- 39:53murdered Nosferatu. I think it was the best vampire movie
- 39:55by far of all time.
- 39:57Speaker 1: Nosferatu was dope. The Lighthouse was dope.
- 40:00Speaker 2: You've seen The Werewolf? The Werewolf trailer that's coming out?
- 40:02Speaker 4: Okay.
- 40:03Speaker 2: Okay. Don't you okay me, you son of a bitch.
- 40:05I have.
- 40:06Speaker 1: I have.
- 40:06Speaker 2: Don't you okay me, you son of a bitch.
- 40:09Speaker 1: Here's what I will say.
- 40:10Speaker 2: What the fuck are you going to say?
- 40:12Speaker 1: I love Robert Eggers. I'm not knocking it.
- 40:14Speaker 3: But it's the fourth movie he's released. We're in the trailer.
- 40:18I see black and white footage and a lot of
- 40:20people twitching.
- 40:22Speaker 2: That's what you need. That's what I'm looking for.
- 40:25Speaker 1: I'm like, all right. Come on, bro. I don't know
- 40:28if it's going to be different.
- 40:29Speaker 2: This looks phenomenal.
- 40:31Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 40:32Speaker 2: Phenomenal. Of course he's twitching. He's turning into a werewolf.
- 40:35What the fuck is wrong with you, DeRosa?
- 40:37Speaker 1: There's no world where it'll be a bad movie.
- 40:40Speaker 2: No world. Doesn't exist. That guy knocks it out of
- 40:42the park A plus every movie.
- 40:44Speaker 1: The Witch.
- 40:45Speaker 2: The Northman. Have you seen that?
- 40:47Speaker 1: I did.
- 40:48Speaker 2: Fuck. You didn't love that?
- 40:51Speaker 1: I didn't love it.
- 40:51Speaker 2: Get out of this room.
- 40:52Speaker 1: I didn't. No.
- 40:52Speaker 2: Go home.
- 40:53Speaker 1: You stop.
- 40:54Speaker 2: Go home. I'll tell everybody about your special after you leave.
- 40:57You son of a bitch. How could you not like
- 40:59The Northman?
- 40:59Speaker 1: I wanted more battles. I wanted more like- It was perfection.
- 41:03Speaker 2: A plus.
- 41:04Speaker 1: You know what took me out of The Northman?
- 41:05Speaker 2: He might be my favorite director of all time.
- 41:07Speaker 1: You know what took me out of The Northman?
- 41:08Speaker 2: What? You being a pussy?
- 41:11Speaker 1: No. Take it easy. No, I'll tell you what took
- 41:15me out of it. Nicole Kidman having full plastic surgery
- 41:18in 1650 or whatever. It was taking me out of it.
- 41:22It was fucking me up.
- 41:23Speaker 2: Let me see what she looks like back then.
- 41:25Speaker 4: Anya Taylor-Joy is in this movie, too.
- 41:26Speaker 2: Is she? She's in The Northman? Of course she is.
- 41:27She rules. She rules.
- 41:29Speaker 1: But I think Eggers does great work. Or Eggers, excuse me,
- 41:32does great work.
- 41:33Speaker 2: Oh, dude, he's the best. I think he's my favorite
- 41:35director of all time, next to Tarantino. Tarantino's always going
- 41:37to be number one. But this guy's... Because I feel
- 41:41like there's levels to movies, and I think Tarantino, he's
- 41:45the undeniable peak of the mountain. And then everything else
- 41:49is pretty dope. Scorsese's got some murder. He's got some killers.
- 41:54But a bunch of those guys have a few lemons.
- 41:57You know what I mean?
- 41:58Speaker 1: You're going to have some lemons. I mean, Scorsese's output
- 42:02is incredibly high. And it's like, of course, you're going
- 42:04to have a few duds.
- 42:05Speaker 2: Well, this is one of the reasons why Tarantino's the goat.
- 42:08It's because he figured out how to have no lemons.
- 42:10Other than death proof, which Tony loves. We argue about
- 42:13it all the time. So I don't see plastic surgery
- 42:16in Nicole Kidman.
- 42:17Speaker 1: They showed her for a second.
- 42:18Speaker 2: Yeah, she looked good.
- 42:19Speaker 1: I don't think she's in the trailer a lot.
- 42:22Speaker 2: Let me see Nicole Kidman. And that was a long movie.
- 42:28That was a long time ago, this movie, right? What
- 42:30year was this? It's probably pre-COVID, I think. I think so.
- 42:35I think it's like 2017 or 18. Does it say, Jamie?
- 42:41Speaker 3: I'm amazed with Robert Eggers that he gets wide release
- 42:45theatrical releases with the types of movies he does.
- 42:49Speaker 2: I think it's because they sell. They fucking sell, dude.
- 42:53I mean, they're so good. They're so good. People love
- 42:56them and they go to see them. I mean, it's
- 42:57really that simple.
- 42:59Speaker 1: It's wild.
- 42:59Speaker 2: What year was it, Jimmy?
- 43:00Speaker 1: Four years ago.
- 43:01Speaker 2: Oh, really? That was only four years ago?
- 43:04Speaker 1: Oh, shit.
- 43:05Speaker 2: It's post-credit. Oh, crazy. See if you can find a
- 43:07photo of Nicole Kidman from that.
- 43:11Speaker 3: And I'm obviously not saying the movie's bad because Nicole
- 43:13Kidman had plastic surgery, but it does take me out
- 43:16of it when I see somebody doing a period piece.
- 43:18Speaker 2: See, that doesn't look like plastic surgery to me. She
- 43:21looks totally normal.
- 43:22Speaker 1: Maybe it's just because I remember.
- 43:24Speaker 2: Maybe you just want her to have plastic surgery because
- 43:25you're a hater.
- 43:26Speaker 1: I'm not shitting on Nicole Kidman.
- 43:27Speaker 2: By the way. You seem to be a little bit
- 43:28of a hater. She looks perfect.
- 43:30Speaker 1: She's got a, yeah.
- 43:31Speaker 2: What are you saying?
- 43:32Speaker 1: A little work.
- 43:33Speaker 2: She looks perfect. A little work.
- 43:34Speaker 1: A little work.
- 43:35Speaker 2: I don't see work, dude. I see a beautiful face.
- 43:38You son of a bitch. What the fuck is wrong
- 43:40with you? Don't you go. So down there when she's
- 43:42with Anya Taylor-Joy, right there, that's her right there. So
- 43:46that looks a little fillery, unfortunately. That look, I think,
- 43:51has gone away, though. I think ladies are realizing that
- 43:53nobody likes it. The filler face. Did you see the.
- 43:56Speaker 4: Trailer for this thing, the Neuromancer?
- 43:58Speaker 1: No.
- 44:00Speaker 2: What's this?
- 44:01Speaker 4: Nerds are super pumped. This is like the story where
- 44:03the Matrix and shit came out of this. So it's
- 44:08going to be a TV show, actually. It's not even
- 44:09a movie.
- 44:10Speaker 1: Wait, how do you mean The Matrix came out?
- 44:12Speaker 2: Who wrote the book?
- 44:13Speaker 4: The ideas of jacking in and stuff like that.
- 44:15Speaker 2: Yes, who wrote that book?
- 44:17Speaker 4: Off the top of my head, from 1984, William.
- 44:22Speaker 2: William Gibson. Yeah, this is supposed to be a movie
- 44:25that people were concerned was impossible to, or a book rather,
- 44:31that people were concerned was impossible to translate into a
- 44:34film correctly. I don't know why because I haven't read
- 44:37the book, but I've read that argument. There's no way
- 44:39you're ever going to really nail this.
- 44:40Speaker 4: He's just jacked in, and now he's in some new space. Again,
- 44:44I haven't read it either. It's no spoiler alert or anything.
- 44:46I don't know much about it, but people are very
- 44:48pumped that they attempted this, and it looks cool.
- 44:52Speaker 1: But wait a second. Did The Matrix just take all
- 44:55of its ideas from this?
- 44:56Speaker 4: No. Here, I'll find out what I mean when I
- 44:58said that.
- 44:59Speaker 1: Okay. Lucky.
- 45:00Speaker 2: Watts is so lucky. It's on Apple TV. It only
- 45:03has seven episodes, and it's only going to be one season,
- 45:06I think.
- 45:07Speaker 1: I just started watching The Shards, which I'm feeling.
- 45:10Speaker 4: The term cyberspace came out of that book, and then, like,
- 45:15there you go, a consensual hallucination.
- 45:17Speaker 2: Consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of authorized operators.
- 45:21Speaker 4: The matrix actually itself, I think, came out of there.
- 45:23Speaker 2: Ooh. Well, that's coming, right? That's coming. He was ahead
- 45:30of his time. He figured it out.
- 45:32Speaker 1: So now this is a weird thing, okay? And this
- 45:35is a thing you notice with these directors that break
- 45:39through and do an amazing first movie, and then it's
- 45:42kind of followed by a lot of ho-hum stuff.
- 45:45Speaker 2: You mean The Matrix?
- 45:47Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 45:47Speaker 3: Well, The Wachowskis, The Matrix was this cultural phenomenon. It
- 45:51changed everything and blah, blah, blah, blah. Their movies after that,
- 45:54except for maybe V for Vendetta, none of them really
- 45:57ever lived up to that. So now we're seeing this,
- 46:00and I'm like, Well, did they just get all the
- 46:02great ideas for The Matrix from this other thing and
- 46:04then they made a great movie and then that's why
- 46:07they were never able to kind of hit that again?
- 46:09Speaker 1: Every Matrix sequel is terrible.
- 46:11Speaker 2: They're literally jacking in the same exact way through the
- 46:14back of the head.
- 46:15Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 46:16Speaker 2: It's the same thing.
- 46:16Speaker 1: And they're saying the term The Matrix came out of
- 46:19the– That's crazy. I thought they made that up.
- 46:21Speaker 2: You know, they got sued too because some lady wrote–
- 46:25I think it was a graphic novel. It might have
- 46:27been a short story or a graphic novel. I forget
- 46:30what it was. But she wrote a story and brought
- 46:34it to them, apparently.
- 46:35Speaker 4: Well, she also said she wrote The Terminator for both.
- 46:39Speaker 2: So is she just a kook?
- 46:41Speaker 1: That's a kook.
- 46:42Speaker 4: She had a manuscript titled The Third Eye from 1980s.
- 46:46And she... Yeah, I saw the story. I remember when.
- 46:50Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 46:51Speaker 1: Let me tell you why she's a kook. You know
- 46:53the story? Well, because he mentioned The Terminator. Harlan Ellison...
- 46:58Wrote an episode of The Outer Limits. It was called
- 47:00Demon with the Glass Hand.
- 47:02Speaker 3: Harlan Ellison sued James Cameron when The Terminator came out.
- 47:06And he goes, that's my fucking story. I did it
- 47:09on The Outer Limits in the 60s. And Harlan Ellison
- 47:12got paid. And they were like, yeah, it's actually kind
- 47:14of the same thing. So this lady did not write
- 47:18The Terminator in the 80s.
- 47:20Speaker 2: Well, it could be multiple influences. It could be. Multiple influences. Right?
- 47:28It could be.
- 47:29Speaker 1: The worst one is, and I'm a fan.
- 47:31Speaker 2: Of the guy. We're not accusing anyone of plagiarizing.
- 47:35Speaker 1: No, no, no.
- 47:35Speaker 2: But we're saying if someone was going to plagiarize, why
- 47:37wouldn't they plagiarize from multiple sources? You can't just say
- 47:40just because he stole a giant chunk of it from
- 47:43that one episode of a show, that doesn't mean that
- 47:47he didn't steal a bunch of other stuff. And I'm
- 47:49not saying anybody stole anything.
- 47:50Speaker 1: Right, right.
- 47:51Speaker 2: I don't think James Cameron stole a goddamn thing.
- 47:53Speaker 1: I don't think he stole anything.
- 47:54Speaker 2: I think he saw it. He might not have even
- 47:55seen it. There's a lot of parallel thinking when it
- 47:58comes to this concept of AI and robots being like people.
- 48:03It's in Battlestar Galactica. Sure, sure. I mean it's like
- 48:06there's a lot of that where people become robots. It's
- 48:09in the original Alien movie in 1979, remember?
- 48:12Speaker 1: Right.
- 48:13Speaker 2: There's a fucking artificial intelligence that is their guy that
- 48:17they don't know is a robot until it has– I
- 48:21think they beat it to death. How did they find
- 48:23out that it's a robot? It's– I think they kill it.
- 48:28They knock its head off until they find out it's
- 48:30a robot.
- 48:31Speaker 1: Blanking on the– it's– oh, God.
- 48:34Speaker 2: The guy's a great actor.
- 48:35Speaker 1: He's one of my favorites and I'm blanking on his name.
- 48:37Speaker 2: So this is 79 that they did that, right? So
- 48:40that's the Terminator. Like these concepts have been around for
- 48:43a long time. The concepts of artificial intelligence taking over.
- 48:48Speaker 3: I think it was more the plot line of this
- 48:50robot comes back.
- 48:52Speaker 2: Oh, in time?
- 48:53Speaker 1: It was something like that.
- 48:55Speaker 2: Oh.
- 48:55Speaker 3: And I don't think James Cameron stole it either because
- 48:57there's no other evidence of him ever swiping something. But
- 49:00I do think like we all do this thing where
- 49:02we see something, we don't remember. It goes into the
- 49:05subconscious and maybe you go, I got a great idea.
- 49:07And you're not realizing, oh, actually, that's a thing I
- 49:10saw when I was 10.
- 49:11Speaker 2: He's pretty intensely creative, like an original.
- 49:15Speaker 1: I don't.
- 49:16Speaker 2: Imagine that he would do that.
- 49:18Speaker 1: I would hope not.
- 49:19Speaker 2: I don't think so.
- 49:20Speaker 1: But Harlan Ellison did win the case.
- 49:24Speaker 2: Interesting. I wonder how much he got paid. How much
- 49:29did Harlan Ellison get for that lawsuit? Did they disclose it?
- 49:33Or did they pay him just to shut the fuck up?
- 49:36Speaker 1: Well, Ellison is, I mean, he is Everybody that loves sci-fi,
- 49:42he's their favorite sci-fi guy.
- 49:43Speaker 2: Really?
- 49:44Speaker 1: He is the guy.
- 49:44Speaker 2: That's a bold statement.
- 49:45Speaker 1: He's the guy. Ellison is the guy. You should read
- 49:49up on Harlan Ellison. You would love.
- 49:50Speaker 2: I probably should. There's not enough time to consume all
- 49:54the things. Yeah. There's so many things to consume. Dispute
- 49:59ended out of court settlement. There you go. Rather than
- 50:01a court ruling. So they just paid him to shut
- 50:04the fuck up. So they probably gave him a fat check.
- 50:08Speaker 1: Yeah, there it is. Soldier and Demon with the Glass Hand.
- 50:11Speaker 2: Involved combatants from a future war arriving in the present,
- 50:15including a relentless futuristic soldier sent to kill. Ellison argued
- 50:18that the Terminator borrowed this core setup. Commentators often mention
- 50:23his Outer Limits episode, Demon with the Glass Hand, but
- 50:25Ellison himself reportedly said his principal claim concerned Soldier, not
- 50:31that episode. So it seemed like it wasn't, maybe it
- 50:34was more than one thing. Hmm. Either way. You could–
- 50:40it's like every werewolf movie is a guy gets bit
- 50:45by a werewolf.
- 50:46Speaker 1: Sure. You know what I mean?
- 50:47Speaker 2: Sure. You could say no one can make a werewolf
- 50:50movie anymore because of the wolfman because you're all stealing
- 50:53from the wolfman.
- 50:54Speaker 3: Well, I think the difference is that's werewolf mythology overall.
- 50:59Speaker 2: That's true.
- 51:00Speaker 1: Versus– you know what I mean?
- 51:02Speaker 2: That's true. Yeah, of course. I mean that's– yeah, bad example.
- 51:06It's not an original story.
- 51:08Speaker 1: But you would.
- 51:09Speaker 3: Love Harlan Ellison because he was just– I'm sure. My
- 51:12favorite story of his is he talked about when he
- 51:14was in college and he goes, my literary professor said
- 51:16I had no talent so I got expelled because I
- 51:18punched him in the throat.
- 51:23Speaker 1: He's a maniac. Maniac.
- 51:25Speaker 2: God, how many bad teachers have ruined a kid's future
- 51:29by telling them they have no talent?
- 51:31Speaker 1: Yeah, right?
- 51:32Speaker 2: How many?
- 51:32Speaker 1: It's nuts.
- 51:33Speaker 2: So many. There's so many stories like that. So many
- 51:36stories of some shitty teacher.
- 51:38Speaker 1: It's nuts. Did you have, when you were getting into, well,
- 51:43how old were you when you said, I'm going to
- 51:45go do comedy. I'm not going to do any of
- 51:46the shit that I studied in school. I'm going to actually.
- 51:48Speaker 2: Well, I barely studied in school. I only went to
- 51:50school because I didn't want to be a loser.
- 51:53Speaker 1: Literally.
- 51:53Speaker 2: I went to UMass Boston, like the continuing education program.
- 51:57So I didn't have to take my SATs. I only
- 52:00went for three years. I was wasting my time. And
- 52:02the whole time I was doing it, I was fighting.
- 52:04And that was my primary concern. That was what I
- 52:06was thinking about. And I was teaching at Boston University.
- 52:09Speaker 1: Oh, you mean like MMA fighting? Okay, gotcha.
- 52:12Speaker 2: Kickboxing and taekwondo.
- 52:14Speaker 1: Okay.
- 52:15Speaker 2: And that was my concern. I really was. But you
- 52:20tell people, you know, oh, what do you do? Oh,
- 52:23I'm a taekwondo fighter. Fucking loser. You fucking loser. I'm totally,
- 52:30I would not tell people what I did.
- 52:32Speaker 1: I'm going to school.
- 52:32Speaker 2: I'm going to UMass Boston. That was literally, that's what
- 52:35I was doing.
- 52:36Speaker 1: Oh, my God. That's so fucking funny, dude.
- 52:38Speaker 2: I was a four-time state Taekwondo champion. I fought all
- 52:41over the country.
- 52:43Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
- 52:43Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 52:44Speaker 1: I knew you had fighting in your background. I didn't
- 52:46know you were a champ and stuff.
- 52:47Speaker 2: Yeah, I was really good when I was young at Taekwondo.
- 52:49I was really good.
- 52:50Speaker 1: What made you switch gears from that to go into comedy?
- 52:54Speaker 2: Well, first of all, there's no future in it. There
- 52:56was no future. I tried out for the Olympics in 88.
- 52:59I made it to the nationals. I won the states
- 53:01and I made it to the nationals. I made it
- 53:03to the third fight. In the Nationals, I lost. That
- 53:06was in Miami in 88. And then I realized, like,
- 53:09I wasn't as enthusiastic about it anymore. Oh, yeah, you
- 53:13got extra cigarettes?
- 53:14Speaker 1: Thank you. Look at that here.
- 53:15Speaker 2: Yeah. I knew you might want some. Leave them there
- 53:18for everybody.
- 53:19Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
- 53:21Speaker 2: And then I was also getting brain damage, and I
- 53:25was very aware of that. I would lie in bed
- 53:28at night after sparring, and my head would be ringing.
- 53:30Speaker 1: Just throbbing, just throbbing. Jesus Christ.
- 53:35Speaker 2: And I was like, I'm doing this for free. There's
- 53:38no money in this. I'm not making any money.
- 53:40Speaker 1: Holy shit.
- 53:41Speaker 2: Yeah. I was sparring a lot, especially kickboxing sparring. I
- 53:45was getting hit a lot. It was a lot of
- 53:47like kickboxing wars and it was just not worth it.
- 53:52It was just not. And I was realizing like I
- 53:54got to get out before I become that guy at
- 53:56the gym because there were some guys that I had
- 53:58met and then I'd watch them deteriorate a little. during
- 54:02the time that i knew them and i was training
- 54:04with them i watched their personalities change i watched them
- 54:08get like slower like i could see their movement was
- 54:11compromised because they got brain damage they've been knocked out
- 54:14a few times and i was realizing like oh this
- 54:17is a real problem and no one seems to be
- 54:20thinking about it everyone's like pretending it doesn't exist because
- 54:23they just want to be a tough guy and they
- 54:25just want to fight and win and It becomes the
- 54:28thing you do. And the thing you do is the
- 54:30only thing you know. And if that thing is bowling,
- 54:33then you bowl every night. If that thing is golf,
- 54:35then you golf every day. If that thing is fighting,
- 54:37you're fighting all the time. And it was– by the
- 54:41time I was– and I was also realizing there's no
- 54:43future in this. I'm not going to ever have any money.
- 54:45I'm always going to be poor. I'm always going to
- 54:47be like wondering where my next paycheck is coming from.
- 54:50There's no money in this. And there was no UFC
- 54:52back then. And I got talked into doing stand-up by
- 54:55my friends. That's literally how it started. This episode is
- 54:59brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee, the only coffee
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- 55:59Speaker 1: And that was it.
- 55:59Speaker 3: I mean, you moved fairly fast, right, through stand-up?
- 56:03Speaker 2: Well, see, I did half-hour comedy hour, MTV half-hour comedy hour.
- 56:09I was like, ugh. Five years in, five years in
- 56:14the standup. And then I got on the television show, Hardball,
- 56:19the show I did with Jim Brewer.
- 56:20Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 56:21Speaker 2: Did that, flew out here or flew out to California rather.
- 56:24And that got canceled after six episodes. And then I
- 56:27got news radio right away. So I only auditioned for
- 56:30two shows ever.
- 56:32Speaker 1: Wow.
- 56:32Speaker 2: Hardball and news radio. And I got both of them.
- 56:34It was the luckiest streak of all time. No acting class.
- 56:38I took a couple of acting classes that I had
- 56:40to take. When Disney gave me the money, the first
- 56:43development deal, they said, do you know how to act?
- 56:45I'm like, I don't know. Why are you guys giving
- 56:48me money? It made no sense. They just wanted to
- 56:50put me on a sitcom. And this was in the
- 56:5390s when sitcoms were like Roseanne and Seinfeld. It was
- 56:57a goldmine. If you could find a personality that you
- 57:00thought was someone who would click on a sitcom that
- 57:03people would want to watch every Tuesday night or whatever
- 57:05it was, they were willing to pay you a lot
- 57:08of money. And then all of a sudden– I was
- 57:10out in LA, but it was never a desire of mine.
- 57:13So because it wasn't a desire of mine, I didn't
- 57:16get nervous. I didn't get nervous doing auditions. It was
- 57:21not a thing where I'm like, this could change my life.
- 57:24This could be it. It was like, what am I
- 57:25doing here? What is this? What am I doing here?
- 57:30Speaker 1: You're good at it. That's what you were fucking doing there, man.
- 57:34Speaker 2: It's not hard, dude. Again, it's not real acting. It's
- 57:37not Marlon Brando. It's You're just pretending that this thing
- 57:42is happening in the newsroom. It's not hard. It's fucking easy.
- 57:48I mean, in the meantime, I'm doing jujitsu. I was
- 57:52still sparring back then, so I'd go to the jet
- 57:54center and kickbox and spar. And so I'd go to work.
- 57:57I'm like, this is so easy. This is so easy
- 58:01compared to stand-up and kickboxing and everything else.
- 58:04Speaker 3: Did you notice when you said you were noticing– damage
- 58:08happening because of your head throbbing and ringing or whatever.
- 58:11Speaker 1: Did you notice any.
- 58:12Speaker 3: Other effects or did you cut it off before any
- 58:15effects could actually– like actual things that were affecting you?
- 58:19Speaker 2: No, I didn't notice anything like I was compromised or
- 58:22I couldn't think well or I was forgetting things. It
- 58:25wasn't like that. I think I cut it off before
- 58:27I got that bad. But I definitely got some brain damage,
- 58:29100 percent. And I think it plays a part of
- 58:32my impulsiveness in my– I– you know– I like scary things.
- 58:39I like things that make me nervous. I like things
- 58:42that are really hard to do. And I think that
- 58:44might be part of that.
- 58:45Speaker 1: Right.
- 58:45Speaker 2: That I got rattled a bunch of times in my
- 58:48formative years.
- 58:49Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 58:50Speaker 2: Because from 15 to 21, who knows how many times
- 58:53I got hit in the head.
- 58:55Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 58:55Speaker 2: A lot.
- 58:58Speaker 3: We're very different in that way. You're a guy that
- 59:01I think very much.
- 59:02Speaker 1: Likes conquering the challenge.
- 59:07Speaker 2: Well, it keeps me sane. That's what keeps me sane.
- 59:10I think you make the voluntary things that you engage
- 59:13in that are way more difficult than the rest of
- 59:16your life. It makes the rest of your life easier
- 59:19because these hard things that you do voluntarily, voluntary adversity,
- 59:22you force yourself to do hard things all the time.
- 59:25So then when– Other things that are seemingly hard come up.
- 59:29You're like, oh, this ain't shit compared to a cold plunge.
- 59:34This ain't shit. I just did a workout, a hypoxia workout.
- 59:39And so it's at– I have a box in my
- 59:42studio that goes to– it takes all the air out.
- 59:45So it puts you at the equivalent of 15,000 feet
- 59:48above sea level. And you do this interval training. So
- 59:53you do sprints on the Airdyne machine. You get off
- 59:56of that and you do these kettlebell cleans and presses
- 59:59or swings. And you get off of that and then
- 1:00:01you do the sled. And you push the sled or
- 1:00:04you do backwards on the sled. And it's got varying resistance.
- 1:00:06And you do them in these 50-second, 40-second, and then
- 1:00:0930-second sprints. So like everything else is easy.
- 1:00:15Speaker 1: God damn, dude. I'm just– I can't. I admire it.
- 1:00:20I admire the shit out of it.
- 1:00:21Speaker 2: Well, it's just– for me, I think everybody should do
- 1:00:24something hard. It keeps me sane. For me, I need it.
- 1:00:28I don't know– I'm not other people. I don't pretend
- 1:00:34to know how they feel. But I know how I feel.
- 1:00:36If I don't exercise regularly, I have more anxiety. I
- 1:00:40don't feel comfortable. I don't feel good. I'm more irritable.
- 1:00:43I don't like it. I don't like that feeling. When
- 1:00:46I work out really hard and I do the things
- 1:00:49that I'm supposed to do, I feel great. I feel friendly.
- 1:00:52I feel happy. I feel light. I feel like life
- 1:00:56is easy.
- 1:00:57Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a thing. I'm not blowing smoke. It's a
- 1:01:00thing I've noticed about you. You're a very, I would
- 1:01:04even say, happy-go-lucky kind of guy.
- 1:01:06Speaker 3: You're very friendly. You're always in a very good mood.
- 1:01:09I've very rarely seen you, and I see you frequently
- 1:01:12now at the club. Very rarely seeing you come in
- 1:01:15where you're like, eh, fuck. Like, I don't think ever,
- 1:01:19to be honest with you. And it's, I guess, everything
- 1:01:22you're saying.
- 1:01:23Speaker 2: Like, it puts you in. It's a choice. It's a
- 1:01:24choice to feel like that. That don't do you any good.
- 1:01:28Unless you're trying to do something with that, fuck this.
- 1:01:30Unless you've got some shit you have to get done
- 1:01:33that's hard and you want to have this attitude where
- 1:01:36you're going to attack it. Like, fuck this. Like, regular life. Like,
- 1:01:39why upset? Why? You're not in Gaza.
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: Right. What are you doing?
- 1:01:44Speaker 2: You're not in Ukraine hiding in a fucking bunker. What
- 1:01:47are you talking about? Yeah. What are you bitching about?
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:01:50Speaker 2: You're living an easy life in America and you're rich. Right.
- 1:01:54How dare I be upset?
- 1:01:56Speaker 1: Sure.
- 1:01:57Speaker 2: How dare I? Sure.
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: Imagine. Sure.
- 1:01:59Speaker 2: With the fortune, the luck that I've had in this life,
- 1:02:02me being pissed off at things. That's why it doesn't
- 1:02:06bother me when people talk shit about me either. I'm like, okay.
- 1:02:10Like talk that shit. You could have fun.
- 1:02:13Speaker 1: You could teach.
- 1:02:13Speaker 3: Remember when YouTube was doing those master classes where like
- 1:02:16a guy would sit down and like Steve Martin would
- 1:02:18be like, I'm going to teach you how to do
- 1:02:20right comedy or whatever.
- 1:02:21Speaker 1: And David Mamet did one on writing or whatever.
- 1:02:23Speaker 3: You could do a master class on YouTube in how
- 1:02:26to let the shit roll off your back because I
- 1:02:30am astounded at how much it does not bother you
- 1:02:35when people are are releasing clips and talking this and
- 1:02:39it's all bullshit, whatever.
- 1:02:41Speaker 1: And you're just like, yeah, whatever, man.
- 1:02:44Speaker 2: Have fun. Knock yourself out. It doesn't– you can't stop
- 1:02:48people from having an opinion. There's always going to be
- 1:02:50people that have an opinion. And then in this market
- 1:02:53of hot takes, there's always going to be people and
- 1:02:55their opinion is– negative opinions are more valuable in terms
- 1:03:00of the commodity of attention. Attacking someone, calling someone out.
- 1:03:05It's more valuable than this commodity.
- 1:03:07Speaker 1: Yes.
- 1:03:08Speaker 2: And then there's people that have legitimate, differing opinions of me.
- 1:03:11And they don't like this and they don't like that.
- 1:03:13They don't like I said this or they don't like
- 1:03:15this person that I had on. What am I supposed
- 1:03:18to do? Address all of it? Even think about it?
- 1:03:21I police myself as much as I can. Believe me.
- 1:03:25If I fuck something up, I'm mad at me more
- 1:03:27than anybody is mad at me. Right. So that way–
- 1:03:31I get it out on my own. I don't need
- 1:03:33a lot of external validation. I don't need any. I'm
- 1:03:36not interested in that. I'm interested in doing the best
- 1:03:39I can, and I hope people like it, and that's it.
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: The little shit gets me, man.
- 1:03:45Speaker 2: I know it does. You need an outlet, Joe DeRosa.
- 1:03:49You need a physical outlet to calm your mind.
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: Yes.
- 1:03:53Speaker 2: That's what you need. You need to get a trainer.
- 1:03:55Just hire a trainer. We talked about this.
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: We have been talking about it.
- 1:03:57Speaker 2: Get a trainer.
- 1:03:58Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:03:58Speaker 2: Because you're not going to do it on your own.
- 1:04:00Get someone who you show up three times a week
- 1:04:04and they put you through the paces. And a smart
- 1:04:05trainer will do it nice and slow. So the first
- 1:04:08few workouts, it won't even be that hard. You'll leave there.
- 1:04:11You'll feel, like, energized. You won't feel exhausted. You'll feel like, oh,
- 1:04:15all right. I did a little something. I feel good.
- 1:04:17And then he's like, okay, we're, this is a process.
- 1:04:20You know, we're going to, we're going to keep ramping
- 1:04:22this up slowly, but surely, but you're never going to
- 1:04:24be like, oh my God, I can't fucking move. I
- 1:04:26went to my fucking trainer. He's killing me. My back
- 1:04:29is killing. I can't get off the couch. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- 1:04:31A good trainer is going to look at you, ask
- 1:04:34you how, what have you been doing? When was the
- 1:04:36last time you worked out? How often you do? Okay,
- 1:04:39let's start here. And they'll start you off with some
- 1:04:42simple body weight stuff. They'll put you through some different
- 1:04:45mobility exercises, different stuff to just get the joints lubed up,
- 1:04:49get everything moving, and then build your body up nice
- 1:04:52and slow, nice and slow.
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: Yeah, my boy Chuck, you know Chuck, Mexican OT's dad, Chuck. Yes.
- 1:05:00Speaker 3: Chuck, right when you and I talked about when you
- 1:05:03were like, you should get a trainer, Chuck said to me, unprompted,
- 1:05:07he goes, Joe, let me train with you.
- 1:05:09Speaker 2: Dude, take him up on it.
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: Yeah, and he goes, I'll come to your apartment. Let's
- 1:05:14just go. I'll come to your apartment.
- 1:05:15Speaker 2: Dude, that guy's jacked.
- 1:05:16Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:05:17Speaker 2: Take him up on it. He knows what he's doing.
- 1:05:18Speaker 3: And he said everything you just said. He goes, we're
- 1:05:20going to go slow. It's not going to be this
- 1:05:22overwhelming thing. Because I get overwhelmed easily, obviously. And I
- 1:05:26was like, Chuck. It's going to be too much. And
- 1:05:29I'm going to start. And he goes, we're not going
- 1:05:30to do that. We're going to take it really slow.
- 1:05:32Let me just come to your place, whatever. And so
- 1:05:34I think I'm going to start doing it with him
- 1:05:36because I just need to.
- 1:05:37Speaker 2: If you go to the wrong trainer, there's some trainers
- 1:05:39out there that are meatheads or they don't really know
- 1:05:41what they're doing and they'll beat you down. And they're like,
- 1:05:44we're going to fucking push it today. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- 1:05:47You can't push it when someone doesn't work out. When
- 1:05:50someone doesn't work out, you go nice and slow. Nice
- 1:05:53and easy. And then you slowly build up to the
- 1:05:56point where you can push it, right? You don't take
- 1:05:58a fucking Prius and you drive it around the racetrack sideways.
- 1:06:03Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:06:03Speaker 2: It's not designed for that. Right. The suspension is going
- 1:06:06to fall off. The wheels are going to– there's no traction.
- 1:06:09You've got no tires. Right. You're going to have to
- 1:06:11build up everything.
- 1:06:12Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:06:13Speaker 2: And then once it gets built up, then you can
- 1:06:15push it. So once you get in– look at Jelly Roll.
- 1:06:17Jelly Roll lost literally almost 300 pounds.
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
- 1:06:22Speaker 2: Which is crazy. Now he's running on the treadmill. He
- 1:06:26did six miles when we came in to do a podcast.
- 1:06:29We're all working out together. Right. And he's fucking running
- 1:06:32on the treadmill while we're talking.
- 1:06:33Speaker 1: We're talking.
- 1:06:34Speaker 2: He can breathe. He can talk. He's running a good clip.
- 1:06:38Got in the sauna with me. Did the whole thing.
- 1:06:40When I first met him, he's 500 pounds.
- 1:06:42Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 1:06:42Speaker 2: Could barely make it up the stairs to the comedy club.
- 1:06:45He couldn't walk up the stairs. Now... He's fit.
- 1:06:50Speaker 1: Now he's healthy.
- 1:06:51Speaker 2: He runs all the time. So it's just a process
- 1:06:54of building to get to that place. He did that show.
- 1:06:58McConaughey has this benefit every year. And we went to
- 1:07:01the benefit. And he performed at the benefit. And he's
- 1:07:06on stage. And we were backstage watching it. And so
- 1:07:08me and Tony and his girl and my wife were
- 1:07:11in the corner watching this. Jelly gets off stage. And
- 1:07:14there's a railing, like a ramp to get off. He
- 1:07:16grabs the railing. And hops over it and lands on
- 1:07:20the other side. I go, dude, do you know what
- 1:07:22you just did? I go, you used to be 500 pounds.
- 1:07:26And now you just jumped over that railing like a cat.
- 1:07:29Speaker 1: That's wild.
- 1:07:29Speaker 2: It was amazing.
- 1:07:30Speaker 1: That's wild.
- 1:07:31Speaker 2: He was so happy. He's like, isn't this crazy?
- 1:07:33Speaker 1: I'm like, it's crazy.
- 1:07:35Speaker 2: Look what you've done.
- 1:07:36Speaker 1: That's wild.
- 1:07:37Speaker 2: And that's what you have to do. And it took
- 1:07:39him years. And that's how you have to do it.
- 1:07:41It has to be slowly but surely. But along the way,
- 1:07:44you'll feel better every step of the way. It's not
- 1:07:47about breaking your body down. It's about slowly introducing movement
- 1:07:52and some physical exercise and then building upon that. Ten
- 1:07:57push-ups in a day. Then the next day, you try 12.
- 1:08:01And then a week later, you're doing 15. And then
- 1:08:04two weeks after that, maybe you can do 20 in
- 1:08:06a row or three weeks, a month, two months, whatever
- 1:08:09it is. Everybody's got their own timing. Body weight squats,
- 1:08:13very simple. Start with 10. No big deal. Get to
- 1:08:1790 degrees, pack up. Just enough, just to get the
- 1:08:19blood moving. Walking is fucking great. You know what's really great?
- 1:08:23Walking with a weighted vest. Not that hard to do.
- 1:08:26Put a 20-pound vest on, 25-pound vest on, walk around
- 1:08:28the block. It's fucking great for you. There's a lot
- 1:08:31of different things that you could do that don't crush you.
- 1:08:34And then you're just going to feel a little better.
- 1:08:37You'll have a little bit more vitality, more blood flow.
- 1:08:41And then you build upon that. That's the key.
- 1:08:44Speaker 3: I was building slow. I was doing three days a week.
- 1:08:46And it was getting better and better and better. And
- 1:08:49then end of the summer hit.
- 1:08:52Speaker 1: August hit.
- 1:08:53Speaker 3: I started going on the road again. And all of
- 1:08:56a sudden it starts to taper off. Because you're like,
- 1:08:59now I got to fly on this day when I'm
- 1:09:01usually doing my thing. And I got lazy and I
- 1:09:04got to get back into it.
- 1:09:05Speaker 1: I got to get back into it.
- 1:09:05Speaker 3: But the good thing is this, with what you're saying
- 1:09:07with the slow build, when I start again, I'm able
- 1:09:11to start where I stopped.
- 1:09:12Speaker 1: I'm able to start there again. You know what I mean?
- 1:09:15Speaker 2: Right, rather than where you began.
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 1:09:17Speaker 2: That's great. Listen, man, it's all about momentum. Discipline is
- 1:09:21very important, but really momentum makes discipline a lot easier.
- 1:09:26It's like you say, oh, you've got really good discipline.
- 1:09:31Sort of. I get started. Once you get started, it's
- 1:09:35more about momentum than it is about discipline. And then
- 1:09:38it's also about writing things down. If you just write
- 1:09:41it down, you have to do it.
- 1:09:42Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:09:43Speaker 2: You write it down and make a check. That way,
- 1:09:44instead of like keeping this thing in my head, oh,
- 1:09:46I'm just going to figure out my own workout. I'll
- 1:09:49do this. I'll do that. No, I have a whiteboard.
- 1:09:51I write down on the whiteboard. This is what we're doing.
- 1:09:54And then you just do it.
- 1:09:55Speaker 1: Yeah. I had a list in my phone. These are
- 1:09:57your exercise, 20 reps of each of these. And I
- 1:09:59just kept adding exercises to it.
- 1:10:02Speaker 2: I don't know a good app, but I'm sure there's
- 1:10:04some out there that are like a really good workout
- 1:10:06app that will vary your workout every day based upon
- 1:10:08your level, based upon like how much experience you have.
- 1:10:13Speaker 1: The apps get confusing. I tried a couple of them.
- 1:10:18Speaker 2: There's got to be a good one out there. I
- 1:10:19just don't know what they are.
- 1:10:20Speaker 1: It's a lot of questions that I'm like, I don't
- 1:10:22fucking know, man.
- 1:10:23Speaker 2: Well, that's because they're trying to make it good. They're
- 1:10:25trying to make an app that gives you what you need.
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: But yeah, exerciseapps.com. Again, there's good ones, I'm sure.
- 1:10:35Speaker 3: But exercise apps kind of became like dating apps where
- 1:10:37there's a million that are all saying, we're going to
- 1:10:40change your life in three days.
- 1:10:41Speaker 2: And you're like, no, you're not. I think most important
- 1:10:43is a real good trainer is more important because he
- 1:10:46can correct your form in real time, tell you why.
- 1:10:49Don't do it like that. You're going to hurt your back.
- 1:10:50Don't do it like this. You're putting too much pressure
- 1:10:52on this and that. And you're not balanced, whatever it is.
- 1:10:55He can get you to do it correctly, which is
- 1:10:57more important than anything. Especially once you start actually lifting weights,
- 1:11:02you know. Pavel Tatsulin, who's the– he's the guy who
- 1:11:06really brought kettlebells to popularity in America. It's a Russian
- 1:11:09cat and great system of training. But one of the
- 1:11:14things that he said that really stuck with me, he
- 1:11:15said strength is a skill. And you should think of
- 1:11:18strength as a skill. So like when you're working on
- 1:11:21your skills, like kettlebell cleans and presses, you shouldn't be exhausted.
- 1:11:26You should do– he does– instead of doing it to failure,
- 1:11:30like a lot of people like to work to failure.
- 1:11:31Imagine– You can clean and press 50 pounds 10 times
- 1:11:36until you're, like, really exhausted. And on the 10th time, you're, like,
- 1:11:38kind of cooked. Don't do 10. You do 5. Right.
- 1:11:41Just do 5. And then wait a long time. Wait, like,
- 1:11:445 minutes. Rest up completely and then do another 5.
- 1:11:48Do it that way.
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: That's interesting.
- 1:11:49Speaker 2: Because that way you're always fresh and you're working on skill.
- 1:11:52You're still getting the same amount of repetitions, but you're
- 1:11:55not torturing your tissue. You're not taxing your system. You're
- 1:11:58learning it. And you're not taking any shortcuts at all.
- 1:12:01You're not moving weird. You're not leaning into something in
- 1:12:04a weird way. You're going to hurt yourself because you're
- 1:12:06all out of line. You're doing everything with correct form
- 1:12:08because you're not exhausted. Yeah. But you're still getting the
- 1:12:11same amount of work in.
- 1:12:12Speaker 3: The rest time is interesting because I always thought, well,
- 1:12:16like I was doing two different types of push-ups. I
- 1:12:19was doing the fucking 45 finger spread push-up. Down, hold, up, whatever.
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: And I could get through 20 of those. Initially, I couldn't.
- 1:12:29Speaker 3: And then when I was able to get through 20,
- 1:12:30I was like, holy shit. And then I was doing
- 1:12:32a different pushup with the arms back like this. And those,
- 1:12:36when I got to that, I'd.
- 1:12:38Speaker 1: Hit 10 and I'd be like, fuck.
- 1:12:42Speaker 3: And then I'd sit for a minute and then a
- 1:12:44minute would go by and I'd be like, you got
- 1:12:45to do the other 10. Because if you wait too long,
- 1:12:47I always thought waiting too long was a bad thing.
- 1:12:50Speaker 1: But you're saying, no, actually rest five minutes. Take a breath.
- 1:12:53Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. As long as you
- 1:12:55have the time to do the same amount of reps.
- 1:12:58You just want to get enough work in so that
- 1:13:00your body forces adaptation. It doesn't have to be all
- 1:13:04to failure. Now, again, it depends on what we're trying
- 1:13:08to do, right? If you're trying to build up muscular endurance, then, yeah,
- 1:13:11you go to failure. It depends on what you're trying
- 1:13:13to do. If you're just trying to get stronger, that's
- 1:13:16a different thing. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, obviously I
- 1:13:19do different kinds of workouts like the workout I did today.
- 1:13:21It's all exhaustion stuff. It's all sprinting. It's not like
- 1:13:25the kettlebell stuff. This is all high altitude and it's
- 1:13:29all like maximum intensity on the airdyne bike, maximum intensity
- 1:13:32on the sled, maximum intensity on the kettlebell cleans. You're
- 1:13:36beating yourself up because you're only doing it for 50
- 1:13:38seconds or 60 seconds, 40 seconds, and then 30 seconds.
- 1:13:43So it's like I do a bunch of different kinds
- 1:13:45of exercises. But when I do like strength stuff, I
- 1:13:49don't ever do it to failure.
- 1:13:51Speaker 1: Can you do– is there a thing– like some people
- 1:13:55go the 100 push-ups a day, whatever. That's their thing.
- 1:13:58Speaker 3: I always wondered, well, is it the same if you
- 1:14:01do 100 push-ups just throughout the day?
- 1:14:04Speaker 2: 100%.
- 1:14:04Speaker 1: 100%.
- 1:14:05Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you start at 9 and finish
- 1:14:07at 3.
- 1:14:08Speaker 2: Farmers don't lift hay to failure, right? They pick up
- 1:14:12a bale of hay. They chuck it under the pile.
- 1:14:14They go back to get another one. They pick up
- 1:14:16a bale of hay. They chuck it on the pile.
- 1:14:17They go back to get another one. They push a wheelbarrow.
- 1:14:20They fucking hammer a post down. They do a bunch
- 1:14:22of different things. They do it all throughout the day.
- 1:14:24But they're never doing anything where they're just– very rarely
- 1:14:27at least– where they're lying flat on their back, breathing.
- 1:14:30They think they're going to have a fucking heart attack.
- 1:14:33They never have that. They never get to the point
- 1:14:34where they're dropping the bale of hay because their arms
- 1:14:36are shaking. And they're like, one more rep. But yet
- 1:14:41they get ridiculously fucking strong, right?
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: Why?
- 1:14:44Speaker 2: Because of all the work. It doesn't have to be
- 1:14:47work to failure. In our mind, we think, oh, you
- 1:14:50have to go to failure in order to get stronger. Again,
- 1:14:54we're talking about very specific things, getting stronger, using kettlebells especially,
- 1:14:59but you can do dumbbells and other things as well.
- 1:15:02If you're now– if you're doing something else– Like if
- 1:15:06you're trying to get maximum amount of bench press, if
- 1:15:10you're trying to like win a competition or maximum amount
- 1:15:12of chin-ups you can do, then it's a different thing.
- 1:15:15We're talking about a different thing. But if you're just
- 1:15:17talking about overall building strength for your body, the most
- 1:15:20important thing is volume I think. And it's– if you
- 1:15:24can– like I said, I think this principle that Pavel
- 1:15:29Tatsalin has is a really good one. That instead of
- 1:15:32doing 10, if you do 10 to failure, do 5.
- 1:15:35Wait a while. Do five again. And I think it
- 1:15:37lessens the opportunity to get injured. You're much less likely
- 1:15:41to get injured doing it that way. I'm very rarely
- 1:15:45injured from working out. Very rare. From just kettlebell stuff,
- 1:15:48like very rarely. Right. All right. All right.
- 1:15:52Speaker 1: You're inspiring me to hop back in and start doing
- 1:15:55it again. I've really been.
- 1:15:57Speaker 2: You just got to get somebody to help you. Get
- 1:16:00Mexican OT's dad. Yeah. Get him to help you.
- 1:16:03Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:16:03Speaker 2: He knows what he's doing.
- 1:16:04Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. No, that dude's fucking jacked.
- 1:16:07Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the perfect guy. And what he said is
- 1:16:10the right, like he knows what he's doing. That's why
- 1:16:13he's the guy to get you doing it nice and
- 1:16:15slow and just build you up. And also he's fun.
- 1:16:17He's cool to hang out with.
- 1:16:19Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:16:20Speaker 2: You like that too. You don't want to be an
- 1:16:21annoying trainer. It's always asking you to post about him
- 1:16:23on Instagram.
- 1:16:24Speaker 1: Fuck off.
- 1:16:25Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Anything you post, I got
- 1:16:28an energy drink I'm trying to promote.
- 1:16:30Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You get those DMs from guys.
- 1:16:34Speaker 2: Exhausting. Yeah. All right.
- 1:16:37Speaker 1: I'm back.
- 1:16:38Speaker 2: There you go.
- 1:16:38Speaker 1: You're back. I'm back in, baby.
- 1:16:40Speaker 2: Bro, I read the craziest thing today, and I need
- 1:16:43to find out if it's true. I sent you the
- 1:16:44thing where Nick Fuentes was talking about, Jamie. So apparently
- 1:16:49there was this plot where Iran was trying to kill Trump.
- 1:16:52Remember when he was supposed to get in the Air
- 1:16:55Force One that– Cotter gave him. And then instead he
- 1:17:00flew in the old Air Force One.
- 1:17:02Speaker 1: Okay.
- 1:17:02Speaker 2: Well, they're saying that he actually didn't even go in
- 1:17:06the old Air Force One, that they snuck him out
- 1:17:09on a truck.
- 1:17:10Speaker 1: Okay.
- 1:17:10Speaker 2: Like some fucking cargo truck.
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: Okay.
- 1:17:14Speaker 2: And then put him in another kind of plane and
- 1:17:17flew him out of there. And then they put the
- 1:17:18press in Air Force One because they were apparently worried
- 1:17:23they were going to target Air Force One as well.
- 1:17:25So imagine- Trump put the press on Air Force One.
- 1:17:30And they were thinking about possibly targeting them.
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: Holy shit.
- 1:17:34Speaker 2: He hid in an airport catering container and was taken
- 1:17:36to a military jet for a secret flight out of
- 1:17:38the country after the NATO summit last month. And this
- 1:17:41is being reported by The New York Times. The thing is, though,
- 1:17:44I think they put the press on Air Force One.
- 1:17:48So if they flew him out, it was because they
- 1:17:51were worried they were going to try to take down
- 1:17:52Air Force One. And they took the press.
- 1:17:55Speaker 4: If you take the press off, then they know that
- 1:18:00we're not playing games. Everything's normal.
- 1:18:03Speaker 2: Exactly. And if the press dies, so sad. But you
- 1:18:08just get more press.
- 1:18:09Speaker 1: That's fucking wild.
- 1:18:11Speaker 2: If that's true, that is so wild that he didn't
- 1:18:12even tell them, hey, guys. We're not really going to
- 1:18:15get on this plane.
- 1:18:16Speaker 1: No one's getting on this plane.
- 1:18:18Speaker 2: You guys get out of here. Go take American Airlines home. No.
- 1:18:22He's like, hop on.
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: It's safe. Yeah.
- 1:18:24Speaker 2: It's Air Force One.
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: Guys, my gift to you. Take Air Force One. Enjoy it.
- 1:18:29There's food up there. Sandwiches on there. Enjoy yourself.
- 1:18:32Speaker 2: Is that absolutely what happened?
- 1:18:34Speaker 4: It says reporters on the older plane were not told
- 1:18:36that Mr. Trump had not flown with them from Turkey
- 1:18:39to an airbase in Britain. making them unwitting participants in
- 1:18:43the ruse and leaving them, along with some White House
- 1:18:46staff members, to serve as unknowing decoys.
- 1:18:50Speaker 2: Holy shit.
- 1:18:50Speaker 4: After they arrived in Britain, he was secretly moved back
- 1:18:52to the older version of Air Force One.
- 1:18:54Speaker 1: Bro. Jesus Christ.
- 1:18:57Speaker 2: Those press people were signing up for something they didn't know.
- 1:19:00They didn't know what they were signing up for. And
- 1:19:04they didn't tell them at all that when you want
- 1:19:07to know who's more important, you You are the president.
- 1:19:09That's when you find out.
- 1:19:10Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 1:19:11Speaker 2: They just throw you on Air Force One. Shrimp cocktail.
- 1:19:16Speaker 1: Boom.
- 1:19:17Speaker 2: All of a sudden, you turn into fucking protons.
- 1:19:20Speaker 1: It's like fucking Goodfellas when he's telling Karen to go.
- 1:19:23Go now. Go down and get the dresses.
- 1:19:25Speaker 2: Go ahead.
- 1:19:25Speaker 1: There's dresses. No, I'm okay. Holy shit. That is fucking wild.
- 1:19:36Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy?
- 1:19:37Speaker 1: That is fucking wild. That's crazy. Yeah. Has there been backlash? Jamie,
- 1:19:44are they saying anything?
- 1:19:46Speaker 4: Who's saying anything?
- 1:19:47Speaker 1: The press.
- 1:19:49Speaker 2: I would imagine they're a little perturbed. That would perturb me.
- 1:19:55Jesus Christ. That's so crazy.
- 1:19:59Speaker 1: Holy shit.
- 1:19:59Speaker 2: Imagine if it blew up. It's like, I should have
- 1:20:02been there. I wanted to be there with them when
- 1:20:03they died.
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: They're heroes.
- 1:20:08Speaker 2: He would probably talk shit about them.
- 1:20:09Speaker 1: Oh, my God. That is fucking nuts.
- 1:20:11Speaker 2: Maybe they had written nicer things about me. I would
- 1:20:13have told them.
- 1:20:14Speaker 1: Oh, my God. I just watched Michael, the Michael Jackson movie.
- 1:20:21Speaker 2: How was it?
- 1:20:24Speaker 3: Look, it's the first part of his life up till bad.
- 1:20:27They don't get into any of the crazy shit. They're
- 1:20:29saying they're making a sequel that they might get into
- 1:20:32some of the crazy shit.
- 1:20:33Speaker 1: But it was fun. I'm a big Michael Jackson fan.
- 1:20:35It was fun to watch. But I started reading up
- 1:20:38on Michael Jackson afterwards because I was like, it just
- 1:20:41was very nostalgic to watch. Do you know this? When
- 1:20:43he died, he was pronounced dead at Neverland Ranch.
- 1:20:48Speaker 3: And they lied to the press and said that he
- 1:20:50was at a hospital already and pronounced dead because they
- 1:20:53had to get the body out of Neverland Ranch. And
- 1:20:57they knew if they pronounced him dead at Neverland Ranch,
- 1:20:59they wouldn't be able to get the fucking body out
- 1:21:02of the goddamn house.
- 1:21:03Speaker 1: Why? Because they said the press would leak it and
- 1:21:05the clamoring of fans and whatever else would literally have
- 1:21:08blocked them from getting the fuck from transporting the body.
- 1:21:13So they had to lie and say, he's dead already,
- 1:21:16but he's at this hospital. And it was a decoy
- 1:21:19because that's how fucking famous he was. They were like,
- 1:21:22we can't drive his dead body from this location to
- 1:21:25another or we're never going to get it there.
- 1:21:27Speaker 2: People would steal the body. I want to get a finger.
- 1:21:29Speaker 1: Yeah, something.
- 1:21:30Speaker 2: I want to get a finger. People would have garden clippers.
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: Something.
- 1:21:33Speaker 2: Try to steal.
- 1:21:34Speaker 1: And here's another crazy thing.
- 1:21:37Speaker 3: Because I know you've talked about the Michael Jackson, like
- 1:21:40the conspiracies around his death on the show before. There's
- 1:21:43another crazy thing I didn't know.
- 1:21:45Speaker 1: He owned... You know, he had that vast music catalog
- 1:21:48that he bought. Right. Of music publishing.
- 1:21:51Speaker 2: Right. He owned the Beatles.
- 1:21:52Speaker 1: Beatles. Eminem. He bought Eminem.
- 1:21:55Speaker 2: He bought Eminem?
- 1:21:56Speaker 3: Eminem made fun of him in a video and he
- 1:21:59bought Eminem's fucking catalog.
- 1:22:00Speaker 1: Oh, I heard about that. Yeah. The most pimp move ever.
- 1:22:05I'm going to buy all your fucking music.
- 1:22:06Speaker 2: That's so gangster.
- 1:22:07Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:22:08Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:22:08Speaker 1: Right?
- 1:22:10Speaker 2: So.
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: He owns his catalog, right? I think he might have
- 1:22:16owned Dylan. It was crazy. The rights to the music
- 1:22:19that he owned was nuts, right? He's with Sony.
- 1:22:22Speaker 3: Sony wants the publishing back on all these artists, and
- 1:22:25he owns it. And when he did his last album,
- 1:22:29he had to take out a loan against the record
- 1:22:32company of $ 200 million to do the album because he
- 1:22:36didn't have a lot of money left. And they said,
- 1:22:38you've got to put up collaterals. And he goes, all right,
- 1:22:42I'm going to put up a portion of the catalog
- 1:22:45as collateral. And then before he died, he goes, they're
- 1:22:48not promoting my album. And because they're not promoting my album,
- 1:22:52it's not selling. And then everybody close to him said
- 1:22:56it was a ruse. They didn't promote the album on
- 1:22:59purpose so that he would lose the fucking catalog because
- 1:23:03he wouldn't be able to pay the loan back.
- 1:23:05Speaker 1: And then right after that, he died. Really fucked up.
- 1:23:08Speaker 2: That's the business he was in.
- 1:23:09Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:23:10Speaker 2: You buy people shit, they fuck you over. That's how
- 1:23:12it works.
- 1:23:13Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
- 1:23:14Speaker 2: Come on, man.
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: Well, it's dark, though. You're playing war.
- 1:23:18Speaker 2: You're playing war. If they blow up Air Force One,
- 1:23:20you got to go, hey, maybe we shouldn't have fucking
- 1:23:22killed the leader during Ramadan. This is how it works.
- 1:23:27This is how it works. This is the game we're in.
- 1:23:29Speaker 1: This is the business we chose.
- 1:23:30Speaker 2: Listen, he's in the business of fucking over his enemies.
- 1:23:34They decided he was their enemy. They fucked him over.
- 1:23:37Speaker 3: The doctor that administered the drug that killed him is
- 1:23:41out of jail already.
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: Two years. And they're like, no, this guy was just
- 1:23:45a fall guy.
- 1:23:47Speaker 2: Well, the thing about the doctor is he was asking
- 1:23:51the doctor to do that. The doctor shouldn't have done that.
- 1:23:54It's not like the doctor killed him on purpose. He
- 1:23:57wanted to get anesthetized. I think he was so crazy
- 1:23:59that he couldn't sleep. He was so out of his
- 1:24:02fucking mind. And he was probably on a bunch of stuff.
- 1:24:04It probably wasn't just on propofol. If you're willing to
- 1:24:07take propofol to go to sleep, what else are you taking?
- 1:24:09Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:24:10Speaker 2: You're taking some other things.
- 1:24:11Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
- 1:24:12Speaker 2: The doctor, the one thing that he said that I
- 1:24:14found very fascinating was that he said that Michael had
- 1:24:17been chemically castrated when he was young to maintain his voice.
- 1:24:22Speaker 1: I've heard that. Yeah.
- 1:24:23Speaker 2: And it makes sense. It completely makes sense. If you
- 1:24:26look at his body, it makes sense. His body looks
- 1:24:29like it's devoid of testosterone.
- 1:24:31Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes.
- 1:24:32Speaker 2: It has no testosterone. He's very thin. If you look
- 1:24:34at his brothers, they're all thick. They're all like big dudes.
- 1:24:37Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:24:38Speaker 2: Germaine. They're all like men. They look like men, like
- 1:24:41thick men.
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:24:42Speaker 2: He looks thin and he looks very different than them.
- 1:24:45That's not normal.
- 1:24:46Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:24:47Speaker 2: That's not normal. That's not even normal if you don't
- 1:24:50work out. And he was a dancer. So he was
- 1:24:53incredibly athletic, right? So in all the working out that
- 1:24:56he did, he should have been supple. I mean he
- 1:24:58was– obviously he could move so good. I mean he
- 1:25:01was– his movement was incredible. Did you ever see that
- 1:25:05Bob Fosse movie that apparently he got all those moves from?
- 1:25:08Speaker 1: The one– well, OK.
- 1:25:11Speaker 3: So which– the miniseries that Sam Rockwell was in or
- 1:25:14all that jazz?
- 1:25:15Speaker 2: There was a movie. No, before that, a long– earlier.
- 1:25:19And it's Bob Fosse doing all the dance moves that
- 1:25:23Michael Jackson did.
- 1:25:25Speaker 1: I know what movie you're talking about. It's him and, like,
- 1:25:26a little kid.
- 1:25:27Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes.
- 1:25:27Speaker 1: He's in the desert and doing.
- 1:25:28Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- 1:25:29Speaker 1: Yes.
- 1:25:29Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:25:30Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:25:30Speaker 2: I mean, it's literally all of Michael Jackson's signature dance
- 1:25:34moves come from this one movie. Watch this. Watch how
- 1:25:38he moves.
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: Yep.
- 1:25:40Speaker 2: So there's this. He's doing this. But then he also moonwalks. Like,
- 1:25:44look at this. Like all this, this is Michael Jackson.
- 1:25:49Speaker 1: Wow.
- 1:25:50Speaker 2: I mean, 100%.
- 1:25:51Speaker 1: Yo, wow.
- 1:25:53Speaker 2: Look at this. The kick and the point with the
- 1:25:56toes and putting it down. The movement.
- 1:25:59Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:26:00Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's literally every movie does. Look at that.
- 1:26:07That point with the kick and the toes.
- 1:26:09Speaker 1: Even the outfit.
- 1:26:11Speaker 2: It's a 1974 movie, The Little Prince.
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:26:13Speaker 2: Little Prince, rather.
- 1:26:14Speaker 1: Even the outfit with the fedora.
- 1:26:16Speaker 2: Bro. I mean, literally, he mirrored his movements.
- 1:26:22Speaker 3: It is incredible that Bob Fosse had the stamina and
- 1:26:26ability to keep dancing like that for his entire life
- 1:26:30until he dropped dead. Because if you watch the Sam
- 1:26:33Rockwell miniseries, Fosse and Virden, which is an amazing miniseries,
- 1:26:38that guy, bro, he was, I mean, it was intake.
- 1:26:42That's all it was. He'd wake up. He's popping fucking pills.
- 1:26:47Speaker 1: Speed, boom, boom, boom, coke, booze, cigarettes.
- 1:26:51Speaker 3: All day long, chain smoking, chain smoking, chain smoking, drunk
- 1:26:55through the whole fucking day, popping pills, doing coke. And
- 1:26:58the fact that he could still stand and not just stand.
- 1:27:02Speaker 1: Choreograph Broadway shows for hours and be that agile and
- 1:27:07whatever is, that's insane to me.
- 1:27:09Speaker 2: It's because he loved it.
- 1:27:10Speaker 1: It's insane.
- 1:27:11Speaker 2: That's the thing. Find the thing you love. Find that
- 1:27:14thing and you will have the energy to pursue it.
- 1:27:17It's really it.
- 1:27:19Speaker 1: But aren't you a little amazed that his intake of
- 1:27:23substance could not– would not hinder it in any way?
- 1:27:26Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy.
- 1:27:26Speaker 1: You know?
- 1:27:27Speaker 2: But, I mean, we've seen that before.
- 1:27:30Speaker 1: You know? Yeah.
- 1:27:32Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: There's– yeah.
- 1:27:33Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:27:34Speaker 1: I hear you.
- 1:27:34Speaker 2: There's people that have unreal tolerances, like Shane with booze.
- 1:27:41It's unreal. Yeah. When you see him pound 16 Bud
- 1:27:45Lights and not a slur, not a stammer, nothing, doesn't
- 1:27:49miss a beat, puts the sunglasses on, starts getting crazy.
- 1:27:53We do protect our parks, and he'll have a stack
- 1:27:57of empties at the end. You're like, that is insane.
- 1:28:00You should be dead. You should literally be dead.
- 1:28:03Speaker 3: My favorite Shane story ever, ever. I don't mean to
- 1:28:06tell his story, but this is my favorite Shane story ever.
- 1:28:10And I was– the other day I go, dude, you
- 1:28:11have to do that on tires.
- 1:28:12Speaker 1: It's so funny. He said he ate chicken fingers. And
- 1:28:17he felt sick. And he goes to the doctor because
- 1:28:21he's like, I think I have food poisoning or something.
- 1:28:23It's like something's wrong, right?
- 1:28:25Speaker 3: So he goes– he goes, the doctor goes– you know,
- 1:28:30he's asking all the questions.
- 1:28:31Speaker 1: How much do you do this? Whatever.
- 1:28:32Speaker 3: And he goes, how many drinks do you have in
- 1:28:34a week? And Shane said he took a beat. And
- 1:28:36he's like, I'm going to be honest for once.
- 1:28:38Speaker 1: And he goes 80. He's so crazy.
- 1:28:47Speaker 2: Oh, that's so crazy.
- 1:28:48Speaker 1: He said the doctor starts laughing. He goes, no, come on, man. Seriously.
- 1:28:51And he goes, 80. And the doctor goes, it's not
- 1:28:54the chicken fingers, man. You drink 80 drinks a week, right?
- 1:29:00And I go, what happened? He goes, I went home.
- 1:29:03I threw up. I was fine the next day. It
- 1:29:05was the chicken fingers. Dude, we were at Chappelle's summer
- 1:29:15camp thing, the ranch thing. And we're hanging out. And
- 1:29:19I'm about to go on. Shane goes, come on, man.
- 1:29:22Have a drink. Have a drink. I go, dude, I
- 1:29:24already had two, man. I got to go on, dude.
- 1:29:27I got to be careful. He goes, have another drink, dude.
- 1:29:31You'll be fine. I go, Shane, I don't want to
- 1:29:33be tipsy. He goes, what number drink is that for you?
- 1:29:36I go, three. He goes, I've had 17 Bud Lights.
- 1:29:40Have another fucking drink.
- 1:29:42Speaker 2: He doesn't want to be alone in drunk land. He
- 1:29:45wants you to be there with him in happy drunk land.
- 1:29:47He's a happy drunk, though.
- 1:29:49Speaker 1: The best.
- 1:29:49Speaker 2: I love him. He's so fun. He's such a fun dude.
- 1:29:53He's such, such a unique person. He's very different than
- 1:29:57anybody I've ever met. He's like, you would think by, by,
- 1:30:00you know, you hear him talk, you think like he's
- 1:30:02similar to someone, you know, but he's not different dude.
- 1:30:05Fucking smart as shit too. Knows a fuck load about history.
- 1:30:09Speaker 1: Loves history.
- 1:30:10Speaker 2: Loves it, man.
- 1:30:11Speaker 1: Loves history. And, and yeah, he's a very unique specimen.
- 1:30:15Speaker 3: He's a, and, and as you said, a very fun drug,
- 1:30:18I was just down at the beach with him and, uh,
- 1:30:22He was on the beach all day, and I was
- 1:30:23at the house. I called it early, and I was
- 1:30:25just kind of chilling out inside with McCusker and Tommy
- 1:30:30watching a movie.
- 1:30:31Speaker 1: We were just chilling. And Shane came back from the beach,
- 1:30:34and he was all fucking tuned up from White Claws
- 1:30:36or wherever he was drinking.
- 1:30:38Speaker 3: And I was laying on this love seat in the
- 1:30:41room watching the movie, and he just kept coming up
- 1:30:44to me, and he.
- 1:30:45Speaker 1: Just kept tickling me. He's going, come on, dog.
- 1:30:47Speaker 2: Come on, dog.
- 1:30:48Speaker 1: Come on, dog. And I I'm like, you're awesome. You're fun.
- 1:30:52It's just, he's so fun, man.
- 1:30:54Speaker 2: Yeah. He's, he's life of the party. Him and Joey
- 1:30:57Diaz in a room together with everybody else is like,
- 1:30:59oh my God, you got two enormous personalities, lives at
- 1:31:03the party in the room together.
- 1:31:05Speaker 1: Diaz kills me.
- 1:31:07Speaker 2: He's the best man. He's, he's out here all the
- 1:31:09time now.
- 1:31:09Speaker 1: I know.
- 1:31:10Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, he's getting a place here at the
- 1:31:12end of the month and he's going to do a residency.
- 1:31:14So he's going to do like two weeks a month.
- 1:31:16He's going to be here.
- 1:31:17Speaker 1: That's awesome.
- 1:31:18Speaker 2: Oh, it's fucking incredible. It's incredible.
- 1:31:20Speaker 1: He's the best man. He's the fucking best.
- 1:31:22Speaker 3: It's so fun having him around. The last time he
- 1:31:26was here, I was doing my monthly– my end friend
- 1:31:30show at the Mothership. And he was– the first comic
- 1:31:37was on or whatever and.
- 1:31:38Speaker 1: He goes– he's like, Joe, could I go up on
- 1:31:41your show? And I go, of course.
- 1:31:42Speaker 2: Of course.
- 1:31:44Speaker 3: And he went up, and it was just seeing the
- 1:31:46pop from the audience. I was like, man, this is
- 1:31:49fucking great, dude. It's fucking fun having him around.
- 1:31:51Speaker 2: We're very lucky. We're very lucky. We've got an amazing
- 1:31:53group of people around us all the time. It's a
- 1:31:56lot of fun.
- 1:31:57Speaker 1: And he said the funniest fucking thing.
- 1:32:00Speaker 3: We were talking about diet and exercise and lifestyle change
- 1:32:05and COVID. I was doing too much of this or
- 1:32:08that or whatever. And I go, when was your big change, man?
- 1:32:12Speaker 1: He goes, Joe, you know what fucking day it was?
- 1:32:16It was the day of the fucking resurrection. And we go, what?
- 1:32:20And he goes, fucking January 6th, the fucking resurrection. And
- 1:32:25we go, do you mean the insurrection? He goes, whatever
- 1:32:31the fuck it was called. I don't give a fuck. Oh, man.
- 1:32:37Speaker 2: He used to call Khabib Nurmagomedov Kalabeeb. The fucking Kalabeeb guy.
- 1:32:44You know, it's a part of his charm, fucking up
- 1:32:47people's names.
- 1:32:47Speaker 1: Oh, my God. He's so funny. The best dude, man.
- 1:32:50Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:32:51Speaker 3: He lives right near where my parents live in Jersey.
- 1:32:53And I was like, oh, dude, man, when I go
- 1:32:56see my folks, I'm going to. I'm going to get
- 1:32:58in the car and drive up and hang out with
- 1:33:00you for a night because it will be such a
- 1:33:01great break from just being with my mom and dad.
- 1:33:05And he's just– he's the best, man. He's just got
- 1:33:07a truly big-hearted dude, man.
- 1:33:10Speaker 2: I was really worried once he moved to New Jersey
- 1:33:12we'd never get him out here because I went with him.
- 1:33:15We went out to eat in New Jersey and he's
- 1:33:17the king in New Jersey. I'm like, fuck. Everywhere we go, Joey. Yeah.
- 1:33:22Yelling his name. Went to the restaurant. Everybody knows him.
- 1:33:26It's like immediately everybody's like running over to take care
- 1:33:30of us. Joey's here. Joey's here. And I'm like, oh,
- 1:33:32he's the king of New Jersey. He's never going to leave.
- 1:33:34He's never going to leave. He loves it here. But
- 1:33:37there wasn't enough comedy there for him. There wasn't enough comics.
- 1:33:42And one of the things that I always say is
- 1:33:44that we don't exist in a vacuum. We always exist
- 1:33:47with each other, comics in particular. You can't really– do
- 1:33:53comedy by yourself. You can, but you can't do it
- 1:33:55to your best. You need other people doing it around you.
- 1:33:59You need to see it. You need to be around it.
- 1:34:01The hang to the talking about bits in the green
- 1:34:04room is so huge. Like a son has given me
- 1:34:07two killer taglines after like seeing, seeing a bit and saying,
- 1:34:11what about this? Like, Oh my God, that's perfect. Yeah.
- 1:34:15Those things, we're always tuning each other's shit up or
- 1:34:18reminding each other of a bit. I remember Tony's bits
- 1:34:23better than Tony does sometimes. I had to tell him
- 1:34:25how a bit goes. He's like, oh my God, I
- 1:34:28forgot that. I'm like, dude, go do that. Go do
- 1:34:30that right now. He went up and did it right
- 1:34:32then and murdered.
- 1:34:32Speaker 1: That's great.
- 1:34:33Speaker 2: You forgot. You forgot the bit.
- 1:34:35Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:34:38Speaker 3: It's a very individualized sport in the sense of golf.
- 1:34:45where you're always playing against yourself, but it's a very
- 1:34:48communal sport in the sense that you're not playing necessarily
- 1:34:52in a literal sense with the team, like a sketch
- 1:34:55group would, but you're playing with the team.
- 1:34:57Speaker 1: You know what I mean? The team is in the
- 1:34:59green room.
- 1:35:01Speaker 3: You're playing with the team in the sense that your
- 1:35:02buddy is on before you, your buddy is on after you.
- 1:35:06Speaker 2: You're all doing sets together.
- 1:35:07Speaker 3: And the game is I got to play my best
- 1:35:10game because I've got to follow the guy that just said.
- 1:35:13Speaker 1: A good game.
- 1:35:13Speaker 2: Yes.
- 1:35:13Speaker 3: And I need the guy after me to have a
- 1:35:15good game so I can't fuck up his game.
- 1:35:17Speaker 1: Yes. And it's a very interesting dynamic of team versus
- 1:35:23individual play.
- 1:35:24Speaker 2: There's also just the atmosphere elevates you. And I noticed
- 1:35:28that for sure about the Comedy Store and the Glory Days.
- 1:35:30And the Glory Days, like 2014 to 2019 when we left, like, whew.
- 1:35:36There was so much activity there. There were so many
- 1:35:39guys that were going up. There was so much good
- 1:35:40comedy that you would just get elevated just being around it.
- 1:35:44Like it raised your own personal bar, like what your
- 1:35:47high watermark was. And it just– you're around like guys
- 1:35:51with really tight acts. And it just– it really helps.
- 1:35:55It helps everybody. It's so important to be around other
- 1:35:59great comics. And that's why these hubs like New York
- 1:36:02is so great for that, L.A., And now Austin, it's
- 1:36:06like these hubs are so important because you really– we
- 1:36:10go on the road on the weekends, right? That was
- 1:36:12the thing about the store. But on Tuesday and Wednesday
- 1:36:14were some of the best nights because on Tuesday and Wednesday,
- 1:36:18it would be Jesselneck, Diaz, fucking Greg Fitzsimmons, Dom Irera,
- 1:36:25over and over.
- 1:36:26Speaker 1: Murderer's Row.
- 1:36:28Speaker 2: Burr would pop in and maybe Chris Rock was in town.
- 1:36:31It was like, god damn, these nights were insane. Yeah.
- 1:36:34They were so good.
- 1:36:36Speaker 1: I'll tell you the reason I moved to Austin and
- 1:36:43the thing that continues to be the greatest challenge for
- 1:36:47me here in a good way, in a constructive way.
- 1:36:51Because people say all the time to.
- 1:36:53Speaker 3: Me online and shit, they'll be like, oh, you moved
- 1:36:55to Austin for Kill Tony. I'm like, I didn't fucking
- 1:36:58move to Austin for Kill Tony. I knew Tony and
- 1:37:01I were friends and I had done the show. I
- 1:37:03didn't become kind of.
- 1:37:04Speaker 1: A part of that show until after I lived here
- 1:37:08because Tony started to put me on and we started
- 1:37:10to have fun. And then it grew from there.
- 1:37:12Speaker 3: You and I were, we're buddies, but like we're much
- 1:37:15tighter as pals now than we were.
- 1:37:17Speaker 2: Well, we're around all the time.
- 1:37:20Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 1:37:21Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:37:23Speaker 3: So I moved here primarily for television. well, number one,
- 1:37:28I love Austin and I always, and I used to
- 1:37:30live here and I always wanted to go back. And
- 1:37:31once you could do comedy here, it was like a
- 1:37:33reason to go back.
- 1:37:34Speaker 1: Right. And you could work. The other reason was I was,
- 1:37:38I was like, I did New York. I did LA.
- 1:37:40Speaker 3: I want a new challenge. And there's a new scene
- 1:37:42now and all that stuff. But the thing that puts
- 1:37:45me on my toes the most, uh, and still does
- 1:37:49is this is the best place for young comics to
- 1:37:53To be able to pursue comedy because they can actually
- 1:37:56live here.
- 1:37:56Speaker 1: They can afford it. New York has become unaffordable.
- 1:37:59Speaker 2: L.A.
- 1:37:59Speaker 3: Has become unaffordable. A young comic can come here, can
- 1:38:03live like a human being and pursue their dream.
- 1:38:07Speaker 1: And those are the.
- 1:38:08Speaker 3: Guys that keep me on my– because you're like, dude,
- 1:38:12it doesn't matter if I'm the only guy on this
- 1:38:14lineup that has done.
- 1:38:15Speaker 1: TV or whatever. You got five people going up. that
- 1:38:18are fucking swinging for the fences. Because when you're young,
- 1:38:23you really are like, I gotta fucking prove myself. So
- 1:38:27you're following, even if it's four unknown people, they're doing
- 1:38:31their A shit. They are trying to kill as hard
- 1:38:34as humanly possible.
- 1:38:37Speaker 3: And you're like, all right, I got to fucking bring it.
- 1:38:41Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
- 1:38:42Speaker 2: It's that and it's also their enthusiasm for it. You know, and,
- 1:38:46and the thing about Austin is we have a real
- 1:38:49system at the club that actually develops talent.
- 1:38:53Speaker 1: Yes.
- 1:38:53Speaker 2: Like we have two nights of open mic nights and
- 1:38:55we have a real talent coordinator. Adam really watches everyone.
- 1:38:59He watches the open mic nights. He gives people advice.
- 1:39:02He gets them spots. He helps them. He gets them
- 1:39:04on showcase nights. He puts them on, he gives them sets,
- 1:39:07gives them feedback, and then they get to work all
- 1:39:10around town. There's, Five other fucking clubs on the same street, man.
- 1:39:14Speaker 1: It's crazy, dude. You can walk from your place to Sunset,
- 1:39:21to the Creek, to Vulcan, Black Rabbit, to Vulcan. And
- 1:39:26then if you don't mind walking 20 minutes, you can
- 1:39:29be at Roscoe's, East Austin. It's fucking nuts, man.
- 1:39:35Speaker 2: It's crazy. And then there's also Cap City. Which is
- 1:39:38on the other side of town, which is fucking awesome.
- 1:39:40Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:39:41Speaker 2: It's amazing here.
- 1:39:42Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:39:43Speaker 2: And there's so many young people that have moved here now.
- 1:39:46And then the Kill Tony thing. The Kill Tony thing
- 1:39:49is so huge because it's– first of all, you have
- 1:39:53one minute. You have no room for virtue signaling, no
- 1:39:57room for fucking claptor. Shut the fuck up. Just where's
- 1:40:01the jokes? Come with the jokes. And then no one
- 1:40:03takes anybody– no one is taking themselves seriously. Everybody is
- 1:40:06getting cracked on. Everyone's cracking on everybody. It's very fun.
- 1:40:09Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:40:09Speaker 2: It's a fun environment and it's just emphasizing funny. What
- 1:40:13is funny? What makes people laugh? Yeah. And there's a
- 1:40:16bunch of different styles that do it. You know, there's
- 1:40:19a bunch of different weirdos that go up every week
- 1:40:22and most of them have no chance, but there's some gems.
- 1:40:26And that's the thing about having like a true meritocracy
- 1:40:30where all that matters is if you're funny, it's it
- 1:40:33doesn't matter what you look like. It doesn't matter what
- 1:40:35your background is. There's, I mean, Kill Tony is like
- 1:40:38one of the most diverse lineups you're ever going to see.
- 1:40:41For all the people that think that Tony's a Nazi,
- 1:40:43it's kind of hilarious. It's insane. Trans people, disabled people,
- 1:40:48people from all walks of life, literal homeless people who
- 1:40:51have gone on stage, started a career because of Kill Tony.
- 1:40:55Literally homeless while they're doing it, sleeping in a car,
- 1:40:59and the next thing you know, they have a career.
- 1:41:01Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. It's a truly amazing thing.
- 1:41:05Speaker 3: He just did MSG, and I was there and did
- 1:41:10the show and then paddled with Jimmy Carr and Attell.
- 1:41:13Speaker 2: Do you know how crazy it is that Kill Tony
- 1:41:15sells out Madison Square Garden two nights in a row?
- 1:41:19Speaker 1: It's crazy.
- 1:41:20Speaker 2: When I first did it with him, we did it
- 1:41:23in the fucking— the belly room at the store. And
- 1:41:27the only people in the audience were like comics. There
- 1:41:28was nobody in the audience. There was like 10 other people.
- 1:41:31Maybe dude.
- 1:41:32Speaker 1: I remember, excuse me. I was down here to do South.
- 1:41:36It was when I still lived in New York. I
- 1:41:38was down here to do South by Southwest and Tony
- 1:41:41hit me up and he goes, buddy, are you in
- 1:41:43town Monday?
- 1:41:44Speaker 2: I go, yeah. He goes, he did his voice. Yeah.
- 1:41:47Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:41:47Speaker 2: He goes, buddy.
- 1:41:48Speaker 1: He goes, he goes, come do kill Tony. Right. I go, okay.
- 1:41:52I hadn't seen him in years, you know? And the
- 1:41:56last I saw him, I did it in the belly room.
- 1:41:59Maybe the main room. I don't, you know, whatever. But
- 1:42:01it was at the Comedy Store.
- 1:42:03Speaker 3: Dude, I walked into the fucking Vulcan because it was
- 1:42:05before Mothership opened. I walked into the Vulcan. It was
- 1:42:09like fucking Thunderdome, dude.
- 1:42:11Speaker 1: It was two levels. People, like, you could feel the excitement. Dude,
- 1:42:18I walked in the green room. Tony goes, there he is.
- 1:42:21I go, What the fuck is going on? What is
- 1:42:26going on? I go, is it like this every week?
- 1:42:29He goes, it sells out in one minute.
- 1:42:32Speaker 2: I was like, what?
- 1:42:36Speaker 1: I go, did these people fly in? He's like, yeah.
- 1:42:38Speaker 2: I was like, dude, it's broken our ticket service multiple
- 1:42:42times where it's just the overwhelming demand, the people that
- 1:42:47are trying to get tickets versus the tickets that are available.
- 1:42:49It's so crazy. It crashes the system.
- 1:42:52Speaker 1: That's nuts.
- 1:42:52Speaker 2: We had to like revamp the system multiple times just
- 1:42:56to deal with it to kill Tony Sales.
- 1:42:57Speaker 1: That's fucking nuts.
- 1:42:59Speaker 2: It's nuts. Well, it's just because it's so good. It's
- 1:43:02that simple. And if you've gone, you want to go again.
- 1:43:05It's so fun.
- 1:43:06Speaker 3: It's– that moment, it was like– remember in Casino when
- 1:43:10Pesci goes out to Vegas for the first time and
- 1:43:14De Niro goes– and this is whatever Sharon Stone's character's
- 1:43:18name is. And then Pesci looks at Sharon Stone and
- 1:43:21he goes, holy shit, Ace, what the fuck you been
- 1:43:23doing out here?
- 1:43:24Speaker 1: It was that. It was like I saw that crowd.
- 1:43:26That crowd was Sharon Stone.
- 1:43:27Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:43:28Speaker 1: And Tony was De Niro. And I go, what the
- 1:43:30fuck you been doing out here, man?
- 1:43:31Speaker 2: Well, the Vulcan really opened up our eyes to the
- 1:43:34fact that we needed a club. And what happened was
- 1:43:38no one had done any stand-up at all for months.
- 1:43:41And then Tony and I did the Houston Improv, which
- 1:43:45was great. It was a lot of fun. We did
- 1:43:47a weekend. It was in the middle of the COVID.
- 1:43:49It was in July, and everyone was scared. And I
- 1:43:52did it, and it was a lot of fun. I
- 1:43:54hadn't done stand-up in months. It was so much fun.
- 1:43:57But then I started thinking, what if I get COVID
- 1:44:00and then give it to one of my fucking guests
- 1:44:01and kill them? It was back when people were really
- 1:44:04worried that COVID was going to kill you. I was like, oh, no,
- 1:44:06because I have these people that come in. Some of
- 1:44:08them are older. And I had this lady on who
- 1:44:11was a scientist, and she was older. And I was like,
- 1:44:13what if I gave her COVID and killed her? Because
- 1:44:16that was back in the day. That was also, but
- 1:44:17people were really convinced that you could be asymptomatic and
- 1:44:21still spread it, which turned out really what was going
- 1:44:24on was there was a lot of false positives for
- 1:44:26the PCR test. 80 plus percent false positives. And so
- 1:44:32I said, let me just take time off. I don't
- 1:44:34want to do that. It feels totally irresponsible just because
- 1:44:38I would want to get my comedy fix. Let me
- 1:44:40just ride this out. And then we wound up moving
- 1:44:42to Texas. And by the time we moved to Texas,
- 1:44:46it was around November. And Dave and I were doing
- 1:44:52these outdoor shows.
- 1:44:53Speaker 1: I remember that. Stubs, right? Yeah.
- 1:44:54Speaker 2: We were doing shows at Stubs, which was a lot
- 1:44:56of fun. But everybody had to be tested. People had
- 1:44:59to wait in line. It was a big deal. And
- 1:45:02a few people tested positive. We had to kick them out.
- 1:45:05Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:45:06Speaker 2: Then the Vulcan just started doing shows. Fuck your tests. Yeah.
- 1:45:11Let's just go back to the way it was. And
- 1:45:12this is in November. And Ron White went up and
- 1:45:16he hadn't gone up in like eight months. He hadn't
- 1:45:18done any stand-up in eight months. And he went on
- 1:45:20stage and the audience went fucking berserk. They went berserk.
- 1:45:24Like people were standing up. Yeah. And he murdered. I mean,
- 1:45:29Ron White just laid it down for 15 minutes.
- 1:45:32Speaker 1: I'm sure.
- 1:45:33Speaker 2: And then he grabs me by the shoulders off stage.
- 1:45:35He goes, whatever the fuck we have to do, we're
- 1:45:37going to keep doing this. He goes, you got to
- 1:45:39open up that club. And I was like, all right. Okay,
- 1:45:42we're going to open up a club. And that was
- 1:45:43when I decided, Mike, that's it. We're going to open
- 1:45:45up a club. And then I immediately started looking at
- 1:45:47real estate and immediately tried to find a place.
- 1:45:50Speaker 1: Wow. I didn't know that. I didn't know that that's
- 1:45:52how the whole.
- 1:45:52Speaker 2: That was it. Ron White grabbing me. Because Ron White
- 1:45:55is why I moved here in the first place. So...
- 1:45:58I knew Ron moved here in 2018, and me and
- 1:46:02Ron were talking on the phone. He was like, I
- 1:46:04fucking love it here. And he's telling me how great
- 1:46:07Austin was, and everything else was locked down. I was like, look,
- 1:46:10if I move to Austin, if no one's doing stand-up
- 1:46:12again ever, at least I can hang out with Ron. Sure.
- 1:46:15At least it'll be a comic that I can hang
- 1:46:17out with and live in a place where it's more
- 1:46:19relaxed and it's easier to get around. Sure. You don't
- 1:46:22have to wear a mask everywhere. It was like at
- 1:46:24least it was more chill here.
- 1:46:26Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:46:26Speaker 2: Even if we never do stand-up again. And so him
- 1:46:29doing that and just grabbing me and saying, we're going to,
- 1:46:32we got to fucking do this, whatever the fuck we
- 1:46:34have to do. That's what he said. Like he was
- 1:46:36just on fire coming off stage, just on fire and
- 1:46:39just grab my shoulders. And I was like, okay, we're
- 1:46:42doing it.
- 1:46:43Speaker 1: That's fucking great.
- 1:46:44Speaker 2: And that's when I did it. Cause I was always,
- 1:46:45we were talking about it. Like we should open up
- 1:46:47a club where, and I looked at a bunch of
- 1:46:49different places, but they kind of sucked and they were
- 1:46:51trying to fuck me. They were asking way too much
- 1:46:53money for these places. Like during the, In the beginning
- 1:46:56stages of the pandemic when everyone was moving here from California,
- 1:46:59everyone got crazy with real estate. They got really nutty.
- 1:47:01Speaker 1: Oh, it was bat shit.
- 1:47:03Speaker 2: They got really delusional. The prices went up like 100%
- 1:47:06in a lot of places.
- 1:47:07Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm going through it now because I bought a
- 1:47:10condo here and I'm trying to sell the condo and
- 1:47:12buy a house. And it's very tricky now because the
- 1:47:16market has shifted so much and value has.
- 1:47:19Speaker 2: There's way too many condos for sale.
- 1:47:21Speaker 1: Way too many. Way too many.
- 1:47:22Speaker 3: I'm worried that I'm going to end up buying this
- 1:47:24house and not be able to get rid of this
- 1:47:25goddamn condo.
- 1:47:26Speaker 2: You're going to have to keep the condo.
- 1:47:29Speaker 3: I don't have any need for it. I'm like, I
- 1:47:30don't know what I would do with it, you know?
- 1:47:32But I also don't want to live in this condo
- 1:47:34anymore because originally.
- 1:47:35Speaker 2: That's where you take sketchy women. Women that you think
- 1:47:40might rob you? Because I know you date a lot
- 1:47:42of sketchy gals. Take him to the condo. Have a
- 1:47:47house where it's calm and peaceful, a little bit off
- 1:47:50the track. Get a little yard. Get some peace and quiet.
- 1:47:54Speaker 1: Take her to the condo. She goes, why is there
- 1:47:56only an air mattress in here?
- 1:47:58Speaker 2: How come you only have four pairs of.
- 1:48:05Speaker 1: Underwear? It's not a bad point you make.
- 1:48:07Speaker 3: I've had a few people in my condo where I'm like,
- 1:48:09I don't know if this was a mistake.
- 1:48:12Speaker 1: Give this address away.
- 1:48:13Speaker 2: Once you have people showing up at your house, they're like, oh, no.
- 1:48:16Speaker 1: It's, oh, wait. You were just– you were talking about
- 1:48:22starting the club.
- 1:48:23Speaker 4: Oh, oh.
- 1:48:24Speaker 3: What's so weird is it's an odd like kind of
- 1:48:28full circle moment. But when I lived here in 2000,
- 1:48:33your club was the original Alamo.
- 1:48:35Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:48:36Speaker 3: And the Alamo Draft House– at that time was the
- 1:48:40only movie theater ever in the country that served food
- 1:48:44and alcohol during a movie. And I remember that being
- 1:48:50a place that I went to frequently because I thought
- 1:48:52it was so amazing that you could get.
- 1:48:53Speaker 1: Food during a movie and the kinds of movies they played.
- 1:48:58I loved.
- 1:48:59Speaker 3: And then on top of it, I was, I always
- 1:49:02saw that as the reason that I loved Austin. It
- 1:49:06was sort of just a, it was just sort of a, a,
- 1:49:08a symbol of why I loved Austin, the concept of
- 1:49:11it all. And it's so weird now that I've moved
- 1:49:13back after all these years that that's where the mothership is.
- 1:49:17And now that's my symbol for living in Austin and,
- 1:49:21and being a part of this club and, and, and
- 1:49:23that club be getting all these other places that we
- 1:49:26get to perform in the scene and all that stuff.
- 1:49:28It's a very weird, like kind of full circle thing.
- 1:49:30I didn't realize until right now, as we were talking about.
- 1:49:32Speaker 2: We need to have a birthday party for the building.
- 1:49:36The building turns 100 next year.
- 1:49:37Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 1:49:39Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to have a birthday party for the building.
- 1:49:41Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. You absolutely should. Yeah. Yeah.
- 1:49:44Speaker 2: We should do something.
- 1:49:45Speaker 1: A lot of history in that building.
- 1:49:47Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:49:48Speaker 1: A lot of cool shit.
- 1:49:48Speaker 2: You could feel it. I felt it when you never
- 1:49:52got to be here when it was bare bones, but
- 1:49:54when it was bare bones, when it was just the
- 1:49:56movie theater, before we did all the renovations and raised
- 1:49:59the ceiling or lowered the ceiling and raised the floor
- 1:50:03and changed it and made the tunnel and all the
- 1:50:05structure that we put in place. When we first got
- 1:50:08in there, like you could feel it. You could feel
- 1:50:10it like baked into the walls. I mean, Stevie Ray
- 1:50:12Vaughan performed there.
- 1:50:14Speaker 1: What was it before the Alamo?
- 1:50:16Speaker 2: It was a bunch of different things. So at one
- 1:50:18point in time, it was like a punk rock club.
- 1:50:22Speaker 1: Wow.
- 1:50:22Speaker 2: So like Black Flag performed there and Like, who's this?
- 1:50:26Speaker 4: Chili Peppers in 86.
- 1:50:27Speaker 2: Chili Peppers, 86.
- 1:50:29Speaker 1: So that's why all of those punk flyers are in
- 1:50:33the green room.
- 1:50:34Speaker 2: The green room is all flyers from people that performed
- 1:50:38at the club. Their shows. I didn't know that. Yeah.
- 1:50:41Speaker 1: I thought it was just a cool, like, decor thing.
- 1:50:44Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. Well, it's that, too.
- 1:50:45But it's also, look at it. He's got the sock
- 1:50:47over his cock. Raw butthole, right on our stage. Yeah,
- 1:50:51there you go. Yeah, all those things on the wall,
- 1:50:55all those different people. Wow. Willie Nelson, all those different
- 1:50:58people performed there. That was their flyer for the show
- 1:51:01that they did when they were at the club.
- 1:51:03Speaker 1: There's so many bands on that wall where I'm like,
- 1:51:06I love that band.
- 1:51:07Speaker 2: Butthole Surfers. Yeah, it's tons. So it was a punk
- 1:51:11rock band. It was a punk rock club. It was
- 1:51:13a rock and roll club. It was a pool hall
- 1:51:15for a while. It was a nudie movie theater. Yeah.
- 1:51:21Speaker 1: Amazing.
- 1:51:22Speaker 2: Yeah. And then obviously it became the Alamo. And then
- 1:51:25the Alamo went under, I think before the pandemic it
- 1:51:28went under. And then it was available, you know, like
- 1:51:33a year later. And I looked at it and I
- 1:51:34was like, meh. It's like too much work. And then
- 1:51:39that was from what year? 74. Wow.
- 1:51:43Speaker 1: So that's Fat Man.
- 1:51:44Speaker 2: Yep. That's what it used to look like.
- 1:51:47Speaker 1: Fuck, man. I mean, it looks different, obviously, but it
- 1:51:50doesn't look that different.
- 1:51:52Speaker 2: It looks a lot more narrow.
- 1:51:54Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:51:55Speaker 2: What I don't understand, like what happened? I wonder if
- 1:51:59it was two rooms back then. I don't know. It
- 1:52:04looks different. It looks very different in terms of, like,
- 1:52:06that looks more like it.
- 1:52:08Speaker 1: Right.
- 1:52:09Speaker 4: Not the same one.
- 1:52:10Speaker 2: Oh, different one. Yeah. The middle one looks like it.
- 1:52:16Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 1:52:18Speaker 2: But the middle one looks more like it. Go back
- 1:52:20to that again. Yeah, that looks more like the dimensions.
- 1:52:25Speaker 1: Fuck, man.
- 1:52:27Speaker 2: We fit 250 people in the big room. But I
- 1:52:31think we could fit a lot more if we have
- 1:52:33seating like the Comedy Works in Denver, which I think
- 1:52:36is the best seat. That's what it looked like when
- 1:52:38we first got there. When we first got there, it
- 1:52:40looked like that. And we walked in and we were like,
- 1:52:42holy shit. The stage was really high, obviously, because it
- 1:52:46was like movie theater.
- 1:52:47Speaker 1: Sure.
- 1:52:48Speaker 2: And the seating was at an angle, a very sharp angle,
- 1:52:52like a movie theater. And so we had to raise
- 1:52:56the floor up. So it was flat in the center
- 1:53:00and there's just a slight raise in the back. And
- 1:53:02then we kept those two balconies. Go back up to
- 1:53:04that picture right there. Those two balconies that we have, obviously,
- 1:53:08we have the green room balcony and then the VIP balcony,
- 1:53:10which is such a dope thing to have.
- 1:53:12Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:53:13Speaker 2: Because there's always friends that come by that want to
- 1:53:16come by and see the show. And you always have
- 1:53:1940 seats. You could always get 40 people up there.
- 1:53:23So there's always plenty of room.
- 1:53:24Speaker 1: Those balconies fit 40 people total?
- 1:53:25Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:53:25Speaker 1: Holy shit.
- 1:53:26Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:53:26Speaker 1: That's crazy.
- 1:53:27Speaker 2: We always can stuff plenty of people back up in there.
- 1:53:30Speaker 1: That's fucking, wow. I had no idea the building was
- 1:53:33as old as you just said it was. Yeah. And
- 1:53:35I had no idea all that other shit was. 1927.
- 1:53:38Is this still the main room or is this Little Boy?
- 1:53:40Speaker 4: No, that's Kansas City.
- 1:53:42Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
- 1:53:42Speaker 2: Sorry. Similar looking. But, you know, we tried to figure
- 1:53:46out how to do it. Do we do it just
- 1:53:49like initially we thought, well, maybe we should do it.
- 1:53:52just like this like have seating like movie theater seating
- 1:53:55and then we're like no we should probably like raise
- 1:53:59the floor up and make it flat in the front
- 1:54:01it would make more sense you know and then we
- 1:54:04had to figure out like what to do with the
- 1:54:06stage and then Louie gave me some really good advice
- 1:54:10we were going to keep the ceiling the way it
- 1:54:11was and Louie was like how can you lower it
- 1:54:14and I was like I think we can lower it
- 1:54:15like and still get some view out of the balcony
- 1:54:18so we had to figure out how to lower the
- 1:54:19ceiling just enough so and it made a difference And
- 1:54:22then he said lower the ceiling in the little boy too.
- 1:54:25And we did that. And then we also made the
- 1:54:27stage smaller in the little boy. This is all Louie's advice.
- 1:54:30And he was dead on. I was like, tell me
- 1:54:32what you think. I listened to everybody. Everybody had got
- 1:54:35a say in what to do, what to have. Like
- 1:54:39Brian Simpson, it was his idea to have the lights
- 1:54:42in the green room, the light that shows you. Someone's
- 1:54:45got the light in the big room. Someone's got the
- 1:54:47light in the little room. And then I think it
- 1:54:49was Tony's idea to put the timers, one or the other.
- 1:54:52Maybe it was Tony for the lights, Brian for the timer.
- 1:54:54I forget. But everybody had a little piece of the, like,
- 1:54:58I think it was Brian's idea to have monitors. It's
- 1:55:00like everybody got a say in how it's done. That's
- 1:55:03what it looked like when we first walked in. Now,
- 1:55:06what does it look like now? I never go in
- 1:55:08through the front.
- 1:55:08Speaker 1: I know.
- 1:55:09Speaker 2: Go to what it looks like now. See if you
- 1:55:15can find an image of the mothership.
- 1:55:16Speaker 1: It's been redone, obviously, but it looks similar enough that
- 1:55:19you can see.
- 1:55:20Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, you can see the bones.
- 1:55:21Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
- 1:55:22Speaker 2: I mean, it's essentially, it was set up perfectly for
- 1:55:24two rooms. There's no pictures of the UFO? That's kind
- 1:55:33of crazy. So we have a big UFO as you
- 1:55:35walk in.
- 1:55:36Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
- 1:55:36Speaker 2: There it is. That's the UFO. And it has a projector.
- 1:55:40So the UFO is a projector, and up on the screen,
- 1:55:42it projects all the people that are coming soon That's
- 1:55:45fucking cool. It's been amazing. We've been open for three
- 1:55:48years now, and it's been the most fun thing that
- 1:55:53I've ever been a part of.
- 1:55:54Speaker 1: It's hilarious, dude. I've walked under that projector a thousand times,
- 1:55:58and I never realized, or the UFO, I mean, and
- 1:56:00I never realized it was projecting shit onto a screen. Yeah,
- 1:56:02it's a projector. That's so funny.
- 1:56:05Speaker 2: We just wanted to make it cool. And it's also,
- 1:56:08I think it's a fire extinguisher. I think the center
- 1:56:10of it is a fire extinguisher. I think we had
- 1:56:11to have one, so we put it in the center
- 1:56:13of the UFO.
- 1:56:15Speaker 3: That same time I was talking about during South by
- 1:56:18Southwest and when I did kill Tony, it was me
- 1:56:22and Adam Ray.
- 1:56:23Speaker 1: We're on panel.
- 1:56:23Speaker 3: And the next day, Eric invited us over to see
- 1:56:27the club. It wasn't done yet, you know, but he
- 1:56:30walked us in.
- 1:56:31Speaker 1: I remember him walking me through Little Boy and being like,
- 1:56:35we're going to do this. We're going to do this.
- 1:56:37And I remember he goes, you're going to play here?
- 1:56:40And I go, I fucking hope so. I hope so.
- 1:56:45Speaker 3: But, yeah, it was wild seeing it, like, you know,
- 1:56:49in the construction phase and whatever and then seeing the
- 1:56:52final product and remembering, like, oh, I remember.
- 1:56:54Speaker 1: He told me they were going to change that.
- 1:56:56Speaker 2: It's been really fun.
- 1:56:57Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, it's, you know,
- 1:57:02I think few people are in a position to have
- 1:57:05created a club that can operate the way a club
- 1:57:08ideally should operate. And you're one of those people and
- 1:57:11you made it work.
- 1:57:12Speaker 2: Which is– Well, you have to do it not to
- 1:57:14make money. You have to– like my goal in the
- 1:57:16beginning was just break even. That was the goal. Like
- 1:57:19let's just break even. So the idea is everybody gets
- 1:57:22paid what they're supposed to get paid, particularly the comics
- 1:57:26get– that's what everybody is here to see. They're not
- 1:57:29there to buy drinks in an empty room. They're there
- 1:57:32to see the comics. So the comics should get the
- 1:57:33most money. That's what I used to always think when
- 1:57:37I'd go to other clubs. I'd be like, this is crazy.
- 1:57:40But I would always tell comedians, be nice to club
- 1:57:42owners because you don't want to be one. You don't
- 1:57:44want to be the guy that has to run these
- 1:57:47fucking places and deal with these maniacs that come in,
- 1:57:50and especially some of the nuttier ones on the road.
- 1:57:54Can you imagine if you had to run the Funny
- 1:57:56Bone in Columbus, Ohio?
- 1:57:57Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:57:59Speaker 2: Fucking animals that show up and miss their flights. They
- 1:58:04do ecstasy the night before. They can't read. Yeah.
- 1:58:08Speaker 1: Yeah. It's 830, the headline. not there yet like what
- 1:58:11the he's trying to score coke yeah it's it's i
- 1:58:15i i.
- 1:58:16Speaker 3: Always i always said that too i was like i
- 1:58:19was like i would never want to be in a
- 1:58:21position where i have to deal with comics from that
- 1:58:25side of.
- 1:58:25Speaker 2: It especially comics coming up There's, like, most established comedians,
- 1:58:31once you've been doing it a long time, you have
- 1:58:33a career, you're, like, you're reliable. You know? You know
- 1:58:37what I'm saying?
- 1:58:38Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 1:58:38Speaker 2: Like, if you book, you know, fill in the blank.
- 1:58:42Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 1:58:43Speaker 2: You know, whoever it is, is, like, national headliner. They're
- 1:58:46going to show up. Yeah. You know?
- 1:58:48Speaker 1: Well, also, too, like, the profile, and correct me if
- 1:58:53I'm wrong, but the profile that you were able to
- 1:58:55bring to the club, Probably helped you circumvent some of
- 1:59:00the horseshit that club owners in Idaho have to deal with,
- 1:59:05with agents and all that shit, where it's like, hey, man, sorry,
- 1:59:09there's an improv there, so... We can't take our guy
- 1:59:12out of the improv or whatever. And now you're– there's
- 1:59:14a whole other battle now that you have to do. Well,
- 1:59:16there's that.
- 1:59:17Speaker 2: If you pay people more, they'll go to your place.
- 1:59:21That's one thing I found out. And it pisses off
- 1:59:23the other clubs. But look, that's not my fault. Like
- 1:59:27this is– I am a comedian. I made a living
- 1:59:30doing this for a long time and I know the
- 1:59:32value of the comedian. I know the value of the comic.
- 1:59:35The comic should be getting most of the money. I
- 1:59:38don't deserve most of the money. We can make money.
- 1:59:40We're going to make money on 20% of the ticket
- 1:59:43sales and the liquor and all that jazz. We'll make
- 1:59:46plenty of money. Let's not be greedy. Let's just make
- 1:59:49an awesome environment. And that's what we wanted to do.
- 1:59:52So the goal was never to make money. So most people,
- 1:59:54when they start a business, their goal is to try
- 1:59:55to make money. And this was a conscious decision to
- 1:59:59just not lose money. Just make it cool.
- 2:00:02Speaker 3: It's again– yeah, you were in a very advantageous position
- 2:00:10to make it the right way.
- 2:00:11Speaker 2: It was also like I kind of had to do
- 2:00:13it that way because I had the resources and it
- 2:00:16was like, look, you're supposed to do the right thing.
- 2:00:18This is the thing you should do. What would you
- 2:00:20like someone that has your kind of money to do?
- 2:00:24I would like someone to make an awesome club for comics.
- 2:00:27Like you're, you're a comic, you know how important it is. Make, make,
- 2:00:30make the fucking, the best creative environment, welcoming everybody, pump
- 2:00:35everybody up.
- 2:00:36Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:00:37Speaker 2: That's what you should do. Dude.
- 2:00:38Speaker 1: It's, it's, it's funny. Cause I always say if you're, if,
- 2:00:43and you did this as a comic, right. I always
- 2:00:45say with, with a movie star, right.
- 2:00:48Speaker 3: Somebody who's got, you know, real movie star bank, right.
- 2:00:53I'm just like, man, why the fuck don't more of
- 2:00:57these guys that have endless cash start creating film situations
- 2:01:03that they want to be a part of? I don't
- 2:01:06mean like we're going to do the next blockbuster thing
- 2:01:08or we've got a franchise or whatever. It's like, why
- 2:01:12don't you take 10 million bucks and make the fucking
- 2:01:18art fucking movie with all of your friends that you
- 2:01:21always wanted to make?
- 2:01:22Speaker 1: Because who cares? You will break even. You will break even,
- 2:01:28at the very least.
- 2:01:29Speaker 3: I never, ever, ever understood why more people in that
- 2:01:34position don't do it.
- 2:01:35Speaker 1: I don't get it. Because rock stars do it all
- 2:01:37the time.
- 2:01:37Speaker 3: Rock stars start a little label, and they start putting
- 2:01:39on other bands that they love, and they do passion
- 2:01:42projects because they want to work with their friends.
- 2:01:45Speaker 2: I've never.
- 2:01:47Speaker 3: Maybe not never, but it's very rare that you ever
- 2:01:49see a movie star do that.
- 2:01:50Speaker 1: And I'm like, why not do it?
- 2:01:52Speaker 3: For years, American Psycho was the big one, the Bret
- 2:01:56Easton Ellis novel. Why haven't they made an accurate adaptation?
- 2:02:00Speaker 1: Well, the studios don't want to touch it because it's
- 2:02:02too violent. It's like somebody– With $ 500 million, who's a
- 2:02:08movie star, fucking go, I'm going to do it. And
- 2:02:11I'm going to do it the way it's supposed to
- 2:02:13be done. And it's going to work because that's what
- 2:02:15people want to see. And fuck it, man. Like, I just,
- 2:02:18I don't get it.
- 2:02:19Speaker 2: Do you think that the Christian Bale version was not accurate?
- 2:02:23Speaker 1: I like the Christian Bale version a lot, but it
- 2:02:26is not the book. The book is fucking dark. It's brutal. Yeah.
- 2:02:32There's shit in that book. I was reading that book
- 2:02:36and I was like, Bret Easton Ellis has murdered somebody.
- 2:02:41There are details in here where I was like, I
- 2:02:43don't understand how you would know this.
- 2:02:46Speaker 2: There's one of the darkest scenes in that book is
- 2:02:48when he goes to get rid of the body and
- 2:02:51the real estate guy sees him in the room because
- 2:02:55they're selling the apartment. And so he realizes the real
- 2:02:58estate guy has already gotten rid of the body. Yeah.
- 2:03:00And they look at each other and he just leaves.
- 2:03:02Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:03:02Speaker 2: And you're like, oh, God.
- 2:03:04Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:03:05Speaker 3: And there was, by the way, I was just joking
- 2:03:07about Bredy Stannis.
- 2:03:08Speaker 1: I don't think he's murdered somebody. I feel like we
- 2:03:10have to say that.
- 2:03:11Speaker 2: It's very important to clarify.
- 2:03:12Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I was just joking.
- 2:03:13Speaker 2: Just humor.
- 2:03:16Speaker 1: But the thing the book did, and they cut a
- 2:03:19major scene out of the movie.
- 2:03:21Speaker 3: It's the one extra scene on the Blu-ray. And I
- 2:03:25don't understand why they deleted it. but there's a scene
- 2:03:28in the movie where his friend says they're at the
- 2:03:30club at the beginning. And his friend goes, I'm out
- 2:03:33of here. And the guy climbs up like these, like
- 2:03:37rafters or whatever, and crawls into like a fan vent
- 2:03:41in the club. And you never see him ever again.
- 2:03:44And that's the part in the book that makes you go.
- 2:03:47Speaker 1: Is this all in this fucking guy's head?
- 2:03:49Speaker 3: What he just described happening is nuts. And this guy
- 2:03:54is now gone and nobody knows where he is. And
- 2:03:56I'm like, Is it– that's such a key scene and
- 2:04:00they cut it out of the movie. And so whatever.
- 2:04:02They're remaking it now again.
- 2:04:03Speaker 2: Oh, they are?
- 2:04:04Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:04:05Speaker 2: Who's going to be American Psycho?
- 2:04:07Speaker 3: I think maybe Adam Driver is connected to it.
- 2:04:11Speaker 2: I think.
- 2:04:12Speaker 4: Maybe.
- 2:04:12Speaker 2: He'd be good at that. He's got a lot of
- 2:04:14Psycho behind his eyes.
- 2:04:16Speaker 3: But The Shards is the new Bret Easton Ellis adaptation
- 2:04:20on Fox.
- 2:04:20Speaker 2: What is it?
- 2:04:22Speaker 1: It's his last novel and it's huge.
- 2:04:25Speaker 3: It's a, it's a fictional autobiography where he, the main
- 2:04:29character is him as a teenager and there's a serial
- 2:04:32killer loose and all these murderers are happening. They're targeting teenagers,
- 2:04:38these brutal fucking murders. And there's a cult happening that's
- 2:04:44reminiscent of the Manson cult. And then he's also coming
- 2:04:47of age and realizing he's gay and like, as he's
- 2:04:50trying to deal with, The fact that this murder thing
- 2:04:53is happening and.
- 2:04:54Speaker 1: He thinks he knows who it is. It's a wild story.
- 2:04:58Speaker 3: And he co-created it with Ryan Murphy, the TV show,
- 2:05:01the adaptation. It's really fucking good so far.
- 2:05:05Speaker 2: Really good. So it's a period piece. Yeah.
- 2:05:07Speaker 1: It takes place in like 83 or 84.
- 2:05:09Speaker 2: You know how I could tell? The Ferrari. Yeah. Old Ferrari. Oh, wow.
- 2:05:15Speaker 1: Wow.
- 2:05:18Speaker 3: But it's one of the adaptations where I was like,
- 2:05:20I feel like they're really capturing a lot of what's
- 2:05:22actually in the book.
- 2:05:24Speaker 1: Because Less Than Zero was a cool movie, but it's
- 2:05:26not the book. Rules of Attraction is a great movie.
- 2:05:29And he said that was the closest thing that anybody
- 2:05:32had gotten.
- 2:05:33Speaker 2: To one of his books. American Psycho would be very
- 2:05:36hard to capture the darkness of it. Because you're also
- 2:05:40capturing this guy's internal dialogue, which is some of it.
- 2:05:44Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:05:45Speaker 2: It's dark. So what would you do? Would you have
- 2:05:47a guy narrate the internal dialogue? You're missing something.
- 2:05:50Speaker 1: Well, they did that with Bale. He narrates the entire thing.
- 2:05:53Speaker 2: I know, but you're missing something there.
- 2:05:54Speaker 1: It's very funny. How do you mean?
- 2:05:57Speaker 2: Because I think instead of hearing it, when you're reading
- 2:06:02the internal dialogue, you understand that there's no– you don't
- 2:06:06hear the voices. Right. You know what I mean? Like
- 2:06:08this guy's got some fucking creepy shit going on in
- 2:06:11his head. I mean he's a fucking sociopath, psychopathic murderer.
- 2:06:17It's like you get into his head in this way
- 2:06:19that I don't think you ever do in a movie.
- 2:06:22Like you're in his head when you're reading it because
- 2:06:24you're imagining it all happening in his head. You're imagining
- 2:06:28how he's viewing like the real estate scene. Like he's
- 2:06:31locking eyes, this real estate guy. There's a creepiness to
- 2:06:35it that's like, ooh.
- 2:06:36Speaker 3: He plays– the best scene acting-wise, in my opinion, in
- 2:06:41that movie is when they're comparing the business cards. And
- 2:06:47they're like one-upping each other. Look at mine, man. It's
- 2:06:49bone white and whatever. And Christian Bale starts sweating. And
- 2:06:54he gets like hoarse and he's like, it's nice.
- 2:06:57Speaker 1: It's nice.
- 2:06:59Speaker 3: Because it's this fucking pissing contest where it's the best
- 2:07:01business card.
- 2:07:02Speaker 2: And he's so upset that he doesn't have the best
- 2:07:04business card.
- 2:07:04Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:07:05Speaker 2: That he wants to kill that guy.
- 2:07:06Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:07:06Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:07:07Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:07:09Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:07:09Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly.
- 2:07:11Speaker 2: I'm listening to this podcast about Luigi, the guy who
- 2:07:15murdered the health care executive. It's a very, very interesting podcast.
- 2:07:21You know, it details how they caught him, the whole deal.
- 2:07:23But one of the things they brought up was one
- 2:07:25of the first things they thought of after that guy
- 2:07:27got assassinated was probably somebody he worked with. Really? Yeah.
- 2:07:33They had to find out whether or not someone had
- 2:07:36some sort of a grudge. Someone got recently fired. Because
- 2:07:40when people get murdered like that, you oftentimes think it
- 2:07:43could be a coworker. I have a former coworker.
- 2:07:47Speaker 1: I have a question for you about Luigi. I'm glad
- 2:07:50you brought it up. I'm so sorry I have to
- 2:07:52pee really bad.
- 2:07:53Speaker 2: Why don't you go pee really bad?
- 2:07:54Speaker 1: I'm going to pee really fast. I'll be back.
- 2:07:57Speaker 2: Question about Luigi.
- 2:07:59Speaker 1: My fucking manager does it. Everybody does it. It's really
- 2:08:02fucking annoying.
- 2:08:03Speaker 2: Sorry, Joe. Is it more annoying than boiling your own coffee?
- 2:08:07Speaker 1: No, nothing's more annoying than that.
- 2:08:10Speaker 2: Turning on the stove, filling the pot. When does it end?
- 2:08:17When does it end? What were we– Luigi. Luigi. Yeah.
- 2:08:21Speaker 1: This is what I wanted to ask you because there were.
- 2:08:23Speaker 2: Jamie has a theory.
- 2:08:25Speaker 1: Well, there were all the– Okay.
- 2:08:26Speaker 2: Not publicly.
- 2:08:27Speaker 3: There were all the people– Luigi sparked that whole debate
- 2:08:32about justified violence or whatever, which I thought was bullshit.
- 2:08:38Speaker 1: But everybody that was rah-rah-ing Luigi going, he's a hero
- 2:08:42and how many people is this healthcare guy killed and
- 2:08:44all that bullshit– I wonder now what everybody's saying about
- 2:08:47the fact that Luigi is doing the insanity plea.
- 2:08:50Speaker 3: And it's like, well, he didn't really stick to his
- 2:08:52fucking— I mean, if that was his thing and.
- 2:08:54Speaker 1: He was going to be the big crusader, for him
- 2:08:56to now.
- 2:08:56Speaker 2: Go— Yeah, but he's just playing the legal system. I mean,
- 2:09:00that's the smart move. Play the insanity.
- 2:09:02Speaker 3: Well, it's the smart move if you're not— But also,
- 2:09:07is it the smart move you're trying to— I know it's
- 2:09:09the smart move. I'm saying if you're going to go
- 2:09:11out there and go, I did this because it was
- 2:09:13justice and whatever, and then go, oh, wait, actually.
- 2:09:16Speaker 1: I was a little crazy.
- 2:09:17Speaker 2: But here's the point. If you did shoot a man
- 2:09:21who had nothing to do with you because you thought
- 2:09:23it was justice because he was a health care executive,
- 2:09:26I don't know how he picked that guy. I don't
- 2:09:27know the details of what that guy has done. Was
- 2:09:31he particularly bad, the guy he killed?
- 2:09:33Speaker 1: I think he was a CEO. No. It was definitely
- 2:09:37targeted that this man is responsible for decisions made that
- 2:09:41killed people.
- 2:09:42Speaker 2: Was he the CEO, Jamie, of UnitedHealthcare? Is that what
- 2:09:46he was? So if you think that you should go
- 2:09:51murder somebody like that, you're probably mentally ill. If you
- 2:09:56think that that kind of violence is justified— The problem
- 2:10:00that a lot of young people are having right now
- 2:10:02and a lot of people that agree with what Luigi
- 2:10:05did and they celebrated it is because everyone knows that
- 2:10:10the system is rigged and no one is doing anything
- 2:10:13to change it. And this is what drives people fucking crazy.
- 2:10:18And their whole business model is to deny as many
- 2:10:23claims as possible even if they know that your claims
- 2:10:26are justified because they want to make money. So they're
- 2:10:29really in the making money business and they're pretending they're
- 2:10:33in the we're going to take care of you and
- 2:10:35give you insurance business.
- 2:10:36Speaker 1: Yes.
- 2:10:37Speaker 2: So they're not really in that business.
- 2:10:38Speaker 1: Yes.
- 2:10:38Speaker 2: They're in the business of making the most amount of money.
- 2:10:41If they can fuck 10 percent of the people over
- 2:10:44or 20 percent of the people over, that's 20 percent
- 2:10:46more money. And that's how they look at it. And
- 2:10:49that drives everyone nuts and rightly so. And if they
- 2:10:52don't fucking correct that, people don't have a whole lot
- 2:10:56of options as to how to lash out and how
- 2:11:00to get back. And especially if like, let's say it's
- 2:11:03your wife. Let's say your wife gets injured or gets
- 2:11:08a disease or something and they can treat her and
- 2:11:10they deny the claim. Or maybe she needs a surgery,
- 2:11:13some crazy surgery. And they deny the claim and it
- 2:11:15bankrupts you and she dies. You want to murder somebody,
- 2:11:19and it makes sense because you're paying for this fucking
- 2:11:22insurance all this time thinking that you're insured if something
- 2:11:25goes wrong. That's the whole reason why you give them money.
- 2:11:27You don't give them money for freebies. It's not for
- 2:11:30no reason. It's not because you like them. You want
- 2:11:32UnitedHealthcare to have a yacht.
- 2:11:34Speaker 1: No.
- 2:11:35Speaker 2: You give them the money because it's supposed to be
- 2:11:37an agreement.
- 2:11:37Speaker 1: I agree with that completely.
- 2:11:39Speaker 3: I have no beef with the concept behind– His his motivations.
- 2:11:45Speaker 1: For hatred of of a health care CEO. I have
- 2:11:47no problem with that. My question is, is it is
- 2:11:53it does it take away from does it take away
- 2:11:56from the people that were rah rahing him for him
- 2:11:59to now go? Oh, it's just crazy. Sorry.
- 2:12:01Speaker 2: I don't think it does.
- 2:12:02Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
- 2:12:03Speaker 2: I don't think it does.
- 2:12:03Speaker 1: No.
- 2:12:04Speaker 2: It's trying to not go to jail. And a lot
- 2:12:05of those people think you shouldn't go to jail. I
- 2:12:08think you should go to jail. I don't think you
- 2:12:09should be able to be walking up to people on
- 2:12:11the fucking street and murdering them. But I can understand
- 2:12:14where your anger comes from. I get it. I really do.
- 2:12:18And there's a thing about capitalism, right? There's a thing
- 2:12:24about corporations in particular that you're beholden to your shareholders.
- 2:12:30You have to make more money every quarter. That alone,
- 2:12:34that motivation alone it motivates sociopathic behavior. The people that
- 2:12:39are going to be the most successful are the ones
- 2:12:42who are going to be the most ruthless and they're
- 2:12:44going to squeeze the most money possible without crushing the
- 2:12:48company's reputation. And that's their goal. And in the healthcare market,
- 2:12:52the problem is like, what are your options? There's no
- 2:12:56one amazing option where they always take care of everybody
- 2:12:59and it's ethical capitalism. They're just trying to Look, we
- 2:13:03make plenty of money giving people real insurance and really
- 2:13:06taking care of them and really paying for it. And
- 2:13:08so let's make less money, but let's make everybody healthier.
- 2:13:11Nobody does that.
- 2:13:12Speaker 1: Nobody.
- 2:13:13Speaker 2: So your options, if you have to get insurance, are
- 2:13:15very limited. You're just giving money to psychos. So which
- 2:13:19psycho gets my money? Which psycho that doesn't give a
- 2:13:21fuck about me or my family or anybody I love
- 2:13:24if they get hurt or sick?
- 2:13:27Speaker 3: Every year, every year that I don't do a writing gig.
- 2:13:32On a TV show, which is not every year. I
- 2:13:35don't do it frequently. I do it sometimes. But every
- 2:13:39year I don't do a writing gig on a TV
- 2:13:41show or I don't act enough to clear SAG insurance.
- 2:13:46Speaker 1: I have to make a decision.
- 2:13:48Speaker 3: Is this worth $ 600 a month for fucking health insurance?
- 2:13:52Speaker 2: Is it? I don't know.
- 2:13:53Speaker 1: I don't know that it is. Especially now with.
- 2:13:55Speaker 2: Just imagine how angry you would be if you paid
- 2:13:57all that money and then you broke your ankle or
- 2:13:59something like that and they denied you.
- 2:14:01Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 2:14:01Speaker 2: You're like, what? Yeah.
- 2:14:02Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 2:14:03Speaker 2: And this is why people cheer about this Luigi guy.
- 2:14:07There are a ton of stories of people who had
- 2:14:11treatable illnesses and they were denied coverage. They had surgeries
- 2:14:16that could have been done to save them. They were
- 2:14:18denied coverage. There's a ton of stories like that.
- 2:14:21Speaker 1: It's a dirty fucking game. It's a dirty fucking game.
- 2:14:24Speaker 2: And it's not the game they're pretending it is. They're
- 2:14:26pretending the game is we're going to help take care
- 2:14:28of you. You're going to have a safety net. So
- 2:14:31you pay a little bit of money and hopefully nothing happens.
- 2:14:33You never need us. And that's our gamble. Our gamble
- 2:14:37is if you do need us, you're going to get
- 2:14:40more value out of it than you put into it.
- 2:14:42Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:14:42Speaker 2: And they don't want that.
- 2:14:43Speaker 3: Health insurance has become like the protection plan at Best
- 2:14:47Buy when you buy a TV.
- 2:14:50Speaker 1: You want the two-year protection plan in case anything? No.
- 2:14:53I don't fucking know because no.
- 2:14:55Speaker 2: Well, some places have a good protection plan though. They
- 2:14:57just give you a new TV. Healthcare is not even that.
- 2:15:01It's not even that. It's worse. It's worse than Best Buy.
- 2:15:05Speaker 1: I don't know why that made me laugh. You just went, well,
- 2:15:08some places have a good protection plan.
- 2:15:10Speaker 2: They do. Some places, you bring them the computer, they
- 2:15:13give you a brand new one. This thing sucks.
- 2:15:14Speaker 1: It broke. Yeah.
- 2:15:15Speaker 2: I go, okay, hold on. File out this form. We'll
- 2:15:19get you another one.
- 2:15:20Speaker 3: Every time I've tried to utilize it, I bring it
- 2:15:22in and they go, oh, well, actually– Oh, really?
- 2:15:25Speaker 1: Yeah, this doesn't, yeah. The screen's cracked. That's not really
- 2:15:28part of it.
- 2:15:29Speaker 2: Well, you probably broke it.
- 2:15:29Speaker 1: What the fuck?
- 2:15:30Speaker 2: You probably did something stupid.
- 2:15:32Speaker 1: What'd you do?
- 2:15:32Speaker 2: It's probably your fault.
- 2:15:34Speaker 3: I'd probably throw it across the room in a fit
- 2:15:36of rage because I had to boil water in the morning. But,
- 2:15:39you know, it's a dire, you know, when the Neiman
- 2:15:46Marcus gang thing was happening where these kids were running
- 2:15:48into Neiman Marcus and stealing shit, which, again, I don't
- 2:15:52think is an okay thing to do, but you know,
- 2:15:55like my mom, I remember was being like, can you
- 2:15:57believe these kids are, I go, mom, they just told
- 2:15:59an entire generation of kids they'll never own land.
- 2:16:02Speaker 1: Right. They're fucking hopeless. Yeah. They're hopeless. Like, what do you, what,
- 2:16:07where does your head even go? Where's your, I have a,
- 2:16:11In my act, I have a line. It's not even
- 2:16:14a joke. I just go, where are the Gen Zs?
- 2:16:16And they clap. And I go, you'll never own land.
- 2:16:18And it gets a huge laugh because it's so true.
- 2:16:21Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy?
- 2:16:22Speaker 1: And it's like, it's fucked up.
- 2:16:24Speaker 2: And then they hear that private equity companies are buying
- 2:16:26up houses so they could lease them out. And so
- 2:16:29they'll own all the houses. Like, fucking what?
- 2:16:33Speaker 1: And the parking lots.
- 2:16:34Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:16:35Speaker 1: They're buying up all the fucking parking lots. You can't
- 2:16:37park anywhere for free or for cheap. It's fucking crazy, man.
- 2:16:44We are living in a rent-to-live culture anymore.
- 2:16:47Speaker 2: Well, it's just about– it's, again, what we were talking about,
- 2:16:50about maximizing the amount of money you could squeeze out
- 2:16:52of people. And that's their business. And it doesn't have
- 2:16:56to be like that. But it does have to be
- 2:16:58like that if you're public. It's almost like we're better
- 2:17:00off with a bunch of private corporations– And if you're private,
- 2:17:04you can do whatever you want. Like there's private– like look.
- 2:17:07You could decide. I'm going to do– I'm going to
- 2:17:10give X amount of my profits to this. I'm going
- 2:17:12to give Y to that. I'm going to do whatever
- 2:17:15I want because it's my money. But as soon as
- 2:17:17you have shareholders– As soon as you take that IPO money, ooh, baby,
- 2:17:23that's a big windfall, though. You got all this money,
- 2:17:25all this stock, all this capital has been invested in
- 2:17:27your business. Your business is going to grow, and the
- 2:17:28business does grow. So do your fucking problems.
- 2:17:32Speaker 1: They've ruined— shareholders have ruined— I' m not.
- 2:17:35Speaker 3: Saying shareholders inherently are evil, but the board of directors
- 2:17:38and shareholders and all that shit, they.
- 2:17:40Speaker 1: Have ruined everything. They've ruined everything.
- 2:17:42Speaker 3: It's like everybody goes, why did the last three Star
- 2:17:45Wars movies suck? Kathleen Kennedy came out and said, we
- 2:17:48were met with demands. by the shareholders to rush the
- 2:17:51fucking sequels out, and we couldn't make the movies we
- 2:17:54wanted to make.
- 2:17:55Speaker 2: So that's how— Imagine if they did that to Jim Cameron.
- 2:17:59You can't do that. You can't rush that guy. Imagine
- 2:18:03if you rushed Avatar. Fuck you. Fuck you. That movie
- 2:18:09takes forever to make. That's why it's awesome. There's certain
- 2:18:12things that you can't do just for money. And health
- 2:18:17care should be one of them. It should be one
- 2:18:18of them.
- 2:18:19Speaker 1: Well, you know what? And I don't say this to
- 2:18:23ball wash you in any way.
- 2:18:26Speaker 3: But you just said it 10 minutes ago about the club.
- 2:18:31And for all the criticisms that people can level at you,
- 2:18:34whatever the fuck they want to say, whatever, it's like, hey, man,
- 2:18:37here's a guy I know that has a lot of
- 2:18:39money that started something that helps other people in the
- 2:18:42industry he works in and said, I'm not worried about
- 2:18:45making money.
- 2:18:45Speaker 1: I'm worried about breaking even.
- 2:18:47Speaker 3: And I want the people that I'm working at my
- 2:18:49club to benefit.
- 2:18:51Speaker 1: You actually did it. You actually did the thing that
- 2:18:54we're complaining that other people don't do.
- 2:18:56Speaker 3: You actually did the thing where you said, I am
- 2:18:59not going to try to turn massive profits off of
- 2:19:01this club. What I'm going to try to do is
- 2:19:03create an environment where people can make what they deserve
- 2:19:06to make. That's fucking pretty awesome and pretty crazy.
- 2:19:09Speaker 2: Well, the thing is anybody can do that that's successful already. Yeah.
- 2:19:14You could all choose to run a business that way.
- 2:19:17And a lot of people do. I'm not unique in
- 2:19:19that way. There's a lot of like really ethical, like moral,
- 2:19:22happy people. Sure. And you make a happier environment too.
- 2:19:25That's the other thing. Like the environment, the club is
- 2:19:28very happy. Everybody gets paid really well. Everybody's making money.
- 2:19:31The waitresses, waiters are all making money. Everybody's happy.
- 2:19:34Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:19:34Speaker 2: That's beautiful. You go to a place where people are
- 2:19:36happy to be there. That's what you want. You don't
- 2:19:39want to go to a place where you're making maximum
- 2:19:42profits and everybody is in hell. And that's a lot
- 2:19:45of people that work in corporations, right? You're working way
- 2:19:48more hours than you should. You never see your kids.
- 2:19:50You're constantly fucking stressed out. Your cortisol is through the roof.
- 2:19:54You're about to have a fucking heart attack. But you
- 2:19:56bought a house in the Hamptons.
- 2:19:58Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:19:58Speaker 2: Look at that. I got a $ 15 million house overlooking
- 2:20:02the Bay. How about that? You fucking win. I got
- 2:20:05the new Ferrari. You want to see it? Yeah. And meanwhile,
- 2:20:07you're dying.
- 2:20:08Speaker 1: Yeah. Right.
- 2:20:09Speaker 2: But that's, that's the environment of just chasing money. I
- 2:20:13think you can make plenty of money. I mean, obviously
- 2:20:15I'm in an unusual situation, but I think most business
- 2:20:20owners that do well, once you're doing well, what is enough?
- 2:20:25Like it's– just make it better for everybody. What's enough?
- 2:20:30What's enough money? What's enough– if you're running a corporation,
- 2:20:34is it really good to cut back on the ingredients
- 2:20:37and fuck people over? I was seeing this thing about
- 2:20:40powdered sugar. Some guy went to a grocery store and
- 2:20:43he took all these bags of two-pound bags of powdered
- 2:20:46sugar and he weighed them. They're like 1.3 pounds, 1.2 pounds, 1.27.
- 2:20:52They're just fucking you. You're telling me that's not on purpose?
- 2:20:56Your machines are so off that it doesn't know what
- 2:20:59two pounds are?
- 2:21:00Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:21:00Speaker 2: But this is this mentality of just squeeze the most.
- 2:21:04Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:21:05Speaker 2: Squeeze the most. I don't think you have to do that.
- 2:21:09I think if your business is successful, just– it should
- 2:21:11be– like– You're good. You're good. Let's keep the ball rolling.
- 2:21:16Don't try to just keep making the most money possible
- 2:21:19every quarter. And that's what they do in corporations because
- 2:21:23they have to. If you don't, you're a bad CEO.
- 2:21:26You'll get kicked out. Like, hey, good news, guys. We
- 2:21:29made the same amount of money this month as we
- 2:21:32did last month. Like, what?
- 2:21:34Speaker 1: This guy sucks. This guy fucking sucks.
- 2:21:37Speaker 2: Where's my return?
- 2:21:38Speaker 1: We're going to vote him out.
- 2:21:40Speaker 2: And then you get a board meeting together and people complain.
- 2:21:44You have to do that. That's their job.
- 2:21:46Speaker 3: Yeah, ideally what should happen is you say, hey, guys,
- 2:21:50we made more money this month than we did last month.
- 2:21:53But the reason we made more money is because we
- 2:21:55made a better product. That brought in even more customers,
- 2:21:59and it was beneficial to everybody.
- 2:22:01Speaker 1: Right. And it's not that.
- 2:22:02Speaker 2: It's not we squeezed the same amount of customers out
- 2:22:05of more money.
- 2:22:06Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:22:07Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:22:07Speaker 1: It's the fucking potato chip thing.
- 2:22:09Speaker 2: Well, it's the other thing. You know this avocado oil
- 2:22:11scandal that's going on right now? Mm-hmm. So all these
- 2:22:14people that are buying things made with avocado oil, they think, oh,
- 2:22:17this is going to be super healthy. Turns out a
- 2:22:20lot of these corporations are fucking you over, and they're
- 2:22:23using seed oils and fucking safflower oil and rapeseed oil,
- 2:22:29all these different oils, and they're pretending that it's avocado oil.
- 2:22:34Speaker 1: I watched a thing.
- 2:22:35Speaker 3: About food where they talked about– by the way, what
- 2:22:38I meant by the potato chip thing was, We were
- 2:22:41just talking about this in the lobby before we started recording.
- 2:22:44When you buy a bag of potato chips now and
- 2:22:46it's half full and it's all air.
- 2:22:49Speaker 1: And, of course, the excuse is, well, no, that's so
- 2:22:52it protects your chips. Get the fuck out of here.
- 2:22:55Fuck off.
- 2:22:55Speaker 2: It's bullshit. Protecting my chips.
- 2:22:57Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:22:57Speaker 2: Don't crush the chips, you fucking idiot. Yeah.
- 2:23:01Speaker 1: Maybe pack the chips and ship them properly. No, no,
- 2:23:04we can't do that.
- 2:23:05Speaker 2: Have you ever had those Vandy chips?
- 2:23:07Speaker 1: No, what's Vantage?
- 2:23:09Speaker 2: Oh, they're chips made with beef tallow.
- 2:23:12Speaker 1: Okay.
- 2:23:12Speaker 2: They're just cooked in beef tallow. It's just beef tallow
- 2:23:15and salt and potato chips. They're the best potato chips
- 2:23:17you've ever eaten in your fucking life.
- 2:23:19Speaker 1: Where do you get them?
- 2:23:20Speaker 2: You can buy them online. I buy them online.
- 2:23:22Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of these.
- 2:23:23Speaker 2: They're so legit, dude. If I want potato chips, oh,
- 2:23:27they're so good. And you don't overeat them. It's crazy.
- 2:23:30Like when it's real food, you eat enough.
- 2:23:32Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:23:33Speaker 2: You know, especially they're like. soaked in beef tallow they're
- 2:23:36so rich and fat yeah it's actually probably good for.
- 2:23:39Speaker 3: You yeah yeah that's that's the thing most of these
- 2:23:42quality food products that we want to buy and and
- 2:23:45enjoy now you have to buy them online you can't
- 2:23:47get them in fucking stores you can.
- 2:23:49Speaker 2: Get them in some stores but the problem is they
- 2:23:51get bought out you know so say a company comes
- 2:23:54along and you're making something that has like really healthy
- 2:23:56ingredients and people really get into it and then Pepsi
- 2:23:59buys you.
- 2:24:00Speaker 1: Exactly.
- 2:24:00Speaker 2: Some fucking Kellogg's buys you and they turn it into
- 2:24:03something that's just close enough. They change the ingredients, make
- 2:24:07it cheaper. Did that happen with, is it Rao's, R-A-O's,
- 2:24:12pasta sauce, Rao's?
- 2:24:14Speaker 1: Rao's.
- 2:24:14Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 2:24:15Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:24:15Speaker 3: Rao's got bought by, I think like whoever makes ragu
- 2:24:20or whatever, Nabisco or some shit.
- 2:24:21Speaker 2: Rao's made a great sauce. Is it still legit or
- 2:24:24is it they fuck with the ingredients now?
- 2:24:27Speaker 1: I never thought there was any jarred sauce that was awesome.
- 2:24:30Speaker 2: Did you ever have Steve Sharippa's when he had his?
- 2:24:34Speaker 1: No.
- 2:24:35Speaker 2: You know Steve Sharippa from The Sopranos?
- 2:24:36Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
- 2:24:36Speaker 2: Do you know Steve?
- 2:24:37Speaker 1: I don't know him personally.
- 2:24:38Speaker 2: Did you ever work for him?
- 2:24:39Speaker 4: No.
- 2:24:39Speaker 2: I worked for him when he was the booker at
- 2:24:42the Riviera in Vegas.
- 2:24:43Speaker 1: I remember that.
- 2:24:44Speaker 2: Before he got on The Sopranos, before he ever did
- 2:24:46any acting.
- 2:24:47Speaker 1: That's hilarious.
- 2:24:47Speaker 2: Yeah, I was friends with him a long fucking time ago.
- 2:24:50He's the best. I love that guy. He is the best.
- 2:24:54So he had an amazing sauce. It was, I forget
- 2:24:57the name of it, but it was all organic. And
- 2:25:00it was, you know, like really super top shelf ingredients.
- 2:25:04It was fucking delicious.
- 2:25:06Speaker 1: Okay.
- 2:25:07Speaker 2: Such a good sauce. But it was too much of
- 2:25:09a pain in the ass for him to keep the
- 2:25:10business rolling and he got rid of it. I'm like,
- 2:25:12God damn, dude. That sucks. I think he had a
- 2:25:16problem keeping up with demand too because it was like
- 2:25:18he came on the podcast and talked about it and
- 2:25:20then he eventually just bailed on the business.
- 2:25:22Speaker 3: Look, man, it's one of the reasons I left my
- 2:25:26sandwich shop was because I felt like operating in New
- 2:25:31York was too hard of a thing. And we had
- 2:25:35to keep the four years, five years, whatever that I
- 2:25:38did it. We had to keep kind of upping prices
- 2:25:43and whatever. And it wasn't it was.
- 2:25:45Speaker 1: Not out of greed.
- 2:25:46Speaker 3: It was out of there is no way that we
- 2:25:49stand a chance to turn a profit. unless you keep
- 2:25:53up with what the demand and the economy of New
- 2:25:55York city is. And I just got to a point
- 2:25:58where I was like, you know, man, it's just not
- 2:26:00what I thought it could be.
- 2:26:01Speaker 2: You wanted it to be fun. You want it just
- 2:26:03to be fun.
- 2:26:04Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and that was it. And it was, I
- 2:26:05wish them well, but, uh, they're still going. But, um,
- 2:26:08it was just for me, I was like, I just
- 2:26:10can't like, this isn't, you know, so that what happens
- 2:26:14is with a.
- 2:26:14Speaker 3: Lot of these, um, companies that get bought up, it's
- 2:26:19this Steve Sharippa thing where it's like, Hey, man, I'd
- 2:26:22love to keep doing this at the quality I'm doing
- 2:26:24it and at the tick which we're moving at or whatever.
- 2:26:29And then somebody comes along like Pepsi and goes, we'll
- 2:26:32buy out for $ 50 million. And you probably go, you
- 2:26:35know what? My ship just came in. Take the fucking–
- 2:26:38I don't know.
- 2:26:39Speaker 1: I can't.
- 2:26:41Speaker 3: So I don't blame people for selling to a big corporation.
- 2:26:44It's kind of the position you're left in. This mom
- 2:26:47and pop thing is going away constantly.
- 2:26:50Speaker 2: Uh, you know, COVID put a big dent in that.
- 2:26:52Speaker 1: Oh, destroyed it, destroyed it.
- 2:26:55Speaker 2: Destroyed it in terms of like small restaurants. I know
- 2:26:59so many of them that went under in LA. I
- 2:27:00think at one point in time, LA lost 70% of
- 2:27:03its restaurants.
- 2:27:05Speaker 1: It's that it's the, the, the meat monopoly thing is,
- 2:27:08is brutal. You know what, like what happened with prices
- 2:27:11of meats and because they saw like, Oh, actually we
- 2:27:13can say that there's a demand and, and low, uh,
- 2:27:18Low product availability and all this and just charge everybody
- 2:27:21this much more.
- 2:27:21Speaker 2: But there also is a demand and there also is
- 2:27:24low product. I mean there's also the reality of the marketplace.
- 2:27:28Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:27:28Speaker 3: Well, that– what I think it is is there's the
- 2:27:31reality of the problem and then– and some people are
- 2:27:35affected by that very genuinely. But then there's a lot
- 2:27:37of people that go, this is a chance for us
- 2:27:39to capitalize.
- 2:27:40Speaker 1: And squeeze.
- 2:27:41Speaker 2: Squeeze.
- 2:27:42Speaker 1: And that sucks. That sucks.
- 2:27:44Speaker 2: Yeah. That's the thing. And once you escape the world
- 2:27:48of need and you're in a world of decisions based
- 2:27:51on what you enjoy doing, then you could choose to
- 2:27:53do a business where you do it however you want
- 2:27:56to do it and don't worry about it.
- 2:27:57Speaker 1: Right.
- 2:27:58Speaker 2: Right. Because you're not doing it for money. You're doing
- 2:28:00it because it's a cool thing.
- 2:28:01Speaker 1: Right.
- 2:28:01Speaker 2: And ideally, that's what we would all like to do.
- 2:28:05Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:28:05Speaker 2: Ideally. It's not obviously difficult to achieve. But if you
- 2:28:10can get there, that's the way to do it. It's
- 2:28:12just that everybody has this thing about chasing the fucking
- 2:28:16whatever number it is, whether it's a number in your
- 2:28:19bank account or the address that you're living in or
- 2:28:22the car that you're driving. Everyone's always chasing the new thing.
- 2:28:25This is a new thing to justify why you're pumping
- 2:28:29all of your energy into a business you.
- 2:28:32Speaker 3: Know yeah it's uh it's it's the unfortunate uh other
- 2:28:38side of of capitalism this.
- 2:28:40Speaker 2: Is why it's capitalism fucking great it's way better than
- 2:28:43everything else.
- 2:28:44Speaker 1: Well that's just that i agree with but we're just talking.
- 2:28:47Speaker 2: About yeah it's got flaws and the flaws are human
- 2:28:50nature that's the flaws.
- 2:28:52Speaker 1: Is there a way– do you think– is there a
- 2:28:54way to have the free market with capitalism but actually
- 2:28:57have some sort of regulation so these problems that we're
- 2:29:00talking about can occur? Or is it just you have
- 2:29:02to take the good with the bad and that's all
- 2:29:04there is to it?
- 2:29:04Speaker 2: I mean there should definitely be regulations without a doubt.
- 2:29:08But I think too much regulations, then you stifle business
- 2:29:11and that's what California has. It's overregulated because the government
- 2:29:15is just too huge of a business there. I think
- 2:29:18at one point in time, California during the pandemic– They
- 2:29:22lost a bunch of people, like a bunch of people
- 2:29:25moved out, but they doubled the size of government. They
- 2:29:29just keep adding more government and more like that's where
- 2:29:32they create jobs. They create jobs through government and just
- 2:29:35keep adding programs, adding government, and then you just keep
- 2:29:39siphoning off tax money. And it's a slush fund and
- 2:29:42is a whole economy based on it. And those people
- 2:29:44are the people that are in charge of running the city.
- 2:29:46And they don't want to let it go because that's
- 2:29:48how everybody is getting paid and nothing is getting done
- 2:29:50and the fucking homeless crisis never gets any better and
- 2:29:54the streets never get clean. Schools never get fucking funded correctly.
- 2:29:58But yet they keep growing their fucking business, the business
- 2:30:01of being a fucking person in government.
- 2:30:03Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:30:04Speaker 3: It's– one of the things I learned when I worked
- 2:30:07for the– because when I lived here in 2000, I
- 2:30:09worked for the Senate during.
- 2:30:12Speaker 1: The legislative session. It was the 78.
- 2:30:15Speaker 3: Legislative session, I think I was a media reporter for the,
- 2:30:18for the Senate media department.
- 2:30:19Speaker 1: But one of the things I learned was how low
- 2:30:24a Senator's salary is versus what they actually make in
- 2:30:28a year because of donations and whatever the fuck else.
- 2:30:33And I was like, of course, these people don't want
- 2:30:36to ever step down from the seat. This is the fucking,
- 2:30:39this is a, this is a fucking joy ride right now. Yeah.
- 2:30:42Speaker 3: And once you're in that position, now you got a
- 2:30:44problem because now it's like, well, who's actually in there
- 2:30:47to do something versus who's in there to keep the job?
- 2:30:51Speaker 1: And if you want to keep the job, keep the
- 2:30:53constituents happy. Well, how do you do that? Well, then
- 2:30:55you start compromising things and catering.
- 2:30:57Speaker 2: And you learn how to be a good bullshit artist.
- 2:30:59Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
- 2:31:00Speaker 2: You learn how to say the things they want you
- 2:31:01to say. That's why people support ridiculous positions because they
- 2:31:04fucking lick their finger and find out which way the
- 2:31:06wind's blowing. And that's the way my constituents want. So
- 2:31:09that's how I feel.
- 2:31:11Speaker 1: Yep.
- 2:31:11Speaker 2: You know, I think God's non-binary. Like, whatever. They just
- 2:31:14start talking. They start saying things. You're like, why are
- 2:31:17you saying this? This makes no sense. They're saying it
- 2:31:21because they think it's going to help them and get
- 2:31:23them to win. It's kooky stuff, man.
- 2:31:27Speaker 1: Yeah, man.
- 2:31:27Speaker 2: And nobody wants the job. That's the other thing. No
- 2:31:31really successful person who would really be good at it
- 2:31:34wants the job. It's too much work.
- 2:31:36Speaker 1: It's a hassle.
- 2:31:37Speaker 2: You're also dealing with insane corruption once you get in there.
- 2:31:40Try untangling all the fucking webs that have been spun
- 2:31:43for decades where they've been moving money to this and
- 2:31:46moving money to that. And you got to pay a
- 2:31:48little of this and you got to pay a little
- 2:31:50of that.
- 2:31:51Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you ever see a Charlie Wilson's war? Tom
- 2:31:53Hanks movie?
- 2:31:54Speaker 2: No.
- 2:31:55Speaker 1: It's great. You'd love it.
- 2:31:57Speaker 3: Mike Nichols directed it. Tom Hanks and a Philip Seymour Hoffman.
- 2:32:00It's my favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman.
- 2:32:02Speaker 2: Really?
- 2:32:02Speaker 1: Performance ever. It's a fucking awesome movie.
- 2:32:06Speaker 3: Uh, But it's about how when we were sending arms
- 2:32:11and funding the Afghanis when Russia was attacking Afghanistan. And
- 2:32:16he's in there to do a good thing. He's like,
- 2:32:18these people are getting fucking taken over. The Russians are
- 2:32:21coming in, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he does all
- 2:32:24this good thing. He gets all this funding to them.
- 2:32:26He helps them.
- 2:32:27Speaker 1: The Afghanis start shooting the Russian copters out of the
- 2:32:30fucking air and all this shit.
- 2:32:32Speaker 3: And he's like, this is great. And then all of
- 2:32:34a sudden. Powers that be are like, we're cutting the funding.
- 2:32:38And he's like, what are you talking about? We just
- 2:32:40helped these people liberate themselves. We can't cut the funding now.
- 2:32:44Speaker 1: We have to rebuild. And they're like, yeah, we're not rebuilding.
- 2:32:48We're not spending any more money in this.
- 2:32:49Speaker 3: And the end of the movie is Phillips, who are
- 2:32:51often telling Tom Hanks that he doesn't say the name,
- 2:32:54but he says the fucking loonies are in the hen house.
- 2:32:58He's talking about bin Laden. It's now taking over Afghanistan.
- 2:33:02And this is going to go real fucking sideways on us.
- 2:33:05Speaker 1: And it's just such a great encapsulation of that's how
- 2:33:09it works. That's how it works.
- 2:33:10Speaker 3: You do a good thing and then all of a
- 2:33:12sudden it creates an even bigger fucking problem than they've
- 2:33:16ever anticipated because of funding.
- 2:33:18Speaker 2: Also, why were they doing it in the first place?
- 2:33:21Why the fuck are they funding the Mujahideen? And that's
- 2:33:24how bin Laden turned against us.
- 2:33:26Speaker 1: Right.
- 2:33:27Speaker 2: That's what it was all about. He realized how dirty
- 2:33:30our fucking politics are and what we're doing when doing
- 2:33:33regime change in other countries and proxy wars and all
- 2:33:37the insane shit that we've been involved with forever.
- 2:33:40Speaker 1: It's fucked up. The way it's portrayed in the movie
- 2:33:42is– The Russians are attacking these people. It's going to
- 2:33:46be this genocide. It's blah, blah, blah, blah. That's how
- 2:33:49it's framed in the movie. In real life, you know,
- 2:33:51I know there's always multiple sides.
- 2:33:53Speaker 2: It's both sides. I mean, there's probably a lot to that, too.
- 2:33:57Speaker 3: But it's just one of those things where I brought
- 2:33:59it up because you said, who would ever want this job?
- 2:34:02And I watched that movie and thought that. I was like,
- 2:34:04who would want the fucking job of this guy?
- 2:34:06Speaker 2: Right.
- 2:34:06Speaker 1: That he thinks he's doing the right thing. And then
- 2:34:08it just blows up in their face.
- 2:34:10Speaker 2: You just hope that good people come along and want
- 2:34:12the job.
- 2:34:13Speaker 1: That's what you hope.
- 2:34:14Speaker 2: But for the most part, they're swimming in a sea
- 2:34:17of psychos.
- 2:34:18Speaker 1: Right.
- 2:34:20Speaker 3: Well, the question is if a good person does come along,
- 2:34:23can they stay pure? Or is the system just built
- 2:34:29in a way where it's like, no, there's no way
- 2:34:31to do this, you know?
- 2:34:32Speaker 1: I always equate it to the Hollywood thing.
- 2:34:34Speaker 3: It's like, in my opinion, there's no way to become
- 2:34:38or it's a very hard thing to become a massive
- 2:34:41movie star and maintain your morality and your ethics and
- 2:34:45whatever you're, you're, you're playing in a system that is
- 2:34:48so fucking foul and so.
- 2:34:49Speaker 1: Dirty and whatever. That's why we're like, it's so rare
- 2:34:51to meet a Woody Harrelson or something like that.
- 2:34:54Speaker 3: Who's a genuine person. And nine out of 10 of
- 2:34:56those guys, they don't fucking live there. They're out, they
- 2:34:59go somewhere else and they dip in, they do it,
- 2:35:03they get the fuck out again. Um, so I always wonder, like,
- 2:35:06is there a, we always say like, if only a
- 2:35:09decent man would come along and lead us or, or, or, or,
- 2:35:13Take this seat in this office.
- 2:35:16Speaker 1: Is it possible to even remain pure at that point?
- 2:35:18I don't know. Or is it just, hey, this is
- 2:35:20how it works. This is all there is to it.
- 2:35:22And you either play this game or you will be
- 2:35:24phased out and that's it. You know?
- 2:35:27Speaker 2: Well, the Hollywood game is interesting because you have to
- 2:35:29have the same political opinions of them.
- 2:35:31Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:35:32Speaker 2: If you don't– any variation whatsoever. If you're like, hey,
- 2:35:36maybe we shouldn't take this weird experimental vaccine.
- 2:35:40Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:35:41Speaker 2: You're cast out of the kingdom. Like you have to
- 2:35:43be full compliance, full compliance to whatever ideology that they
- 2:35:48have because they're completely in control. They get to choose
- 2:35:51whether or not you work. The beautiful thing about comedy
- 2:35:55and music is another version of that but less so
- 2:35:59I think is that you just make what you make
- 2:36:03and if people like it, they come see you. Real simple.
- 2:36:06Real simple. You get a chance. Everybody gets a chance.
- 2:36:08Everybody gets a chance to do open mic nights. Everybody
- 2:36:11gets a chance. If someone says, hey, Joe, you're really funny.
- 2:36:14You want to open for me on the road? Also, oh,
- 2:36:16my God, I'm on the road.
- 2:36:17Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:36:17Speaker 2: Everybody gets a chance. Yeah. And the thing about the
- 2:36:20movie business is it's not that way. Like you could
- 2:36:23be a really talented actor and you never get cast
- 2:36:26in something. Maybe they don't align with the way you think.
- 2:36:30Maybe you didn't kiss their ass enough when you went
- 2:36:32in for the audition. Maybe you don't have a good agent.
- 2:36:35Whatever it is.
- 2:36:35Speaker 1: Right.
- 2:36:36Speaker 2: You might not ever work.
- 2:36:38Speaker 1: Yeah. There's a great– Oh, what is it called?
- 2:36:43Speaker 3: It's the documentary. I think it's just called Frank. It's
- 2:36:45the documentary about Frank Stallone. Sylvester Stallone's brother.
- 2:36:49Speaker 4: Oh.
- 2:36:49Speaker 3: And Frank Stallone is an immensely talented guy. And he
- 2:36:55sort of got reduced to, he does stuff.
- 2:36:58Speaker 2: He works.
- 2:36:59Speaker 1: And he seems like a happy guy. But there was
- 2:37:00a big part of Frank Stallone where he kind of
- 2:37:02got reduced to the punchline of like.
- 2:37:04Speaker 2: Sly's brother.
- 2:37:05Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
- 2:37:06Speaker 2: Well, you know, that was Charlie Murphy. I always used
- 2:37:07to say that about Eddie.
- 2:37:09Speaker 1: They talk in the documentary about Frank Stallone. They go,
- 2:37:11everybody's like, how did this guy not become bigger? He's
- 2:37:14so fucking talented. He was a musician. He's a great actor.
- 2:37:18He's this, he's that. And they say in the middle,
- 2:37:20they go, dude, it doesn't just happen. You have to
- 2:37:22have a team of people operating around you that make
- 2:37:26it fucking happen. It's not just dumb luck. It's not.
- 2:37:30just oh he's good if you don't have the people
- 2:37:33strategically let's put it that buying you through the system
- 2:37:38right it doesn't fucking happen it just doesn't happen it's
- 2:37:41like look at when people get nominated that the process
- 2:37:44of getting nominated for an Emmy it's like you you
- 2:37:49You get the consideration vote. And then I would see
- 2:37:53it when I was living in L.A. And then people
- 2:37:55would do these PR campaigns just based on the consideration.
- 2:37:59Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Those billboards for your consideration.
- 2:38:02Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 2:38:02Speaker 2: You'd see them everywhere.
- 2:38:03Speaker 3: Then you get nominated. And then that's a whole other thing.
- 2:38:07That's why I thought it was such bullshit.
- 2:38:10Speaker 1: And I'm a big fan. I'm not knocking the guy.
- 2:38:12Speaker 3: But, like, when the whole thing happened with, like, the
- 2:38:15year that Brendan Fraser won for the whale was the
- 2:38:18same year the kid that played short.
- 2:38:19Speaker 1: Round won for everything, everywhere, all at once. Do you
- 2:38:24remember that year at the Oscars? Yes. And they both–
- 2:38:27it was like it's the year of the comebacks at
- 2:38:29the Oscars and they're up there going, I thought I
- 2:38:32was done and here I am. It's like you fucking
- 2:38:35had a campaign. This costs millions of dollars to get
- 2:38:40you here. This is not some underdog story. This is–
- 2:38:44this was orchestrated. That's how it works.
- 2:38:47Speaker 2: It's crazy.
- 2:38:48Speaker 1: It's crazy. Nobody's– yeah, I was driving a cab. Then
- 2:38:51all of a sudden I got nominated.
- 2:38:52Speaker 2: I won.
- 2:38:53Speaker 1: That's how it fucking works. Yeah.
- 2:38:56Speaker 2: That's bad shit.
- 2:38:57Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 2:38:57Speaker 2: Well, it's a bad shit business.
- 2:39:01Speaker 1: It's the worst and best business of all time. Yeah.
- 2:39:04It's the best that it gets us to get to
- 2:39:06do what we want to do.
- 2:39:08Speaker 2: But it doesn't. Stand-up is better now.
- 2:39:10Speaker 1: Yes.
- 2:39:11Speaker 2: It's like stand-up and podcasts is such an easier pathway
- 2:39:14than that. That was the old pathway. You had to
- 2:39:16be a part of that.
- 2:39:18Speaker 3: I was talking to Tony about it after MSG. We
- 2:39:21were at the after party.
- 2:39:23Speaker 1: And he– you know, Tony– I love, this is one
- 2:39:26of the things I love about him. He gets, you
- 2:39:28have a few drinks and it's a real love fest.
- 2:39:31He's like, buddy, we're doing it, man. We're doing it.
- 2:39:34They told us no and we're fucking doing it. And
- 2:39:37I go, Tony, here's what's wild. I go, the mainstream
- 2:39:41of entertainment could become the, for lack of a better term,
- 2:39:47wokest whatever. That whole thing could come back of PC
- 2:39:51culture and whatever. And they could tell any one of
- 2:39:53us or all of us, you guys are out. There's
- 2:39:56no way you're going to get anything on streamers or
- 2:39:59anything anymore. And we'd all still be fine because we
- 2:40:02all said we found another lane. So fuck it. It
- 2:40:05doesn't matter.
- 2:40:06Speaker 2: It's a bigger lane to way bigger. It's way bigger,
- 2:40:09way bigger. Yeah, because it's authentic.
- 2:40:11Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:40:12Speaker 2: It's real and it's not curated.
- 2:40:14Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 2:40:14Speaker 2: It's real. It's simple. People, that's what people want.
- 2:40:17Speaker 1: If Hollywood could send a missile to destroy YouTube, they would.
- 2:40:24Speaker 2: Meanwhile, it's come up with some of the fucking greatest talents.
- 2:40:27Like that guy who made Obsession came straight out of YouTube.
- 2:40:30Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 2:40:31Speaker 2: Dude, I got to wrap this up.
- 2:40:32Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
- 2:40:33Speaker 2: Your special.
- 2:40:34Speaker 1: Speaking of which, yeah.
- 2:40:35Speaker 2: Joe DeRosa, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, available
- 2:40:39right now on Netflix.
- 2:40:41Speaker 1: On Netflix.
- 2:40:42Speaker 2: Where'd you film it?
- 2:40:44Speaker 1: We shot this in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. It was on my YouTube.
- 2:40:48Netflix scooped it up.
- 2:40:50Speaker 3: It's still on my YouTube, but please go watch it
- 2:40:52on Netflix. And I hope you all enjoy it. And
- 2:40:56then my podcast, Violent Horrendous, is now out. YMH Network.
- 2:41:01Speaker 2: Nice.
- 2:41:02Speaker 3: And at Joe DeRosa Comedy on YouTube. is where you
- 2:41:06can find it so please listen and.
- 2:41:07Speaker 1: I hope you watch the special and enjoy it thank
- 2:41:09you for having me my
- 2:41:10Speaker 2: Pleasure brother I love you love you bye bye everybody