Latest / INSPIRE STORY / #079- STORY INSPIRE:Protect unpredictable conversation about nature, wildlife, conservation,

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#079- STORY INSPIRE:Protect unpredictable conversation about nature, wildlife, conservation, · INSPIRE STORY

0:04
Speaker 1: The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast
0:08
Speaker 1: by night, all day. All right. Slap some headphones on. Hello, sir.
0:15
Speaker 2: Yes. Our old friend would be so happy. Not just
0:20
Speaker 2: that picture, but so much that you've done. Do you
0:24
Speaker 2: believe that people who have gone on know what we're
0:30
Speaker 2: doing or see us?
0:33
Speaker 1: You'd like to think that you're that important.
0:37
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
0:37
Speaker 1: I have a feeling they have more important stuff to
0:40
Speaker 1: do on the other side.
0:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess if you're in heaven, you're not thinking
0:43
Speaker 2: about the mothership.
0:45
Speaker 1: Right. Well, the mothership definitely is from her.
0:49
Speaker 2: Yes.
0:50
Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah.
0:52
Speaker 2: I mean, that's an incredible tribute to her.
0:55
Speaker 1: Well, the bar is named after her.
0:57
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've heard all the comics. I've heard Shane and
1:00
Speaker 2: Ian and all the guys talk about it. After they
1:02
Speaker 2: came back. And that's just an honor, man. Plus, you know,
1:09
Speaker 2: I used to say to people, if you haven't taken
1:11
Speaker 2: something from watching Richard Pryor, you're probably doing it wrong.
1:16
Speaker 2: And Mitzi made the greatest comedy mecca ever. And you
1:24
Speaker 2: got to copy what she did.
1:26
Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
1:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:27
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, she taught me everything about how to run
1:32
Speaker 1: a club, how to do it right. Basically kind of
1:35
Speaker 1: let the comedians run it, let the inmates run the asylum.
1:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:39
Speaker 1: You know?
1:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're perfect inmates for that. And right now the
1:43
Speaker 2: Comedy Store is greater than ever.
1:46
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
1:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's wonderful there because, you know, I even got
1:50
Speaker 2: Jay Leno to come back, you know, because he remembered
1:53
Speaker 2: the old days and hadn't gone back. And I'm like, dude,
1:56
Speaker 2: it's different. They... pay you for coming. They split the
2:01
Speaker 2: door in a different way now. And there are phones
2:05
Speaker 2: in bags. I had to explain that concept.
2:07
Speaker 1: Yeah. We had encouraged them to do all that.
2:10
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was your era.
2:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, once we left, we started doing that at
2:15
Speaker 1: the mothership for all the shows. Then other comedy clubs
2:19
Speaker 1: started falling. So it's the way to do it. People
2:21
Speaker 1: are too fucking distracted.
2:24
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think it frees us up in a way.
2:28
Speaker 2: I'll say things and try things and not worry about
2:31
Speaker 2: seeing them on YouTube when they're not ready or when
2:35
Speaker 2: I've made a mistake and gone too far and said something.
2:38
Speaker 1: Oh, 100 percent. It's also you have to be free
2:41
Speaker 1: to fuck around and experiment. And if someone takes that
2:44
Speaker 1: fucking around and experiment, you don't know what's coming out
2:46
Speaker 1: of your mouth. Like right now, I don't know what's
2:48
Speaker 1: coming out of my mouth right before I say it. Right.
2:51
Speaker 1: And people have to understand that. This is not like.
2:53
Speaker 1: When you're on stage and you're working out, a lot
2:56
Speaker 1: of it is free-balling. You've got material that's pre-established and
3:03
Speaker 1: you've got the bones of it. But you're also fucking
3:06
Speaker 1: around in the moment. And sometimes you fuck around in
3:09
Speaker 1: the moment and it works. And sometimes you fuck around
3:11
Speaker 1: in the moment and it does nothing. Or it's terrible.
3:15
Speaker 1: You said something awful. You're like, whoops, sorry. Yeah, we
3:18
Speaker 1: make mistakes. You're just fucking creating something. And then stand-up
3:23
Speaker 1: is the only art form that you have to kind
3:25
Speaker 1: of create in front of a crowd. You can't really–
3:28
Speaker 1: you can get ideas and the concepts and the flesh
3:32
Speaker 1: of it alone. But you have– it comes alive in
3:35
Speaker 1: front of the crowd. You have to be able to
3:37
Speaker 1: fuck around.
3:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Me and Chappelle– and you've done this kind of thing.
3:44
Speaker 2: Me and Chappelle met Chris Rock in Cleveland because Chappelle
3:48
Speaker 2: lives in Ohio obviously. He's done something very similar to
3:51
Speaker 2: what you've done, but we'll get into that later.
3:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's done something really cool.
3:55
Speaker 2: Incredible.
3:55
Speaker 1: Basically took over a whole town. Yeah, yeah. It's funny,
3:59
Speaker 1: and especially he had a really funny joke about it,
4:02
Speaker 1: about how when white people move into a neighborhood, it's
4:04
Speaker 1: called gentrification. And he goes, they don't have a word
4:07
Speaker 1: for what I'm doing to these motherfuckers.
4:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's crazy to be Dave Chappelle, the most important
4:13
Speaker 2: man in town.
4:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:15
Speaker 2: But Chris Rock was doing Cleveland. And we met him there.
4:21
Speaker 2: And that was the first time I saw the bags.
4:26
Speaker 2: And I was apprehensive. As a matter of fact, I
4:29
Speaker 2: saw a celebrity in L.A. who didn't want to put
4:32
Speaker 2: his phone in a bag. And so they had that
4:34
Speaker 2: motherfucker stay outside.
4:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's too many snitches in this world. Too many
4:39
Speaker 1: people just want to film everything for the gram.
4:43
Speaker 2: Like, stop. Yeah, sometimes we're saying the wrong thing. Sometimes
4:46
Speaker 2: we're drunk.
4:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. For sure, a lot.
4:49
Speaker 2: Yeah.
4:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot. Dave loves to get lit and go
4:52
Speaker 1: on stage. But it's also like that's one of the
4:55
Speaker 1: ways he creates. Like I've seen him do entire shows
4:57
Speaker 1: where he's just completely fucking around and he films everything.
5:01
Speaker 1: So then afterwards he goes over it and he's like, oh,
5:03
Speaker 1: there's a seed right there. Let me plant that seed.
5:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:06
Speaker 1: There's an idea there. And then, you know, that's how
5:08
Speaker 1: you come up with stuff.
5:09
Speaker 2: Yeah. I never drink or smoke before going on stage,
5:15
Speaker 2: but I love to create at home. And the next day,
5:19
Speaker 2: because sometimes you can write something down and it'll be like, uh,
5:22
Speaker 2: blazer button envelope. And the next day you're like, I
5:25
Speaker 2: don't know what the fuck I thought was funny about
5:27
Speaker 2: that last night when I was smoking. But I like
5:30
Speaker 2: to smoke and create at home and then take it
5:32
Speaker 2: to the stage. But when I'm on stage, I've had
5:35
Speaker 2: bad experiences trying to do it high and saying, this
5:37
Speaker 2: will make me creative. I'll be like Hendrix of comedy.
5:41
Speaker 2: That's all wrong.
5:42
Speaker 1: Your memory will go.
5:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. Your memory will go. One time I was at
5:45
Speaker 2: the laugh factory and, uh, I came off and George
5:49
Speaker 2: Lopez said to me, why you come off? And I said,
5:53
Speaker 2: I told you I do 20. And he says, you
5:55
Speaker 2: did five. I was in tonight show mode or some shit.
6:02
Speaker 1: I got to clear something up. Speaking of this has
6:04
Speaker 1: nothing to do with you, but I did a podcast
6:07
Speaker 1: last week with Theo Vaughn. And in it, there was
6:12
Speaker 1: like a video on the internet that was accusing me
6:14
Speaker 1: of lying about something. And what I said was, that
6:18
Speaker 1: I was in the mountains of Utah when the Charlie
6:20
Speaker 1: Kirk thing was going down. What had actually happened was
6:24
Speaker 1: I was here doing a podcast with Charlie Sheen when
6:28
Speaker 1: the Charlie Kirk thing went down. We stopped and took
6:33
Speaker 1: a piss break, right? And that's when we found out
6:34
Speaker 1: about it, right? And then when I was in the
6:38
Speaker 1: mountains of Utah, that's when the Jimmy Kimmel thing was happening,
6:42
Speaker 1: when Jimmy Kimmel was getting in trouble. And I was
6:44
Speaker 1: getting all these messages, but I didn't have any service
6:46
Speaker 1: out there, so I had to hook up to Starlink
6:48
Speaker 1: in order to find out what was happening. When I
6:50
Speaker 1: did the podcast the other day, it seemed like I
6:53
Speaker 1: was saying that I was in the mountains when Charlie
6:57
Speaker 1: Kirk got shot. I probably was saying that. I was
7:00
Speaker 1: exhausted when I did that show last week. So I
7:04
Speaker 1: did a show on Tuesday night at the club, and
7:07
Speaker 1: I have this thing that I do, unfortunately, where I
7:10
Speaker 1: come home, and it's the only time that I get
7:13
Speaker 1: alone time is when everyone's asleep. And I stayed up
7:16
Speaker 1: way too late. I stayed up super late. Then I
7:18
Speaker 1: had to take my kid to school in the morning.
7:20
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'll just power through. The problem
7:23
Speaker 1: when I do that, when I get no sleep is
7:25
Speaker 1: my memory is dog shit. Like I have a really
7:28
Speaker 1: good memory and a terrible memory. It's really good a
7:31
Speaker 1: lot of the times. And then sometimes, especially when I'm tired,
7:34
Speaker 1: it's fucking terrible. It's like from doing thousands of podcasts,
7:39
Speaker 1: My memory is like a room that's filled with boxes
7:44
Speaker 1: and files. And I don't know where the fuck everything is.
7:48
Speaker 2: As you were talking, the first thing, everything goes to
7:50
Speaker 2: sports for me. Some of our greatest home run hitters,
7:54
Speaker 2: they strike out a lot because they're swinging all the
7:57
Speaker 2: motherfucking time trying to get it to McCovey Cove or something.
8:00
Speaker 1: Of course.
8:01
Speaker 2: And I think that's how we are. Well, not we. You,
8:05
Speaker 2: especially right now, you're doing this constantly. You're talking to
8:08
Speaker 2: lots of people saying lots of things. And every now
8:11
Speaker 2: and then, it's going to be a swing and a miss.
8:13
Speaker 1: Let me explain that. Yeah, but the real problem was sleepy.
8:16
Speaker 1: The real problem was not getting any sleep. And I'm
8:18
Speaker 1: not going to do that anymore because I keep doing it.
8:21
Speaker 1: I get home at night.
8:22
Speaker 2: Have you had that problem before, like sleep deprivation and
8:25
Speaker 2: you get yourself into something?
8:25
Speaker 1: I've had that problem before. Usually I can fix it
8:28
Speaker 1: with creatine. So creatine is a great supplement when you're tired.
8:33
Speaker 1: It really– there's been studies that show that creatine supplementation,
8:38
Speaker 1: especially like 10 to 20 grams, it actually alleviates all
8:44
Speaker 1: of the problems that happen with sleep deprivation in terms
8:48
Speaker 1: of cognitive function. But I've been– I just was doing
8:51
Speaker 1: some blood work. So when I knew that I was
8:54
Speaker 1: going to do my blood work, I didn't take any
8:56
Speaker 1: creatine for a month. Because I want to– because I
8:59
Speaker 1: had read something about creatine possibly being bad for your kidneys.
9:02
Speaker 1: So I wanted to get a baseline, do it, and
9:05
Speaker 1: then do it again when I supplement.
9:07
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
9:08
Speaker 1: So I had this like strategy. But the point is
9:10
Speaker 1: like– Creatine? Yeah. My brain was foggy. And so for
9:14
Speaker 1: the people that like heard that and like, what is
9:17
Speaker 1: wrong with you? That's what I thought when I saw–
9:19
Speaker 1: like somebody put a video on the line. Why is
9:21
Speaker 1: he lying about this? I'm like, oh, I forgot. I forgot.
9:24
Speaker 1: It wasn't why it's just my brain sucks when I
9:27
Speaker 1: don't get sleep and I'm not going to do that
9:29
Speaker 1: anymore because it's like when I get home at night
9:33
Speaker 1: is the only time I'm alone. It's like my only
9:36
Speaker 1: alone time. And I'm, I, even though I knew I
9:38
Speaker 1: had to get up in the morning and take my
9:40
Speaker 1: kid to school, I was like, I don't fucking care.
9:41
Speaker 1: I'm staying up. The problem with that is like when
9:45
Speaker 1: I have to do this the next day, I just
9:48
Speaker 1: don't function as good. I've done it. I've done it before,
9:51
Speaker 1: but I feel it the next day. Like, I can't
9:54
Speaker 1: recall things. My, words don't come out as smooth. I
9:57
Speaker 1: don't have as much. My vocabulary is limited. It's like
10:00
Speaker 1: there's too many problems with it. So I mean, two
10:03
Speaker 1: things are going through my mind. First of all, do
10:05
Speaker 1: guys with these arms do creatine?
10:07
Speaker 2: I mean, would it help me?
10:08
Speaker 1: Oh, it's great for everybody.
10:10
Speaker 2: Yeah.
10:10
Speaker 1: Creatine is not just a supplement for muscles. Creatine is
10:14
Speaker 1: actually a really good cognitive function supplement. It's actually a
10:18
Speaker 1: cognitive enhancing supplement.
10:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
10:20
Speaker 1: There's a lot of research on that. Yeah.
10:22
Speaker 2: And the other thing that hit me is I was
10:24
Speaker 2: listening to you talk recently and you talked about smoking
10:29
Speaker 2: herb and how it enhanced the weightlifting process.
10:33
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:34
Speaker 2: What's that about?
10:35
Speaker 1: You feel it in your tissues, man. It's like you
10:38
Speaker 1: feel it's really good for coordination exercise. Like there's a
10:41
Speaker 1: lot of jujitsu guys who smoke weed. They smoke weed
10:44
Speaker 1: right before class. Like get ripped.
10:47
Speaker 2: So the Gracies were high when I first started seeing them?
10:50
Speaker 1: Not those guys. Those guys don't do it, but a
10:52
Speaker 1: lot of guys do. I don't want to throw them
10:55
Speaker 1: under the bus, but one of the brothers was really
10:58
Speaker 1: into smoking weed and doing jiu-jitsu. Arguably the best one.
11:02
Speaker 1: Definitely the best one. But a lot of jiu-jitsu guys
11:05
Speaker 1: do it. And a lot of guys like to do
11:08
Speaker 1: it before kickboxing. You just feel your muscles more. You
11:13
Speaker 1: feel your coordination more. You're more sensitive. It's weird. It's
11:17
Speaker 1: like instead of you being like abstract with your movements
11:21
Speaker 1: and just kind of like doing it, it's like you
11:24
Speaker 1: feel all the tissues, all the connection. When you lift weights,
11:27
Speaker 1: you're like– like you feel all the fibers of all
11:31
Speaker 1: your shit moving. It's like it just makes you more sensitive.
11:35
Speaker 1: It's such a misunderstood substance. Not for everybody. I really
11:40
Speaker 1: believe some people should not get high. I think for
11:43
Speaker 1: some people, it throws them off and sends them down
11:45
Speaker 1: a dark road and it's just not.
11:47
Speaker 2: Causes them to procrastinate about their life and personal responsibilities.
11:51
Speaker 1: There's a lot of that. There's a lot of people
11:53
Speaker 1: that just wake and bake and just live in the
11:54
Speaker 1: cloud all day and never get anything done. And then
11:57
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people that also get like super
11:59
Speaker 1: paranoid and they get anxiety and they freak out. And
12:02
Speaker 1: then there's people that– there's a lot of connections to
12:06
Speaker 1: marijuana and psychosis or schizophrenic states. But the problem with
12:14
Speaker 1: that is were they already– Like, did they already have
12:18
Speaker 1: a propensity towards schizophrenia and marijuana pushed them over the edge?
12:21
Speaker 1: Were they going to get it anyway? Like, it's hard
12:23
Speaker 1: to say.
12:23
Speaker 2: A lot of those guys on a diet Coke would
12:25
Speaker 2: have problems.
12:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, right?
12:27
Speaker 2: Right.
12:27
Speaker 1: There's a lot of guys just fucking red lights freak
12:29
Speaker 1: them out. There's people that just life is too hard
12:32
Speaker 1: for them and they don't need something else that fucks
12:35
Speaker 1: with it. You know, if you already have mental health struggles,
12:38
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't do mushrooms.
12:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:40
Speaker 1: If you're already fucked up, if there's already some things
12:43
Speaker 1: that you're like struggling to hang on to everyday life. Yeah,
12:46
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't do acid. You know what I mean?
12:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:48
Speaker 1: You should probably just try to like keep your shit together.
12:53
Speaker 1: But that's not everybody. It's like alcohol. Like alcohol is
12:56
Speaker 1: not for everybody. But some people can have a glass
12:59
Speaker 1: of wine at dinner and just start laughing. It's a
13:01
Speaker 1: nice social lubricant. Some people, they have one drink and
13:05
Speaker 1: they're doing coke and they're getting hookers and they're fucking
13:08
Speaker 1: driving on the freeway. They're shooting at cops. They go crazy.
13:12
Speaker 1: Like some people just can't handle alcohol. doesn't mean it
13:15
Speaker 1: should be illegal. Right. That's crazy. And there's the same
13:18
Speaker 1: thing I feel with pot. Pot is super beneficial to
13:21
Speaker 1: a lot of people.
13:22
Speaker 2: It has been for millions of years. Yeah. For me,
13:27
Speaker 2: that's my like in the old days, you'd watch a
13:30
Speaker 2: television show and a guy would have a martini when
13:32
Speaker 2: he comes home.
13:32
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:33
Speaker 2: I even talk about that in the book. When I
13:35
Speaker 2: come home, my girl has me a joint laid out
13:38
Speaker 2: on the counter. You know, and nice little raw papers.
13:43
Speaker 2: And that's my, that's daddy's cocktail.
13:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a nice one, too, because it doesn't fuck
13:49
Speaker 1: with your body. The problem with alcohol is, you know,
13:53
Speaker 1: it feels good while you're doing it, but then the
13:55
Speaker 1: next day you're like, oh.
13:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.
13:57
Speaker 1: Your fucking head and your body's tired.
14:00
Speaker 2: I hear swelling, you know, and different kinds of things.
14:05
Speaker 2: And also, I'm from a home. Where my favorite person,
14:09
Speaker 2: my cousin, because I didn't have brothers and sisters, biological
14:13
Speaker 2: brothers and sisters. So when my cousin came to live
14:15
Speaker 2: with me, a male, he's a teenager, and he had
14:19
Speaker 2: a drinking problem. Like I would go inside my toy
14:24
Speaker 2: box and find scotch.
14:26
Speaker 1: Oh, he would hide it?
14:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, he would hide it. He's parked in the garage
14:30
Speaker 2: when there were already two cars in the garage. And
14:34
Speaker 2: I loved him and he was hilarious. And he, in part,
14:38
Speaker 2: helped to make me who I am. But a bad
14:41
Speaker 2: experience like that in your youth can make you a
14:44
Speaker 2: little bit leery about liquor. Oh, yeah.
14:47
Speaker 1: I had a friend of mine when I was in
14:48
Speaker 1: high school, and his cousin sold Coke. And I watched
14:52
Speaker 1: this guy fall apart. I watched him do cocaine constantly
14:55
Speaker 1: and fall apart. His life just went down the toilet.
14:58
Speaker 1: And I never touched cocaine because of that. I never did.
15:01
Speaker 1: I've still never done Coke. And I think that's why,
15:04
Speaker 1: because I watched this.
15:04
Speaker 2: So you've never tried a line? Never. That's heavy, man.
15:08
Speaker 1: Not once. Yeah.
15:09
Speaker 2: Because I had to try it to see what it
15:11
Speaker 2: smelled like, you know?
15:13
Speaker 1: I mean. I'm sure I'd like it. My friend Jimmy said,
15:16
Speaker 1: don't do this. You'd love it. But he's probably right.
15:19
Speaker 2: But you also have a certain kind of discipline where
15:20
Speaker 2: I think you could do a line. And say, okay,
15:23
Speaker 2: I get it. But I love that you have the
15:26
Speaker 2: discipline to never try it. I don't have that kind
15:29
Speaker 2: of strength. I got to see what it's like once.
15:32
Speaker 1: The thing is, like, I don't know anybody who's had, like,
15:34
Speaker 1: cocaine was really good for me. Like, doing cocaine was
15:37
Speaker 1: really good. When I started doing cocaine, my life just
15:40
Speaker 1: really changed. I really got clarity. I started focusing. I
15:42
Speaker 1: was nicer to people. I don't ever hear that story. Never.
15:45
Speaker 1: Not once.
15:46
Speaker 2: I did a little coke, and then I was president
15:48
Speaker 2: of Yale.
15:49
Speaker 1: I do hear people say that about speed. which is weird.
15:53
Speaker 1: You hear people say that about amphetamines, like especially Adderall,
15:56
Speaker 1: like how like, oh my God, it makes me so productive.
15:59
Speaker 1: I get so much done, but it's generally, it's like
16:02
Speaker 1: journalists and people that have to write a lot. Students.
16:06
Speaker 2: I'm very curious about Adderall because I'm hearing so much
16:11
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking like when I was doing the book, right?
16:15
Speaker 2: I'm like, would Adderall Would it be good to focus
16:19
Speaker 2: me to do for me what it does for students
16:21
Speaker 2: that I hear talk about it?
16:23
Speaker 1: Probably. Probably, but I don't— It's a pill, right? It
16:26
Speaker 1: scares me, though, because I know a lot of people
16:29
Speaker 1: with problems with it. It's a real catchy one. It
16:35
Speaker 1: gets you. And then you start leaning on it.
16:38
Speaker 2: So that's one of the downs is it's extremely addicting.
16:41
Speaker 1: Very addictive.
16:42
Speaker 2: But what's the other downside?
16:44
Speaker 1: Well, I would imagine when you get off of it,
16:45
Speaker 1: you're exhausted. Because I would imagine whenever there's– there's always
16:49
Speaker 1: some sort of a biological– there's– whenever– there's no free lunch, right?
16:57
Speaker 1: Anything that speeds you up is going to bring you down.
16:59
Speaker 1: Like there's– if you're ramping your body up where you're
17:02
Speaker 1: focusing for fucking 16 hours just sitting in front of
17:05
Speaker 1: the typewriter.
17:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:07
Speaker 1: And that's what like why journalists like it. I would
17:10
Speaker 1: imagine the back end of it– you've done it, Jamie.
17:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
17:14
Speaker 3: Only twice because it kept me up for two days.
17:16
Speaker 1: See, that's what I'm talking about. That's the main thing.
17:18
Speaker 1: That's it. It's an amphetamine.
17:19
Speaker 3: So, yeah, I went to try to go to bed
17:21
Speaker 3: and was like, well, this isn't happening. So let's get
17:23
Speaker 3: up and see how we're up all day. All right.
17:26
Speaker 1: Two days? Yeah, I just had.
17:27
Speaker 3: To call off work.
17:28
Speaker 1: It wasn't good. And then you feel real dopey after
17:30
Speaker 1: it wears off, right?
17:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't feel like I succeeded on anything that day.
17:35
Speaker 1: Man, that is a fucking problem for me. It's like
17:38
Speaker 1: the lack of sleep thing. After this whole Charlie Kirk
17:41
Speaker 1: thing with this, what I was just talking about, I'm
17:43
Speaker 1: really going to concentrate a lot more on sleep. You
17:46
Speaker 1: can't fuck with that because it's like, especially me, it's
17:49
Speaker 1: like I need my brain to be functioning at its
17:53
Speaker 1: highest potential most of the time. Like that's what you're doing,
17:56
Speaker 1: especially when I'm in here. I was talking to Theo Vaughn.
17:59
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was that bad. be that big
18:00
Speaker 1: of a deal. Theo's a comic. We're just going to
18:02
Speaker 1: be silly.
18:03
Speaker 2: The most recent one?
18:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one I was just talking about. It would
18:05
Speaker 1: probably be good to be loopy. Because the writers on
18:10
Speaker 1: news radio, they would stay up all night on purpose
18:13
Speaker 1: just to get loopy because they didn't really do any drugs.
18:17
Speaker 1: They just would use sleep deprivation to be silly. It
18:21
Speaker 1: was hilarious. These guys would start writing at like 2
18:25
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. Like they would stay up, they
18:28
Speaker 1: would play video games and they would start writing a
18:30
Speaker 1: script at like two o'clock in the morning. And then
18:32
Speaker 1: they would stumble in to like, when we have a
18:34
Speaker 1: table read, they would stumble into the table read, like
18:37
Speaker 1: just finishing the script. They would lay it out to us.
18:39
Speaker 1: They just got done printing it. And these guys would
18:43
Speaker 1: be fucking just completely out of it. Hair all fucked up, barefoot.
18:47
Speaker 1: It was really funny the way they operated, but it was,
18:50
Speaker 1: there was a method to their madness. And that method was,
18:53
Speaker 1: The more tired you get, the more exhausted you get,
18:56
Speaker 1: you get into sleep deprivation, you get loopy and you
18:59
Speaker 1: get silly and you start thinking silly things. Yeah. And
19:02
Speaker 1: those guys, that's how they would use it. They would
19:04
Speaker 1: use that weird state of mind, that loopiness to write.
19:08
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:09
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20:31
Speaker 2: I need my sleep, man. If I have sleep, I
20:33
Speaker 2: can do anything.
20:35
Speaker 1: I feel like they could have got there with weed
20:36
Speaker 1: without all the The loopiness, you know, you want to
20:39
Speaker 1: get there like you get there with weed and, you know,
20:42
Speaker 1: you don't have to stay up all night. You get
20:44
Speaker 1: it like right away.
20:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, but weed ain't for everybody.
20:48
Speaker 1: It's not for everybody.
20:49
Speaker 2: It ain't for everybody. But yeah, I love having my sleep.
20:53
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, that's the drug that's most
20:58
Speaker 2: important to me. Having an Ambien nearby.
21:02
Speaker 1: You like that? Yeah.
21:03
Speaker 2: A quarter. Just a little bite of Ambien.
21:06
Speaker 1: A little bite. Yeah.
21:07
Speaker 2: We'll hook you up.
21:09
Speaker 1: I knew a dude who would take that shit every day.
21:11
Speaker 1: He had to take it all the time. And then
21:13
Speaker 1: he was taking two. And he told me, like, dude,
21:16
Speaker 1: my house could be on fire. And I would have
21:18
Speaker 1: no idea. I'm like, that can't be good. But he
21:22
Speaker 1: needed it. It was the only way he could go
21:24
Speaker 1: to sleep. But he was also taking Adderall. So he
21:26
Speaker 1: was taking Adderall in the day. And then he was
21:28
Speaker 1: taking Ambien at night. Can't believe he's still alive.
21:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's too much.
21:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Adderall fucked his life up, too. Woo. Yeah.
21:39
Speaker 1: It's not, you know, I don't think you should rely
21:42
Speaker 1: on anything for sleep. For me, I just, I've never
21:45
Speaker 1: had a sleep problem, fortunately. I could go to sleep
21:48
Speaker 1: on a bag of rocks. I could just crash. It
21:51
Speaker 1: drives my wife nuts. Yeah. Because, like, if we're on
21:53
Speaker 1: a plane, the moment the plane takes off, I'm out cold.
21:57
Speaker 1: I could just go to sleep.
21:58
Speaker 2: The bad thing about me is I can sleep best
22:00
Speaker 2: in places I shouldn't sleep. Like church. Or sit and
22:06
Speaker 2: talk to my woman's grandma.
22:07
Speaker 1: Church will make you sleepy. I don't know why. Why
22:09
Speaker 1: does church make you so sleepy? Or reading.
22:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:13
Speaker 1: Reading will put you out.
22:14
Speaker 2: There are some audible books that are worse than ambient.
22:17
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. Something about physically reading puts me out.
22:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:21
Speaker 1: Just sitting there looking at the pages. I just start
22:24
Speaker 1: nodding off. Yeah. I.
22:27
Speaker 2: The Alchemist, I have been on page 12 for like
22:32
Speaker 2: a year and a half. Sit down on a plane
22:36
Speaker 2: and just read The Alchemist at the top of the
22:39
Speaker 2: page and I'm out.
22:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's fiction for me that puts me out. Nonfiction
22:44
Speaker 1: doesn't really put me out. Nonfiction is more, like I
22:47
Speaker 1: guess it's more stimulating because it's real. Because I'm reading
22:51
Speaker 1: about real things. Something about reading fiction is what puts
22:54
Speaker 1: me to sleep.
22:55
Speaker 2: For me, it's just reading. I can take out my license,
22:58
Speaker 2: you know, and look and say, oh, halfway through my name.
23:05
Speaker 1: Out.
23:07
Speaker 2: This is cool, man.
23:08
Speaker 1: Not having sleep is like a person that's got like
23:11
Speaker 1: legitimate insomnia. That's got to be the nuttiest fucking problem.
23:15
Speaker 1: Like that's that movie, The Mechanic. No, The Machinist. Did
23:18
Speaker 1: you ever see that movie, The Machinist? No.
23:20
Speaker 2: Is that an action movie?
23:22
Speaker 1: Well, that's the movie with, what's, Christian Bale. Christian Bale
23:28
Speaker 1: where he lost an insane amount of weight. Christian Bale
23:31
Speaker 1: is a big guy. I think he got to like
23:34
Speaker 1: 130-something pounds.
23:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:36
Speaker 1: And the idea was that this guy was going completely
23:39
Speaker 1: insane because he couldn't sleep. And so he wasn't eating.
23:42
Speaker 1: And so he was just like up all the time,
23:44
Speaker 1: like out of it. And he like– if you see
23:47
Speaker 1: what he looked like when he made that movie, it's–
23:51
Speaker 1: that's what he looked like in the movie. Oh, shit.
23:52
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That looks like he's about to make a
23:55
Speaker 2: whole different movie.
23:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, like he was about to die. And then he
23:59
Speaker 1: went from that and right afterwards he did Batman. So
24:03
Speaker 1: he got super jacked. He went from that. And by
24:06
Speaker 1: the way, the movie sucks. So this guy like wrecked
24:09
Speaker 1: his health for a movie that wasn't even good. And
24:13
Speaker 1: I mean, I wonder how good it could even be
24:17
Speaker 1: when your main guy is dying. Look at that image
24:22
Speaker 1: on the far right. The one that you just– look
24:24
Speaker 1: at that. Look at the difference between– that was like
24:27
Speaker 1: six months later.
24:28
Speaker 2: That can't be healthy.
24:30
Speaker 1: No. Fucking terrible for you. It has to be terrible. Terrible.
24:34
Speaker 2: Do you like to act? No.
24:38
Speaker 1: I don't hate it. I don't like the process. I
24:41
Speaker 1: don't like waiting around all day. I don't like being
24:44
Speaker 1: on set. I don't like dealing with– some actors are great.
24:48
Speaker 1: Some actors are just like all kinds of people.
24:50
Speaker 2: Cops.
24:50
Speaker 1: There's a lot of cops that are awesome.
24:52
Speaker 2: Because I know you had a point in your life
24:53
Speaker 2: when you could probably do anything you want, and I
24:57
Speaker 2: never see you pursuing any acting roles.
25:00
Speaker 1: No, I avoid them. I've been offered some fun stuff,
25:04
Speaker 1: and I was like, I'm not going to Bulgaria for
25:08
Speaker 1: three months. Fuck that. It's not my thing. If it
25:12
Speaker 1: was my thing, I'd feel very fortunate, and I'd dive
25:16
Speaker 1: on it.
25:17
Speaker 2: So when you look at something you've done, and you're
25:19
Speaker 2: watching a role in dailies or– At the premiere, you
25:24
Speaker 2: don't love what you see so much that you do
25:26
Speaker 2: more of it?
25:27
Speaker 1: It doesn't bother me. It's just not what I enjoy doing. Again,
25:32
Speaker 1: it's the process that's the problem. It's the 16-hour days.
25:37
Speaker 1: And it's being around actors because you're around people that
25:42
Speaker 1: need to think and need to talk in a very
25:46
Speaker 1: specific way because they're always worried they're going to be
25:49
Speaker 1: cast out of the kingdom. You know what I mean?
25:52
Speaker 1: So it's like this very disingenuous way of communicating that
25:56
Speaker 1: a lot of actors have.
25:58
Speaker 2: And you always feel when you do something that this
26:00
Speaker 2: person's going to be your friend for life. I'll see
26:02
Speaker 2: you next month. You never see that ever again. It's
26:06
Speaker 2: such a disingenuous environment.
26:08
Speaker 1: Do you enjoy it? Do you enjoy acting?
26:10
Speaker 2: I kind of like it. But at 70... I prefer
26:15
Speaker 2: to just be at home.
26:16
Speaker 1: You're 70. Yeah. You look so good. Oh, thanks, dog.
26:20
Speaker 1: That's kind of crazy that you're 70.
26:22
Speaker 2: And no creatine.
26:24
Speaker 1: Imagine how good you'd look if you had creatine.
26:26
Speaker 2: I'm going to get it.
26:28
Speaker 1: 70, man. If you told me that you were 45,
26:31
Speaker 1: if I didn't know you, you told me you were 45,
26:32
Speaker 1: I'd believe you. That's nuts.
26:34
Speaker 2: That's a blessing.
26:35
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
26:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm happy. So that's unusual. That's unusual.
26:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. A lot of people when they're 70, they're
26:44
Speaker 1: bitter and tired.
26:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. I, I, um, I talk a little bit in
26:49
Speaker 2: the book about Richard Pryor coming to my first condo.
26:53
Speaker 2: I bought a condo so I could, I didn't have
26:55
Speaker 2: a car yet. And eventually I got one, but when
26:58
Speaker 2: I first came to LA, I wanted to be between
27:00
Speaker 2: the comedy store and the improvs. I could get to both.
27:03
Speaker 1: Oh, right.
27:03
Speaker 2: So I bought me a condo and I told Richard
27:06
Speaker 2: Pryor that I got a condo.
27:08
Speaker 1: I don't know.
27:09
Speaker 2: It's one of those. I think I heard you in,
27:11
Speaker 2: Shane talking about how you see your heroes now and then,
27:15
Speaker 2: and sometimes you say the wrong shit. And I was
27:18
Speaker 2: expecting this to be the wrong shit, but it's all
27:20
Speaker 2: I could think of. And I said, Richard, I just
27:22
Speaker 2: bought a condo. And he said, oh, wow, I'd like
27:26
Speaker 2: to see it. And I was like, oh, okay. And
27:33
Speaker 2: him and Rashawn, his body man, came to see my condo.
27:38
Speaker 2: And that was the coolest thing in the world. But
27:40
Speaker 2: the one thing I remember, I remember I had no furniture.
27:44
Speaker 2: And Rashawn had told me, his guy had told me
27:46
Speaker 2: to get some Cavasier. So I had some Cavasier, you know.
27:50
Speaker 2: And we sat on the floor and drank Cavasier and
27:54
Speaker 2: listened to a boombox with jazz on it and talked.
27:58
Speaker 2: And he looked around at one point and he said,
28:01
Speaker 2: this reminds me of when I was happy.
28:04
Speaker 1: Whoa.
28:05
Speaker 2: And I don't even have to tell you what went
28:07
Speaker 2: through my head. and what I thought that meant, and
28:10
Speaker 2: I didn't listen to him then. That's the thing is
28:14
Speaker 2: people disperse knowledge to us from their experiences, and sometimes
28:17
Speaker 2: we're too young and dumb to listen.
28:19
Speaker 1: What did that mean to you at the time when
28:20
Speaker 1: you said, this reminds me of when I was happy?
28:23
Speaker 2: You know, I was so excited that Richard Pryor came
28:26
Speaker 2: to see my condo. I didn't process it. But years later,
28:29
Speaker 2: I started realizing that he bought things and philosophies that
28:39
Speaker 2: made his life more complex. And he was happy. This
28:43
Speaker 2: is what I think it means. He was happy with
28:45
Speaker 2: the simple shit, you know? And sometimes, I mean, it's
28:49
Speaker 2: nice to have... Isn't it cool to have money but
28:52
Speaker 2: still eat burgers if you want to? I mean, because
28:54
Speaker 2: I remember walking through supermarkets and pretending I was shopping
28:58
Speaker 2: and eating out of the child cart, that little top part,
29:04
Speaker 2: and then leaving the supermarket, you know? So it's nice
29:07
Speaker 2: to be able... to buy anything we want. But at
29:10
Speaker 2: the same time, I get that thing of the simplicity and,
29:15
Speaker 2: you know, no guard gate.
29:18
Speaker 1: Um, nobody's knocking down your door trying to get to you. Yeah.
29:22
Speaker 2: Just, just a condo with no furniture. And for a
29:25
Speaker 2: guy like that, for the greatest that I've ever known
29:28
Speaker 2: in our world to say, I was happy when I
29:31
Speaker 2: had a little place with no furniture, um, I didn't
29:36
Speaker 2: think about it enough then, but later I realized what
29:38
Speaker 2: he meant when I was in a house that was
29:41
Speaker 2: too big with guest houses. You walk into a guest
29:47
Speaker 2: house and cobwebs get on your face because you ain't
29:51
Speaker 2: been in there in a while and you realize, okay,
29:53
Speaker 2: this is what Richard was talking about. I'm doing a
29:55
Speaker 2: lot of shit for other people that I don't need.
29:58
Speaker 1: Right. And too much complexity. Yeah. Too much complications.
30:02
Speaker 2: Somebody said, my business manager said something about my staff
30:05
Speaker 2: and it dawned on me, what the fuck do I
30:08
Speaker 2: have a staff for? You know, and I've simplified things
30:14
Speaker 2: a little bit in my life and I'm really happy.
30:16
Speaker 2: It's just, you know, me and my woman and a
30:21
Speaker 2: scaled down life.
30:24
Speaker 1: That's better. Yeah. There's a lot of people that just
30:27
Speaker 1: want a lot of people around them because it makes
30:29
Speaker 1: them feel important. They have a big staff. They have
30:32
Speaker 1: a lot of people working for them, a lot of
30:33
Speaker 1: things going on, a lot of different projects. Keep moving.
30:36
Speaker 1: Keep moving. But no peace.
30:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.
30:40
Speaker 1: Not good. I always tell comedians like they're like, oh,
30:42
Speaker 1: I got to get an assistant. I go, no, you don't.
30:44
Speaker 1: Just do less shit. Don't get an assistant. You get
30:47
Speaker 1: an assistant, that person is going to want to kill you.
30:49
Speaker 1: That person is going to feel entitled. You're making all
30:52
Speaker 1: this money. They're not. You're famous. They're not. They see
30:55
Speaker 1: you for who you really are. They're like, you ain't
30:58
Speaker 1: a fucking regular guy. Why has he got all this?
31:01
Speaker 1: Like David Spade's assistant duct taped him and tased him.
31:04
Speaker 1: Remember that? Yeah. Try to kill him.
31:07
Speaker 2: That's heavy, man. And I've heard that the people who
31:11
Speaker 2: work for us always hate us. I've always avoided.
31:16
Speaker 1: It's not always the case.
31:17
Speaker 2: You know your housekeeper hates you.
31:19
Speaker 1: And I'm like.
31:20
Speaker 2: No, she's been with me 22 years. It's like, that
31:23
Speaker 2: bitch hates you. And I don't want to believe that.
31:28
Speaker 1: It's not always the case, but it is often the
31:31
Speaker 1: case that people that are around people that have so much,
31:34
Speaker 1: they feel like, why don't I have this? Like, I'm
31:38
Speaker 1: working for this person. What am I not doing? But
31:40
Speaker 1: why am I not rich? This person could just make
31:41
Speaker 1: me rich. It's weird. You know what I mean?
31:44
Speaker 2: Yeah.
31:45
Speaker 1: Like, that's not what the job is. The job is
31:47
Speaker 1: you're a gardener. The garden doesn't make $ 5 million a year.
31:51
Speaker 1: Like this is– you're kind of being crazy. And then
31:55
Speaker 1: you get people that take advantage of you where you
31:57
Speaker 1: get a bill and you're like, why does it cost
31:59
Speaker 1: this much? Like this is– like I have a friend
32:01
Speaker 1: who's very wealthy. He's a businessman. And he goes over
32:05
Speaker 1: every fucking little thing that people charge him and he's
32:08
Speaker 1: always looking for– they're fucking trying to overcharge me.
32:10
Speaker 2: He signs his own checks.
32:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. But he gets crazy when he thinks people are
32:14
Speaker 1: overcharging him. But I'm like, dude, you're almost 80. And
32:18
Speaker 1: you're worth a billion dollars. Like why do you– why
32:21
Speaker 1: are you looking at like how much the car wash
32:23
Speaker 1: guy charges you? This is crazy.
32:24
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why he has a billion.
32:27
Speaker 1: Perhaps. I mean he's a businessman. That's his thing. But
32:30
Speaker 1: what drives him nuts is this idea that people are
32:34
Speaker 1: overcharging him because he's wealthy. They're taking advantage of him.
32:38
Speaker 2: Joe, the craziest I ever went was I had a
32:42
Speaker 2: barber when I had hair. Yeah. And, you know, a
32:47
Speaker 2: black barber is a skilled scientist, you know, because back
32:51
Speaker 2: then I had fried, dyed, laid to the side with
32:54
Speaker 2: three Adidas stripes over on the left. And, you know,
32:58
Speaker 2: my shit was intricate that year. And my business manager
33:04
Speaker 2: happened to be a business manager for two other entertainers.
33:08
Speaker 2: And he's also my friend. And one day he says,
33:12
Speaker 2: you know, that guy charges the three of you different prices.
33:16
Speaker 2: And I'm like, get the fuck. So I found out
33:21
Speaker 2: that Johnny Gill was paying 100. I was paying 350.
33:27
Speaker 2: And that drives me crazy because basically, like you say,
33:31
Speaker 2: he was charging based on who I am.
33:34
Speaker 1: Right.
33:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:35
Speaker 1: He like you can afford it.
33:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And I had a friend. who had more
33:40
Speaker 2: money than me, and he was charging him a crazy amount.
33:43
Speaker 2: It was like the rental of a rose. Crazy money.
33:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's what comes with the territory. People just
33:52
Speaker 1: think you're not going to notice. They don't care, you know.
33:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, yeah.
34:00
Speaker 1: Do you think you are happier now than you were
34:03
Speaker 1: when the Arsenio Hall show was at its peak?
34:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm happier now because with that peak
34:14
Speaker 2: comes a lot of pressure and a lot of work.
34:18
Speaker 2: And I'd be a liar to say I don't enjoy
34:21
Speaker 2: having the money without the other shit. You know, I
34:25
Speaker 2: did a good job of investing and making sure that
34:29
Speaker 2: when the lights went out, I was good. So. i
34:35
Speaker 2: love my life right now man more relaxed oh and
34:38
Speaker 2: being the og and pretty much your responsibility is just
34:42
Speaker 2: uh giving advice to a comic in the hallway.
34:44
Speaker 1: Yeah you know a lot of the young guys don't
34:47
Speaker 1: understand what you did because what your show was like
34:52
Speaker 1: back in i guess when was it when did it
34:55
Speaker 1: first come on the.
34:56
Speaker 2: Air what year probably uh Coming to America was like 86, 87.
35:00
Speaker 2: I left New York and went and started this show.
35:02
Speaker 2: So 87, 88, sometime around in there, I'm bad with years.
35:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. During that time and in the 90s, it changed
35:09
Speaker 1: the whole landscape of late night television. It completely changed it.
35:14
Speaker 1: Because late night television was stiff. It was like, yeah,
35:19
Speaker 1: fucking the desk. The desk made no sense to me.
35:23
Speaker 2: I talk about the desk and how I got rid
35:24
Speaker 2: of it.
35:25
Speaker 1: It made no sense. But I was like, oh, finally,
35:28
Speaker 1: he got rid of the desk. Are we being lectured?
35:31
Speaker 1: Am I in the principal's office? What is the fucking
35:34
Speaker 1: desk for? But when they first started doing that in
35:36
Speaker 1: the 1950s, if you went to work, you had a desk.
35:40
Speaker 1: You had to wear a tie. You had a desk.
35:42
Speaker 1: And they all smoked cigarettes while they were on the job.
35:45
Speaker 1: You watch like the Johnny Carson show.
35:46
Speaker 2: During commercials, Johnny would go under his desk, get a cigarette.
35:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, they would often smoke on air. They would
35:53
Speaker 1: do it all the time back then. They all smoked cigarettes.
35:56
Speaker 1: How about planes?
35:56
Speaker 2: How about the fact that we could get on a
35:59
Speaker 2: plane to go to a gig and there was a
36:01
Speaker 2: row behind us where smoking began? Right.
36:04
Speaker 1: Which made no sense.
36:05
Speaker 2: And I'm in the no smoking row and the bitch
36:07
Speaker 2: behind me got a cigar.
36:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it was just flooding the entire cabin. Yes.
36:13
Speaker 1: You know, Dice used to have a joke about it.
36:14
Speaker 1: You're in a fucking tube. Where's the air going? Yeah.
36:19
Speaker 1: But it was a weird time. But the whole idea
36:24
Speaker 1: was what I was getting to was like late night
36:26
Speaker 1: television was very stiff. It was, you know, it was like.
36:33
Speaker 1: And then your show came around.
36:35
Speaker 2: Paul Anka wrote that.
36:36
Speaker 1: Did he?
36:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
36:37
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Your show came around and then all of
36:40
Speaker 1: a sudden it was fun and loose and And I
36:44
Speaker 1: remember when Clinton came on your show and played the saxophone.
36:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
36:48
Speaker 1: And, I mean, everybody was like, what is happening? The
36:51
Speaker 1: fucking president of the– was he the president back then
36:54
Speaker 1: or was he running?
36:54
Speaker 2: He was a governor.
36:57
Speaker 1: Oh, that's right.
36:57
Speaker 2: And he was trying to get the young vote, so
36:59
Speaker 2: he did me. And then the next day they decided
37:02
Speaker 2: to do MTV because I think what my show did
37:07
Speaker 2: that night was changed how you run for the highest
37:10
Speaker 2: office in the land.
37:11
Speaker 1: Look at that. Yeah. Look at that.
37:14
Speaker 2: The joke I had just done was finally a Democrat
37:18
Speaker 2: blowing something other than the election. When you look, you
37:23
Speaker 2: remember jokes in the moment. And, dude, so what's interesting
37:28
Speaker 2: is after this, presidential candidates realized they had to come
37:34
Speaker 2: to Rogan and Sunday morning to meet the press, you know.
37:40
Speaker 2: And I like that, you know. They have to go
37:43
Speaker 2: everywhere now.
37:45
Speaker 1: Well, they go where the people are paying attention, right?
37:48
Speaker 1: But it was different because if they did The Tonight
37:51
Speaker 1: Show with Johnny Carson, it would be a very competent interview,
37:57
Speaker 1: but it would be stiff. It was like very– I
38:00
Speaker 1: mean not even stiff is not the right word. It
38:03
Speaker 1: was traditional. Yeah. It was like this was different, like
38:06
Speaker 1: him playing the saxophone, running for president, playing the saxophone.
38:09
Speaker 1: I was like, what is happening here?
38:11
Speaker 2: And I tried to get I told Jenna Bush this
38:14
Speaker 2: last week. I'm on this book slinging tour. And I
38:19
Speaker 2: told her, I said, I invited your grandpa because back
38:22
Speaker 2: then there was a mentality that you do equal both sides.
38:28
Speaker 2: And I don't think it was a rule, but but.
38:32
Speaker 2: First of all, my dad was a Republican. My mother
38:34
Speaker 2: was a Democrat. So I was used to hearing both
38:36
Speaker 2: sides and learning both sides. And I thought the best
38:39
Speaker 2: thing I could do for young people is show them
38:41
Speaker 2: both sides. And that would be fair of me as
38:44
Speaker 2: a host. And we got a call from a man
38:46
Speaker 2: named Marlon Fitzwater who said, no fucking way we're coming there.
38:51
Speaker 2: I wonder why. It's almost like what you talk about
38:56
Speaker 2: with the desk. Society... at a certain point is stiff
39:01
Speaker 2: and it takes certain people to loosen it up and
39:04
Speaker 2: make a change. And, uh, I, I think it was just,
39:08
Speaker 2: they're not used to it. It's like, why are they barking?
39:12
Speaker 1: And what is, yeah, you know, that's right. Things that
39:15
Speaker 1: make you go, Hmm.
39:16
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
39:18
Speaker 1: There was a lot going on.
39:19
Speaker 2: I had a couple of hooks going.
39:20
Speaker 1: Oh, you had a great hook. The things that make
39:22
Speaker 1: you go, whom everybody used that all day long. Like when,
39:25
Speaker 1: if something weird was going on in the office, people
39:27
Speaker 1: have things that make you go, Hmm.
39:29
Speaker 2: And, it was so cool. Then they wrote a song
39:32
Speaker 2: about it and I would turn on TV and I
39:34
Speaker 2: would see that CNC music factory.
39:36
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right.
39:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. And, um, um, I would turn on TV and
39:39
Speaker 2: like Nordstrom's would have a sale that makes you go.
39:42
Speaker 2: And I was like, that's very cool. You know, and
39:46
Speaker 2: it came about sitting with the writers and, um, I
39:51
Speaker 2: had done it at the comedy store and he says,
39:53
Speaker 2: you know, we could use that and just throw any
39:56
Speaker 2: joke in there like randos that we don't know where
39:59
Speaker 2: to put.
40:00
Speaker 1: Right.
40:01
Speaker 2: And so it really was a cheating technique for a comic. Yeah.
40:04
Speaker 1: Perfect non sequitur.
40:06
Speaker 2: Yeah.
40:06
Speaker 1: Just the transition.
40:07
Speaker 2: Every now and then, hey, why don't black women breastfeed
40:11
Speaker 2: chocolate milk? And you have no place else to put
40:14
Speaker 2: that thought. Right. So it's a stream of things that
40:18
Speaker 2: make you go, hmm.
40:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was just finally there was a
40:24
Speaker 1: different kind of talk show. It was like finally there
40:27
Speaker 1: was a talk show that was more fun.
40:29
Speaker 2: Hey, the desk thing, my partner and executive producer Marla
40:36
Speaker 2: Kell Brown, we were sitting around one day and she said,
40:39
Speaker 2: after coming to America– I had done the Joan Rivers thing.
40:42
Speaker 2: I had filled in for her for 11 weeks. And
40:45
Speaker 2: I think her husband committed suicide and she was going
40:48
Speaker 2: through all that period, right? Conan's creating the Wilton North
40:52
Speaker 2: Report in the room that I leave. And I go
40:55
Speaker 2: to Paramount and she says, I'm asking you one thing.
40:58
Speaker 2: She said, I watched you do stand-up the other night
41:01
Speaker 2: at the Comedy Store. And there is a freedom that
41:05
Speaker 2: you have. that I would like you to have on
41:07
Speaker 2: the talk show. And I don't think we can have
41:09
Speaker 2: it with that desk between you and the guest. So
41:12
Speaker 2: I want you to just try without the desk. And
41:16
Speaker 2: I tried it without the desk and never went back.
41:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, you changed it. I mean, like, and then George
41:23
Speaker 1: Lopez did No Desk when he did his show. A
41:27
Speaker 1: few people have tried the No Desk thing. Yeah.
41:30
Speaker 2: For us, I think it's great. And you know what?
41:31
Speaker 2: I was able, like somebody like Rosie Perez, who would
41:34
Speaker 2: be nervous- I'd hold her hand. And you can't reach
41:39
Speaker 2: across the desk and hold somebody's hand.
41:41
Speaker 1: Well, also the desk was always elevated.
41:43
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
41:43
Speaker 1: The desk was always above the guest.
41:45
Speaker 2: We must be higher.
41:46
Speaker 1: Which is weird.
41:47
Speaker 2: Well, that's a bizarre. I don't know if that's the
41:51
Speaker 2: ego of the entertainer or whether that's some ass-kissing prop
41:57
Speaker 2: set designer move. Because we always wanted to be higher.
42:02
Speaker 2: And I remember they put something under my seat.
42:04
Speaker 1: So I make your seat higher. Yeah.
42:06
Speaker 2: So I'm sitting even with Kareem, which is bullshit. Yeah.
42:13
Speaker 1: It's a weird thing. It's like, why would the host
42:16
Speaker 1: be above movie stars and rock stars? Why? That doesn't
42:22
Speaker 1: make any sense at all.
42:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. Unless your host is David Bowie.
42:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. Right. Unless he decides to do a talk show.
42:30
Speaker 1: Even then it doesn't make any sense. It's like, if
42:32
Speaker 1: you want to have a conversation the way you did,
42:34
Speaker 1: it was the best way to do it. Just be
42:36
Speaker 1: sitting there.
42:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
42:37
Speaker 1: Sitting with each other, you know, and now you can
42:40
Speaker 1: lean in. Oh yeah. Yeah.
42:42
Speaker 2: You could, you could touch the person.
42:44
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:45
Speaker 2: Now we have a different era where everyone can do talk.
42:52
Speaker 2: I saw Mike Epps talking on his back from his
42:55
Speaker 2: bed the other day, holding his phone above him. And
42:59
Speaker 2: that's when it hit me. It's like, Now we have
43:01
Speaker 2: a hard time finding a guest that doesn't have a show.
43:04
Speaker 1: Right.
43:05
Speaker 2: Anyone can have a show now. Yeah. And that's kind
43:09
Speaker 2: of cool.
43:09
Speaker 1: It is kind of cool. And it's just like, and
43:12
Speaker 1: you find your, as long as you do it long
43:14
Speaker 1: enough and you put the right attention to it and
43:18
Speaker 1: do it honestly, you'll find your own lane. You'll find
43:21
Speaker 1: your own way of doing things.
43:22
Speaker 2: I have friends who have children who have shows. makeup
43:26
Speaker 2: tutorials and successful things going on in their bedroom.
43:30
Speaker 1: One of the biggest shows on YouTube for a long
43:32
Speaker 1: time was a kid that was like unboxing toys.
43:36
Speaker 2: Oh, that's cool.
43:37
Speaker 1: And it was sort of, but then they started monetizing
43:40
Speaker 1: it and I think, you know, as soon as your
43:42
Speaker 1: parents start making all that money off of you opening
43:44
Speaker 1: toy boxes, shit gets weird. It's weird for kids to
43:47
Speaker 1: get famous, period. But it was just like no one
43:51
Speaker 1: had thought that out. Like that there would be a
43:53
Speaker 1: lot of people that were interested in you watching toys.
43:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
43:58
Speaker 1: There's a lot of shows that I watch on YouTube
44:02
Speaker 1: that it's just people cooking. Oh yeah. I love watching people.
44:05
Speaker 2: I watch a lady cook with big titties and just
44:10
Speaker 2: an apron. You know, side boobage be coming out.
44:14
Speaker 1: That's a trick. She's tricking you. I like watching people
44:18
Speaker 1: cook with no talking. It's just ASMR. You know, just
44:21
Speaker 1: they're like chopping up the food and you hear the
44:23
Speaker 1: sizzle in the pan. I don't know why I like it.
44:27
Speaker 1: I love watching people do things.
44:28
Speaker 2: Isn't it amazing that you're younger than I am, but
44:32
Speaker 2: when I was growing up in Cleveland, we had three channels. Right?
44:35
Speaker 1: I remember those days.
44:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the shit signed off at two.
44:39
Speaker 1: Right.
44:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:43
Speaker 1: And you'd fall asleep watching TV and that would wake
44:45
Speaker 1: you up.
44:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:46
Speaker 1: Because it would be just crackling. Like, oh, geez, I
44:49
Speaker 1: stayed up too late. You'd have to shut her off
44:51
Speaker 1: after the American flag. Because the American flag would wave
44:54
Speaker 1: on the TV, right?
44:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. There would be a match fade from a soldier
44:59
Speaker 2: to the American flag.
45:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then it would just go static at two
45:03
Speaker 1: in the morning. And then I remember when Fox came
45:06
Speaker 1: out and everybody's like, this channel is crazy. Fox, they
45:11
Speaker 1: had The Simpsons and Married with Children.
45:14
Speaker 2: It changed my life, man. Tracy Allman. And then, of course,
45:19
Speaker 2: they discovered that they could get numbers with me and
45:23
Speaker 2: Living Color. And Fox was really important to us.
45:28
Speaker 1: Fox was important to America. I mean, it was a looser,
45:32
Speaker 1: wilder network. It was like a network that was a
45:35
Speaker 1: little crazier. They were doing things. They were getting nuts.
45:39
Speaker 2: And they had to. They had to take some chances
45:41
Speaker 2: and roll the dice in a different way.
45:43
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah. And then cable came along. It was like
45:46
Speaker 1: the slow descent into madness. And then all of a
45:50
Speaker 1: sudden you have 150 channels. And now you have like
45:53
Speaker 1: literally an infinite number of channels because of streaming and YouTube.
45:57
Speaker 1: You can never run out of things to look at.
46:00
Speaker 2: Which is crazy because I turn a lot and I'm like, Yo, motherfucker,
46:05
Speaker 2: they got two million stations and you channel chasing? You
46:08
Speaker 2: can't find something? But I'm a big YouTube guy because
46:13
Speaker 2: I don't like commercials. I want what I want and
46:16
Speaker 2: I want it in small increments. I actually, as a 70-year-old,
46:19
Speaker 2: fit more into this culture than I did the culture
46:21
Speaker 2: I was born into. I like things for three minutes.
46:25
Speaker 2: It's fucked me up, too. I don't want long shit.
46:30
Speaker 2: I want quick shit. And I'm jumping around.
46:34
Speaker 1: Well, when I'm watching TV, I'm generally trying to check
46:37
Speaker 1: out or I'm trying to be educated. So either I'm
46:42
Speaker 1: watching some like particle physicist talk about the way they
46:48
Speaker 1: find new particles by using particle colliders and large hadron
46:53
Speaker 1: colliders and the amount of energy required to duplicate the
46:58
Speaker 1: conditions that happen right after the Big Bang.
47:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
47:02
Speaker 1: I watch a lot of that shit and then I
47:03
Speaker 1: just watch people play pool. I watch people play pool
47:07
Speaker 1: and I watch people make furniture and people cook. I'm
47:12
Speaker 1: just trying to unwind. I'm just trying to relax.
47:15
Speaker 2: That's so heavy. I heard you and Kat talking about
47:19
Speaker 2: the pyramids. As a matter of fact, it was part
47:25
Speaker 2: of the reason I was afraid to come here. I've
47:28
Speaker 2: heard you talk about the re-explosion of It's just when
47:33
Speaker 2: you hear that kind of shit and you're like, I
47:35
Speaker 2: don't want to be his like pussy crazy, huh? I
47:39
Speaker 2: don't want to be that guy. So it's intimidating to
47:44
Speaker 2: watch intelligent people have an exchange. And say, I got
47:47
Speaker 2: to go there.
47:48
Speaker 1: Is it? Oh, yeah.
47:51
Speaker 2: You don't want to be the first idiot in the room.
47:53
Speaker 1: Oh, you definitely wouldn't be the first idiot on this show.
47:56
Speaker 1: And you're not an idiot anyway. But there's been plenty
47:59
Speaker 1: of really fucking dumb people on this show that were great.
48:02
Speaker 2: But do you know somebody that is really intelligent and
48:05
Speaker 2: conversation with them is intimidating?
48:07
Speaker 1: Oh, sure.
48:08
Speaker 2: So I was afraid of this room. I mean, I
48:10
Speaker 2: know people like Bill Clinton. The first time I sat
48:13
Speaker 2: and talked to Bill Clinton, not on the air, or
48:16
Speaker 2: the second time, I guess I should say, it was
48:19
Speaker 2: kind of daunting because he, no matter what your politics is,
48:24
Speaker 2: he's a really smart guy. Yeah. Cat Williams is the
48:27
Speaker 2: same way. That motherfucker read a lot more books than
48:30
Speaker 2: I read.
48:31
Speaker 1: Well, Cat's brilliant. I mean, you can't be that funny
48:35
Speaker 1: and not be very intelligent.
48:37
Speaker 2: It's the reason Bill Cosby was so funny. He was
48:39
Speaker 2: a bright man. Mm-hmm. Uh-oh.
48:44
Speaker 1: Uh-oh. He just– that's a problematic subject. Also Bill Clinton.
48:49
Speaker 1: I wish Bill Clinton didn't have so many problems because
48:52
Speaker 1: I would like to talk to him. I would love
48:53
Speaker 1: to have to sit down with him on a podcast.
48:57
Speaker 1: The problem is like how do you sit down and
48:59
Speaker 1: not talk about all the chaos and all the nutty
49:02
Speaker 1: shit and the Epstein files and all the other shit?
49:05
Speaker 1: Like you kind of almost have to talk about it.
49:07
Speaker 1: So it's too bad. Because I think he's a fascinating person.
49:11
Speaker 1: And I think he's one of the greatest presidents of
49:14
Speaker 1: all time for sure. And if you go back and
49:16
Speaker 1: look at what he accomplished during his administration, they balanced
49:20
Speaker 1: the budget. That was like one of the first times
49:23
Speaker 1: in the history of this fucking country that we didn't
49:25
Speaker 1: have a gigantic debt. Now our debt's like $ 39 trillion.
49:29
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Everybody's so bad at balancing the budget. And
49:33
Speaker 1: you go back and listen to him talk when he
49:35
Speaker 1: was running for president, he's like super Like everything he
49:39
Speaker 1: said made sense.
49:40
Speaker 2: And didn't he move a little to the right?
49:41
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't to the right. It was just sensible.
49:46
Speaker 1: Like what is to the right and what is to
49:47
Speaker 1: the left? It doesn't mean anything anymore.
49:49
Speaker 2: It's accepting that a lot of things are valuable that
49:54
Speaker 2: are not a part of your party's philosophy. I think
49:58
Speaker 2: we have to be willing to compromise and move a
50:01
Speaker 2: little bit. And that goes for all politicians. We have
50:04
Speaker 2: to be able to move a little bit to be
50:06
Speaker 2: logical and serve all of America.
50:08
Speaker 1: For sure. But I think the problem is parties all
50:12
Speaker 1: have to agree and then they form ideologies that you
50:16
Speaker 1: cannot stray from. So if you're one of those people
50:18
Speaker 1: that says like, hey, maybe an open border is a
50:21
Speaker 1: bad idea because terrorists can come through. No, there's– no
50:26
Speaker 1: one is illegal on stolen land. You get– Everybody gets
50:30
Speaker 1: crazy because there's a party line that you have to
50:32
Speaker 1: stick with. This is today. Today, things are incredibly polarizing.
50:36
Speaker 1: But if you go back and listen to some of
50:38
Speaker 1: the things that Clinton was saying when he was running
50:39
Speaker 1: for president and when he was president, boy, these are
50:43
Speaker 1: like almost right-wing talking points in a lot of ways.
50:46
Speaker 1: But it's not really right-wing. It's just sensible. Like what
50:52
Speaker 1: is right and what is left? Left used to be–
50:56
Speaker 1: First of all, freedom of speech was of paramount importance.
51:00
Speaker 1: It used to be that they were very open-minded. It
51:03
Speaker 1: used to be that education was of crucial importance and
51:08
Speaker 1: that discourse was crucially important and that you have to
51:12
Speaker 1: look out for citizens in the sense of having social
51:16
Speaker 1: safety nets and having welfare programs and food stamps and
51:19
Speaker 1: all those things which are really important for a society
51:22
Speaker 1: because not everybody is in the same position in life.
51:25
Speaker 1: And If we're a community of people, which is what
51:27
Speaker 1: a country is supposed to be, you're supposed to look
51:30
Speaker 1: out for everyone. That's sensible. That's what the left used
51:34
Speaker 1: to be. And then it became trans women are women.
51:37
Speaker 1: Men can get pregnant.
51:39
Speaker 2: And by the way, when you deal with left and right,
51:42
Speaker 2: you have to almost attach a year because we've seen
51:45
Speaker 2: parties change. I'm always reminded that the Democratic Party was
51:53
Speaker 2: the party of the Klan. If you go far enough back.
51:56
Speaker 2: So I'm a Republican. I have to look at it all.
52:00
Speaker 1: But wasn't Lincoln a Republican? Oh, I believe Lincoln was
52:05
Speaker 1: a Republican. I think the Republicans were the ones who
52:08
Speaker 1: were trying to abolish slavery. There was a lot of
52:11
Speaker 1: there's a lot of weird things that shift back and
52:14
Speaker 1: forth and that you you think of right wing and
52:18
Speaker 1: left wing in today's standards. Like we were playing a
52:21
Speaker 1: clip of Hillary Clinton the other day. when she was
52:24
Speaker 1: running for president, I think it was, was it 2008
52:25
Speaker 1: or 2012? Eight. She was running for president. She's like,
52:32
Speaker 1: If you're here, illegal from another country, you should have
52:35
Speaker 1: to pay a stiff penalty. You should have to learn English.
52:40
Speaker 1: And if you have any criminal history whatsoever, no questions asked.
52:44
Speaker 1: You get out of the country. And everyone was cheering like,
52:47
Speaker 1: the lady's MAGA. That sounds completely MAGA.
52:50
Speaker 2: That's why I say when you deal with Democrat, Republican,
52:52
Speaker 2: you have to attach a year because it's evolved and
52:54
Speaker 2: changed many times.
52:56
Speaker 1: That's all. You're just being manipulated. And you're being manipulated
52:59
Speaker 1: by– these two teams and you have to pick a team.
53:02
Speaker 1: You have to decide which team you want.
53:04
Speaker 2: I hate that.
53:05
Speaker 1: It's so stupid. I'm politically homeless. I've always been political.
53:08
Speaker 1: I've been politically homeless for a long fucking time. Neither
53:12
Speaker 1: one of them make any sense to me. We need
53:13
Speaker 1: like a logical centrist government that like just says there's
53:19
Speaker 1: a lot of things that we should do to make
53:21
Speaker 1: this country a better place. We can do these things
53:24
Speaker 1: and we don't have to attach them to left or
53:26
Speaker 1: right and anything that The left says that's logical. The
53:30
Speaker 1: people on the right, they immediately dismiss it because it's
53:32
Speaker 1: coming from the left. And that happens the same where
53:35
Speaker 1: the left does it to people on the right. It's dumb.
53:38
Speaker 1: It's a team thing. It's like the Dolphins versus the Raiders.
53:41
Speaker 1: It's just you pick a fucking team and you lay
53:43
Speaker 1: that team sucks.
53:43
Speaker 2: What a horrible game, by the way.
53:47
Speaker 1: You pick a team and your team rules and the
53:49
Speaker 1: other team sucks. And there's a lot of people out
53:52
Speaker 1: there that are not that– they're not open-minded and they
53:56
Speaker 1: love a good– rigid ideology that they could adhere to
54:00
Speaker 1: so now I don't have to think for myself I
54:02
Speaker 1: have a predetermined pattern of opinions that I could just
54:05
Speaker 1: adopt and I'll just accept those and that's how I
54:09
Speaker 1: think and that's what I'm going to argue.
54:10
Speaker 2: With when I was young I used to in some
54:15
Speaker 2: jokes say my my heart is democratic but my wallet
54:19
Speaker 2: is republican yeah you know but it's not even that
54:21
Speaker 2: simple anymore it's gotten much more complicated.
54:24
Speaker 1: Yeah much much more complicated it's like Everyone should be anti-fraud,
54:28
Speaker 1: whether you're on the left or on the right.
54:31
Speaker 2: Unless you're committing fraud.
54:33
Speaker 1: Right.
54:33
Speaker 2: Then I'm pro-me.
54:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people that are
54:38
Speaker 1: certainly benefiting from fraud would like to dismiss it, whether
54:41
Speaker 1: it's the left or the right. We have a problem
54:45
Speaker 1: in this country where we have a two-party system. Two-party
54:48
Speaker 1: systems are inherently flawed because there's no fucking way that
54:51
Speaker 1: one side is going to represent you entirely. And it's
54:56
Speaker 1: much more likely if you have like five, 10, 15
54:59
Speaker 1: different parties that are all legitimate because we don't have
55:02
Speaker 1: another legitimate party. If you vote for libertarian and I
55:05
Speaker 1: voted libertarian before, you're basically saying, fuck these people. You know,
55:09
Speaker 1: fuck these people. I'm voting.
55:10
Speaker 2: You're jacking up the Dolphin Raider game. Yeah.
55:16
Speaker 1: I'm voting for rugby. You're basically saying you're like, I
55:20
Speaker 1: can't get behind either one of these motherfuckers. So I'm
55:23
Speaker 1: going to vote for this guy who has no chance.
55:26
Speaker 1: And I've done that before. I did that with Joe Jorgensen.
55:29
Speaker 1: I did that with Gary Johnson. I voted for both
55:31
Speaker 1: of them.
55:32
Speaker 2: But why do you think we've not been able to
55:35
Speaker 2: come up with legitimate third, fourth, and fifth parties?
55:39
Speaker 1: Well, they got it locked down. They've got it locked down.
55:42
Speaker 2: With donations and money?
55:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's money. Money and politics. When they allowed corporations
55:47
Speaker 1: to just essentially give as much as they feel like it,
55:50
Speaker 1: And not.
55:52
Speaker 2: Just corporations, but other countries.
55:54
Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. A lot
55:57
Speaker 1: of people hit stretches where money gets tight. And it's
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57:10
Speaker 1: slash J-R-E. That's BetterHelp.com slash J-R-E. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
57:18
Speaker 1: It's not good. It's not good. Money in politics is
57:21
Speaker 1: the real problem. You know, it should. The whole thing,
57:24
Speaker 1: it's a mess. And then you find out how much
57:26
Speaker 1: money politicians make.
57:28
Speaker 2: While TSA guys have nothing. Yeah. And politicians are still
57:32
Speaker 2: getting their motherfucking check.
57:33
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Well, I felt that way also about the
57:36
Speaker 1: lockdowns in California. I was like, all these people that
57:39
Speaker 1: are saying that you should have no outdoor dining, your
57:41
Speaker 1: paycheck should be entirely dependent on the GDP of your city.
57:45
Speaker 1: And if your city starts suffering, you should fucking suffer.
57:48
Speaker 1: And I guarantee you want those businesses to open right
57:51
Speaker 1: the fuck back up because it didn't make any sense.
57:53
Speaker 1: They were doing things for optics only. And they were
57:56
Speaker 1: doing things because they like control. People love control. They
58:00
Speaker 1: love it. And once you give them power over people,
58:02
Speaker 1: they're in the control business. They like to keep that control.
58:04
Speaker 1: And it just gets gross. And they don't have any–
58:07
Speaker 1: there's no repercussions. They don't get in trouble if all
58:10
Speaker 1: these– like California.
58:12
Speaker 2: Lost— Somebody should be in trouble for the Epstein Files. Somebody.
58:15
Speaker 1: At least one person, please. Yes.
58:17
Speaker 2: It's crazy that we're sitting around looking at that.
58:20
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
58:20
Speaker 2: And we know it and we say it, but ain't
58:23
Speaker 2: a motherfucking thing we can.
58:24
Speaker 1: Do about it.
58:24
Speaker 2: Right.
58:25
Speaker 1: It's like right now there's some talk about journalists getting
58:30
Speaker 1: in trouble for leaking information about the downed pilot and
58:35
Speaker 1: that they want to prosecute these journalists. At the same time,
58:38
Speaker 1: no one's being prosecuted for the Epstein Files. Yeah.
58:42
Speaker 2: That's nuts.
58:43
Speaker 1: That's a sick society.
58:45
Speaker 2: As a kid, I did magic, right? And there's a
58:49
Speaker 2: thing in magic. I take a coin and put it
58:52
Speaker 2: in this hand. There's a thing called misdirection. That's what
58:55
Speaker 2: I just did to you. You looked at that hand.
58:56
Speaker 2: I'm doing some shit right here. That's the story of
58:59
Speaker 2: American politics.
59:00
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Whenever something weird is going on. Look, when
59:03
Speaker 1: Monica Lewinsky, when Bill Clinton got caught with Monica Lewinsky,
59:07
Speaker 1: they started bombing some other countries.
59:09
Speaker 2: Right.
59:10
Speaker 1: Got to distract these people. This is just too complicated. Look,
59:13
Speaker 1: the Epstein files comes out. We go to war with Iran.
59:16
Speaker 1: It's a good way to get people to stop talking
59:19
Speaker 1: about certain things. You give them a new problem to
59:21
Speaker 1: think about.
59:22
Speaker 2: Hey, this morning, I wake up in a very nice hotel,
59:25
Speaker 2: thanks to you. Breakfast was paid for. The tip was done.
59:28
Speaker 2: All that shit.
59:28
Speaker 1: It was kind of cool.
59:30
Speaker 2: Um, and I was nervous and I'm thinking I'm nervous
59:36
Speaker 2: to go see my guy and talk, which is insane.
59:40
Speaker 2: But then, you know, sometimes you try to focus on
59:42
Speaker 2: why you're really nervous. Why am I so nervous? And
59:45
Speaker 2: I realized it wasn't just coming here. I had watched
59:48
Speaker 2: about a half hour of news and it was making
59:52
Speaker 2: my stomach hurt because I feel so sad. On a
59:56
Speaker 2: lot of levels. And anxiety.
59:58
Speaker 1: Yes, yes. News just gives me anxiety.
1:00:01
Speaker 2: But I got to, as a comic, I got to
1:00:03
Speaker 2: watch because I got to know everything. I got to
1:00:05
Speaker 2: have that mental Rolodex loaded. Yes. For crowd work or whatever.
1:00:11
Speaker 1: You have to know what's going on in the world, unfortunately.
1:00:14
Speaker 1: If I wasn't a comic, I would have no social media.
1:00:17
Speaker 1: I would never consume the news. I would just hide.
1:00:20
Speaker 1: I would just like go to a peaceful place. I'd
1:00:23
Speaker 1: probably have a place in the mountain somewhere and just
1:00:25
Speaker 1: fucking chill. I would not want to have anything to
1:00:28
Speaker 1: do with any of this bullshit that's going on in
1:00:29
Speaker 1: the world. And I know a lot of people say, oh,
1:00:31
Speaker 1: you have to participate and this and that. Man, yeah,
1:00:35
Speaker 1: I guess. But I don't think your participation is having
1:00:39
Speaker 1: the kind of effect that you'd like it to have.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: I think it's having an effect on the way you
1:00:42
Speaker 1: think and feel much more like a disproportionate effect. On
1:00:46
Speaker 1: your mental health and your anxiety levels and all these
1:00:49
Speaker 1: different things that you cannot control by paying attention to it.
1:00:52
Speaker 1: You can't control what these fucking people are doing. And
1:00:56
Speaker 1: it just drives you nuts.
1:00:57
Speaker 2: And it's frustrating because we realize, I mean, you and
1:01:01
Speaker 2: I are both millionaires. You a lot more than me.
1:01:04
Speaker 2: But at the same time, we realize we don't have
1:01:07
Speaker 2: enough money to really affect it.
1:01:09
Speaker 1: I mean, you. You can affect some things, I guess.
1:01:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now that I think about it.
1:01:14
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I don't want to affect– if
1:01:18
Speaker 1: I can affect things in a positive way, I can. Yeah.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: I mean there's some things.
1:01:21
Speaker 2: That I'd like to do. We affect things by dispersing
1:01:23
Speaker 2: information of candidates.
1:01:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:01:25
Speaker 2: And helping to inform people. But that kind of money
1:01:29
Speaker 2: that you have to have to have a dinner in
1:01:32
Speaker 2: Malibu and later get some shit done that you want
1:01:37
Speaker 2: to get done because the president is your guy now.
1:01:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. Or girl. That's very complicated.
1:01:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:01:44
Speaker 1: And that kind of complication comes with a lot of scrutiny,
1:01:47
Speaker 1: a lot of weirdness. And also, like, you don't really
1:01:50
Speaker 1: know these people. You support people, like, for running for
1:01:54
Speaker 1: president or governor or mayor or whatever. How much do
1:01:58
Speaker 1: you know them? Are you really sure? Is this, like,
1:02:02
Speaker 1: is there no good option so you go with the
1:02:04
Speaker 1: least evil option?
1:02:05
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of us do that. And that's really
1:02:09
Speaker 2: painful to think that. the lesser of two evils is
1:02:12
Speaker 2: a horrible thing as a philosophy for a place we
1:02:16
Speaker 2: raise our children. Right. Yeah.
1:02:18
Speaker 1: There's no one person that really comes along. We like, finally,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: like a peaceful, God loving person who's just looking out
1:02:25
Speaker 1: for everybody's best interest, who really only wants to do
1:02:27
Speaker 1: this because they think they can affect change. And then
1:02:29
Speaker 1: once they do try to affect change, they get fucking
1:02:31
Speaker 1: shot because, because nobody really wants that because they're all
1:02:34
Speaker 1: making money.
1:02:35
Speaker 2: When we were coming up, remember the Sam Kinison bit?
1:02:39
Speaker 1: Which bit?
1:02:39
Speaker 2: Um, I think it was very similar to that. People
1:02:43
Speaker 2: who have an idea, we kill them.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: Oh, that was Bill Hicks.
1:02:45
Speaker 2: Oh, it was Hicks.
1:02:46
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:02:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:02:47
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
1:02:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:02:48
Speaker 1: Hicks, Hicks had a great bit about that. Yeah. And
1:02:50
Speaker 1: it's totally true. I mean, anybody that really wants to
1:02:53
Speaker 1: rock the apple cart, like that, that person's a problem,
1:02:56
Speaker 1: you know, and all these people that are making all
1:02:58
Speaker 1: these sociopaths that are making fucking billions of dollars just
1:03:02
Speaker 1: being cunts. They do not want you coming along and
1:03:05
Speaker 1: waking people up to that and saying, Hey, we should
1:03:08
Speaker 1: put a stop to all this. We should, you know,
1:03:10
Speaker 1: We should stop these people from– like that's why people
1:03:13
Speaker 1: cheered when that guy got shot, the UnitedHealthcare guy. He
1:03:17
Speaker 1: got shot. People were happy. They were happy.
1:03:20
Speaker 2: Like finally– At first I thought it was– I thought
1:03:22
Speaker 2: homie who shot him, I thought it was his eyebrows
1:03:25
Speaker 2: because women were going crazy. He's a hot guy.
1:03:27
Speaker 1: He's a good-looking guy too. He's a perfect guy to
1:03:30
Speaker 1: be like a martyr, like an assassin.
1:03:33
Speaker 2: By the way– Have you noticed throughout history good-looking people
1:03:38
Speaker 2: get treated differently when it comes to the justice system?
1:03:41
Speaker 2: They've done experimental trials where the hot guy gets off
1:03:45
Speaker 2: for murder easy because 11 women were cool with it.
1:03:51
Speaker 1: Well, women are weird with killers. You know, when guys
1:03:55
Speaker 1: are even serial killers, when they go to jail, women get.
1:03:58
Speaker 2: Great letters, proposals. Weird.
1:04:01
Speaker 1: Marry me. Yeah. Even like Richard Ramirez was getting all
1:04:04
Speaker 1: these proposals while he was in jail.
1:04:06
Speaker 2: But the ultimate game for a woman is to be
1:04:08
Speaker 2: married but not have to live with that motherfucker. So
1:04:11
Speaker 2: that might be kind of cool.
1:04:15
Speaker 1: Kind of. I don't know what it is. I heard
1:04:17
Speaker 1: someone talk about that, saying that there's women that like
1:04:21
Speaker 1: men that are capable of killing. Because back in the day,
1:04:27
Speaker 1: if you needed someone to protect you, you didn't want
1:04:31
Speaker 1: someone that would hesitate if they were going to kill someone.
1:04:34
Speaker 1: You wanted someone who has experience killing people. So it's
1:04:37
Speaker 1: almost like an attractive trait that someone's willing to cross
1:04:40
Speaker 1: that terrible line and just has no problem murdering people.
1:04:44
Speaker 1: And if they like you, they won't murder you, but
1:04:46
Speaker 1: they'll murder other people, like anybody that's a problem.
1:04:49
Speaker 2: I knew a girl who went out with a couple
1:04:51
Speaker 2: of friends of mine. And her M.O. was to do
1:04:55
Speaker 2: something publicly that would make the man whip somebody's ass
1:05:00
Speaker 2: to defend her honor or something. Because that made her
1:05:05
Speaker 2: feel better.
1:05:07
Speaker 1: That's a crazy bitch. I've been around people like that before.
1:05:09
Speaker 1: I always got rid of them real quick. I've had
1:05:12
Speaker 1: a few ladies like that.
1:05:13
Speaker 2: You're going to let him say that to me?
1:05:14
Speaker 1: I'd be like, why'd you say that to him? Don't
1:05:17
Speaker 1: get me involved in this stupid shit. But it's hard, man.
1:05:20
Speaker 2: I was in a club as a young man. On Sunset.
1:05:23
Speaker 2: Left the Comedy Store, went down the street to a
1:05:25
Speaker 2: place called Carlos and Charlie's. And back then they had
1:05:29
Speaker 2: this garment called a tube top. Oh, yeah. It was
1:05:31
Speaker 2: just an elastic piece about eight inches, depending on your breast.
1:05:37
Speaker 2: And I watched a dude take his finger and just
1:05:41
Speaker 2: pull the girl's tube top down. Titties fell out. And
1:05:44
Speaker 2: I'm watching her man. He didn't know what to do,
1:05:48
Speaker 2: you know, because... You don't want to fight these guys.
1:05:52
Speaker 2: You almost want to just say, baby, just put up
1:05:54
Speaker 2: your top and let's go home. But he had to fight.
1:05:58
Speaker 2: And in that situation, I think you have to fight.
1:06:02
Speaker 1: But you just definitely shouldn't be there in the first place.
1:06:05
Speaker 1: That's the problem with going to clubs.
1:06:07
Speaker 2: That's the wrong clue.
1:06:08
Speaker 1: Running into the potential psychopath is just too– like that's
1:06:13
Speaker 1: where they go. Where people act like cunts, that's where
1:06:17
Speaker 1: they go.
1:06:18
Speaker 2: When is the last time you went to a club? Yeah,
1:06:21
Speaker 2: it's been a long time for me. I mean, there
1:06:23
Speaker 2: is no club for 70-year-olds.
1:06:24
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
1:06:25
Speaker 2: That's called ARP.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: Well, if you do go, it's sad.
1:06:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't want to be the oldest.
1:06:30
Speaker 1: At the bar.
1:06:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:06:31
Speaker 1: Hey, ladies. What is fucking grandpa doing here?
1:06:34
Speaker 2: But do kids dance now?
1:06:37
Speaker 1: That's a good question.
1:06:38
Speaker 2: My son has, like, I remember a time when you say,
1:06:41
Speaker 2: I'm doing the Cabbage Patch now. You know, it's like
1:06:44
Speaker 2: you knew what the latest dance was. My son never dances.
1:06:47
Speaker 2: I've taken him to New Year's Eve parties. He never,
1:06:50
Speaker 2: during a slow record, says to a girl, you want
1:06:52
Speaker 2: to dance? You go out and slow dance. What happened
1:06:55
Speaker 2: to that shit?
1:06:56
Speaker 1: That's true, right? Well, because clubs got associated with violence.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: Clubs get associated with people getting drunk. They're doing drugs
1:07:04
Speaker 1: and chaos and people getting shot. There's just too much
1:07:08
Speaker 1: of that going on. You hear about that at concerts too.
1:07:11
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right. There's no new dances. There's no
1:07:15
Speaker 1: things that you have to learn.
1:07:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you know what's replaced it? Maybe the entire
1:07:21
Speaker 2: family on TikTok. Right.
1:07:23
Speaker 3: TikTok has definitely got dances that you've got to learn.
1:07:26
Speaker 2: Oh, really?
1:07:26
Speaker 1: That's all it is. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, for
1:07:28
Speaker 1: people that are way younger than us. Right, that's where
1:07:30
Speaker 1: the dances are. That's where the dances are. They're not
1:07:32
Speaker 1: going to clubs.
1:07:32
Speaker 3: The Korn song just got viral again because they're dancing
1:07:35
Speaker 3: to Freak on a Leash. It's a 25-year-old song that
1:07:39
Speaker 3: has got to dance to it.
1:07:40
Speaker 1: What's the dance? Show me the dance.
1:07:42
Speaker 2: Couldn't even begin to start it.
1:07:43
Speaker 1: I can show you the video. Get up here and
1:07:45
Speaker 1: do it. I can show you the video. You do it.
1:07:47
Speaker 1: You've been practicing?
1:07:48
Speaker 2: No. I used to.
1:07:50
Speaker 1: Show me the video. What's the corn dance? In my head,
1:07:53
Speaker 1: you're like, get up and do it. Do we have
1:07:56
Speaker 1: to not play the music? Yeah, probably not play the music.
1:07:59
Speaker 1: So this is the dance?
1:08:00
Speaker 2: See, it's a new day. You don't go to a club,
1:08:03
Speaker 2: you do it with your girl.
1:08:05
Speaker 3: I think they made it back on Billboard because the
1:08:07
Speaker 3: song is Oh, that's hilarious. It's got so many plays
1:08:10
Speaker 3: on it.
1:08:11
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. 1998. Yeah, it's old. Wow, that's crazy. I
1:08:17
Speaker 1: don't know.
1:08:18
Speaker 3: And then to contrast to this is the club in
1:08:21
Speaker 3: Austin where everybody goes. They're not necessarily doing those dances.
1:08:23
Speaker 1: What club is this? This is called the Concourse.
1:08:26
Speaker 2: Oh, see, I can't go to a club with no
1:08:28
Speaker 2: shirt on.
1:08:29
Speaker 1: And what do they do here? DJs. Oh, DJs. So
1:08:33
Speaker 1: they just bounce around.
1:08:34
Speaker 3: A bunch of lasers.
1:08:35
Speaker 2: This is like a Jazzy Jeff concert.
1:08:37
Speaker 1: Jazzy Jeff! Yeah, they just bounce around. They're all in ecstasy.
1:08:44
Speaker 3: Everybody stares at the DJ stage like they're performing music.
1:08:47
Speaker 1: How weird. Yeah, this is a sign of a sick culture.
1:08:51
Speaker 1: Not that there's anything wrong with DJs.
1:08:52
Speaker 2: A different culture.
1:08:53
Speaker 1: But there's no the other thing. There's no people dancing.
1:08:58
Speaker 1: You know?
1:08:59
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:08:59
Speaker 1: On the old days. Like if you go back and
1:09:01
Speaker 1: you watch nightclubs from the 1960s and 70s, what was
1:09:05
Speaker 1: everybody doing? Like the disco days, right? That's a perfect example.
1:09:07
Speaker 2: When Tramp was singing, burn this mother down. Yeah.
1:09:13
Speaker 1: People were dancing. Well, I remember when I was a kid,
1:09:17
Speaker 1: Saturday Night Fever came out. And that's when everybody wanted
1:09:23
Speaker 1: to learn how to dance. Because John Travolta, he could
1:09:26
Speaker 1: fucking dance. And they would have dance-offs.
1:09:28
Speaker 2: And black people were saying, we got to step up
1:09:31
Speaker 2: the game if this boy can do that. So we
1:09:33
Speaker 2: had to get better.
1:09:35
Speaker 1: And then you had Soul Train.
1:09:36
Speaker 2: Where everybody was dancing on TV. Yes. Saturday morning was...
1:09:42
Speaker 2: That was life for me.
1:09:44
Speaker 1: There's no shows... Where there's like a bunch of people
1:09:48
Speaker 1: performing music on TV anymore.
1:09:51
Speaker 2: Well, that's the that's that gap between me and you
1:09:54
Speaker 2: as talkers. One of the problems I had and I
1:09:59
Speaker 2: talk in the book about this. I love music and
1:10:01
Speaker 2: I grew up wanting to do that show. So when
1:10:04
Speaker 2: they start telling me, you know, you can get better
1:10:08
Speaker 2: numbers with Howie Mandel just talking, then you can. Because
1:10:14
Speaker 2: I put Boys to Men and The Temptations together once.
1:10:18
Speaker 2: I had to fly Boys to Men from Philly. And
1:10:21
Speaker 2: they wanted it less black. And now I've got 14
1:10:24
Speaker 2: brothers doing choreography. And it's like, no, that's not what
1:10:27
Speaker 2: we need.
1:10:27
Speaker 1: They wanted it less black? They would say shit like
1:10:30
Speaker 1: that to you? Oh, yeah.
1:10:31
Speaker 2: They wanted– this is the carrot. They said, we know
1:10:37
Speaker 2: Johnny's going to leave one day. You know, you always
1:10:40
Speaker 2: think it's going to be two years. So you can
1:10:42
Speaker 2: inherit his audience if you do the right show. But I, Joe,
1:10:47
Speaker 2: I used to do the talk show in my basement, man.
1:10:50
Speaker 2: And we put on a Temptations record. And my friend
1:10:52
Speaker 2: Junior would be my guest. And he would sing Get
1:10:54
Speaker 2: Ready on Soul Train. They lip sync. We knew the
1:10:57
Speaker 2: microphones wasn't plugged in.
1:10:59
Speaker 1: Right.
1:11:00
Speaker 2: He would sing, and then I'd interview him. I wanted
1:11:02
Speaker 2: to do that show.
1:11:03
Speaker 1: But you were doing that when you were young?
1:11:05
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: How old were you when you were doing that? Eleven. Really? Yeah.
1:11:09
Speaker 2: My mother would have rent parties, and so she'd rent
1:11:13
Speaker 2: these card tables and chairs. And the people, like in L.A.,
1:11:18
Speaker 2: we call it town and country, right? You can rent
1:11:20
Speaker 2: stuff for your party. So the next day, they'd come
1:11:22
Speaker 2: and pick up the stuff in the truck. But before
1:11:24
Speaker 2: they'd pick it up, I would do a talk show
1:11:26
Speaker 2: with that stuff. And I dreamed— Of everything that I
1:11:31
Speaker 2: did eventually in my life.
1:11:33
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:11:34
Speaker 2: And it was the show I wanted to do. So
1:11:38
Speaker 2: at a certain point when they say, does Prince need
1:11:42
Speaker 2: a purple piano? You know, I said, yeah, he want
1:11:45
Speaker 2: a purple piano. And the show I was doing was
1:11:48
Speaker 2: just too expensive. And you and I talked once. at
1:11:52
Speaker 2: the ice house when I tried to do the reboot show. Yeah.
1:11:54
Speaker 2: I was telling you how complicated it was. They wanted
1:11:56
Speaker 2: my Twitter site.
1:11:58
Speaker 1: They took your, I was telling people they took over
1:12:00
Speaker 1: your fucking social media and they wouldn't give it back.
1:12:03
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was hard to get back.
1:12:04
Speaker 1: That's crazy. I remember you telling me that we were
1:12:07
Speaker 1: standing outside the outside area of the ice house and
1:12:10
Speaker 1: you were like, I can't get my fucking social media back.
1:12:12
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's crazy. They took your social media.
1:12:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:12:15
Speaker 1: And they would use it to promote other shows. Absolutely.
1:12:18
Speaker 2: And the end of, of that reboot experience was, didn't
1:12:22
Speaker 2: go down exactly the way I wanted to. Like, like
1:12:25
Speaker 2: I got picked up first and Jay Leno came out
1:12:27
Speaker 2: and read a letter from Les Moonves that I was
1:12:29
Speaker 2: picked up for a second season. And then we start
1:12:32
Speaker 2: talking about the second season and here's the great thing.
1:12:36
Speaker 2: They wanted you, you really got to stop doing the music.
1:12:40
Speaker 2: As a matter of fact, how about no house band?
1:12:42
Speaker 2: And it's interesting. Well, what, But economically speaking, Joe, when
1:12:47
Speaker 2: I look at it, they wanted me to do Joe
1:12:49
Speaker 2: Rogan before there was a Joe Rogan. They just want
1:12:51
Speaker 2: you to talk to people and stuff. I'd watched Fallon
1:12:55
Speaker 2: with Will Smith one night and Will Smith rode in
1:12:58
Speaker 2: on a horse. And I'm like, that's expensive. You know,
1:13:02
Speaker 2: they wanted me to do what we're doing right now
1:13:05
Speaker 2: because this is cheaper to do. I would love for
1:13:09
Speaker 2: us to have a hip hop star here right now
1:13:13
Speaker 2: following me. But this is economically sound. It's a new day.
1:13:17
Speaker 1: Right. So that's all it was? It was just a
1:13:20
Speaker 1: money thing?
1:13:22
Speaker 2: Well, that was the reboot show. The first show, you know,
1:13:26
Speaker 2: if they want me to be in the position to
1:13:29
Speaker 2: inherit Johnny's audience, because they wanted me and themselves to
1:13:35
Speaker 2: make more money, a lot of money, keep making money.
1:13:38
Speaker 2: And I was kind of kicking the bag because... I
1:13:43
Speaker 2: had wanted to do this show since I was a kid.
1:13:45
Speaker 2: I couldn't imagine.
1:13:46
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, the thing is, your show was so popular.
1:13:50
Speaker 2: And by the way, they got numbers one night when
1:13:51
Speaker 2: Whitney didn't sing. She just came on. And that was
1:13:57
Speaker 2: the kiss of death in my morning meetings because they
1:13:59
Speaker 2: were like, look, Whitney's saying nothing. And look at the numbers.
1:14:03
Speaker 2: So they were shooting for the Joe Rogan experience before
1:14:07
Speaker 2: there was an experience.
1:14:08
Speaker 1: Those fucking people concentrating on the numbers. It's like you're
1:14:11
Speaker 1: missing the trees.
1:14:12
Speaker 2: But you got to, Joe. Sometimes it's really important for
1:14:16
Speaker 2: me to look back and say, I love that show
1:14:20
Speaker 2: that I did, and I don't regret a moment of it,
1:14:22
Speaker 2: but I get a corporate organization saying we can make
1:14:30
Speaker 2: more money and we can get more people in. Yeah.
1:14:34
Speaker 1: If I was a– I would be a terrible corporate executive,
1:14:37
Speaker 1: by the way.
1:14:37
Speaker 2: Because you would leave with your heart. Yeah.
1:14:39
Speaker 1: I would say just be you. Just have fun. And
1:14:42
Speaker 1: whatever ads we get, we get. Whatever money we get,
1:14:45
Speaker 1: we get. And that's good. You get plenty. It will
1:14:48
Speaker 1: be fine. You can't– you got to let– it has
1:14:52
Speaker 1: to– I feel like every show has to be a
1:14:56
Speaker 1: unique expression of the person that's hosting it and what
1:15:00
Speaker 1: they're trying to do. Like let that person be free.
1:15:03
Speaker 1: Like imagine if Quentin Tarantino had to sit down with
1:15:06
Speaker 1: a group of people that were executives before he wrote
1:15:10
Speaker 1: a script. You would never get any of these fucking chaotic,
1:15:14
Speaker 1: crazy movies. They were like, no, no, no, no, no.
1:15:16
Speaker 1: You can't bash a woman's head on a mantelpiece. That's nuts.
1:15:20
Speaker 1: Don't do that. No, you can't. You know, like in
1:15:22
Speaker 1: Jackie Brown. No, you can't fucking shoot that girl in
1:15:24
Speaker 1: the parking lot. That's nuts. You can't do that. You
1:15:27
Speaker 1: can't do any of these things. You've got to let
1:15:29
Speaker 1: someone just be free. And then it finds its audience.
1:15:34
Speaker 2: I remember when Ice-T came on to explain Cop Killer
1:15:39
Speaker 2: and his way.
1:15:41
Speaker 1: Of explaining it. Tough sell, by the way. Yeah. And
1:15:44
Speaker 1: it was a metal band.
1:15:46
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:15:46
Speaker 1: People don't realize that. Like Ice-T, people forgot. Body Count
1:15:49
Speaker 1: was a metal band.
1:15:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to search that, y'all.
1:15:53
Speaker 1: Right. A lot of people don't even know that he
1:15:55
Speaker 1: did that. You think of Ice-T, you think of Six
1:15:58
Speaker 1: in the Morning, you think of, you know, Hustler, you
1:16:01
Speaker 1: think of all those classic songs, Colors, you think of that.
1:16:04
Speaker 1: You don't think of Body Count, which is like Ice-T
1:16:08
Speaker 1: reinvented himself. And he was like, I always love this
1:16:12
Speaker 1: kind of music. You can't tell me what the fuck
1:16:14
Speaker 1: I do. I like this kind of music too.
1:16:16
Speaker 2: Amazing career.
1:16:17
Speaker 1: I know. And now he plays a cop for like
1:16:20
Speaker 1: 25 years.
1:16:21
Speaker 2: How about that for irony? I knew him when he
1:16:24
Speaker 2: was a pimp.
1:16:25
Speaker 1: And now he's a cop. That's crazy. Remember when he
1:16:28
Speaker 1: was in Pimps Up, Hoes Down? Yeah, absolutely. He was
1:16:30
Speaker 1: in that too.
1:16:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:16:32
Speaker 1: I mean, he was talking about the pimp game. It's hilarious.
1:16:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, he came on. By the way, they didn't want
1:16:39
Speaker 2: me to do that. you know, uh, book him. But,
1:16:42
Speaker 2: but I thought it was, I thought it was cool
1:16:45
Speaker 2: to expose America to some conversations they might not hear normally.
1:16:50
Speaker 1: Right.
1:16:50
Speaker 2: And the more power I got, the more I tried
1:16:52
Speaker 2: to push that envelope and do those things. He compared
1:16:55
Speaker 2: it to Schwarzenegger. He says, you don't think he's really
1:16:58
Speaker 2: the Terminator, right? And he says, I'm not a cop killer,
1:17:03
Speaker 2: but there's a message through this character. Right. And I'm paraphrasing, but,
1:17:07
Speaker 2: but it was nice to, To hear people who I know.
1:17:11
Speaker 2: I would talk to Tupac and I would say, say
1:17:15
Speaker 2: that on the air. You got to talk about that
1:17:16
Speaker 2: on the air. And that was, we didn't have Twitter.
1:17:21
Speaker 2: We didn't have the Bluebird. I was kind of the Blackbird.
1:17:23
Speaker 2: And I was able to have these, like Tupac called
1:17:26
Speaker 2: me once and he says, man, they want me to
1:17:28
Speaker 2: take an AIDS test before I do this movie. And
1:17:31
Speaker 2: unless I'm really going to fuck Janet, I don't think
1:17:35
Speaker 2: I should have to take an AIDS test. And I'm like,
1:17:37
Speaker 2: please don't say any more. Just come on the show.
1:17:40
Speaker 2: And this fit into both categories. Come on the show.
1:17:43
Speaker 2: Don't do any music. Just sit and talk. And those
1:17:46
Speaker 2: nights would do really good.
1:17:47
Speaker 1: Of course. Of course. Because people want to hear people
1:17:51
Speaker 1: really talk, especially in those weird settings where most of
1:17:55
Speaker 1: the time when people are coming on talk shows, they
1:17:57
Speaker 1: would just have this like very canned, Sort of like
1:18:00
Speaker 1: pre-programmed thing that they would talk about. They would talk
1:18:04
Speaker 1: about their character in the movie.
1:18:06
Speaker 2: People don't know we have pre-interviews, which you don't have
1:18:09
Speaker 2: in a show like this. But I get a card
1:18:12
Speaker 2: that morning. It's like, OK, here's what Jackie Collins would
1:18:15
Speaker 2: like to talk about. Or Nicole Kidman has requested that
1:18:21
Speaker 2: you don't mention Tom Cruise. And I'm like, well, tell
1:18:25
Speaker 2: Nicole the only reason that bitch is here is because
1:18:28
Speaker 2: I think Tom Cruise is going to walk out. You know? Oh,
1:18:31
Speaker 2: it was crazy.
1:18:32
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
1:18:33
Speaker 2: Back then.
1:18:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it was all PR people. And it's, again,
1:18:37
Speaker 1: you're dealing with too many different people that are peripheral
1:18:40
Speaker 1: people where all their money is dependent on this one
1:18:43
Speaker 1: person performing. So they just want to make sure they
1:18:46
Speaker 1: make the maximum amount of money possible. Like, don't make
1:18:49
Speaker 1: any ripples. Yeah. cause any waves. Don't cause any problems.
1:18:52
Speaker 1: Just go out there and smile and we'll sell more.
1:18:56
Speaker 1: We'll sell more records. We'll sell more movies. TV show
1:18:58
Speaker 1: will get better ratings. Don't mess it up. Yeah.
1:19:01
Speaker 2: Guys like Prince used to be frustrated with the fact
1:19:04
Speaker 2: that if something's a hit, Can you give us something
1:19:08
Speaker 2: like that again? How many beats per second is that?
1:19:10
Speaker 2: Can you give us that again? Or any big artist.
1:19:13
Speaker 2: It's like we want more of Waterfall.
1:19:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. No, Prince was one of the most revolutionary
1:19:22
Speaker 1: artists ever. And people that don't know the early stuff,
1:19:26
Speaker 1: they don't know how crazy it was that this guy
1:19:28
Speaker 1: was– how a song called Head. Just sing it about
1:19:32
Speaker 1: getting head.
1:19:33
Speaker 2: First time I saw him, he was opening for the
1:19:36
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones.
1:19:37
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:19:38
Speaker 2: And the audience didn't dig him because it was different
1:19:41
Speaker 2: back then and he was singing soft and wet.
1:19:43
Speaker 1: Right.
1:19:45
Speaker 2: Right.
1:19:46
Speaker 1: Well, Prince was just, he was so unique, man.
1:19:48
Speaker 2: And he predicted a lot of the things that we're
1:19:51
Speaker 2: dealing with now and going through. I remember the first
1:19:52
Speaker 2: time he talked about what became Napster and he talked
1:19:57
Speaker 2: about owning your own property and what was going to happen,
1:20:01
Speaker 2: slave on his jaw. And we thought that was silly,
1:20:03
Speaker 2: but it meant something.
1:20:05
Speaker 1: Well, he was dealing with these crazy contracts where these
1:20:10
Speaker 1: record companies, these predatory record companies would lock you into
1:20:14
Speaker 1: these contracts and they fucking owned you. So his response
1:20:17
Speaker 1: to that was like, okay. I won't perform as Prince anymore.
1:20:20
Speaker 1: Now I'm fucking this shit. I'm a symbol. I'm a symbol.
1:20:23
Speaker 2: With a slave insignia on my jaw. What are you
1:20:26
Speaker 2: going to do now?
1:20:27
Speaker 1: I'm a symbol. I'm not even selling myself as Prince.
1:20:29
Speaker 1: And he would just, I mean, how revolutionary is that?
1:20:32
Speaker 1: This guy said, okay, I know the workaround. I won't
1:20:35
Speaker 1: use my name anymore. I'll just be a symbol.
1:20:38
Speaker 2: He was bad.
1:20:39
Speaker 1: But he was such a bad motherfucker that people like,
1:20:42
Speaker 1: I know who that is. I don't care what that
1:20:44
Speaker 1: fucking symbol is. That's Prince. Let him sing. Let him
1:20:47
Speaker 1: do things.
1:20:48
Speaker 2: Did you ever meet him?
1:20:49
Speaker 1: No, I had one opportunity to fucking see him live. Yeah.
1:20:53
Speaker 1: And I blew it at the Great Western Forum. No,
1:20:56
Speaker 1: it was at it was at one of the hotels
1:20:59
Speaker 1: in Vegas. But it was a really late show. And
1:21:03
Speaker 1: I had a show earlier that night and they said–
1:21:06
Speaker 1: and Prince was doing small shows back then. It was
1:21:09
Speaker 1: like this small like intimate audience. But it was like
1:21:12
Speaker 1: after midnight. I was like, I'm fucking tired. I'm going
1:21:14
Speaker 1: to go to sleep. And this is like– I fucked up, man.
1:21:18
Speaker 1: I fucked up. It was like when his career was
1:21:21
Speaker 1: in a weird place because he wasn't doing like big
1:21:24
Speaker 1: shows anymore and he was doing this late night show.
1:21:28
Speaker 1: And people were saying it was really good. But I
1:21:29
Speaker 1: was like, I'm tired. I'm not going to see this.
1:21:31
Speaker 1: And then years later when he was dead, I was like, God,
1:21:34
Speaker 1: did I fuck up. I always thought Prince was going
1:21:36
Speaker 1: to be around.
1:21:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:21:37
Speaker 1: And we lost Prince to fentanyl.
1:21:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. A lot of people don't even know that. Alone
1:21:41
Speaker 2: in an elevator. God damn. I remember the Musicology album
1:21:46
Speaker 2: where he toured and he attached the album to the
1:21:50
Speaker 2: ticket so that when you bought a ticket, you were
1:21:54
Speaker 2: buying an album and it instantly became a million dollar seller.
1:21:57
Speaker 2: With that philosophy. He had genius that was way ahead
1:22:01
Speaker 2: of the pimps.
1:22:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:22:03
Speaker 2: I love it.
1:22:04
Speaker 1: He just knew that he was being fucked and he
1:22:07
Speaker 1: knew that all they're selling is his brilliance. They don't
1:22:11
Speaker 1: have anything. What is a record company selling? They're only
1:22:13
Speaker 1: selling the art. That's it. They don't make it.
1:22:17
Speaker 2: And they were getting a penny a copy. Yeah, exactly.
1:22:20
Speaker 1: The record company was getting most of it. Now it
1:22:23
Speaker 1: makes even less sense because nobody even buys albums anymore.
1:22:27
Speaker 1: It's like how the fuck are these record companies even surviving?
1:22:30
Speaker 1: It's so crazy that they still figure out a way
1:22:34
Speaker 1: to latch their tentacles onto these young artists. And for
1:22:37
Speaker 1: young artists, they feel like they've made it when they're
1:22:40
Speaker 1: a part of a record deal. Like I got a deal.
1:22:43
Speaker 1: And I almost want to tell them like– That ain't
1:22:46
Speaker 1: a deal. You got to deal with the devil. Like
1:22:47
Speaker 1: if you just put your shit on YouTube or on
1:22:49
Speaker 1: SoundCloud or anywhere where people hear it and they start
1:22:52
Speaker 1: sharing it, You'll be huge.
1:22:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. We're getting smarter and learning how to deal with
1:22:58
Speaker 2: the pimps. Yeah. You know, I talk in the book
1:23:02
Speaker 2: about Prince also had a great sense of humor. You
1:23:05
Speaker 2: would have loved him, you know, as a person beyond
1:23:09
Speaker 2: the musician. And there was a time when I was
1:23:12
Speaker 2: hosting the MTV Awards and he had no ass in
1:23:15
Speaker 2: his pants. And, you know, so when he's coming past
1:23:22
Speaker 2: me down the hall, I realize, oh, shit. Because this
1:23:26
Speaker 2: motherfucker ain't got no ass in his pants. We'll be
1:23:29
Speaker 2: talking about this tomorrow. So obviously when I get back
1:23:32
Speaker 2: to the show, my first monologue is about that night. Yes! Yes! 1991.
1:23:41
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
1:23:43
Speaker 2: That was nuts. 1991. So I do jokes about that
1:23:47
Speaker 2: in the monologues. And like a week or two after
1:23:52
Speaker 2: the jokes, I get a box in the mail at Paramount.
1:23:58
Speaker 2: And it's from Prince. And I open it. I figure
1:24:01
Speaker 2: it's maybe a hoodie. I opened it. And it's a
1:24:05
Speaker 2: beautiful black and white suit with all the Prince symbols
1:24:08
Speaker 2: on it. Made me look like I was the drummer
1:24:10
Speaker 2: for New Power Generation or something. It was a cool suit.
1:24:14
Speaker 2: And I'm looking at it, and my assistant said, turn
1:24:18
Speaker 2: it around.
1:24:22
Speaker 1: I turned it around.
1:24:23
Speaker 2: There was no ass.
1:24:25
Speaker 1: Did you wear it?
1:24:26
Speaker 2: No leg. Hell no. Not even at the crib. I
1:24:31
Speaker 2: never put it on. It's like I could never bring
1:24:34
Speaker 2: myself to putting on that suit. It had no back, Joe.
1:24:37
Speaker 1: Oh, that's hilarious.
1:24:38
Speaker 2: But that's his sense of humor.
1:24:39
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. That's so funny.
1:24:42
Speaker 2: I took him to an after hours joint once. I
1:24:44
Speaker 2: talk about that in the book. Because he was very
1:24:48
Speaker 2: interested in what people listen to and what moves people
1:24:50
Speaker 2: in clubs. And I told him about an after hours
1:24:53
Speaker 2: joint down the way south of Wilshire that was in
1:24:55
Speaker 2: a lady's house. And you have pit bulls and a
1:24:59
Speaker 2: fence and they let you in. They lock the chain back,
1:25:02
Speaker 2: bring you to the back. And, you know, you put
1:25:05
Speaker 2: money on the counter and they put your liquor in
1:25:07
Speaker 2: a solo cup. You know, not a legal place. And
1:25:11
Speaker 2: I told him about the place and he said, I
1:25:13
Speaker 2: want to go. And I took him down the way
1:25:17
Speaker 2: to this spot. He had an acrylic cane. And a
1:25:21
Speaker 2: suit where the shoes match the suit. Exact same material.
1:25:25
Speaker 2: And he sat with me in this after hours joint
1:25:30
Speaker 2: and listened to the music. And it was where the
1:25:33
Speaker 2: strippers were going.
1:25:33
Speaker 1: What year was this?
1:25:34
Speaker 2: Oh, God. This was maybe two years after I left
1:25:38
Speaker 2: the talk show.
1:25:40
Speaker 1: So did he need the cane back then? Was that
1:25:42
Speaker 1: when he was having hip problems?
1:25:43
Speaker 2: I think so. Now we understand that maybe he had
1:25:46
Speaker 2: a replacement. a hip replacement or something. I thought it
1:25:50
Speaker 2: was fashion, but it probably was a little necessary that year.
1:25:54
Speaker 1: Well, he was all his dancing.
1:25:56
Speaker 2: Oh, he used to jump off speakers, Joe.
1:25:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
1:25:59
Speaker 2: And land with heels. Mm-hmm.
1:26:02
Speaker 1: That's what fucked him up.
1:26:03
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:26:05
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:26:06
Speaker 3: A lot of pictures with him as a Kano for
1:26:07
Speaker 3: the time, though.
1:26:09
Speaker 1: Well, he probably was struggling even back then because there's
1:26:12
Speaker 1: a lot of guys that blew their hips out. Yeah.
1:26:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:26:17
Speaker 1: He probably needed it.
1:26:18
Speaker 2: Because he was an athlete, per se.
1:26:20
Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. I mean, his dancing was insane.
1:26:23
Speaker 2: And he was a good basketball player. Hey, I have
1:26:27
Speaker 2: one of those. The police hat with the chain? He
1:26:32
Speaker 2: sent me that one day. So I'm sure there are
1:26:34
Speaker 2: a few of them. But just to have one of
1:26:37
Speaker 2: those from him. And he sent me what looks like
1:26:41
Speaker 2: a Smith & Wesson 38 long, but it was.
1:26:45
Speaker 2: Fixed up so the microphone was where the barrel is.
1:26:49
Speaker 2: So he could hold the gun and sing into it
1:26:51
Speaker 2: like that.
1:26:51
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
1:26:51
Speaker 2: I have that. Oh, wow. It's very cool. Very cool.
1:26:54
Speaker 1: I became good friends with Charlie Murphy. Oh, look at that. Yes.
1:26:59
Speaker 2: Wow. Wow. I have one of those. I don't know
1:27:05
Speaker 2: how many there were, but I have one from that.
1:27:07
Speaker 1: That's crazy.
1:27:09
Speaker 2: Wow. But Charlie Murphy?
1:27:11
Speaker 1: Well, Charlie had all those great stories about Prince that
1:27:14
Speaker 1: he did on Chappelle's show.
1:27:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
1:27:16
Speaker 1: I mean, that was like that whole segment of like
1:27:19
Speaker 1: how good Prince was at the basketball. And then people
1:27:22
Speaker 1: didn't believe it because, you know, he's so short. But meanwhile,
1:27:25
Speaker 1: he could fucking play like a motherfucker.
1:27:27
Speaker 2: He had a crossover move that was crazy. And he
1:27:30
Speaker 2: could run escape. And. I mean, amazing with a lollipop
1:27:36
Speaker 2: back on one foot, you know? So he, he was,
1:27:40
Speaker 2: he was an athlete.
1:27:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. Really? I mean, you can't dance like that and
1:27:44
Speaker 1: not have incredible body control.
1:27:46
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:27:47
Speaker 1: But the problem is when you're doing show after show,
1:27:49
Speaker 1: after show, after show, after show for years, you're, you're
1:27:51
Speaker 1: tearing your fucking joints apart. And that's probably what blew
1:27:54
Speaker 1: his hips out.
1:27:55
Speaker 2: That's one thing about us with the exception of the
1:27:57
Speaker 2: shit you used to do on a stool, that balancing act, uh.
1:28:01
Speaker 1: Oh, the Kardashian joke?
1:28:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. Our life of jokes isn't very– No. All we
1:28:06
Speaker 2: got to do is take care from the neck up,
1:28:08
Speaker 2: take care of your mind, our body. No comedian has
1:28:12
Speaker 2: a bad hip.
1:28:13
Speaker 1: Well, you generally don't get it from performing on stage,
1:28:16
Speaker 1: that's for sure. But when you're dancing and jumping around
1:28:19
Speaker 1: and doing all that shit, like Ted Nugent blew his
1:28:22
Speaker 1: knees out jumping off of speakers. Like a lot of
1:28:25
Speaker 1: people did that. They just went crazy. They were just
1:28:28
Speaker 1: putting on a show and you don't realize you're doing it.
1:28:30
Speaker 1: Maynard from Tool, he blew his hip out stomping on
1:28:33
Speaker 1: the ground all the time. Wow. Just stomping while he
1:28:36
Speaker 1: was singing. He had to get a hip replacement. Yeah.
1:28:40
Speaker 2: I like being a stand-up.
1:28:41
Speaker 1: Well, it's definitely easier on the body. That's true.
1:28:44
Speaker 2: You still get up on stage ever?
1:28:46
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, all the time.
1:28:48
Speaker 2: In your own club?
1:28:49
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:28:50
Speaker 2: What nights do you go up?
1:28:51
Speaker 1: Usually Tuesday and Wednesday I do it, but I do
1:28:53
Speaker 1: it off nights too, different nights. But Tuesday and Wednesday,
1:28:56
Speaker 1: almost every week, I do a show there.
1:28:58
Speaker 2: I promised my woman I wouldn't go to the mothership.
1:29:01
Speaker 1: Why?
1:29:02
Speaker 2: When I told her, she's like, when you go, I
1:29:05
Speaker 2: want to go. It's a big deal if you're a comic,
1:29:07
Speaker 2: you know? I mean, it's a huge deal. But I
1:29:12
Speaker 2: want to come one night, fly in, and just let
1:29:15
Speaker 2: me have 10.
1:29:16
Speaker 1: Dude, you can go up anytime. You can go up
1:29:18
Speaker 1: tonight if you want. I got a show tonight.
1:29:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it. I got to fly home and
1:29:22
Speaker 2: do it. I'm still slinging this book, man.
1:29:25
Speaker 1: I hear you, brother. Well, anytime. Anytime you want to
1:29:27
Speaker 1: come by and do a set, you're more than welcome.
1:29:29
Speaker 2: I love it.
1:29:29
Speaker 1: Come and hang out.
1:29:31
Speaker 2: Everybody's been so friendly.
1:29:32
Speaker 1: The green room's an amazing hang, too. That's what I hear.
1:29:35
Speaker 2: But I've heard both sides of that. I've heard don't
1:29:37
Speaker 2: be in that motherfucker if you're not supposed to.
1:29:40
Speaker 1: Well, the problem is you don't want anybody coming in
1:29:42
Speaker 1: and fucking up the conversation. So, you know, you got
1:29:46
Speaker 1: to be kind of vetted. But it's only like during
1:29:48
Speaker 1: shows when you're not on. You know, if it's a
1:29:52
Speaker 1: show and you're on the show, everyone's allowed to be
1:29:55
Speaker 1: in the green room. It's just like we don't allow
1:29:58
Speaker 1: people to just come in out of nowhere. It's like
1:30:01
Speaker 1: you're from out of town. You want to come in
1:30:02
Speaker 1: and hang out in the green room. Then there's too
1:30:04
Speaker 1: many people in the green room. And then people have
1:30:06
Speaker 1: to prepare. They're going over their notes. The green room
1:30:08
Speaker 1: is supposed to be a hang with the comics on
1:30:11
Speaker 1: the show that are getting ready to go on stage.
1:30:13
Speaker 1: And the problem is that's the cool spot. That's where
1:30:16
Speaker 1: Shane Gillis is and Ron White is and Tony Hinchcliffe
1:30:19
Speaker 1: is it. Everybody wants to come in. And, you know,
1:30:21
Speaker 1: it gets to be a little bit of a problem.
1:30:24
Speaker 1: So you can't go in the green room if you're
1:30:26
Speaker 1: not on the show, unless we know who you are
1:30:28
Speaker 1: and you know you're in town and you want to
1:30:29
Speaker 1: come hang. But it's like, you know, it's like you're
1:30:31
Speaker 1: having a party. You can't let everybody in. The problem
1:30:34
Speaker 1: is everybody wants to be there.
1:30:35
Speaker 2: I mean, look at the level I'm at and how
1:30:37
Speaker 2: long I've been doing it. And I know about the
1:30:39
Speaker 2: green room and want to get in there.
1:30:42
Speaker 1: You can get in any time.
1:30:44
Speaker 2: When you were living in Hollywood still, did your kids
1:30:49
Speaker 2: ever want to act? No.
1:30:50
Speaker 1: No, they're not interested in that.
1:30:53
Speaker 2: Never wanted to do stand-up?
1:30:55
Speaker 1: No, they wouldn't. First of all, rich kids are not
1:30:58
Speaker 1: going to be good stand-ups. You're not going to be
1:31:02
Speaker 1: able to deal with the torture of bombing.
1:31:04
Speaker 2: And they don't have to.
1:31:07
Speaker 1: And they don't have pain. You know, their pain is
1:31:09
Speaker 1: so minor in comparison to the pain of poverty, the
1:31:13
Speaker 1: pain of struggle, the pain of, you know, not getting
1:31:16
Speaker 1: enough attention when you're young and, you know, moving around
1:31:19
Speaker 1: a lot. All the different shit that most comics go through.
1:31:22
Speaker 1: I've never met a good comic who had a great childhood.
1:31:25
Speaker 2: As you're talking, I'm thinking, I'm like, do we know
1:31:28
Speaker 2: any comics who are good, who are from wealth?
1:31:31
Speaker 1: None. I don't know any. I'm sure they can exist.
1:31:34
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's possible. But it takes a very exceptional
1:31:36
Speaker 1: person to want to be a great comic that's grew
1:31:40
Speaker 1: up wealthy. It's just not a thing that they seek
1:31:44
Speaker 1: to do.
1:31:45
Speaker 2: So much comedy comes from our pain.
1:31:48
Speaker 1: I think the only exception to that would be the
1:31:49
Speaker 1: Wayans brothers because the sons of the Wayans brothers all
1:31:54
Speaker 1: went on to be great comics. They all went on
1:31:57
Speaker 1: to have big careers in movies and films and television.
1:32:00
Speaker 1: But I think that's, it's like a family thing over there.
1:32:03
Speaker 1: Like I remember Damon telling me that he set up
1:32:05
Speaker 1: a stage in his house.
1:32:07
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. That's absolutely true.
1:32:09
Speaker 1: I mean, they love stand-up so much they would fucking
1:32:11
Speaker 1: do stand-up for each other. Just fuck around. I used
1:32:15
Speaker 1: to see, first of all, I think to this day,
1:32:18
Speaker 1: Damon is one of the most underappreciated great comics of
1:32:22
Speaker 1: all time.
1:32:23
Speaker 2: And he's back out there now. I noticed in my room,
1:32:27
Speaker 2: Damon is at the Improv.
1:32:29
Speaker 1: Well, he's always been out there. I thought he quit. No, no, no.
1:32:31
Speaker 1: He never quit. He was always doing stand-up, but he's
1:32:33
Speaker 1: low-key about it. He makes his money off of television.
1:32:36
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
1:32:36
Speaker 1: And even like he wanted to do– we talked years
1:32:39
Speaker 1: ago about him coming on my podcast. And he was like,
1:32:43
Speaker 1: I'd like to, but I'll say some crazy shit and
1:32:45
Speaker 1: then I'll get in trouble. Because he was in what
1:32:48
Speaker 1: I call the velvet prison, the TV velvet prison. You're
1:32:52
Speaker 1: doing TV shows. You're playing a dad on a TV show.
1:32:55
Speaker 1: You can't come on a podcast, talk about getting your
1:32:58
Speaker 1: dick sucked.
1:32:59
Speaker 2: It's just– Howie Mandel goes through that. I work with
1:33:02
Speaker 2: him a lot. And Howie is on America's Got Talent.
1:33:06
Speaker 1: Exactly.
1:33:06
Speaker 2: This real commercial television vehicle. But nobody is more real
1:33:14
Speaker 2: and edgy than Howie Mandel.
1:33:15
Speaker 1: When he's on stage and in the green room hanging out.
1:33:18
Speaker 1: He's done sets at the Mothership. He's come and hung
1:33:20
Speaker 1: out with us. He did my podcast and he came
1:33:23
Speaker 1: to the club. He's like, fuck, I want to be
1:33:25
Speaker 1: like that. I want to do what you guys are doing.
1:33:27
Speaker 1: I'm like, you can. You can do it. But he's
1:33:30
Speaker 1: worried that he would lose that velvet prison.
1:33:32
Speaker 2: Hey, when we're working and they have the phones in bags,
1:33:37
Speaker 2: that's when he's amazing to watch. Yes. Because he'll drop
1:33:40
Speaker 2: the C-bomb in a minute.
1:33:41
Speaker 1: He was saying it. He was saying it on stage.
1:33:43
Speaker 1: I'm just so happy I can say cunt. Yeah. I
1:33:45
Speaker 1: just want to say it. But he was funny. It
1:33:48
Speaker 1: was like he was having a good time. He was loose.
1:33:51
Speaker 1: And you could tell. It was like, Because Howie was
1:33:53
Speaker 1: a great comic. Like, Howie had some hilarious fucking specials.
1:33:57
Speaker 2: I hated following him at the Westwood Comedy Store. Mitzi
1:34:00
Speaker 2: used to send us there to get better. Me, him,
1:34:03
Speaker 2: and Pauly. That's the one thing I loved about her.
1:34:06
Speaker 2: You know how we have Nepo babies? She didn't have
1:34:09
Speaker 2: no Nepo babies. She was like, Pauly, you're not ready. Yeah.
1:34:12
Speaker 1: Oh, she would make you work. And sent his ass
1:34:14
Speaker 1: to Westwood. Oh, she made Pauly work. Yeah. I mean,
1:34:17
Speaker 1: Pauly's a rare dude in that regard. Like, he became...
1:34:20
Speaker 1: a really funny comedian while he was, you know, living
1:34:24
Speaker 1: with a woman who's the great as, as in terms
1:34:27
Speaker 1: of like people in comedy that are like the, some
1:34:32
Speaker 1: of the most critical, important people. She is the most
1:34:35
Speaker 1: important person in the history of comedy. That's not a comic.
1:34:38
Speaker 2: Absolutely. There, there is no argument, no argument.
1:34:41
Speaker 1: There's no one even close to her and her son,
1:34:44
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, went on to have huge success
1:34:46
Speaker 1: in films and movies.
1:34:48
Speaker 2: I took Mitzi. Remember when we had the Universal Amphitheater?
1:34:51
Speaker 2: I got tickets and took Mitzi to see Pauly open
1:34:57
Speaker 2: for Sam Kinison.
1:34:58
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:34:59
Speaker 2: And it just blew her away because she had never
1:35:01
Speaker 2: seen him in that large environment. And it was really
1:35:04
Speaker 2: cool to watch her watch her son.
1:35:06
Speaker 1: Well, she let him grow the right way. You know,
1:35:10
Speaker 1: she didn't give him a silver spoon.
1:35:13
Speaker 2: By the way, Mitzi Shore started the comedy store and
1:35:16
Speaker 2: she's the mother of Pauly Shore. Because I say Mitzi
1:35:18
Speaker 2: to you like it's a cousin.
1:35:21
Speaker 1: Right. Well, we talk about her so much. I think
1:35:23
Speaker 1: a lot of people listening know. But she's the most
1:35:27
Speaker 1: important person in comedy that wasn't a comic. And more
1:35:30
Speaker 1: important than most comedians. Like she would tell you how
1:35:32
Speaker 1: to do it right. And if she liked you, man,
1:35:36
Speaker 1: it was like.
1:35:36
Speaker 2: She'd tell you how to do it. In her opinion.
1:35:40
Speaker 2: I've seen her tell some people some crazy shit.
1:35:43
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. She was not right a lot of times.
1:35:45
Speaker 1: She had some wild ideas that weren't good.
1:35:47
Speaker 2: She had a girl put on a green wig one time.
1:35:49
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I'm not sure. But she was trying
1:35:53
Speaker 2: to find some kind of hook for this girl. And
1:35:55
Speaker 2: I'm like, if you don't want to have to wear
1:35:56
Speaker 2: the green wig, go home and figure out a hook.
1:35:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. She made Joey Diaz call himself Fat Baby.
1:36:03
Speaker 2: Ouch.
1:36:06
Speaker 1: When you would look at the lineup, like I bet
1:36:09
Speaker 1: you could find it online if you looked. There's lineups
1:36:11
Speaker 1: from the Comedy Store. It'd be a bunch of comedians,
1:36:14
Speaker 1: Bill Burr, blah, blah, blah. And then you'd see Fat Baby.
1:36:16
Speaker 1: And that was Joey Diaz. She would call him Fat Baby.
1:36:19
Speaker 1: She wouldn't even let him use his fucking name in
1:36:23
Speaker 1: the lineup. It would be Fat Baby.
1:36:25
Speaker 2: I remember having a conversation with her and Paul, and
1:36:29
Speaker 2: Paul was exacerbating the problems. Because she was like.
1:36:32
Speaker 1: Rodriguez?
1:36:33
Speaker 2: Paul Mooney.
1:36:34
Speaker 1: Oh, Mooney. Oh, man.
1:36:35
Speaker 2: We got so many Pauls in our life.
1:36:36
Speaker 1: God, I love that dude.
1:36:37
Speaker 2: So we're sitting, talking, and Mitzi's about to start the
1:36:41
Speaker 2: Belly Room because she thinks women need a place to
1:36:44
Speaker 2: perform and to get better.
1:36:47
Speaker 1: That was what the Belly Room originally was.
1:36:49
Speaker 2: A little college up there for ladies. And she was
1:36:51
Speaker 2: trying to think of a name for it. And she says,
1:36:55
Speaker 2: I'm also thinking about having one night of just black comics.
1:36:59
Speaker 2: You know, because there was only George Wallace, Dave Tyree,
1:37:02
Speaker 2: and Mooney at one time when I arrived.
1:37:05
Speaker 1: What year was that?
1:37:07
Speaker 2: I came in 1980, New Year's Eve.
1:37:10
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:37:11
Speaker 2: I drove out from Chicago because I'm from Cleveland, and
1:37:14
Speaker 2: there were no comedy clubs in Cleveland back then, so
1:37:16
Speaker 2: I had to go to New York, L.A., or Chicago.
1:37:18
Speaker 2: And my mother was living in Chicago at that time,
1:37:20
Speaker 2: so I went there because rent was free for a while.
1:37:24
Speaker 2: And that was a lot of fun. But Mitzi... For
1:37:30
Speaker 2: the Black Knight, she said, Paul, what do you think
1:37:32
Speaker 2: I should call him? And she says, I was thinking
1:37:35
Speaker 2: Cotton Comedy. And I'm, no, Mitzi, no, no, you can't,
1:37:41
Speaker 2: you can't. And I was trying to explain why. And
1:37:43
Speaker 2: Paul was like, oh, that's wonderful. That's exactly what we
1:37:48
Speaker 2: should call him.
1:37:49
Speaker 1: Oh, homie.
1:37:49
Speaker 2: Oh, homie.
1:37:50
Speaker 1: Cotton Comedy.
1:37:53
Speaker 2: He was cool.
1:37:55
Speaker 1: Oh, man, Paul, that guy would write. And there'd be
1:37:58
Speaker 1: something that would happen in the news like the day before,
1:38:01
Speaker 1: and Mooney would go on stage and have like 15
1:38:03
Speaker 1: minutes on it and just crush.
1:38:05
Speaker 2: And he did something that I know I hated. He
1:38:08
Speaker 2: requested the last spot.
1:38:10
Speaker 1: Oh, he loved that.
1:38:11
Speaker 2: Wanted to go on late, wanted to stay on as
1:38:13
Speaker 2: long as he wanted, and would fuck with you if
1:38:15
Speaker 2: you tried to get up. Oh, you don't like a
1:38:19
Speaker 2: smart nigga. But don't leave too early. My friend's at
1:38:24
Speaker 2: your house robbing that man.
1:38:26
Speaker 1: He would have so many things like that so many
1:38:28
Speaker 1: hooks and he was just so good at working those
1:38:31
Speaker 1: small crowds. He just liked the freedom of just being
1:38:34
Speaker 1: able to fuck around.
1:38:36
Speaker 2: With a bottle of champagne, with a straw.
1:38:38
Speaker 1: A little tiny bottle of champagne. Yeah, the little spit.
1:38:41
Speaker 1: And he would sip on it during punchlines.
1:38:43
Speaker 2: Oh, nigga, please. And then take a sip.
1:38:47
Speaker 1: We'd always just sit in the back and watch him.
1:38:49
Speaker 1: It's like if you thought you were good at comedy,
1:38:50
Speaker 1: you'd watch Mooney and go, God, I got so much
1:38:52
Speaker 1: to learn.
1:38:53
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:38:53
Speaker 1: I got so much to learn.
1:38:54
Speaker 2: All the great comics that we know now at one
1:38:58
Speaker 2: time would sit in the back of the OR and
1:39:02
Speaker 2: come late to watch Paul.
1:39:04
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
1:39:05
Speaker 2: I used to, on the landline, I used to call
1:39:07
Speaker 2: Kenan and say, yo, I'll meet you there. We were
1:39:09
Speaker 2: going to see Mooney at 115.
1:39:11
Speaker 1: I would always love to see Mooney when something fucked
1:39:14
Speaker 1: up happened in the news. Mm-hmm. Like if there's something
1:39:17
Speaker 1: fucked up happened in the news, like when's Paul going up?
1:39:19
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:39:19
Speaker 1: You know, it's just like you had to go see
1:39:21
Speaker 1: him because he always had a take. And, you know,
1:39:24
Speaker 1: that take was always like, oh, shit. You know, it
1:39:26
Speaker 1: was like he would get you. He would like find
1:39:29
Speaker 1: an angle where you'd be like, oh, my God. Oh,
1:39:32
Speaker 1: my God. He was he was so clever.
1:39:35
Speaker 2: The coolest conversations at the comedy show when Richard would
1:39:39
Speaker 2: come up every night and Richard would go from five
1:39:41
Speaker 2: minutes to an hour and then it would become. a
1:39:43
Speaker 2: great special that you go to at the theater to see.
1:39:46
Speaker 2: But I would watch Paul Mooney before we had cell phones.
1:39:50
Speaker 2: After it was over, Richard would go and have a
1:39:51
Speaker 2: cigarette in the main room, like on a Monday or Sunday,
1:39:54
Speaker 2: I think it would be closed. And that's where he
1:39:56
Speaker 2: would call it holding court. He would go in there
1:39:59
Speaker 2: first and just want to dry off for a minute,
1:40:02
Speaker 2: smoke a cigarette. And Paul would come in with a
1:40:04
Speaker 2: napkin with stuff written on it. And he would just,
1:40:08
Speaker 2: you know, oh, and how about this? And he would
1:40:10
Speaker 2: give him tags. As a matter of fact, Richard on
1:40:13
Speaker 2: the back of an album, that joke, you go to prison,
1:40:16
Speaker 2: you get justice, just us, nigga. And he gave that
1:40:21
Speaker 2: to Richard and it was on a prior album. But, oh, those, Joe,
1:40:26
Speaker 2: that was a time Richard would work out every night.
1:40:29
Speaker 2: He'd work the original room, go in the main room
1:40:32
Speaker 2: and entertain his guest. And it would be like Burt Reynolds, Moses,
1:40:39
Speaker 2: Charlton Heston.
1:40:41
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:40:41
Speaker 2: Bernie Casey. You would see like– oh, Burt Reynolds would
1:40:46
Speaker 2: have Sally Field with him. Wow.
1:40:48
Speaker 1: It was amazing.
1:40:49
Speaker 2: They would all come and bow to the king, dog.
1:40:52
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, he was so different. I always say that
1:40:56
Speaker 1: the godfather of comedy who started everything was Lenny Bruce.
1:40:59
Speaker 1: But then Richard figured out a way to take that
1:41:03
Speaker 1: and make it way funnier. He figured out how to
1:41:06
Speaker 1: take that kind of honesty– and social commentary and figure
1:41:10
Speaker 1: out how to like talk about life. Cause people don't
1:41:13
Speaker 1: know that before, before Lenny Bruce came around, it was
1:41:18
Speaker 1: just jokes. It was just like two Jews walking to
1:41:22
Speaker 1: a bar. They buy it.
1:41:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:41:24
Speaker 1: It was jokes.
1:41:25
Speaker 2: It was like, it was Dangerfield's rhythm.
1:41:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. But you know what? Dangerfield was a, he was
1:41:31
Speaker 1: a special guy too.
1:41:33
Speaker 2: He was a beast, man.
1:41:34
Speaker 1: And he didn't, he took like 10 years off. And
1:41:37
Speaker 1: never stopped writing and was selling aluminum siding.
1:41:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:41:41
Speaker 1: And then came back and made it in his 40s. Yeah. Wow.
1:41:46
Speaker 1: Look at this. That's the main room.
1:41:48
Speaker 2: That's the main room.
1:41:49
Speaker 1: That's crazy. Burt Reynolds, Sally Fields.
1:41:52
Speaker 2: Now you see that picture. One night I'm in that
1:41:54
Speaker 2: room and Stevie Wonder. is over on the piano. Remember
1:41:58
Speaker 2: how the piano used to be in the main room
1:41:59
Speaker 2: on the far left of the stage? Stevie's playing and
1:42:03
Speaker 2: there are a few people snorting coke. I think to
1:42:06
Speaker 2: this day, Stevie still thinks a few of those people
1:42:08
Speaker 2: have allergies because, you know, he's just sitting playing and people. Wow.
1:42:15
Speaker 1: Wow. Look at that. Burt Reynolds on stage, Robin Williams.
1:42:18
Speaker 2: I saw Burt Reynolds give the parking attendant a hundred
1:42:21
Speaker 2: dollars and I thought I was on another planet. I'm like,
1:42:23
Speaker 2: Get the fuck out of here. I should be parking cars.
1:42:26
Speaker 1: Fuck. Stand up.
1:42:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that. And for people who are looking
1:42:31
Speaker 2: at this picture, that's Richard holding court after his set.
1:42:35
Speaker 1: Wow. What an amazing photo. Well, Jamie, we should get
1:42:41
Speaker 1: some of these photos and yeah, get some of these
1:42:44
Speaker 1: photos and let's print them up and put them in
1:42:46
Speaker 1: the green room at the mothership.
1:42:48
Speaker 2: I saw a picture.
1:42:49
Speaker 1: He's got the Ciro signs in the back.
1:42:52
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Wow. That tells you a lot about the history.
1:42:56
Speaker 1: Search Ciro. That sign used to be, Mitzi had this
1:43:00
Speaker 1: warehouse room, like was just not a warehouse, but, you know,
1:43:03
Speaker 1: it was a storage room where she had all the
1:43:05
Speaker 1: old Ciro stuff. And I remember seeing that sign there.
1:43:08
Speaker 1: And they eventually hung it up in the back bar area.
1:43:12
Speaker 1: And you just look like, wow, this was a mob
1:43:15
Speaker 1: club in like the fucking 50s. Yeah. That's crazy.
1:43:21
Speaker 2: I saw a picture you have in the entry of
1:43:25
Speaker 2: Richard Pryor's mugshot.
1:43:27
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:43:28
Speaker 2: I had never seen that. What did he do?
1:43:32
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Yeah. I don't remember, but he was
1:43:36
Speaker 1: very young. That mugshot was, I think he was like 18.
1:43:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:43:40
Speaker 1: I don't remember what it was. I have mugshots from
1:43:43
Speaker 1: everybody who got arrested.
1:43:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw Larry King.
1:43:46
Speaker 1: Larry King was like bad checks. He was writing bad checks.
1:43:49
Speaker 1: He had a gambling problem. Oh, yeah.
1:43:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:43:53
Speaker 1: Willie Nelson's up there.
1:43:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:43:55
Speaker 1: I got everybody up there.
1:43:56
Speaker 2: There is a book that I have in my garage,
1:44:00
Speaker 2: and it's the first edition to tell you how much
1:44:05
Speaker 2: of this kind of stuff existed. But it's all celebrities
1:44:09
Speaker 2: and their mugshots. So it's a coffee table book of
1:44:12
Speaker 2: just the mug shots.
1:44:14
Speaker 1: Oh, I should probably get that book. I bet there's
1:44:15
Speaker 1: a few in there that I don't have.
1:44:17
Speaker 2: And I bet there is a second one that they
1:44:19
Speaker 2: could do. Yeah. Because the book's only like a half
1:44:22
Speaker 2: inch thick.
1:44:23
Speaker 1: We got a lot of good ones out there. But,
1:44:26
Speaker 1: you know, so many people got arrested. You know, we
1:44:30
Speaker 1: got David Bowie out there. Of course, Morrison. You know,
1:44:35
Speaker 1: it's like Hendrix got to have that mug shot. That's
1:44:38
Speaker 1: a classic.
1:44:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:44:39
Speaker 1: There was a lot of mug shots.
1:44:41
Speaker 2: Have you ever taken a mug shot?
1:44:42
Speaker 1: No, I've never been arrested.
1:44:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never been arrested.
1:44:44
Speaker 1: I'm a good boy, believe it or not.
1:44:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I mean, we've done things, but not
1:44:53
Speaker 2: enough to have to take those pictures.
1:44:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, luckily. But also we live in a different time,
1:44:59
Speaker 1: you know, in the 1960s and 70s when those guys
1:45:02
Speaker 1: are getting arrested. They're getting arrested for like having a
1:45:04
Speaker 1: joint or something like that.
1:45:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:45:06
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Richard, or excuse me, Jimmy, I think he
1:45:09
Speaker 1: got arrested in Toronto for having heroin on him. I
1:45:12
Speaker 1: think that's what he got arrested for.
1:45:15
Speaker 2: I got pulled over and had a joint in my
1:45:17
Speaker 2: ashtray in 1989. And I was scared to death. And
1:45:24
Speaker 2: the cop was real nice to me. But he did
1:45:27
Speaker 2: the corniest thing. He says, get out of the car.
1:45:30
Speaker 2: And he made me rip up the joint and drop
1:45:33
Speaker 2: it in the sewer at the curb there.
1:45:35
Speaker 1: And he says.
1:45:36
Speaker 2: Now get your life together.
1:45:40
Speaker 1: Like, bitch, this is helping me get my life together. Absolutely.
1:45:42
Speaker 2: It makes me funnier.
1:45:43
Speaker 1: That's funny. That's hilarious.
1:45:45
Speaker 2: The good old days, man. I remember you talked about
1:45:49
Speaker 2: Rodney earlier. Rodney Dangerfield. You know how we love comedy.
1:45:54
Speaker 2: We'll never stop doing it. We'll do it until the
1:45:57
Speaker 2: wheels fall off. And I remember him on stage at
1:46:00
Speaker 2: the Laugh Factory near the end of his life.
1:46:03
Speaker 1: I saw him there.
1:46:04
Speaker 2: And his wife. was in the balcony giving him lines
1:46:08
Speaker 2: through a wireless earwig. And if you went up top,
1:46:13
Speaker 2: you would hear her say, I don't get no respect.
1:46:18
Speaker 2: I don't get no respect. And first of all, two things.
1:46:23
Speaker 2: First of all, it warmed my heart that the woman
1:46:26
Speaker 2: who loves you is going to help you do what
1:46:28
Speaker 2: you love. So that made me feel so good. And
1:46:32
Speaker 2: it was like, I want love. a woman with that
1:46:34
Speaker 2: kind of heart, because I know I'm going to want
1:46:36
Speaker 2: to do it when I'm older.
1:46:37
Speaker 1: She gave us his notes from one of his Tonight
1:46:40
Speaker 1: Show appearances, and they're framed on the wall in the
1:46:43
Speaker 1: green room. It's his handwritten notes in bold. He would
1:46:47
Speaker 1: write it in bold where the punchlines were. It's sitting
1:46:50
Speaker 1: there right above the couch.
1:46:53
Speaker 2: That's cool, man.
1:46:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was one of the first things. Whitney Cummings
1:46:56
Speaker 1: hooked it up. She got it for us from her.
1:46:59
Speaker 1: She wanted us to have it.
1:47:01
Speaker 2: Whitney Cummings, right?
1:47:03
Speaker 1: I saw Rodney live when I was a security guard.
1:47:06
Speaker 1: I was a security guard at Great Woods, Great Woods
1:47:10
Speaker 1: Center for the Performing Arts, which was in Mansfield, Massachusetts.
1:47:13
Speaker 3: Oh.
1:47:14
Speaker 1: I lived in Boston. Yeah. Me and a bunch of
1:47:17
Speaker 1: the black belts from this Taekwondo team that I was
1:47:20
Speaker 1: on got jobs as security guards. And I was 19
1:47:23
Speaker 1: and I was backstage and Rodney was walking around with
1:47:25
Speaker 1: a bathrobe on with nothing underneath it. That was when
1:47:28
Speaker 1: he was going on stage with a bathrobe. He got
1:47:30
Speaker 1: to such a fuck it point in his life. Where
1:47:33
Speaker 1: he would literally go on stage with nothing but a bathrobe.
1:47:36
Speaker 1: He would walk out there with a bathrobe and slippers
1:47:38
Speaker 1: and just fucking murder. I remember being in the audience.
1:47:42
Speaker 1: And I wasn't even thinking about doing stand-up back then.
1:47:45
Speaker 1: Back then, I was just fighting. And I was a
1:47:48
Speaker 1: fan of comedy. I always loved comedy.
1:47:50
Speaker 2: Your fighting friends talked you into doing stand-up, right?
1:47:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, one of the guys that I trained with,
1:47:54
Speaker 1: my friend Steve. but when I, when I went there,
1:47:57
Speaker 1: I remember like, like you want to talk about not
1:48:00
Speaker 1: giving a fuck. Like this guy really didn't give a fuck.
1:48:03
Speaker 1: Like he had gotten to a point where he had
1:48:04
Speaker 1: so much success and so much money. And this is
1:48:07
Speaker 1: after back to school and all those big movies. And
1:48:10
Speaker 1: he was still just going out there doing standup. He
1:48:12
Speaker 1: was smoking weed back there. And he just would go
1:48:15
Speaker 1: on stage with a bathrobe on. And I remember thinking
1:48:18
Speaker 1: that is the wildest shit I've ever seen in my life.
1:48:20
Speaker 1: I remember as a young man, because I was always,
1:48:23
Speaker 1: you know, you're fucking 19. You're scared of everything. You're
1:48:27
Speaker 1: worried about the future. You don't know what, you know,
1:48:29
Speaker 1: you have no security in your life at all. And
1:48:32
Speaker 1: here's this guy with, you know, millions of dollars, massive
1:48:36
Speaker 1: amounts of fame. And he got to that I don't
1:48:39
Speaker 1: give a fuck stage. But he really did. He wasn't
1:48:43
Speaker 1: faking it. Nobody told him he has to go on
1:48:45
Speaker 1: stage in a bathrobe. I was like, I'll tell you
1:48:47
Speaker 1: what I want to do. I want to go on
1:48:48
Speaker 1: stage in a bathrobe. He just went on stage in
1:48:51
Speaker 1: a fucking bathrobe.
1:48:52
Speaker 2: See if you.
1:48:54
Speaker 1: Can find some photos of him on stage with a
1:48:55
Speaker 1: bathrobe on. I know he did it for years.
1:48:58
Speaker 2: I got in trouble because Eazy-E came on my show
1:49:01
Speaker 2: in his bathrobe. And he was like, you gave it
1:49:05
Speaker 2: to me. That's hilarious. You know, because we would give
1:49:07
Speaker 2: out bathrobes. And so he said, well, fuck it. I'll
1:49:10
Speaker 2: wear it out there. And he wore it out and
1:49:11
Speaker 2: had a– he was picking his teeth with a knife.
1:49:14
Speaker 2: And Paramount was like, oh, man, this is not what
1:49:18
Speaker 2: we asked him for. This is really not what we
1:49:20
Speaker 2: asked him for. He'll never replace Johnny.
1:49:23
Speaker 1: Oh, fuck off. But I knew– Those people were ridiculous.
1:49:26
Speaker 2: Hey, I was where I was because I snuck in
1:49:29
Speaker 2: through syndication, did a first run syndication. I know– Network
1:49:33
Speaker 2: wasn't for me. And when Letterman got CBS, I knew
1:49:36
Speaker 2: I was really in trouble, so I had to figure
1:49:37
Speaker 2: out an exit plan. But the bottom line is for
1:49:40
Speaker 2: six years, I did it the way I wanted to
1:49:42
Speaker 2: do it, and I wouldn't change a thing, man. To
1:49:44
Speaker 2: do it for 26 years, I wouldn't trade those six.
1:49:47
Speaker 1: The thing about it is, man, everybody wanted to be
1:49:50
Speaker 1: Johnny back then. It was so crazy. Even Letterman.
1:49:53
Speaker 2: I joked at the Emmys. I said I had a dream.
1:49:55
Speaker 2: I wanted to be an old white man with a desk.
1:49:59
Speaker 2: And that was my– to the point, Joe, that when
1:50:02
Speaker 2: I made it, I hired Johnny's architect that built his
1:50:07
Speaker 2: house to build me a house. I was deep into
1:50:09
Speaker 2: the shit like that.
1:50:10
Speaker 1: Well, he was the guy. People don't realize like that
1:50:14
Speaker 1: was the carrot. That was the thing that they– I mean,
1:50:17
Speaker 1: Jay Leno and like that famous scene in that movie
1:50:20
Speaker 1: that talked about it where Jay Leno would hide in
1:50:22
Speaker 1: the closet and listen to them talk about it because
1:50:25
Speaker 1: he wanted that spot when Johnny retired. But they wanted Letterman.
1:50:29
Speaker 1: And it was like this battle between like it made
1:50:31
Speaker 1: no sense to me. Letterman has the Letterman show. It's
1:50:34
Speaker 1: fucking huge. It's amazing. Why would you want to do
1:50:37
Speaker 1: anything else? But everybody wanted that Tonight Show. Absolutely. They
1:50:40
Speaker 1: all wanted the Tonight Show.
1:50:41
Speaker 2: And when I was a kid, I was a magician.
1:50:43
Speaker 2: That's how I started.
1:50:45
Speaker 1: And.
1:50:45
Speaker 2: I read an article that said that Johnny did sleight
1:50:48
Speaker 2: of hand and was a magician. So to me, that
1:50:50
Speaker 2: was God speaking to me.
1:50:51
Speaker 1: It was like, you are.
1:50:54
Speaker 2: A magician and you do a talk show in a basement. Ooh.
1:50:58
Speaker 1: One day.
1:50:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, one day.
1:51:00
Speaker 1: Isn't it crazy, though, that it had to be the
1:51:02
Speaker 1: Tonight Show for everybody? It wasn't get your own talk show.
1:51:06
Speaker 2: Joe, doing stand-up, getting that five minutes, having Jim McCauley
1:51:11
Speaker 2: come see you. I got on... Dinah Shore. No, no.
1:51:15
Speaker 2: Mike Douglas. And I got on Merv Griffin. Didn't do
1:51:19
Speaker 2: it for me. I needed Jim McCauley say the Tonight
1:51:23
Speaker 2: Show is yours.
1:51:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
1:51:25
Speaker 2: Did you?
1:51:26
Speaker 1: You were too young. I was too young. And it's
1:51:28
Speaker 1: also like, for me, I didn't understand it. Like, I
1:51:34
Speaker 1: used to like watching when comics were on the Tonight Show,
1:51:37
Speaker 1: but it didn't.
1:51:38
Speaker 2: Like you remember the night Roseanne came on?
1:51:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:51:40
Speaker 2: I'm a domestic goddess. Yeah. I was like, oh shit,
1:51:43
Speaker 2: she's funny.
1:51:44
Speaker 1: Oh, she was so funny.
1:51:45
Speaker 2: She can write.
1:51:45
Speaker 1: She was so funny. Roseanne was like way ahead of
1:51:48
Speaker 1: her time. She was so wild. There was no one
1:51:51
Speaker 1: like her when she came out. Yeah. She's still wild.
1:51:53
Speaker 1: She comes to the mothership all the time.
1:51:56
Speaker 2: And as wild as she is, Joe, the night I
1:51:58
Speaker 2: called her and said, I need to rearrange the show tonight.
1:52:05
Speaker 2: Her and Tom were coming. Tom Arnold? Yes. And it
1:52:09
Speaker 2: was the morning that I'd gotten a call from Irvin
1:52:12
Speaker 2: Magic Johnson that he was HIV positive. So I needed
1:52:16
Speaker 2: the whole show. And this is how cool she was.
1:52:19
Speaker 2: She says, give me another date, but I'm still coming
1:52:23
Speaker 2: because we love Irvin.
1:52:24
Speaker 3: Oh, wow.
1:52:25
Speaker 2: And they came and stood on the side that night
1:52:27
Speaker 2: when Irvin came and talked about it.
1:52:30
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:52:31
Speaker 2: She's cool.
1:52:32
Speaker 1: She's cool. She's crazy as fuck.
1:52:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:52:35
Speaker 1: She's cool. Aren't we all?
1:52:37
Speaker 2: And don't we have to be?
1:52:38
Speaker 1: You have to be. Yeah.
1:52:40
Speaker 2: A little bit. We got to be the different kid
1:52:42
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood.
1:52:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. If you want to be as good as she was.
1:52:45
Speaker 1: Because people, they don't. You got to go back and
1:52:48
Speaker 1: watch some of her specials. She was killing in a
1:52:51
Speaker 1: way that no woman killed like that. It was different.
1:52:54
Speaker 1: It was like aggressive. It was aggressive and angry. It
1:52:58
Speaker 1: was so funny.
1:52:59
Speaker 2: With a tent dress on. Yeah. She didn't sell us
1:53:01
Speaker 2: any sexuality at all. It was just great writing.
1:53:04
Speaker 1: Just great writing and great performing and a lot of
1:53:06
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck. And it was just, ugh.
1:53:10
Speaker 1: Do you find any photos of Rodney with a bathrobe on?
1:53:13
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, but not on stage.
1:53:14
Speaker 2: No?
1:53:15
Speaker 3: There's only, yeah, I don't even know if they exist.
1:53:18
Speaker 1: They don't exist. That's crazy.
1:53:23
Speaker 2: That was a pre-show right there. You think he's not ready,
1:53:26
Speaker 2: but he's dressed to go on.
1:53:29
Speaker 1: Right. He's in there writing.
1:53:30
Speaker 2: Look at the phone. Look at the landline.
1:53:32
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy?
1:53:34
Speaker 2: I showed my son one of those. He couldn't believe
1:53:37
Speaker 2: that to drop dollar nine, it was.
1:53:38
Speaker 1: And if you missed one of them and fucked it up,
1:53:41
Speaker 1: you had to start from scratch. It was crazy.
1:53:44
Speaker 2: Yes.
1:53:45
Speaker 1: Back in the day.
1:53:47
Speaker 2: I remember when the iPhone first came out. And it
1:53:52
Speaker 2: didn't have actual buttons like a StarTAC. And I was freaking.
1:53:57
Speaker 2: It's like, how will I know where the L is? Yeah.
1:54:00
Speaker 2: I can't feel it.
1:54:01
Speaker 1: I remember I had a BlackBerry back then. You couldn't
1:54:04
Speaker 1: convince me that I needed to get an iPhone. I
1:54:06
Speaker 1: was like, this is ridiculous. I'm not typing on that
1:54:08
Speaker 1: stupid thing. I don't even know where the buttons are.
1:54:10
Speaker 1: It makes a click sound. That's stupid.
1:54:14
Speaker 2: Before you know it, we were doing it. We turned
1:54:16
Speaker 2: off the click, and it says a lot about progress.
1:54:18
Speaker 2: Don't be afraid of change.
1:54:19
Speaker 1: Well, now I talk to it. Now I hardly ever text.
1:54:22
Speaker 1: I just say, text Arsenio. Like, say, hey, man, looking
1:54:27
Speaker 1: forward to seeing you tonight, blah, blah, blah, and just
1:54:29
Speaker 1: send it.
1:54:30
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:54:30
Speaker 1: I make most of my text messages, I just talk
1:54:32
Speaker 1: to my phone.
1:54:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. Me and Siri, and you can't say
1:54:38
Speaker 2: the N-word to Siri. The other night I was writing
1:54:40
Speaker 2: the joke. She won't say it? No, she won't fuck
1:54:42
Speaker 2: with the N-word.
1:54:43
Speaker 1: I wonder if Google will.
1:54:45
Speaker 2: She's like, I'm not getting canceled, you know, and let
1:54:48
Speaker 2: Alexa have the whole business. I'm not to get, you know, but,
1:54:51
Speaker 2: you know, I'm writing a joke and I said the
1:54:53
Speaker 2: N word. Of course, I didn't say N word. I
1:54:56
Speaker 2: said negative. And Siri would not write it. And then
1:55:00
Speaker 2: when I kept saying it, she started writing other things,
1:55:02
Speaker 2: you know, that started with an N, you know, but
1:55:05
Speaker 2: they weren't even words. And I'm like, so they got
1:55:08
Speaker 2: Siri trained.
1:55:09
Speaker 1: That's so weird.
1:55:10
Speaker 2: She's not getting canceled.
1:55:12
Speaker 1: It's weird that It took– it wasn't even 10 years.
1:55:17
Speaker 1: And then everybody just got accustomed to having a phone
1:55:20
Speaker 1: with them all the time. Like there was– think about
1:55:24
Speaker 1: like the difference between like– it was probably like– what
1:55:27
Speaker 1: is it? Like 97, 98 when everybody had those Motorola's, right?
1:55:32
Speaker 1: It was around then, right? Yeah. It was around then,
1:55:35
Speaker 1: like 96, 97.
1:55:37
Speaker 2: My friends laughed at me. My first phone was in
1:55:41
Speaker 2: a Halliburton briefcase. And you opened the silver Halliburton briefcase,
1:55:45
Speaker 2: take the phone out, and the phone was maybe 10 inches.
1:55:48
Speaker 2: And I had an antenna that screwed on the outside
1:55:54
Speaker 2: of the briefcase because you had this big possum tail.
1:55:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had one on the roof of my car. Oh, yeah?
1:56:01
Speaker 1: In 1989.
1:56:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:56:03
Speaker 1: Wow.
1:56:04
Speaker 2: Back then, I couldn't imagine that kids would be watching this.
1:56:09
Speaker 2: on the phone.
1:56:11
Speaker 1: Right. Playing games, watching movies, and that would be most
1:56:14
Speaker 1: of their social life was communicating through that thing. Yeah.
1:56:16
Speaker 2: Remember, there was a time when dudes said to each other, yo,
1:56:20
Speaker 2: he got a strong rap, man. His pimp hand is crazy.
1:56:23
Speaker 2: He can get a bitch in a second. You know,
1:56:24
Speaker 2: and blah, blah, blah.
1:56:25
Speaker 1: He can talk.
1:56:26
Speaker 2: And now, young men don't know what the fuck to
1:56:29
Speaker 2: say to a woman leaning against a wall in a club.
1:56:31
Speaker 1: No, they have dating apps now.
1:56:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, swipe left.
1:56:33
Speaker 1: They're just swiping.
1:56:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:56:35
Speaker 1: Crazy. But what I was going to get at, like,
1:56:37
Speaker 1: how quickly... The culture changed from, let's just say, 98
1:56:43
Speaker 1: when a lot of people had a phone. At least
1:56:45
Speaker 1: half the people had a phone on them. 2008, everybody
1:56:48
Speaker 1: had a phone. 2018, you'd be crazy to not have
1:56:52
Speaker 1: a phone. 20 years. Like that.
1:56:55
Speaker 2: Okay. Now, hold your thought.
1:56:57
Speaker 1: Okay.
1:56:57
Speaker 2: I remember a time when you and I were the
1:57:03
Speaker 2: only parents that didn't allow cell phones online. In the
1:57:08
Speaker 2: hands of our kids. Because I remember my son said, Dad,
1:57:13
Speaker 2: you've got to let me have a phone. And I'm like,
1:57:15
Speaker 2: I'm not doing it. Until you were a certain age,
1:57:18
Speaker 2: I'd set it up. And I said, does everyone in
1:57:20
Speaker 2: your class have a phone? And he said, no, two
1:57:26
Speaker 2: of us don't. And I realized you were the other
1:57:29
Speaker 2: parent that was saying no. We're not fucking with this.
1:57:32
Speaker 1: I gave her a phone that has two numbers on it.
1:57:35
Speaker 1: There was a weird little cell phone that you get
1:57:37
Speaker 1: for kids where she could dial, like, my phone number
1:57:41
Speaker 1: or my wife's phone number. It was like, that's it.
1:57:45
Speaker 1: It was like, I forget what it was called. It
1:57:46
Speaker 1: was like the frog or something like that. Some little
1:57:49
Speaker 1: cell phone that was just for kids. A safe phone
1:57:50
Speaker 1: for kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you didn't have to
1:57:52
Speaker 1: worry about the things that kids have to worry about now. Like,
1:57:54
Speaker 1: I was watching this thing about Roblox, you know, that
1:57:57
Speaker 1: game that kids like to play, that they're getting, like,
1:58:01
Speaker 1: Predators are on roadblocks and they're trying to pick up
1:58:04
Speaker 1: kids like child predators. So you have to worry about
1:58:08
Speaker 1: the games they play. you have to worry about them
1:58:11
Speaker 1: getting dm'd by creeps you have to worry about so
1:58:14
Speaker 1: much more access than just a phone to call people.
1:58:18
Speaker 2: Yeah there was a time when my kid used to
1:58:21
Speaker 2: play games with a headset on and he would play
1:58:25
Speaker 2: with people you don't know just somebody in the world
1:58:28
Speaker 2: they would gather.
1:58:28
Speaker 1: Yeah and um.
1:58:31
Speaker 2: I remember feeling like this can't be good.
1:58:34
Speaker 1: Right.
1:58:35
Speaker 2: You know, because these probably aren't all kids he's playing with.
1:58:39
Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
1:58:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
1:58:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, when I first started playing video games, you'd
1:58:44
Speaker 1: have to chat by pulling down a window and you'd
1:58:47
Speaker 1: have to type in the things that you wanted to say.
1:58:49
Speaker 1: You couldn't talk to people. And then when people started
1:58:51
Speaker 1: talking to people in video games, I'm like, oh, this
1:58:54
Speaker 1: is crazy. But then the problem is whenever there's anything
1:58:57
Speaker 1: the kids are doing, you're going to have some creeps
1:59:00
Speaker 1: that are targeting kids. And they find where the kids
1:59:03
Speaker 1: are hanging out, what the kids are doing, and then
1:59:05
Speaker 1: they try to get those kids to meet them somewhere.
1:59:08
Speaker 1: That's what's scary about cell phones and the internet and
1:59:11
Speaker 1: all that shit is that it's not just a phone.
1:59:14
Speaker 1: It's a way that you can connect with people. And
1:59:19
Speaker 1: there's always creeps that are trying to connect with kids.
1:59:22
Speaker 2: I was lucky as a kid because I talk about
1:59:25
Speaker 2: being a magician. And I worked at a magic shop
1:59:27
Speaker 2: when I was 12, took cash because I couldn't actually
1:59:30
Speaker 2: have a job. And I remember meeting older magicians. I
1:59:35
Speaker 2: remember going to people's house to see a new guillotine trick.
1:59:40
Speaker 2: And my mother, my mother worked two jobs. I was
1:59:43
Speaker 2: a latchkey kid. I never had any problems and I
1:59:46
Speaker 2: never was warned about it, you know, but, um, I
1:59:50
Speaker 2: could have been a target. Yeah, you got lucky. Yeah,
1:59:53
Speaker 2: I really got lucky. Because when I was writing the book,
1:59:56
Speaker 2: I'm looking and I'm saying, there was a guy I
1:59:59
Speaker 2: met who worked until he died for Penn & Teller.
2:00:05
Speaker 2: And this dude, I met him at a magic show.
2:00:07
Speaker 2: And every year when he would come to Cleveland, I
2:00:09
Speaker 2: would go sit with him. My mother never knew I
2:00:11
Speaker 2: had this 40-year-old friend.
2:00:14
Speaker 1: Weird, right?
2:00:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was cool and I got lucky.
2:00:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing about latchkey kids. I mean, the
2:00:21
Speaker 1: thing is, though, I was watching this YouTube video where
2:00:25
Speaker 1: they were talking about kids of our age, our generation,
2:00:30
Speaker 1: latchkey kids that grew up like that are so much
2:00:34
Speaker 1: more resilient because no problems were solved for you. You
2:00:39
Speaker 1: had to figure it out on your own. You went
2:00:40
Speaker 1: out on your own. You were outside with no cell
2:00:44
Speaker 1: phone communication, no way to call anybody. when you were 10, 11,
2:00:47
Speaker 1: you're wandering around with your friends. It's like, it was
2:00:51
Speaker 1: a different world. You had to figure life out in
2:00:53
Speaker 1: a way that like helicopter parenting and parents that are
2:00:57
Speaker 1: like tracking their kids, you know, like a lot of parents,
2:01:00
Speaker 1: like they're tracking their kids on their phone. They know
2:01:02
Speaker 1: where they're at. You said you were at Debbie's house.
2:01:04
Speaker 1: You're not at Debbie's house. Where are you right now?
2:01:06
Speaker 1: Like everyone is like looking out for their kid's Maybe
2:01:09
Speaker 1: a little too much. It's like you want your children
2:01:11
Speaker 1: to be safe, but you also want them to have
2:01:14
Speaker 1: a little bit of freedom to figure out who the
2:01:16
Speaker 1: fuck they are.
2:01:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. Gosh, as a kid, when I would tell my
2:01:21
Speaker 2: mother I'm spending the night at Kenny's house, I was
2:01:26
Speaker 2: never at Kenny's house. You know, my girl, when I
2:01:32
Speaker 2: was 14, had a mom who was a nurse that
2:01:35
Speaker 2: worked the 11 to 7 shift. So we kind of
2:01:39
Speaker 2: lived together like a couple. You know, I would tell
2:01:42
Speaker 2: my mother I'm going one place. I'd go to Robin's house.
2:01:44
Speaker 2: I would stay at her house till morning when I
2:01:46
Speaker 2: went home to get ready for school. You know, I
2:01:48
Speaker 2: was like a grown ass man.
2:01:49
Speaker 1: Wow. That's wild.
2:01:51
Speaker 2: Until one day her parents had the grandparents come to
2:01:55
Speaker 2: town and surprise her. And so it's the moms at work.
2:02:00
Speaker 2: There's a knock at the door. And she said, it's
2:02:03
Speaker 2: my grandmother. We had little peep holes. It's my grandmother,
2:02:05
Speaker 2: my grandfather. And I had to jump with my clothes
2:02:10
Speaker 2: off their balcony. That was my action adventure teenage period.
2:02:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a different world. I don't know if it's
2:02:19
Speaker 1: better or worse, but I think it definitely made you
2:02:22
Speaker 1: more resilient. And that was this argument that they were
2:02:25
Speaker 1: making in this YouTube video, that that generation is the
2:02:27
Speaker 1: most emotionally resilient. And that this generation coming up is
2:02:31
Speaker 1: like the least emotionally resilient. That's why they're always looking
2:02:35
Speaker 1: for things that are better. You know, problems. They're always
2:02:38
Speaker 1: looking for things that bother them, things that cause them anxiety.
2:02:42
Speaker 1: They're always looking for things that, you know, they can't tolerate.
2:02:45
Speaker 2: Where's my bike helmet? You know, we used to have
2:02:48
Speaker 2: a car. It was a station wagon. And the back seat,
2:02:52
Speaker 2: you sit facing the opposite way. No seatbelts. That had
2:02:57
Speaker 2: to be dangerous.
2:02:58
Speaker 1: It's all dangerous. Those cars were dangerous. They could barely stop.
2:03:02
Speaker 1: They had drum brakes everywhere. You ever drive like an
2:03:05
Speaker 1: old– I have old cars, but I have what they
2:03:06
Speaker 1: call resto mods where they take an old car, but
2:03:10
Speaker 1: they put like modern suspension, modern brakes, modern steering. It
2:03:14
Speaker 1: handles like a new car, but they have all the
2:03:16
Speaker 1: outside of an old car and then the dashboard of
2:03:19
Speaker 1: an old car and all that stuff. That's what I like.
2:03:22
Speaker 1: If you drive a real– like if you try to
2:03:24
Speaker 1: drive a 1968 Camaro, you're like, what is this piece
2:03:27
Speaker 1: of shit? They can't brake. You can't go around a corner.
2:03:31
Speaker 1: There's no traction.
2:03:33
Speaker 2: What was your first car?
2:03:34
Speaker 1: I had a 1973 Chevelle.
2:03:37
Speaker 2: I had a Cutlass.
2:03:40
Speaker 1: I had a Cutlass once. Yeah, I had a 70,
2:03:43
Speaker 1: a 70 Cutlass. Those are great cars. God, they knew
2:03:46
Speaker 1: how to make a beautiful car back then.
2:03:48
Speaker 2: You like muscle cars.
2:03:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love. Well, when I was in high school,
2:03:52
Speaker 1: like those were the, so I was in high school
2:03:54
Speaker 1: in the 1980s. I was a freshman in 1981. I
2:03:55
Speaker 1: had four kids in the 1980s. Wow, that's crazy. I'm
2:03:56
Speaker 1: much older than you. In those days, those cars were
2:04:05
Speaker 1: the cars that we all like looked at. Like you
2:04:09
Speaker 1: couldn't believe when someone had it. I remember I have
2:04:11
Speaker 1: a 1970 Chevelle that I got. To this day, I
2:04:16
Speaker 1: have it because when I was like 17, my friend
2:04:20
Speaker 1: picked me up in a 1970 Chevelle with his buddy
2:04:24
Speaker 1: and it was perfect. It was a perfect car. I
2:04:26
Speaker 1: couldn't believe this guy had it. I was like, how
2:04:28
Speaker 1: do you have this?
2:04:29
Speaker 2: And when you say perfect– To non-car people like me,
2:04:32
Speaker 2: what does that mean?
2:04:34
Speaker 1: First of all, it was what you would call cherry,
2:04:37
Speaker 1: meaning there was no dents, no scratches, perfect paint. It
2:04:40
Speaker 1: was beautiful. The sound it made when he pulled up,
2:04:44
Speaker 1: I think I was 16 because I don't think I
2:04:45
Speaker 1: had a license yet. And I remember getting in the
2:04:47
Speaker 1: backseat of the car going, how does this guy have
2:04:50
Speaker 1: this car? This is crazy. You know what a 1970
2:04:54
Speaker 1: Chevelle looks like? Absolutely. With the white stripes, black with
2:04:57
Speaker 1: the white stripes. That was it. I have that exact
2:04:59
Speaker 1: car right now. I love it. Whenever I get in,
2:05:01
Speaker 1: I think about when I was 16. I think about
2:05:04
Speaker 1: all those years ago.
2:05:06
Speaker 2: When Burt Reynolds drove up, those pictures we just looked at,
2:05:09
Speaker 2: when he drove up, he had what was called a
2:05:11
Speaker 2: Trans Am. Yes! And it had a big eagle on it.
2:05:14
Speaker 1: Yes! Smoking the bandit car.
2:05:16
Speaker 2: I almost lost my mind.
2:05:17
Speaker 1: Oh, my God. That was the smoking the bandit car.
2:05:20
Speaker 1: That was the car that he had in those movies
2:05:21
Speaker 1: with Sally Fields.
2:05:22
Speaker 2: $ 100 tip. Have you ever been to Jay Leno's spot?
2:05:29
Speaker 1: With the cars? Yeah. I did his show once. I
2:05:32
Speaker 1: brought my Corvette on. I have a 1965 Corvette and
2:05:36
Speaker 1: I brought it to his show. It's a Restomod too
2:05:38
Speaker 1: and Jay drove it around. He's the only person that's
2:05:40
Speaker 1: ever driven it other than me. Wow. It's an honor.
2:05:43
Speaker 1: But you go to his place, it's like, He has warehouses,
2:05:47
Speaker 1: not a warehouse.
2:05:49
Speaker 2: And he never sells one. He swears to me he's
2:05:54
Speaker 2: never sold a car. So anything he's ever bought, he keeps.
2:05:57
Speaker 2: And he recently told me.
2:05:59
Speaker 1: Why did someone turn it gold?
2:06:00
Speaker 2: I don't know. I phrased a clip.
2:06:02
Speaker 1: Thumbnail. Someone's YouTube video. No. Go to the other one.
2:06:05
Speaker 1: The other picture with the real picture. I was just
2:06:07
Speaker 1: clicking around. But go to the real picture so you
2:06:09
Speaker 1: can see what it looks like.
2:06:10
Speaker 2: You know what he has now that's kind of cool?
2:06:12
Speaker 2: He has two tanks. two army tanks.
2:06:16
Speaker 1: That's us right there that's my car look at that
2:06:20
Speaker 1: see but that like you see that modern suspension modern wheels.
2:06:24
Speaker 2: Those are exhaust pipes on the side.
2:06:26
Speaker 1: Yeah that that car is so fun do those things
2:06:29
Speaker 1: get hot yeah yeah you'll fuck your leg up if
2:06:32
Speaker 1: you got shorts on your leg touches it you're in
2:06:34
Speaker 1: trouble the outside part won't because like the outside is
2:06:38
Speaker 1: like to protect you from the actual exhaust pipes but
2:06:41
Speaker 1: underneath it is exhaust pipes But where Jay's leg is,
2:06:45
Speaker 1: if he backed up right there, if it was hot,
2:06:47
Speaker 1: he'd singe the back of his calves.
2:06:50
Speaker 2: Joe, he has tanks.
2:06:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has everything.
2:06:52
Speaker 2: He has steam engines. The king of Jordan gave him
2:06:55
Speaker 2: a tank, and this motherfucker was riding through Sherman Oaks
2:06:59
Speaker 2: with the tank.
2:06:59
Speaker 1: He drives everything he has, too. That's the thing about Jay.
2:07:03
Speaker 1: It's kind of nuts.
2:07:03
Speaker 2: It's a lot of rotation.
2:07:05
Speaker 1: Well, he crashed one of his motorcycles just a few
2:07:08
Speaker 1: years ago and fucked himself up.
2:07:10
Speaker 2: He does a bit about that. He's fucked himself up
2:07:13
Speaker 2: without a motorcycle.
2:07:14
Speaker 1: Oh, that was the one time he was climbing up
2:07:15
Speaker 1: a hill?
2:07:16
Speaker 2: Yeah. We've done a lot of dates together. We have
2:07:19
Speaker 2: the same agent, right? And he called us one day
2:07:21
Speaker 2: and he says, how about you, Jay and Craig Kilbourne,
2:07:25
Speaker 2: and we call it Kings of Late Night. And so
2:07:27
Speaker 2: we went out and did like five dates and it
2:07:29
Speaker 2: was a lot of fun. And me and Jay enjoyed it.
2:07:32
Speaker 2: So we added 20 more dates to it.
2:07:35
Speaker 1: Oh, that had to be great. He was a great
2:07:38
Speaker 1: comic in the 70s.
2:07:39
Speaker 2: People don't know when I was in college, we would
2:07:42
Speaker 2: go in the TV lounge and watch Jay Leno. To
2:07:48
Speaker 2: this day, I remember him saying I was a philosophy major.
2:07:51
Speaker 2: And so I just got out of college and I
2:07:53
Speaker 2: opened up a little philosophy shop you know just to
2:07:57
Speaker 2: to explain what bullshit majors were actually being peddled to.
2:08:01
Speaker 1: Well he was the edgy comic in the 1970s and
2:08:04
Speaker 1: when he would go on Letterman's show he was like
2:08:06
Speaker 1: the edgy guy that would sit on the couch and
2:08:08
Speaker 1: be crazy Letterman would say what's your beef yeah and
2:08:10
Speaker 1: he would always be mad at something he was like
2:08:13
Speaker 1: people don't realize that you'd see him as but again
2:08:15
Speaker 1: that carrot the carrot for him was the Tonight Show
2:08:18
Speaker 1: that was more important to him Than anything. And once
2:08:21
Speaker 1: he got that Tonight Show, everything else was like, took
2:08:24
Speaker 1: a back seat.
2:08:25
Speaker 2: Did you do Letterman as a stand-up?
2:08:27
Speaker 1: No, no.
2:08:28
Speaker 2: That was my first.
2:08:31
Speaker 1: That's a classic. That was a great place for comedy.
2:08:34
Speaker 1: Because Letterman, he really loved comics. And he really loved
2:08:38
Speaker 1: solid stand-up. I never liked doing stand-up on those talk shows.
2:08:43
Speaker 2: Was it the five minutes?
2:08:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. To me, I was a different kind of comedy.
2:08:47
Speaker 1: My comedy needs some time. I need to cook. You know,
2:08:50
Speaker 1: I need time to open up ideas.
2:08:53
Speaker 2: And I didn't like the censorship.
2:08:56
Speaker 1: I didn't like TV comedy. It's not my, I was
2:08:59
Speaker 1: a nightclub comic. That's all I ever wanted to be.
2:09:02
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a nightclub comic. I like doing
2:09:04
Speaker 1: comedy for drunk people.
2:09:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. But when I first saw you, It all wasn't dirty.
2:09:09
Speaker 2: Some of it was TV stuff.
2:09:11
Speaker 1: Well, it wasn't necessarily dirty, but it was free. It
2:09:13
Speaker 1: was like I was being free. I was doing whatever
2:09:16
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about. I didn't like the idea
2:09:19
Speaker 1: of being constrained by any sorts of standards and practices.
2:09:23
Speaker 1: I'm not interested. I've been not interested in that.
2:09:27
Speaker 2: I worked on my Tonight Show set to try to
2:09:30
Speaker 2: get on the Tonight Show with Johnny. And the guy
2:09:34
Speaker 2: would come see me a lot. He would change my jokes.
2:09:37
Speaker 2: That I hate. I hate when they say, well, try
2:09:41
Speaker 2: saying vacation instead of gift shop. And I'm like, oh,
2:09:45
Speaker 2: let me just do my thing. But after a year
2:09:49
Speaker 2: of him trying to get my set right, he says,
2:09:52
Speaker 2: you're not a Johnny comic.
2:09:54
Speaker 1: Oh, God.
2:09:54
Speaker 2: You're not a Johnny guy.
2:09:55
Speaker 1: What does that even mean?
2:09:57
Speaker 2: But then I got on on a Monday night with Joan,
2:09:59
Speaker 2: because I guess I was a Joan guy. And then
2:10:02
Speaker 2: I got to sit with Johnny just as a guest
2:10:04
Speaker 2: to promote Coming to America. So- finally full circle from
2:10:08
Speaker 2: my basement.
2:10:09
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I watch a lot of his old clips,
2:10:12
Speaker 1: like with Don Rickles and all these.
2:10:15
Speaker 2: Oh, Don Rickles talking about Snooki, the brother in the band,
2:10:19
Speaker 2: you know, and he would do a, a noise of
2:10:21
Speaker 2: a blow gun. It's like Snooki, you're liking this stuff. Oh,
2:10:25
Speaker 2: you know, and you can't fuck with that now. No,
2:10:29
Speaker 2: there's so much. It's funny how we've come forward into
2:10:33
Speaker 2: a new era, but we've gone backwards and, In certain ways.
2:10:37
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:10:38
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:10:38
Speaker 1: You can't joke about certain things anymore.
2:10:40
Speaker 2: Like I'm scared to death right now. And I'm going
2:10:41
Speaker 2: to say something that I shouldn't say. And I'm going
2:10:45
Speaker 2: to be in TLC prison.
2:10:46
Speaker 1: No one can do shit to you now. They can't
2:10:48
Speaker 1: do shit to you now.
2:10:49
Speaker 2: They can just be mad, I guess.
2:10:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
2:10:50
Speaker 1: Let them be mad. Just don't pay attention. That's what
2:10:52
Speaker 1: I do. I just don't pay attention. Really? Yeah. I
2:10:55
Speaker 1: just don't read anything about me.
2:10:57
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:10:57
Speaker 1: Stay away. That's the best way.
2:10:59
Speaker 2: Are you a comic who, when you're on stage, it
2:11:02
Speaker 2: can be 200 people laughing and But that one person
2:11:05
Speaker 2: who's not laughing annoys the fuck out of you. You
2:11:08
Speaker 2: can't even enjoy the others. You don't even look at
2:11:10
Speaker 2: that person.
2:11:10
Speaker 1: No, those people have their own problems.
2:11:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. And by the way, sometimes they're just not laughers.
2:11:17
Speaker 2: Because that person will sometimes come up to you and say,
2:11:19
Speaker 2: love what you're doing. Love the new stuff.
2:11:21
Speaker 1: Some people just like to smile. They don't want to laugh.
2:11:23
Speaker 1: They just want to sit there and watch. Or they
2:11:25
Speaker 1: just want to take it in, take in the performance.
2:11:27
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean they don't like it. And then some people
2:11:29
Speaker 1: just are upset by everything. You can't control that. Just
2:11:33
Speaker 1: control what– the only thing that bothers me is if
2:11:37
Speaker 1: I'm off. That's it. If I'm off, if I stumble
2:11:41
Speaker 1: on a word, if I fuck something up, that's the
2:11:42
Speaker 1: only thing that bothers me. The audience is like, you
2:11:45
Speaker 1: can't control that. Why be upset at things you can't control?
2:11:48
Speaker 1: Because who knows what their trip is? Who knows what
2:11:50
Speaker 1: they're carrying around with them?
2:11:52
Speaker 2: As a famous star now, do you ever bomb?
2:11:57
Speaker 1: I have jokes that bomb for sure. New ones. We
2:12:00
Speaker 1: trot out a new one. Especially like we do this
2:12:03
Speaker 1: show called Bottom of the Barrel. And Bottom of the
2:12:06
Speaker 1: Barrel at the Mothership is there's like a whiskey barrel.
2:12:09
Speaker 1: And you reach into the whiskey barrel and you pull
2:12:11
Speaker 1: out premises, just ideas. And you just run with it.
2:12:14
Speaker 1: That's tonight actually. And so you pull out a piece
2:12:16
Speaker 1: of paper and have a subject. Ice cream, sundae, whatever.
2:12:22
Speaker 1: Whatever the fuck it is.
2:12:23
Speaker 2: That takes intestinal fortitude.
2:12:24
Speaker 1: Oh, a lot of those fucking go nowhere.
2:12:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:12:28
Speaker 1: But some of them don't. Every now and then you
2:12:30
Speaker 1: get a great premise out of those. And it's like
2:12:33
Speaker 1: a little premise factory. But the audience knows it though.
2:12:36
Speaker 1: So it's different than like when they go to see
2:12:38
Speaker 1: you and they paid money and they're expecting a polished show.
2:12:42
Speaker 1: And you have a new joke. And the new joke
2:12:44
Speaker 1: is just not right. It's not ready. Something's missing. You're
2:12:48
Speaker 1: not finding it. You're trying to work through it. Yeah.
2:12:52
Speaker 1: It's always going to happen. And if it doesn't happen,
2:12:53
Speaker 1: you're not taking enough chances. Yeah.
2:12:56
Speaker 2: See, I'm not. As chance-driven as you are, I'd be
2:13:01
Speaker 2: afraid to do that because my feelings get hurt too easily. Yeah.
2:13:05
Speaker 1: Well, it's part of the process.
2:13:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right. You're right. We should do the things
2:13:09
Speaker 2: we fear.
2:13:10
Speaker 1: You definitely have to if you want to write new shit.
2:13:14
Speaker 1: You're going to have to– there's that moment where you're like,
2:13:16
Speaker 1: do I trot this new one out? Fuck it. Let's go.
2:13:20
Speaker 1: And a lot of the new ones, the way they
2:13:23
Speaker 1: come out, for me at least first, is just a framework.
2:13:27
Speaker 1: It doesn't have sides. It doesn't have windows. It doesn't
2:13:29
Speaker 1: have doors. It's just a frame. And I have to
2:13:32
Speaker 1: figure out how to make a house out of that frame.
2:13:34
Speaker 2: That's what I loved about going to the original room
2:13:37
Speaker 2: back in the day when we were young, watching Richard
2:13:40
Speaker 2: take out a pack of cigarettes, take a cigarette. And
2:13:43
Speaker 2: Mitzi had those smoke things that popped. It got smoke
2:13:48
Speaker 2: and everything. And Richard would have two minutes. And then
2:13:53
Speaker 2: he'd have five. Mm-hmm.
2:13:54
Speaker 1: It was just build.
2:13:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. And it was like when Grandma used to make
2:13:58
Speaker 2: a quilt.
2:13:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:13:59
Speaker 2: And it gets bigger and bigger.
2:14:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:14:00
Speaker 2: And you've got an hour. I used to love watching
2:14:02
Speaker 2: him develop it.
2:14:04
Speaker 1: I heard that Richard would go in on a Monday
2:14:08
Speaker 1: and have a joke that bombed, and then it would
2:14:10
Speaker 1: be murdering by Saturday.
2:14:12
Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
2:14:12
Speaker 1: And that's what he would do. He would just go
2:14:14
Speaker 1: and figure it out on stage. Damon used to do
2:14:17
Speaker 1: that a lot. Damon used to go and sit on
2:14:20
Speaker 1: stage and just sit with a premise. Just sit with it.
2:14:24
Speaker 1: And he would trot it out for like 10 minutes
2:14:27
Speaker 1: and try to figure it. And then finally he'd find
2:14:29
Speaker 1: something and everybody would be dying.
2:14:31
Speaker 2: We got away from that earlier. But I totally got
2:14:35
Speaker 2: your point. Damon is one of the great ones. And
2:14:39
Speaker 2: I hope he continues to do stand up and pop
2:14:41
Speaker 2: out to the clubs because he's one of the great
2:14:43
Speaker 2: ones that a lot of people don't realize.
2:14:45
Speaker 1: They don't realize how great he was when he did
2:14:47
Speaker 1: the last stand. That one HBO special that he did
2:14:50
Speaker 1: way back in the day is a phenomenal special. It's phenomenal.
2:14:54
Speaker 1: He was so good. But he wanted to be a
2:14:56
Speaker 1: movie star.
2:14:59
Speaker 2: Like Richard, he had an ability to also be vulnerable
2:15:04
Speaker 2: and tell the truth about something that most of us
2:15:06
Speaker 2: wouldn't tell. Like you talk about having a club foot
2:15:10
Speaker 2: as a kid. And he was special. And I'm glad
2:15:14
Speaker 2: he's back out there.
2:15:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think he never really– you know one
2:15:17
Speaker 1: other thing that he did that is very unique? Damon
2:15:21
Speaker 1: brings a camera to all of his shows and he
2:15:24
Speaker 1: films all of his shows and he archives them. Every
2:15:28
Speaker 1: set he ever does. Really?
2:15:30
Speaker 2: Yep.
2:15:30
Speaker 1: And he goes over it.
2:15:31
Speaker 2: That's work.
2:15:32
Speaker 1: It's work. Because one of the things that he does,
2:15:34
Speaker 1: like I said, is like he'll take a premise and
2:15:37
Speaker 1: just try to find it on stage, try to figure
2:15:40
Speaker 1: out what about it works, what about it pops. Like
2:15:43
Speaker 1: what is it? And, you know, I guess like doing
2:15:47
Speaker 1: that with a camera and then you can go home,
2:15:49
Speaker 1: sit and watch it on the computer and just go,
2:15:52
Speaker 1: what is in this motherfucker? There's something here. I got
2:15:55
Speaker 1: to find it and just look at it from every angle.
2:15:58
Speaker 1: Look at it over here. Look at it over there.
2:16:00
Speaker 1: Try to do it backwards. Try to figure out what
2:16:03
Speaker 1: the fuck makes it work.
2:16:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.
2:16:04
Speaker 1: And he would just he had no fear of silence.
2:16:08
Speaker 2: See, that's the sentence right there. When it's quiet in
2:16:11
Speaker 2: the comedy club, I lose my mind.
2:16:16
Speaker 1: Chris Rock does that too. Chris Rock did a lot
2:16:19
Speaker 1: of that at the comedy store. He would come in
2:16:21
Speaker 1: and just he would have material that he was working on.
2:16:23
Speaker 1: Like one time I remember I brought him up on
2:16:26
Speaker 1: stage and everyone's going crazy. Chris Rock's here. They're cheering, cheering, cheering.
2:16:30
Speaker 1: And he goes, relax, relax. It ain't going to be
2:16:33
Speaker 1: that funny. Just let people know I'm working on some
2:16:36
Speaker 1: new shit. This ain't going to be that funny. But
2:16:39
Speaker 1: with confidence. Everybody already knew he's funny. They already saw
2:16:44
Speaker 1: Binger and Blacker. They already saw his specials. It was
2:16:47
Speaker 1: Bring the Pain. Everybody already knew.
2:16:50
Speaker 2: The one where he shot with three different outfits in
2:16:52
Speaker 2: three different places?
2:16:53
Speaker 1: I hated that one.
2:16:54
Speaker 2: You didn't like that one? No.
2:16:56
Speaker 1: Not that I didn't like the material. I didn't like
2:16:58
Speaker 1: the idea of swapping outfits. The problem with that is
2:17:02
Speaker 1: it you realize he's saying the same thing in all
2:17:04
Speaker 1: these different places. It takes away from the, but it
2:17:07
Speaker 1: takes away from the magic of a performer. I want
2:17:10
Speaker 1: to see you and I don't want anything to distract
2:17:13
Speaker 1: me from these. I don't want to say, Oh, he
2:17:15
Speaker 1: just performs this the same way everywhere. I want you
2:17:20
Speaker 1: to just be saying it. The magic, like the trick
2:17:22
Speaker 1: is you are in the moment with whatever you're talking about.
2:17:27
Speaker 1: If you're changing outfits and, All of a sudden you're
2:17:29
Speaker 1: in Johannesburg and now you're in Cleveland. Like, don't do
2:17:33
Speaker 1: that to me. Why you got a leather jacket on
2:17:35
Speaker 1: in the beginning? And then the punchline, you got a
2:17:37
Speaker 1: fucking silk shirt. Don't do that.
2:17:40
Speaker 2: See, I saw it as a guy creatively trying to
2:17:43
Speaker 2: find new horizons. and do different things.
2:17:46
Speaker 1: Some horizons suck. It's not that the jokes were great.
2:17:52
Speaker 1: It's like he's a great comic. It's not that. It's
2:17:54
Speaker 1: like I just didn't like the idea of changing outfits.
2:17:57
Speaker 1: If I was friends with him back then, I would say, don't.
2:17:59
Speaker 1: I don't like it at all. And I would explain.
2:18:01
Speaker 1: The problem is you're taking people out of the premise
2:18:04
Speaker 1: and then there's a new additional thing that they have
2:18:06
Speaker 1: to think of. Oh, this is a different set. Oh,
2:18:07
Speaker 1: he's wearing different clothes. It's a new thing to distract
2:18:10
Speaker 1: you from the most– the primary thing. The primary thing
2:18:13
Speaker 1: is what are you talking about? Like what is this
2:18:16
Speaker 1: thing you're talking about? Let me get inside your head
2:18:18
Speaker 1: while you explain this thing that's so hilarious. But if
2:18:21
Speaker 1: you're doing that and changing outfits and changing stages, like
2:18:24
Speaker 1: I know you perform in different places. I know you
2:18:27
Speaker 1: wear different clothes. Don't show me right now.
2:18:30
Speaker 2: In retrospect, I wonder how he looks at that special.
2:18:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean he never did it again.
2:18:36
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, you don't want to do it again.
2:18:38
Speaker 1: Right. I mean, he did it once. He tried it.
2:18:41
Speaker 1: Different people like to do different things and try them.
2:18:43
Speaker 1: I just didn't like that for that reason. I felt
2:18:45
Speaker 1: like it was an added element that took me away
2:18:48
Speaker 1: from the premise itself.
2:18:50
Speaker 2: And by the way, something that's come out of this
2:18:53
Speaker 2: conversation in my head is the guys who are the
2:18:56
Speaker 2: best seem to go deeper and work the hardest. I mean,
2:18:59
Speaker 2: when you talk about archiving your practice sets.
2:19:03
Speaker 1: Yeah. All of them. Damon has all of them. And
2:19:06
Speaker 1: he told me this years ago because I saw him
2:19:09
Speaker 1: at the improv. He was in the lab. We were
2:19:11
Speaker 1: in the big room and he was in the lab.
2:19:13
Speaker 1: This was not that long ago. When I say years ago,
2:19:15
Speaker 1: like 10, nine years ago, something like that. And I go,
2:19:20
Speaker 1: you record all of them? He's like, every set since
2:19:22
Speaker 1: like 1990 something. He goes, I record them all. I
2:19:26
Speaker 1: got this camera. I take them all and I archive them.
2:19:29
Speaker 1: I put them on my computer. I'm like, whoa. It
2:19:31
Speaker 1: made me think, fuck, I'm lazy.
2:19:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's exactly what I'm thinking. And I'm also thinking
2:19:37
Speaker 2: what an amazing documentary if we could go through the
2:19:42
Speaker 2: history of Damon's personal archives. That would be a great–
2:19:46
Speaker 2: I think there's a special there.
2:19:48
Speaker 1: Probably. Yeah, probably. But, I mean, I think that's just
2:19:52
Speaker 1: part of his creative process. And, again, I just think
2:19:56
Speaker 1: people don't realize– Especially in the 90s, the early 90s.
2:20:00
Speaker 1: What a monster he was on stage. He was a monster.
2:20:04
Speaker 1: He was one of the first guys that was like
2:20:05
Speaker 1: a really famous guy that I saw at the store.
2:20:08
Speaker 1: I came to the store in 94. And he was
2:20:11
Speaker 1: one of the first guys who was like, oh shit,
2:20:13
Speaker 1: Damon Wayans is here. Like it was weird. It was
2:20:15
Speaker 1: like weird when people would show up like you'd seen
2:20:17
Speaker 1: him in movies and shit. And all of a sudden
2:20:19
Speaker 1: they're there in real life. You know, I was just
2:20:21
Speaker 1: coming from New York. I didn't know anybody. And I
2:20:23
Speaker 1: was like, this is so strange. I can't believe I'm
2:20:25
Speaker 1: around these people.
2:20:26
Speaker 2: So you went from Boston to New York.
2:20:28
Speaker 1: Boston to New York.
2:20:29
Speaker 2: Catch a Rising Star. Where did you work out in
2:20:31
Speaker 2: New York in those days?
2:20:32
Speaker 1: Well, I did the Boston Comedy Club, you know, the
2:20:35
Speaker 1: little place that Barry Katz had. I did The Cellar.
2:20:39
Speaker 2: That's Jay Moore's manager, right?
2:20:41
Speaker 1: Yes.
2:20:42
Speaker 2: Barry Katz.
2:20:42
Speaker 1: I did Catch a Rising Star back when that was there.
2:20:47
Speaker 1: I did, what was there?
2:20:49
Speaker 2: Comic Strip?
2:20:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did The Strip. Yeah. I did. the clubs
2:20:53
Speaker 1: in town. I did danger fields a lot. But honestly,
2:20:56
Speaker 1: when I lived in New York, I really liked doing
2:20:58
Speaker 1: the road more because when I did the road, I
2:21:01
Speaker 1: could make money. So like I came up in Boston
2:21:04
Speaker 1: and in Boston, you made a lot of your money,
2:21:07
Speaker 1: not in the clubs in town, but you made a
2:21:09
Speaker 1: lot of your money in like the bar shows, you know,
2:21:12
Speaker 1: outside of town in the suburbs. And the thing about
2:21:15
Speaker 1: that is like you could headline. And so you could
2:21:17
Speaker 1: do 45 minutes or an hour. And that, that allowed
2:21:21
Speaker 1: me to grow and like to really become a headliner
2:21:25
Speaker 1: whereas like i found like a lot of the new
2:21:27
Speaker 1: york comics that i would go on the road with
2:21:29
Speaker 1: when i would work with them even when i was
2:21:31
Speaker 1: a middle act and they were a headliner they had
2:21:34
Speaker 1: like these 10 and 15 minute sets that they'd stitch
2:21:38
Speaker 1: together to put to make an hour whereas the guys
2:21:41
Speaker 1: that i work with in boston like the big headliners
2:21:44
Speaker 1: in boston they had a real hour like that fucking
2:21:46
Speaker 1: that was an hour of thunder They had a beginning,
2:21:49
Speaker 1: a middle, and an end, and it was tight. It
2:21:52
Speaker 1: was tight. And I felt like I could do sets
2:21:57
Speaker 1: in New York, but I don't think it's really helping
2:21:59
Speaker 1: my career. There's no one there to see me. I
2:22:03
Speaker 1: felt like I'm going to make money. I could do
2:22:05
Speaker 1: a set in New York and I'd make $ 25, or
2:22:08
Speaker 1: I could do a set in Connecticut and make $ 250.
2:22:10
Speaker 1: I was like, I'll go to Connecticut. Plus, the people
2:22:14
Speaker 1: are more fun. They're more loose people. They're a bunch
2:22:17
Speaker 1: of fucking crazy drunks. I love doing Long Island. I
2:22:20
Speaker 1: love doing New Jersey. I like doing the road more.
2:22:24
Speaker 1: That's what I liked.
2:22:25
Speaker 2: I think I'm a product of my childhood environment. I
2:22:31
Speaker 2: discovered stand-up because I was a drummer, had a band,
2:22:34
Speaker 2: I was a magician, had doves, boxes and shit, and
2:22:37
Speaker 2: then my house burned down. So I lost everything. But
2:22:41
Speaker 2: I had gone to an Al Green concert, and Al
2:22:44
Speaker 2: Green had a comic come out. House lights are on.
2:22:47
Speaker 2: People are still making their way to their seats. And
2:22:51
Speaker 2: this guy slowly gets them. And then the lights go down.
2:22:56
Speaker 2: And by the time he gets to 30 minutes, he's killing.
2:22:59
Speaker 2: And all he had was a glass of juice, something
2:23:02
Speaker 2: on the stool. And this is a kid who just
2:23:05
Speaker 2: lost his house and his cymbals and his Tom Toms
2:23:07
Speaker 2: and his doves and his boxes. And I'm like, that's me.
2:23:11
Speaker 2: Johnny was a stand-up.
2:23:12
Speaker 1: So I'm still dreaming. Wow.
2:23:14
Speaker 2: And to this day... Or even when I start making
2:23:19
Speaker 2: a lot of money, after seeing that guy, I loved
2:23:23
Speaker 2: opening for people. I went on the road with everybody
2:23:26
Speaker 2: from Lou Rawls to Patti LaBelle. Still to this day,
2:23:30
Speaker 2: I'm comfortable doing 30 minutes because that's what I did.
2:23:32
Speaker 2: But I had money. Like I would come to the
2:23:35
Speaker 2: comedy store and I would have a really nice car
2:23:38
Speaker 2: because I'd spend most of my time on the road
2:23:42
Speaker 2: with Patrice Russian and Johnny Guitar Watson.
2:23:45
Speaker 1: Oh, wow. That's a different world. Opening for musicians is
2:23:48
Speaker 1: a different kind of comedy because, like, they're not there
2:23:51
Speaker 1: to see you.
2:23:52
Speaker 2: And that's what I found to be the challenge. It's like,
2:23:54
Speaker 2: I'm going to make you motherfuckers who don't know me
2:23:57
Speaker 2: and are mad. Because a lot of, you know, people
2:24:00
Speaker 2: would look at you like, that ain't one of the temptations.
2:24:02
Speaker 1: Right, right, right, right.
2:24:04
Speaker 2: I got to get them. And I like that challenge.
2:24:07
Speaker 1: It is a real challenge because there's a lot of
2:24:09
Speaker 1: people like, boo.
2:24:11
Speaker 3: Yeah.
2:24:11
Speaker 1: Bring on Metallica. Yeah. Yeah, they... They don't want to
2:24:16
Speaker 1: see you. They want to see the music act.
2:24:18
Speaker 2: I opened for Blood, Sweat, and Tears once.
2:24:20
Speaker 1: Wow.
2:24:21
Speaker 2: And they really did not want to see me. You
2:24:23
Speaker 2: think the Johnny Guitar Watson audience didn't want to see me?
2:24:26
Speaker 2: Them motherfuckers from Blood, Sweat, and Tears not fucking with me.
2:24:30
Speaker 1: Well, it's definitely running with weights on, though. If you
2:24:33
Speaker 1: can make those people laugh, boy, you take those weights
2:24:36
Speaker 1: off and go to a comedy club where they're there
2:24:37
Speaker 1: to see you. It's like, oh.
2:24:39
Speaker 2: Just there to see comedy. Mm-hmm. Made it easier.
2:24:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just don't. want to perform for people that
2:24:45
Speaker 1: aren't there to see comedy. But there's a value in it,
2:24:48
Speaker 1: I think.
2:24:49
Speaker 2: But that's when you're young.
2:24:50
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:24:51
Speaker 2: And I had a nice condo because I had just
2:24:55
Speaker 2: come off the road with Aretha.
2:24:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. I did a few of those. I opened up
2:24:59
Speaker 1: for Bon Jovi once. I opened up for Bon Jovi
2:25:02
Speaker 1: for VH1. They had a theater in the round show,
2:25:06
Speaker 1: like a performance in the round. My job was to
2:25:08
Speaker 1: open up for Bon Jovi and then get the pretty
2:25:10
Speaker 1: girl's And move them to the front so that they
2:25:13
Speaker 1: could be on camera. That's what they told me to do. Yeah.
2:25:15
Speaker 1: So I did some stand-up, and then I had to
2:25:18
Speaker 1: get people, like, come up here, come closer.
2:25:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:25:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:25:23
Speaker 2: I remember those times being on the road, and if
2:25:25
Speaker 2: there were six girls in the green room and you're
2:25:28
Speaker 2: opening for The Temptations, number six is yours. The other
2:25:33
Speaker 2: five go first to The Temps.
2:25:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's a different world, opening for musicians. That's a
2:25:40
Speaker 1: hard world. And I know a lot of people made
2:25:42
Speaker 1: a living just traveling with bands. And that's all they did.
2:25:46
Speaker 1: They would just open up for bands.
2:25:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would open up for R & B acts.
2:25:51
Speaker 2: And as a matter of fact, I got discovered by
2:25:54
Speaker 2: a jazz singer, Nancy Wilson. And I used to love
2:25:56
Speaker 2: jazz audiences because that was the perfect type of music
2:25:59
Speaker 2: for a comic. Because they were mellow. Jazz audience don't scream,
2:26:04
Speaker 2: get the fuck off.
2:26:05
Speaker 1: Right, right, right. Alonzo Bowden, he does jazz tours. Still
2:26:11
Speaker 1: like he'll do like he'll do like a jazz cruise ship.
2:26:15
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:26:16
Speaker 1: You know, like and he'll do stand up with the
2:26:18
Speaker 1: jazz audiences.
2:26:20
Speaker 2: Hey, every year.
2:26:21
Speaker 1: But he loves jazz.
2:26:22
Speaker 2: I love jazz, too. And I remember going to see
2:26:27
Speaker 2: the Playboy Jazz Festival and Bill Cosby was the host
2:26:30
Speaker 2: at the Hollywood Bowl. I host that every year now.
2:26:33
Speaker 2: I still love jazz. And that's the coolest two days
2:26:36
Speaker 2: of my summer.
2:26:37
Speaker 1: What is it about jazz? What do you love about it?
2:26:40
Speaker 2: Oh, about the actual... By the way, the coolest experience
2:26:44
Speaker 2: was sitting on the beach in Malibu with Miles Davis.
2:26:50
Speaker 2: After he came on the show once, he says, why
2:26:53
Speaker 2: don't you come over to the house, hang out? And
2:26:55
Speaker 2: he was a painter. And he was sitting with his trumpet.
2:26:59
Speaker 2: It was a red trumpet. I had never seen a
2:27:01
Speaker 2: red trumpet, like a crimson trumpet. And it was sitting
2:27:04
Speaker 2: beside him. And he wouldn't use an easel. He had
2:27:07
Speaker 2: the canvas on a table and he'd roll a new
2:27:10
Speaker 2: piece out and he would paint. You ever thought about painting? No,
2:27:16
Speaker 2: I'm not a good artist. But being a jazz fan,
2:27:20
Speaker 2: that was the coolest moment ever. And what do I
2:27:25
Speaker 2: like about it? I almost equate my comedy to jazz
2:27:29
Speaker 2: because I love to say I'm going in D, guys,
2:27:32
Speaker 2: and just play, as a stand-up. I used to love
2:27:38
Speaker 2: to equate how I worked to jazz.
2:27:41
Speaker 1: But it takes a very specific type of person to
2:27:43
Speaker 1: be like a jazz fan that really enjoys listening to jazz.
2:27:47
Speaker 2: I'm also a musician, and I know that some of
2:27:50
Speaker 2: the most respected musicians in my mind are jazz musicians.
2:27:55
Speaker 2: The intricacy... spending time with, I talk about this in
2:28:00
Speaker 2: the book, spending time with Quincy Jones, who was from
2:28:04
Speaker 2: the world of jazz and a former trumpet player and
2:28:07
Speaker 2: all that stuff. Then he ends up the year I
2:28:10
Speaker 2: meet him, he plays for me these tracks and I
2:28:14
Speaker 2: don't know what I'm about to listen to. And he says,
2:28:16
Speaker 2: you hear this? He takes out, he slides all the slides.
2:28:19
Speaker 2: Now he says, listen to this. And he plays this thing.
2:28:21
Speaker 2: I'm like, what is that? He says, you ever heard
2:28:25
Speaker 2: of Sheila E man? And I said, yeah, the Escovito family.
2:28:30
Speaker 2: And I know the family. And he says, she put
2:28:33
Speaker 2: different amounts of water in little pop bottles. And that's
2:28:36
Speaker 2: her tinging on those bottles. Then he starts bringing up
2:28:40
Speaker 2: the pots and you hear the bass and the drums
2:28:43
Speaker 2: and you realize you're listening to stuff from off the wall.
2:28:48
Speaker 2: And it's just this incredible moment when I realized, yo,
2:28:53
Speaker 2: he getting ready to bring Michael back in a crazy way.
2:28:57
Speaker 2: I'm listening to, to, you know, you got me working,
2:29:00
Speaker 2: working day and night, you know, and he would just
2:29:02
Speaker 2: take out everything and just have Michael's voice. And I'd
2:29:05
Speaker 2: never been in a recording studio. And he's at the board,
2:29:08
Speaker 2: 18-channel track studio. And then he says, you're from Ohio, right?
2:29:14
Speaker 2: And he had seen me do stand-up at the Roxy
2:29:16
Speaker 2: and invited me to his studio. And he says, you're
2:29:18
Speaker 2: from Ohio, right?
2:29:19
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah.
2:29:20
Speaker 2: And so he says, let me play you this, man.
2:29:21
Speaker 2: And you have to take big, giant reels and put
2:29:23
Speaker 2: them on this machine. And he put the reels on.
2:29:27
Speaker 2: and the song starts and he says, this is a
2:29:29
Speaker 2: scratch track. And I'm like, what's that? He said, that's
2:29:30
Speaker 2: a demo. And he says, they want me to find
2:29:33
Speaker 2: a singer for this. And he plays me James Ingram,
2:29:36
Speaker 2: find 100 ways. And James Ingram just wants brilliant, beautiful songs.
2:29:43
Speaker 2: And I'm like, what's wrong with that guy? He says, yeah,
2:29:44
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about it, man.
2:29:45
Speaker 1: He pretty good. He pretty good.
2:29:46
Speaker 2: And it ends up being the James Ingram from Ohio. And,
2:29:50
Speaker 2: and that was an incredible day. But I, I tell
2:29:53
Speaker 2: that story to say this great jazz musician, had this
2:29:58
Speaker 2: talent that other producers didn't have because of his music genius.
2:30:05
Speaker 2: And he was able to bring us the off the
2:30:07
Speaker 2: wall album and put Michael back in the mix. Yeah.
2:30:10
Speaker 1: Layers and layers to the sound.
2:30:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:30:13
Speaker 1: That's the thing. When you hear a song, you don't
2:30:15
Speaker 1: realize like how much shit is going on in the background.
2:30:18
Speaker 2: Sheila E with pop bottles.
2:30:20
Speaker 1: Crazy.
2:30:22
Speaker 2: I love that day. That's a, That's a favorite time
2:30:25
Speaker 2: because Michael had been missing, you know, and I had
2:30:27
Speaker 2: bought the Moving Violation album. So I knew he needed Quincy.
2:30:32
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, there's some geniuses of music, man. I had
2:30:37
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin on the podcast and he's explaining like his
2:30:41
Speaker 1: creative process and just like that guy's out there.
2:30:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I had to go his way when I
2:30:47
Speaker 2: started the talk show that I took over for Joan Rivers.
2:30:51
Speaker 2: When I first had the idea that I want to
2:30:53
Speaker 2: try to find my own friends of the show. I
2:30:56
Speaker 2: want to find my show. And I put on LL
2:31:00
Speaker 2: Cool J doing a song called I'm Bad. And that
2:31:06
Speaker 2: night I found what I was going to do, win
2:31:08
Speaker 2: or lose. Next I booked the Freaks Come Out at Night, Houdini.
2:31:14
Speaker 1: Oh, I remember that.
2:31:16
Speaker 2: So I found my home.
2:31:17
Speaker 1: When you did the Joan Rivers thing, did you think
2:31:19
Speaker 1: that that was going to lead to you doing your
2:31:21
Speaker 1: own show?
2:31:21
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
2:31:22
Speaker 1: You did.
2:31:23
Speaker 2: I was like, I am. Because Joan leaves, goes through
2:31:27
Speaker 2: all the stuff she's going through, and they give me
2:31:31
Speaker 2: this show for 11 weeks, and it starts to get numbers.
2:31:35
Speaker 2: And I know that she left because of a lack
2:31:38
Speaker 2: of numbers. And I'm like, oh, this shit is mine.
2:31:42
Speaker 2: So when I come back from coming to America, I'm
2:31:44
Speaker 2: going to come back to Fox and do this show.
2:31:48
Speaker 2: And one day I walk into the cafeteria. And I
2:31:52
Speaker 2: realized they had hired Conan O'Brien to create a show.
2:31:57
Speaker 2: And I think the show was called the Wilton North
2:32:00
Speaker 2: Report or something like that. But I realized I wasn't
2:32:03
Speaker 2: in their future. So Paramount, they were popping over to
2:32:10
Speaker 2: say hi, sending me flowers. And when I finished coming
2:32:15
Speaker 2: to America, actually halfway through, they were like, when you finish...
2:32:19
Speaker 2: you can do that talk show here in first run syndication.
2:32:22
Speaker 2: And they had to explain that to me. And at
2:32:24
Speaker 2: the same time, I was being pitched by the King
2:32:26
Speaker 2: brothers who created Oprah. So I kind of understood that
2:32:30
Speaker 2: first run syndication could work, except Oprah had ABC networks
2:32:34
Speaker 2: behind her, which is good. I had some CBS affiliates
2:32:36
Speaker 2: and it, it all worked out right now with the
2:32:42
Speaker 2: exception of Byron Allen. I don't think anybody, gets rich
2:32:47
Speaker 2: in first-run syndication.
2:32:48
Speaker 1: Well, he's a very unusual case, you know?
2:32:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
2:32:51
Speaker 1: I mean, he's figured out a cheat code. Byron Allen,
2:32:56
Speaker 1: you know, I heard that.
2:32:56
Speaker 2: And when they cheat him, he sues them and wins.
2:33:00
Speaker 1: I think Byron Allen's show, Comics Unleashed, is going to
2:33:03
Speaker 1: replace Colbert. Absolutely.
2:33:05
Speaker 2: That was just announced this week. Yeah.
2:33:07
Speaker 1: Late Show will be replaced by Byron Allen's Comics Unleashed.
2:33:09
Speaker 1: That's crazy. That's how... Isn't that weird? Like, Late Shows
2:33:14
Speaker 1: just don't work anymore. They just don't have the same
2:33:18
Speaker 1: thing anymore. Like that standard model show.
2:33:22
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:33:22
Speaker 1: Where people like, I don't think they do well.
2:33:25
Speaker 2: And they're expensive, Joe.
2:33:26
Speaker 1: Oh, I can imagine. They were saying the Colbert show
2:33:28
Speaker 1: was costing them like $ 50 million a year to keep
2:33:32
Speaker 1: it on the air. That's, I don't understand it. Like how,
2:33:35
Speaker 1: how's it cost you so much money?
2:33:37
Speaker 2: Oh gosh.
2:33:38
Speaker 1: Well, but you know what I'm saying? Like you have ads.
2:33:39
Speaker 2: When there were three channels though, and only one had
2:33:42
Speaker 2: a talk show, everybody was there and it, It made sense.
2:33:46
Speaker 2: It made dollars and cents.
2:33:49
Speaker 1: There's also the problem in that when you compare it
2:33:52
Speaker 1: to things that are on the internet is that you
2:33:54
Speaker 1: have to stop conversations every seven minutes for a commercial.
2:33:57
Speaker 1: That's an issue. It's an issue with depth. You don't
2:34:00
Speaker 1: get to go– like you and I have been talking
2:34:02
Speaker 1: for two hours and 40 minutes. Wow. Yeah. So like
2:34:06
Speaker 1: when you're doing this kind of thing, you just flow.
2:34:09
Speaker 1: Everything flows. You just have a conversation. You just have
2:34:11
Speaker 1: a good time. It's so different. When you're stuck in
2:34:15
Speaker 1: this format where you only have an hour, everything is
2:34:19
Speaker 1: like you got to cut to the commercial in five, four.
2:34:22
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Where are
2:34:24
Speaker 1: you going? Stay here. No, you have to sell Tide.
2:34:28
Speaker 1: It's like that format is so limited. It's so restrictive
2:34:33
Speaker 1: that people knowing that there's other things out there now
2:34:37
Speaker 1: where you could just go and watch it anytime you want.
2:34:40
Speaker 1: You don't have to tune in at 11 p.m. We
2:34:42
Speaker 1: used to have must-see TV.
2:34:44
Speaker 2: And we would all gather as a nation to watch
2:34:46
Speaker 2: the finale of Cheers. And now we don't do anything together. Nope.
2:34:51
Speaker 1: As a nation. Except sports. Except like Super Bowl. There's
2:34:54
Speaker 1: only sports. Live boxing events, UFC, that kind of shit
2:34:57
Speaker 1: where it's live. That is the only thing that people
2:35:00
Speaker 1: all watch together.
2:35:01
Speaker 3: Yeah.
2:35:02
Speaker 1: That's it.
2:35:02
Speaker 2: Did you watch Chris Rock live? Selective outrage.
2:35:06
Speaker 1: I didn't watch his live special. I watched it after,
2:35:10
Speaker 1: but I didn't watch it when it was live.
2:35:11
Speaker 2: So you knew it was available.
2:35:12
Speaker 1: I was busy.
2:35:13
Speaker 2: When we grew up, shit wasn't available the second time.
2:35:17
Speaker 1: But I did a live special on Netflix for that
2:35:19
Speaker 1: very reason, just because I thought it was scary. Just
2:35:21
Speaker 1: because my last one I did live. And I only
2:35:24
Speaker 1: did it live because the first time they asked me,
2:35:25
Speaker 1: I said, no, fuck that. And then I was like,
2:35:29
Speaker 1: why are you being such a pussy? And I remember
2:35:30
Speaker 1: driving home. I had a conversation with my manager, and
2:35:32
Speaker 1: I called her right back. And I go, let me
2:35:34
Speaker 1: decide tomorrow. I go, I'm thinking about this. Hold on.
2:35:37
Speaker 1: Because I was driving home feeling like I was a
2:35:39
Speaker 1: pussy for not wanting to do it live.
2:35:41
Speaker 2: And now in retrospect, what did you get out of
2:35:43
Speaker 2: agreeing to do it live?
2:35:45
Speaker 1: Fear.
2:35:48
Speaker 2: You wanted to feel that.
2:35:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wanted to be nervous. I was legitimately nervous.
2:35:52
Speaker 1: I never get nervous for shows anymore. I get excited.
2:35:56
Speaker 2: When you're killing a wild— I heard you talk about killing
2:35:59
Speaker 2: a wild hog. When you go hunting like that, it's
2:36:02
Speaker 2: the same kind of.
2:36:03
Speaker 1: It's a very different kind of fear. That's a primal thing.
2:36:06
Speaker 1: That's very different. That's a very different thing. That's like,
2:36:09
Speaker 1: that's a life or death. You're in, that's a weird,
2:36:13
Speaker 1: that's a weird primal connection with nature where you're going
2:36:17
Speaker 1: to eat this thing. You're sneaking up on this thing
2:36:20
Speaker 1: that has these survival instincts and sense of smell and
2:36:23
Speaker 1: ears pop up and you have, you know, you don't
2:36:25
Speaker 1: want to fuck it up either. You have one moment
2:36:28
Speaker 1: to take a shot. That's even more intense, honestly. Like
2:36:31
Speaker 1: elk hunting with a bow and arrow is even more
2:36:33
Speaker 1: intense than doing a live comedy special, if you can
2:36:36
Speaker 1: believe it.
2:36:38
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah. Yeah, I believe it.
2:36:40
Speaker 1: I like things that scare me. I like things that
2:36:43
Speaker 1: are scary to do because I think it's good for you.
2:36:46
Speaker 2: Except cocaine.
2:36:48
Speaker 1: I don't want to ruin my life. That's the problem.
2:36:50
Speaker 1: I just, like I said, I don't hear any success
2:36:53
Speaker 1: stories from cocaine. Nobody's got like a meth story. It's like, man,
2:36:59
Speaker 1: I started doing meth and I started seeing the world
2:37:01
Speaker 1: for what it really is. Started being more at peace.
2:37:04
Speaker 1: I was living in the moment.
2:37:07
Speaker 2: Nobody says, right before I invented the hard drive, I
2:37:09
Speaker 2: did coke for three days. Right.
2:37:11
Speaker 1: No. No. I'm not interested in anything that's going to
2:37:15
Speaker 1: ruin my life. But I'm interested in things that are
2:37:18
Speaker 1: going to help me grow and help me expand my
2:37:22
Speaker 1: capacity to do things that are scary.
2:37:25
Speaker 2: Would you do stand-up live again?
2:37:27
Speaker 1: 100%. Yeah, I'm thinking about doing my next one live.
2:37:30
Speaker 1: again too. I liked it.
2:37:32
Speaker 2: Did you make any mistakes?
2:37:34
Speaker 1: No, I didn't make any mistakes, but I prepared more
2:37:36
Speaker 1: than I ever prepared before. One of the things I did,
2:37:39
Speaker 1: I listened to my recordings every night and I wrote
2:37:42
Speaker 1: out my act over and over and over and over again.
2:37:45
Speaker 1: I wrote it out both on paper like hand to paper,
2:37:50
Speaker 1: and I wrote it out with keys, like typing it
2:37:53
Speaker 1: on a laptop. I did it over and over again.
2:37:55
Speaker 1: I listened to recordings. I watched recordings. I had way
2:37:58
Speaker 1: more preparation than I had ever done before for any
2:38:01
Speaker 1: other show.
2:38:01
Speaker 2: The night that you did it, did you change anything
2:38:04
Speaker 2: or do anything new? No.
2:38:05
Speaker 1: No. But I was free. I felt very loose. Once
2:38:09
Speaker 1: the show started, I felt like a regular show because
2:38:12
Speaker 1: I was prepared. But it's just like a fight. Like
2:38:14
Speaker 1: if you go into a fight and you're like, oh,
2:38:16
Speaker 1: I should have done more road work. Oh, I should
2:38:18
Speaker 1: have sparred more. Oh, I should have hit the pads more.
2:38:20
Speaker 1: That's not a good place to be. To hope that
2:38:23
Speaker 1: you could pull it off, you have to be 100% prepared.
2:38:26
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about doing a live show as
2:38:29
Speaker 1: opposed to usually when I would film a special, I
2:38:32
Speaker 1: would have four shows. So I'd film all four of them.
2:38:36
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, oh, fine. One of them is
2:38:38
Speaker 1: going to be great. I'll just use that one.
2:38:40
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:38:41
Speaker 1: When it's just one and the whole world, like millions
2:38:43
Speaker 1: of people are watching simultaneously, it's very scary.
2:38:47
Speaker 2: It makes you prepare.
2:38:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. It makes you prepare. It makes you prepare and
2:38:51
Speaker 1: it also, it's like it's fucking fun to do something
2:38:54
Speaker 1: that scares the shit out of you. Like, let's go.
2:38:57
Speaker 2: Where did you shoot it?
2:38:59
Speaker 1: San Antonio.
2:39:01
Speaker 2: Okay.
2:39:01
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.
2:39:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've only done one Netflix episode.
2:39:05
Speaker 1: I barely leave Texas these days. Really? I fucking love
2:39:08
Speaker 1: it here. I love it. I love it.
2:39:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was amazing when you made the move, man,
2:39:13
Speaker 2: because that's what I asked you when we first started talking.
2:39:16
Speaker 2: It's like, were you thinking about this in L.A. but
2:39:19
Speaker 2: way back, like 20 years ago?
2:39:21
Speaker 1: I was thinking 20 years ago about getting out. I
2:39:24
Speaker 1: moved to Colorado for a little while in 2009. For
2:39:27
Speaker 1: Legal Weed? No, no, no, no. I just wanted to
2:39:33
Speaker 1: get out. I just wanted to try. But I went
2:39:37
Speaker 1: too crazy. I got a house in the mountains that
2:39:39
Speaker 1: was 8,500 feet above sea level. It was too much.
2:39:44
Speaker 1: But when I came back to L.A., I always had
2:39:47
Speaker 1: this thing like eventually I got to get out of here.
2:39:50
Speaker 1: First of all, I always thought L.A. is 100 percent
2:39:53
Speaker 1: going to have a massive earthquake. One day.
2:39:56
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:39:57
Speaker 1: Like a massive earthquake where everything fucks up and falls apart.
2:40:00
Speaker 2: You lived through the Northridge earthquake. I didn't.
2:40:02
Speaker 1: Oh, I came to California right after it happened.
2:40:05
Speaker 3: OK.
2:40:06
Speaker 1: And when I got there, like parts of like one
2:40:08
Speaker 1: of the freeways was collapsed on the other one. I
2:40:10
Speaker 1: was like, this is nuts. The freeways fall down here.
2:40:13
Speaker 1: This is crazy. So I feel like I've always been
2:40:16
Speaker 1: thinking that there's going to come a time where that
2:40:18
Speaker 1: place just breaks off and sinks into the ocean. And
2:40:21
Speaker 1: it's just not well run. Like the whole thing is
2:40:25
Speaker 1: like just waiting for one little catastrophe. There's very little coordination,
2:40:31
Speaker 1: very little– people don't– they don't– there's not like a
2:40:35
Speaker 1: sense of community in the greater Los Angeles area like
2:40:38
Speaker 1: you get in a smaller place like Austin. Austin like
2:40:42
Speaker 1: feels like a small town that has everything you want.
2:40:46
Speaker 1: Whereas LA just feels like a poorly run, bureaucracy-driven, chaotic
2:40:53
Speaker 1: shill game. It's like just a shell game of bullshit
2:40:58
Speaker 1: and money and people just grifting and fucking the homeless
2:41:04
Speaker 1: situation is nuts. Like, everything's nuts in L.A. It's just
2:41:08
Speaker 1: beyond fixing, I think.
2:41:10
Speaker 2: Here in Austin, a lot of homeless?
2:41:12
Speaker 1: Not nearly as many. I mean, it's a very small problem.
2:41:15
Speaker 1: You're always going to have homeless people because you're always
2:41:17
Speaker 1: going to have mental illness. You're always going to have
2:41:19
Speaker 1: drug addiction. You're always going to have some people that
2:41:21
Speaker 1: have problems. But in comparison, like, Skid Row is 50 blocks.
2:41:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:41:27
Speaker 1: 50 blocks. Five zero blocks of homeless people just outside,
2:41:33
Speaker 1: just camped out.
2:41:34
Speaker 2: I left a Laker game recently and went through that area.
2:41:38
Speaker 1: It's nuts.
2:41:39
Speaker 2: Broke my heart, man.
2:41:40
Speaker 1: It broke my heart in 2005. I was filming Fear
2:41:44
Speaker 1: Factor downtown in like 2005.
2:41:46
Speaker 2: Shout out to David Hurwitz.
2:41:49
Speaker 1: You know Dave.
2:41:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.
2:41:50
Speaker 1: Shout out to Dave. He was my intern.
2:41:52
Speaker 2: I set him up for you. That's crazy. I taught
2:41:54
Speaker 2: him so he could come and get worms for you.
2:41:56
Speaker 1: That's crazy. That's crazy. Yeah. We were filming downtown and
2:42:00
Speaker 1: I went for, I was driving home and I took
2:42:02
Speaker 1: a wrong turn. And all of a sudden I was
2:42:04
Speaker 1: in Skid Row. I was like, this is crazy. And
2:42:06
Speaker 1: this was back then. And no one was talking about
2:42:08
Speaker 1: it back then. I was like, there's so many homeless people.
2:42:11
Speaker 1: It's like a zombie movie. I remember I came to
2:42:13
Speaker 1: the set the next day. I was like, if you
2:42:14
Speaker 1: guys ever go, go this way and take a left.
2:42:17
Speaker 1: It's fucking nuts. There's so many homeless people. Again, they
2:42:21
Speaker 1: figured out a way to keep them there. They just
2:42:24
Speaker 1: pushed people there. Like they started doing it decades ago
2:42:28
Speaker 1: where they would take all the problem people out of
2:42:30
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and Beverly Hills and they would just bring
2:42:33
Speaker 1: them to downtown and go, you got to stay here.
2:42:35
Speaker 1: And that's what created Skid Row.
2:42:36
Speaker 2: When we were kids, I used to hear about mental institutions.
2:42:41
Speaker 2: We don't have that now.
2:42:42
Speaker 1: Oh, they shut them down during the Reagan administration. That
2:42:45
Speaker 1: was one of the giant errors of society when they
2:42:48
Speaker 1: shut down all the mental health institutions and they just
2:42:51
Speaker 1: let all these people just exist on the street with
2:42:53
Speaker 1: schizophrenia and just let them do drugs. And then in
2:42:57
Speaker 1: some places, give them drugs and give them needles and
2:42:59
Speaker 1: encourage them to come there and give them money so
2:43:02
Speaker 1: they could stay on the street.
2:43:04
Speaker 2: Austin loves you, but you ever think about back in
2:43:07
Speaker 2: the day not leaving California and running for governor?
2:43:10
Speaker 1: Fuck that. I don't want to be a politician. Why
2:43:12
Speaker 1: would I want that job?
2:43:13
Speaker 2: It's a terrible job. The problem you see, you want
2:43:16
Speaker 2: to help.
2:43:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, you ain't helping nothing, man. You're going to get killed.
2:43:20
Speaker 1: My help would be expose all the fraud and lock
2:43:23
Speaker 1: everybody up and then they wind up killing me.
2:43:24
Speaker 2: Then you'd lose the big money from the rich.
2:43:26
Speaker 1: They're not going to give it to me anyway. It's
2:43:29
Speaker 1: like– I'm not the guy. I'm not– I wouldn't be
2:43:31
Speaker 1: good at it. I wouldn't be good at the job.
2:43:33
Speaker 1: I'd be a good advisor. I'd tell people what the
2:43:35
Speaker 1: people want. But no one is going to listen. I
2:43:37
Speaker 1: think politics, what we're talking about with money being involved
2:43:40
Speaker 1: in it, it's almost inexorably unfixable. It's almost impossible to
2:43:46
Speaker 1: untangle that fucking– beehive of chaos. So much dirty money involved.
2:43:53
Speaker 2: And if I'm a politician, I'm not going to stop
2:43:56
Speaker 2: taking this money. I'm not going to be first. If
2:43:58
Speaker 2: we all are going to do it, I'm not going
2:43:59
Speaker 2: to be first.
2:43:59
Speaker 1: Exactly. Look at all these congressmen that make $ 170, 000 a
2:44:03
Speaker 1: year and they're worth $ 80 million. How the fuck did
2:44:06
Speaker 1: that happen? What did you do? And how do you
2:44:10
Speaker 1: have time to invest? Aren't you busy being a congressperson?
2:44:13
Speaker 1: How the fuck do you have all that money? You
2:44:15
Speaker 1: got all that money because you're a grifter. They're all
2:44:17
Speaker 1: grifting and they're all just like doing it sneaky. It's
2:44:20
Speaker 1: red and blue. If you look at, we pulled up
2:44:23
Speaker 1: the numbers of people, whether it's a Democrat or Republican,
2:44:27
Speaker 1: how many of them are insider trading. It's across the board.
2:44:31
Speaker 1: They all have just unexplainable amounts of money. It's a
2:44:36
Speaker 1: dirty fucking business.
2:44:37
Speaker 2: It's not like one of the parties loves money more
2:44:39
Speaker 2: than the other.
2:44:41
Speaker 1: No.
2:44:42
Speaker 2: See, I get in trouble for that because usually my
2:44:44
Speaker 2: humor is written around Not liking any of them.
2:44:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:44:49
Speaker 2: And people want me to take a side.
2:44:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a problem.
2:44:52
Speaker 2: I had a joke in my Netflix special about, you know,
2:44:56
Speaker 2: the Democrat versus the Republican that was running at that time.
2:44:59
Speaker 2: And it was like, that's like asking me who my
2:45:01
Speaker 2: favorite Menendez brother is. Motherfuckers did not.
2:45:07
Speaker 1: That's a great joke.
2:45:09
Speaker 2: Kind of like Lyle. He made it in prison with
2:45:13
Speaker 2: a toupee.
2:45:14
Speaker 1: He's special. Weren't they trying to get them out recently? Oh, yeah. Bro,
2:45:18
Speaker 1: that documentary on them was nuts. The docudrama series where
2:45:22
Speaker 1: they recreated it?
2:45:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:45:23
Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
2:45:25
Speaker 2: I love documentaries.
2:45:26
Speaker 1: Well, that was a docudrama. Actors. Yeah, actors. So you
2:45:31
Speaker 1: don't know how much of it is true, but boy,
2:45:33
Speaker 1: did they come off like fucking complete psychos.
2:45:35
Speaker 2: I remember for the... O.J. Simpson scripted Doc. They wanted
2:45:41
Speaker 2: me to come read for O.J.
2:45:43
Speaker 1: What?
2:45:43
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yo.
2:45:45
Speaker 1: How the fuck are you going to be O.J.? That's crazy.
2:45:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're going to have Judge Ito barking because I'm
2:45:49
Speaker 2: just too recognizable as me.
2:45:50
Speaker 1: Exactly. That wouldn't work at all. That's crazy.
2:45:53
Speaker 2: I think they chose Cuba Gooding Jr.? That's right.
2:45:56
Speaker 1: That's right. He actually did a great job in that.
2:45:59
Speaker 1: But that story was nuts. He was the first famous.
2:46:04
Speaker 1: There it is. Yes. Wow.
2:46:06
Speaker 2: And that's Kim's dad.
2:46:09
Speaker 1: Wow.
2:46:10
Speaker 2: That's Mr. Kardashian's second.
2:46:11
Speaker 1: John Travolta's in there too. I forgot Travolta's in there. It's,
2:46:16
Speaker 1: those are fucking so weird.
2:46:17
Speaker 2: That's the dream team.
2:46:18
Speaker 1: Famous people pretending to be.
2:46:22
Speaker 2: Other famous people. So, uh, I do a story in
2:46:25
Speaker 2: my book about OJ coming to stage 29 at Paramount
2:46:29
Speaker 2: to whip my ass one time. He was angry.
2:46:32
Speaker 1: Uh, Did you say a joke on the show or something?
2:46:37
Speaker 2: I booked– it was when Naked Gun was out, and
2:46:42
Speaker 2: I booked Leslie Nielsen. And we got a call from O.J.
2:46:46
Speaker 2: 's people because he wanted to come on, obviously. He
2:46:49
Speaker 2: was in that movie. But the second one, it had legs,
2:46:52
Speaker 2: so I booked Priscilla Presley, who was a great guest
2:46:56
Speaker 2: and a lot of history. And after that, I get
2:47:00
Speaker 2: a call from the gate.
2:47:02
Speaker 1: Was it O.J.
2:47:03
Speaker 2: Simpson here at the gate? He wants to talk to you.
2:47:05
Speaker 2: And he didn't park. He didn't want a space. He
2:47:08
Speaker 2: parked outside the elephant door of Stage 29 and wanted
2:47:11
Speaker 2: me to come out. Uh-oh.
2:47:13
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:47:14
Speaker 2: And by the way, this is at a time when
2:47:16
Speaker 2: we didn't know he cut a motherfucker's head off.
2:47:18
Speaker 1: Also, at a time we didn't know. about CTE. Oh, yeah.
2:47:21
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:47:22
Speaker 1: Which is probably a lot of what OJ was going through,
2:47:26
Speaker 1: a lot of that violent behavior.
2:47:28
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:47:28
Speaker 1: It was probably a lot of CTE.
2:47:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, man. I mean, when you think about it, those
2:47:34
Speaker 2: days in San Francisco when he couldn't quite cut the
2:47:37
Speaker 2: way he used to, he was getting hit. He was
2:47:38
Speaker 2: taken forever. He had on shots.
2:47:40
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. And the NFL back then was nuts.
2:47:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel bad for him and Junior Seau and
2:47:45
Speaker 2: some of those guys. Junior Seau was trying to scream
2:47:47
Speaker 2: to us what was going on. Right. You know, he
2:47:50
Speaker 2: committed suicide, left a note, made sure he didn't damage
2:47:53
Speaker 2: his brain with the bullet.
2:47:54
Speaker 1: Right, so they could check it out.
2:47:57
Speaker 2: But O.J. stopped by, and we had a talk.
2:48:00
Speaker 1: So he was mad that you didn't have him on
2:48:01
Speaker 1: the show?
2:48:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a little mad.
2:48:05
Speaker 1: But was it your call?
2:48:06
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I mean, but by the way, it was
2:48:11
Speaker 2: my call to just do things that would get numbers. Right.
2:48:15
Speaker 2: You know, well the, um, the Leslie Nielsen one, I
2:48:20
Speaker 2: liked him cause I saw him someplace with a little
2:48:22
Speaker 2: thing in his hand to make fart noises.
2:48:25
Speaker 1: I saw that. Yeah.
2:48:26
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I, so I knew that I would say
2:48:28
Speaker 2: to him, so you got a big hit here and
2:48:30
Speaker 2: he would do it, squeeze the thing. And, um, Yeah,
2:48:34
Speaker 2: I was just trying to find the funniest guest. And O.J.,
2:48:38
Speaker 2: you know, he told me, he said some shit about,
2:48:40
Speaker 2: you know, I thought having a black host, things would
2:48:43
Speaker 2: be different. You know, and I'm like, don't you play
2:48:47
Speaker 2: the race car.
2:48:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, settle down.
2:48:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, not you, Juice. But I ran into him in
2:48:54
Speaker 2: a club one night. I was hanging out with a
2:48:57
Speaker 2: couple members of New Edition. And we're in this club
2:49:01
Speaker 2: and he comes over and he gets drunk with us.
2:49:03
Speaker 2: And After we're pretty tanked, Nicole and this gorgeous girl
2:49:09
Speaker 2: named Faye Resnick, I'll never forget her name.
2:49:12
Speaker 1: She was beautiful.
2:49:13
Speaker 2: And these two women come over and I realize, oh, so,
2:49:17
Speaker 2: because OJ is alone. I realized he was going to
2:49:20
Speaker 2: places finding her. And so she comes over and she.
2:49:24
Speaker 1: Says, juice.
2:49:26
Speaker 2: You know, what do you do? And he says, hang
2:49:28
Speaker 2: out with these guys. And he's, you know, when you're drunk,
2:49:31
Speaker 2: spit be flying. I wasn't drunk enough that I didn't
2:49:33
Speaker 2: see the spit And so she said, well, I'm going
2:49:37
Speaker 2: to be over here with Faye and blah, blah, blah.
2:49:39
Speaker 2: Say something before you leave. And so we sit there
2:49:42
Speaker 2: and talk. But he said something that night that blew
2:49:44
Speaker 2: me away. We talked about her and he said, I
2:49:47
Speaker 2: still love her. I've tried to give her up and
2:49:50
Speaker 2: I can't.
2:49:51
Speaker 1: Wow. And that's crazy.
2:49:54
Speaker 2: Not too much later. She was dead. That's what that's
2:49:58
Speaker 2: around the time, too. I remember missing the show. Because
2:50:02
Speaker 2: one thing that's addictive about the talk show is anything
2:50:05
Speaker 2: in the news, you get to handle it. Right. And
2:50:08
Speaker 2: I remember watching a basketball game and seeing the freeway
2:50:12
Speaker 2: chase with the Bronco. And I was like, I want
2:50:15
Speaker 2: a monologue tomorrow. You know, I couldn't believe I didn't
2:50:19
Speaker 2: have a show that night. That's the only time I've
2:50:21
Speaker 2: ever really missed it because most of the time you
2:50:23
Speaker 2: just go to the store.
2:50:24
Speaker 1: Right, right, right. That's hilarious.
2:50:26
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk to the nation that night.
2:50:28
Speaker 1: Well, listen, brother, you had a gigantic impact on culture.
2:50:31
Speaker 1: You really did. Your show was amazing. You know, you
2:50:35
Speaker 1: have an incredible life. And I'm really happy to hear
2:50:37
Speaker 1: that you're happy now and just enjoying life, you know,
2:50:41
Speaker 1: and you look fucking fantastic for 70. That's amazing.
2:50:45
Speaker 2: Thank you, man. I appreciate you inviting me. This is
2:50:48
Speaker 2: one of those shows.
2:50:50
Speaker 1: Next time you're going to come to the club. Next
2:50:52
Speaker 1: time you're in town.
2:50:53
Speaker 2: I've got to.
2:50:54
Speaker 1: Let me know anytime you want to come. The show
2:50:55
Speaker 1: is important, but I can't wait. Come to the club.
2:50:57
Speaker 2: I look at the mothership behind you, the neon mothership.
2:51:00
Speaker 1: That was actually before the mothership was made.
2:51:03
Speaker 2: Oh.
2:51:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was six years old, this sign. We got
2:51:07
Speaker 1: this sign. My friend Brigham got me this when I
2:51:10
Speaker 1: first moved to Austin.
2:51:12
Speaker 2: So what did the spaceship mean before there was a
2:51:15
Speaker 2: club to use?
2:51:15
Speaker 1: I'm just a UFO fanatic.
2:51:17
Speaker 2: Oh, okay.
2:51:18
Speaker 1: I've always been obsessed.
2:51:20
Speaker 2: Because that looked like some shit. I went to a
2:51:22
Speaker 2: Parliament Funkadelic concert where they landed in some shit like that.
2:51:25
Speaker 2: And George Clinton came out and sang One Nation Under
2:51:28
Speaker 2: a Groove.
2:51:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
2:51:30
Speaker 2: Wow.
2:51:30
Speaker 1: I've just always been obsessed. That's all it is. But
2:51:32
Speaker 1: next time you're in town, you're coming. Promise?
2:51:35
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
2:51:35
Speaker 1: All right.
2:51:36
Speaker 2: I'll come. I won't be in town. I'll figure out
2:51:39
Speaker 2: a way to hit you and say, Siri, Joe, I'm coming.
2:51:44
Speaker 1: Let's go.
2:51:44
Speaker 2: And I'll be here. Thanks for doing this, man, because
2:51:47
Speaker 2: your demographic reads... And I know I sold some books today.
2:51:51
Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell everybody the name of your book. Oh, we had.
2:51:54
Speaker 2: A long ass meeting about that. Do we call it
2:51:56
Speaker 2: things that make you go, hmm, a life that makes
2:51:58
Speaker 2: you go, hmm, do we call it? We didn't know what.
2:52:01
Speaker 2: And then finally, one day we named it Arsenio. Perfect.
2:52:05
Speaker 2: That's it.
2:52:06
Speaker 1: That's perfect.
2:52:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's a book on tape for those who
2:52:09
Speaker 2: don't like to read. Oh, that's the book. And you
2:52:11
Speaker 2: know what? If you open it and you don't want
2:52:13
Speaker 2: to read it, there are really cool pictures inside.
2:52:16
Speaker 1: There you go. All right.
2:52:18
Speaker 2: The art department threw some AI on me. I'm 35
2:52:21
Speaker 2: in the picture.
2:52:22
Speaker 1: You look 35 right now.
2:52:24
Speaker 2: All right.
2:52:25
Speaker 1: Appreciate you, brother. Thank you, dog. Bye, everybody.